Lisa the Tree Hugger

"Lisa the Tree Hugger" is the fourth episode of the twelfth season of The Simpsons. It aired on November 19, 2000.

Episode details

Production Number: CABF01
Original Air Date: November 19, 2000
Writer: Matt Selman
Director: Steven Dean Moore
Blackboard: "I am not the acting President."
Couch Gag: Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa appear as Teletubbies in the living room. Maggie applauds.
Guest Voice: Joshua Jackson as Jesse Grass

Synopsis

When Bart gets a job as a menu boy for a Thai restaurant named You Thai Now, the menus he delivers are paper litter scattered about Springfield. Lisa is scared that the paper is a waste of trees. She meets Jesse Grass, the hunky and non-violent leader of a radical environmentalism protest group named Dirt First, and joins the group after meeting him at a Krusty Burger, where he was arrested for protesting. When Springfield's oldest redwood tree is about to be cut down, she camps in the tree to prevent it being cut down. However, she leaves the tree for a night, and the tree is struck down by lightning overnight.

After the tree is struck by lightning, everyone in Springfield thinks Lisa died in the storm. The Rich Texan makes an offer at first by making a forest on the site of the tree, but he changes his mind and offers to build an amusement park, "Lisa Land". Fortunately, Lisa comes to the site, and protests the park. The tree expected to be used as the sign for Lisa Land is chopped and heads for Springfield's business district, but eventually goes on a cross-country journey out to the sea. Although Jesse is in jail again, he has apparently not stopped his crusade for the environment.

Quotes

• Marge: Bart, it's so sweet of you to take the family out to Krusty Burger.
  Bart: Hey, some people in this family are doers, and some are don'ters. (he looks at Lisa)
  Lisa: Don't you call me a-- (Bart places a menu on her finger)
  Homer: Take that, Lisa's beliefs!
• Lisa: I won't come down till you spare this tree!
  Jesse: Hang in there, Laura!
  Lisa: It's Lisa!
  Jesse: Right — Lisa! You're hardcore!
• Lisa: I'm not dead, and neither is my sense of moral outrage!