Don't have a cow, man, but Bart Simpson is a woman

"I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?" 

 

With those timeless words of wisdom, The Simpsons extraordinaire Nancy Cartwright, who provides the voices of many well-loved cartoon characters, most notably Bart Simpson, greeted an audience of nearly 400 Saturday night in Baldwin Auditorium. 

 

It was a fans-only night, as audience members quizzed each other on favorite episodes and quotes--"Ah, such a nice day.... I think I'll go out the window!" chief among them--in anticipation of she who gives Bart life. And for the uber-fans, it was an evening uncannily reminiscent of the "Itchy and Scratchy" convention where Homer, himself playing a cartoon voice actor, faces a crowd full of fault-finding nerds.  

 

Pathetic or devoted--depending on who you ask--the audience rivaled Cartwright in its singularity. One student wore a "Simpsons Satire Society" t-shirt. A handful of the audience admitted to having taped and watched every single episode. 

 

"I told it in such a way that when the camel fell down, it went, 'Humph!' and my hair came up," she said. "It was very empowering to me. I could do that, and they would laugh." 

 

Realizing she enjoyed the gift of comedy, Cartwright entered the world of community theater. At age 12, just shy of five feet, she toured with a group of high school performers, playing the role of a giant. 

 

When Cartwright entered high school, she joined the speech team, reading children's stories. When several of the judges praised her variety of voices and suggested she go into communications, fate was in the works.  

 

"I used to fake hiccup attacks, fake sneezes, to skip class," she said. "Then I decided to work in commercials.... It never occurred to me that I could make a career changing my voice." 

 

While working at the radio station WING, a representative from Warner Brothers approached her in the studio one day and told her to contact Dawes Butler--who turned out to be the voice of Road Runner from The Roadrunner Show, along with many other characters. One thing led to another, and the two soon forged a mentor-protege relationship over phone calls and letters. 

 

Cartwright said she realized she didn't want to stay in Ohio forever. After her sophomore year at Ohio University, she transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles to come closer to Dawes and the luster of Hollywood.

But two weeks before leaving, bad news struck: Cartwright's mother died of cancer. 

 

"I decided I was going to go [to UCLA] anyway, because that's what my mother would have wanted me to do," she said. "I'd immerse myself in my dreams and do what I love to do." 

 

For a while, she bumped around several Saturday morning cartoon shows, working on eight at once in 1987. But upon returning from Italy, everything changed.  

 

"I had heard that they were looking for someone to do an 'interstitial' for The Tracy Ullman Show--a thirty-second clip before and after the commercial break," she said. "I looked at the script for the girl; she was a nice, quiet 8-year-old girl.... Then I saw Bart: 10-year old, an underachiever, a troublemaker, proud of it. And I said, 'I want to do the boy.'" 

 

The rest was history. Cartwright continued with anecdotes about working with some of the 350-plus guest celebrities on the show, describing the numerous takes Meryl Streep requested, the excitement of seeing Mel Gibson in the studio and her clandestint correction of a curmudgeonish Kurt Douglas--or, as she put it, "I directed Spartacus!" 

 

A 20-minute film then highlighted a day in the life of Nancy Cartwright, demonstrating the anonymity of being a voice actress, even for famous characters.  

 

"I've been walking around this campus all day, and not one person has stopped me," Cartwright said.