Bart Simpson's Nude Scene

On Friday, April 27, it was revealed that America's favorite bad boy, Bart Simpson, would be appearing in the buff in "The Simpsons Movie." The much anticipated first "Simpsons" animated feature will premiere at theaters on July 26, 2007, narrowly dodging an R-rating because of Bart's nude scene. It will, in fact, be the first movie to dodge an R-rating where there's full frontal nudity, animated or otherwise. The scene comes early in the film where Homer challenges his son to skateboard nude through the town of Springfield. And Bart does.

"The Simpsons Movie" won't be the first animated feature to face ratings controversy. In 1972, animator Ralph Bakshi's version of comix artist Robert Crumb's "Fritz the Cat" became the first animated feature to receive an X-rating. Despite the loose (and some critics have said "inferior") interpretation of Crumb's masterwork, the film became a box office hit, the first animated feature to gross more than $100 million. "Fritz" then spawned other X and R-rated animated features.

Other adult-oriented animated television series, such as "South Park" and "Beavis and Butthead", have released successful full-length feature versions of their shows. When Paramount asked "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make a PG-13 film, they refused, stating that they wouldn't make the movie unless it was rated "R." Paramount caved in. The 2001 Guinness Book of World Records said that "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" had more profanity than any other animated feature: 399 curse words in all. And Japanese anime features, which are becoming increasing popular in America, often earn R-ratings because of sex and violence.

But, despite an almost 20 year highly successful run on Fox Television, "The Simpsons" remained cautious. The truth was that creators Matt Groening and James L. Brooks first thought about making a full-length Simpsons feature back in 1990, but had second thoughts after seeing various sitcom-to-screen features such as "The Brady Bunch Movie" and "Bewitched" become box office duds. It took until 2003 for the producers to move forward with "The Simpsons Movie."

SOURCES:

"Homer's big screen Odyssey", Sean Smith, Newsweek, URL: (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18237345/site/newsweek/)

"Bart's nude scene", Misty Harris, CanWest, URL: (http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=54e32c2d-4b2e-4e9c-94e1-233f0d52783d&k=76150)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1501119/story.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10436118

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158983/trivia

"Anime, Hollywood's invisible animation genre", Jerry Beck, Animation World Magazine, URL: (http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.5/articles/beck1.5.html)