The President Wore Pearls

Springfield Elementary School holds a casino night as a fundraiser, hosted by student body president Martin Prince.

During a debate in the school auditorium, she sings a song ("Vote For a Winner", a parody of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina") about how she will fight for student rights, winning them over.

Following Mrs. Krabappel's suggestion that a woman's weakness is vanity, they sing another song ("I Am Their Queen", a spoof of "Rainbow High") and make Lisa over into a fashionable Eva Perón lookalike.

The students love the new Lisa more than ever, but the faculty uses her as a scapegoat for dropping music, gym, and art from the curriculum to save on the budget, getting her to sign the paperwork without looking at it in exchange for a skeleton key to the school.

Filmmaker Michael Moore shows up to take their side, stating that children who do not receive music, gym and art are more likely to become unemployed and end up in one of his movies.

As her bus departs, her classmates and the rest of Springfield are saddened, but she reassures them by telling them that "[they] can still reach [her] via email ("Smart Girl Six Three", a parody of "Eva's Final Broadcast").

Springfield Elementary is eventually able to restore music, art and gym by cancelling flu shots and selling loose cigarettes.

[2] Moore quickly accepted the offer without even knowing what his role in the episode was going to be, stating that not only had he been watching The Simpsons since its conception as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, he had been a fan of Matt Groening's work since the early 80s, and used to run Groening's Life in Hell comic strips in an alternative newspaper that he operated from Flint, Michigan.

[5] He appreciated that the episode focused on the elimination of art programs in public schools,[6] and enjoyed being called a "professional buttinski" by Kent Brockman.

The musical numbers are astoundingly good, and Lisa's comeuppance is so well constructed it harkens back to the golden years of the show (Seasons 3 through 8).