Read on Twitter
#OnThisDay December 6, 1990 "Bart the Daredevil" first aired on the Fox network. Dir: Wes Archer. Wr: @JayKogen & Wallace Wolodarsky. EP: @canyonjim @simonsam & Matt Groening.
The character Lance Murdock was based on Evel Knievel, an American motorcycle daredevil and entertainer famous in the United States and elsewhere between the late 1960s and early 1980s.
Dr. Hibbert makes his first appearance on the series in the episode. In the original script for "Bart the Daredevil", Hibbert was a woman named Julia Hibbert, who they named after comedic actress @JIsbackintown (Hibbert was her last name, through marriage, at the time).
When the Fox network moved The Simpsons to prime time on Thursdays to compete against the National Broadcasting Company's (NBC) top-rated The Cosby Show, the writing staff instead decided to make Hibbert a parody of Bill Cosby's character Dr. Cliff Huxtable.
The episode has been referenced in numerous clip shows and flashback episodes throughout the series. In particular, the scene of Homer plummeting down Springfield Gorge has become one of the most used Simpsons clips. Groening called it the funniest moment in the series.
The scene was featured in the season four episode "So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show". Additional footage is seen of Homer bouncing down the cliff the second time, which was animated exclusively for the clip show and wasn't a deleted scene.
In the season thirteen episode "The Blunder Years", Homer flashes back to his greatest moment: jumping the Springfield Gorge, only to be interrupted by Lisa saying "Everyone's sick of that memory."
The scene is also referenced in the season fourteen episode "Treehouse of Horror XIII", in which a large number of Homer's clones created in the episode fall down the gorge.
"Bart the Daredevil" was once again referenced in The Simpsons Movie in 2007 when Bart and Homer jump over Springfield Gorge on a motorcycle, and when they land on the other side, the ambulance from this episode can be seen in the background (still smashed against the tree).
The monster truck at the rally, Truck-o-saurus, is a parody of the Robosaurus monster truck.
Milhouse accidentally getting animated to say Nelson's first line here will always bother me.
Bart appearing at Springfield Gorge in the distance is based on Omar Sharif's entrance in Lawrence of Arabia. (video: Onikorp on YouTube)
The world premiere of the music video for "Do the Bartman" also premiered right after "Bart the Daredevil". It was directed by @BradBirdA113, with dance choreography by Michael Chambers.
The entire music video was storyboarded in only two days in the United States. Bird then got on a plane to Budapest, Hungary, where the video was animated by Varga Studio.
Varga Studio thought the video was going to be animated as simply as the original The Simpsons shorts, shown on The Tracey Ullman Show, so when Bird told them that it was going to be done in full animation with no repeated scenes, they "went into deep shock".
The animators added the wraparound at the beginning to set Bart against the crowd and put the video in "some sort of context." It was nominated for Best Special Effects at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards and was the top music video on MTV between January and March 1991.
