I'm Bart Simpson, Who The Hell Are You?
THE OXFORD UNION'S Debating Chamber was packed out on Monday evening for one of the highlights of Michaelmas term. Who better to draw in the students than Bart Simpson? The celluloid sitcom has long replaced Nelson Mandela in the affections of self-styled subversive undergraduates everywhere. From her opening words - "Hi, I'm Bart. Who the hell are you?" - Nancy Cartwright, who is the voice of Bart, Ralph and Nelson among others, had no trouble winning her audience over.
Her whistlestop visit to Oxford comes at the end of the UK leg of her book tour promoting Voice of Bart: My Life as a 10-year-old Boy. Sales were significantly boosted by the 100-strong queue that awaited Cartwright in Borders after her Union appearance.
From the age of seven she was told she had an "unusual" voice and was dressed like a boy. Her first inadvertent comedy routine, which came during a school
reading of Kipling's "How the Camel found his hump", led her to develop voice techniques.
From local radio work in Ohio, Cartwright got a break into the world of Hollywood animation. Admitting that this brief biography sounded like a "major Cinderella
story", Voice of Bart then revealed a darker side. She disclosed that had her mother not died two weeks before her big move to LA, she would have stayed at home to nurse her and probably "would not have been standing here today".
Known for playing "cute, fuzzy animals" in her early TV work, she originally did not think much about her audition for the Simpsons. The four-fingered family were originally given a 30 second slot before and after the commercials on The Tracy Ullman Show. Fourteen years later, The Simpsons is the best thing on BBC2 and Sky One combined, and the one show which unites JCR TV rooms the university over.
Though it surprised no one that the subversive schoolkid is in fact a middle-aged woman, Cartwright's exuberance and undimmed love for the show came across loud and clear. Asked whether she rated the cartoon above other animation greats like The Flintstones, she was unabashed. "Absolutely! Wouldn't you agree?" Cartwright replied, to hearty affirmation from the audience.
Though Cartwright found the publicity over the last contract negotiations for The Simpsons "horrible", Bart Simpson has no plans for retirement any time soon. She knows she is on to a winner and anyway, Bart has his own move to Hollywood planned. As Cartwright revealed, a Simpsons movie is in the pipeline....
16th Nov 2000