Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington

After a free copy of the magazine Reading Digest arrives in the mail, Homer Simpson (voice of Dan Castellaneta) becomes a sudden (if short-lived) convert to the joys of the written word, and when he discovers the magazine is sponsoring a children's essay competition for "Patriots of Tomorrow," he urges Lisa (voice of Yeardley Smith) to enter. Lisa's essay is good enough to land her in the competition finals, and the Simpson family is flown to Washington D.C., all expenses paid, for the occasion. While Bart (voice of Nancy Cartwright) teaches Homer some lessons about the value of room service, Lisa spots one of Springfield's congressmen taking a bribe from a lobbyist to bypass environmental legislation. Angry and disillusioned, Lisa tosses away her essay about the value of democracy and instead reads a new one about the spread of political corruption in the United States, little realizing the lengths to which the federal government will go to ensure that one little girl can believe in the integrity of America's leadership. "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" was first aired on September 26, 1991.