How come Bart has a regular bunch of friends he hangs out with...

Marge has friends?

This. Marge doesn’t really have friends either.

Lisa has friends, but they're a bunch of nobodies.

Attached: 03-10f-lisafriends.gif (500x376, 144.43K)

she has friends when the plot requires it ala

Because writers like to self insert as Lisa and they don’t have friends either.
Marge used to have friends (Ned’s wife, Ellen, the Dr’s wife and another woman they introduced later on), but they all are toxic and always backstabbed her.

Lisa's a pompous, sermonising nerd. None of the other kids like her.

You got me there, I can't name anyone in this image

that scene always unnerved me.

>letting 2nd graders play with candles

The writers were lazy fucks from day one who couldn't come up with plots not involving Homer.

S11E5

There's the oft mentioned, but rarely seen Janey.

In any case, Lisa has always depicted as more of introverted than the rest of her family.

Also, like Marge, Lisa has been a supporting character for most episodes. Even when the plot revolves around her like in the Brazil episode most of the screen time goes to Bart and Homer.

Also, in some ways she reminds me of Charlie Brown where many strips involve him complaining to his many friends (Linus, Schroeder, Pattie, etc) about how nobody likes him - a lot of depressed people are like this IRL too.

Also, I'd seriously question whether any of Bart's entourage can really be considered friends considering how poorly they treat each other.

No female writers

They did since Season 6 but in the early seasons there were none because Sam Simon banned them.

I guess stories involving loli characters just aren't very interesting or fun to write unless you do stuff that you can't show on network TV anyway.

Does he really have friends? Let's be honest with ourselves.

Growing up, no one cared about candles at that age in my life. What did concern my parents is us with oil lamps.

Heck, when I was in third grade I was shooting everything with a .22.

Janey got killed in a recent THOH and they went to her funeral, probably the most prominent role she's ever gotten on the show.

Did you know this was a gag they originally cut from When Flanders Failed? They apparently couldn't get the pacing to work. Well apparently Fuhrer Al decided it was totally worth dusting off when they decided it didn't cut the muster the first time around.

Attached: img8t58.png (250x188, 69.85K)

I remember an old Usenet post commenting on that.

Because Lisa's "shtick" is that she's the best and better than everybody, until someone better comes a long and suddenly Lisa's all jealous and just as bad as the rest.
that setup wouldn't work if Lisa had a bunch of friends to back her up, we'd get episodes where a new smarter girl comes by and they'd bully the crap out of her.
Lisa's stories work best when she has nothing to fall back on but her condescending bullshit.

Still, after doing that plot many dozens of times it gets pretty lame and eye-rolling, almost as bad as Homer/Marge marriage crisis episodes which have become pablum by now.

Bart has one friend, Milhouse.

Lewis, Wendell, and Richard have been background extras since like the third season at the latest.
Martin isn't so much a friend as a smart kid he exploits. Nelson regularly cycles back into being a bully that targets Bart as the plot requires.

But that's the thing. if the show ended after Season 8, then they wouldn't have run those plots into the ground. They are played out but the writers are too lazy to try anything different.

tl;dr end shows when they should end

Martin and Nelson as you said are his friends if the plot requires it like in the OP episode.

There's Janey, who has such a nothing personality that they can't even stay consistent on her surname or if she's actually friends with Lisa or not; and Alison who they did nothing with after her debut episode in the early 90's.

I can't remember if Alex or Francine are even still in the class, but I know I've seen them both more than once.

I gave in and had a look at the list of classmates, and the only ones I can picture by name alone are Cosine (who it a nothing bit part Asian character who hangs out with the super-nerds) and Nelson's Weasels (and those two go to a different school now according to one of the newer episodes).

Lisa, Janey (popular but vapid), Alison (Lisa's intellectual equal but far more chill) and Francine (Bully but can be their friend too) would work fine as Lisa's group she can have adventures like Bart and friends do, but they seem to prefer just having Lisa join in with groups of adults instead.

I wonder if Martin will get swapped out as the plot required Smart Friend now that Ruth Buzzi is dead.

>Lewis, Wendell, and Richard have been background extras since like the third season at the latest.
Yeah, I wonder why this happened? It seems kind of weird that Bart's only real friend is a "loser". Bart is clearly one of the "popular" kids, so why doesn't he hang out with other kids as well?