The first single from it was the rap song "Do the Bartman", performed by Bart Simpson's voice actor Nancy Cartwright and released on November 20, 1990.

[4] However, by the middle of the decade The Simpsons creator Matt Groening was routinely giving interviews crediting Jackson with the song.

"[5] Groening also later stated during an appearance at the February 1998 World Animation Celebration convention in Pasadena, California that "Do the Bartman" was actually co-written and co-produced by Jackson,[6][7][8] but he could not receive credit for it because he was under contract to Epic Records.

[9] Groening told a crowd at the convention that had gathered for a "The Simpsons tribute" that it had "always [been] amazing to me that no one ever found out that Michael Jackson wrote that song.

Larry Flick from Billboard said the single "seems like a logical extension of the public's love affair with Fox TV's popular cartoon characters.

"[17] The Daily Vault's Benny Balneg liked that it disengaged itself from the album's "blues tag" and incorporated more "contemporary elements" into its sound.

"[18] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described it as "not bad," and commented that Bart's high voice "echoes the beats nicely.

Written by Bryan Loren, it's a white-bread rap featuring Nancy Cartwright's vocals, reeling off tales of Bart's mischievous ways.

[25][26] The song's success in the United Kingdom was remarkable, given that at that time The Simpsons was airing only on British satellite television station Sky One.

[32] The accompanying music video for "Do the Bartman" features the typical plot of Bart rebelling against authority when he decides to put his own spin on a rigidly choreographed dance presentation at Springfield Elementary School.

[33][34] It originally premiered on Fox after the episode "Bart the Daredevil" on December 6, 1990,[citation needed] and was the number one music video on rotation on MTV between January and March 1991.

[38] There is an alternative version of the music video that removes the references to Michael Jackson's "hair strand" (by not including said hair strand in frame), people dancing to the Bartman on a cruise ship with the Statue of Liberty in the background moving side to side with the rhythm of the song and replaces it with extra frames of the Springfield "cool kids" dancing along.