What Does Milpool Mean? The Simpsons Cast Gag
2 min read
Milpool is what Milhouse writes on Bart's leg cast in "Bart of Darkness" (season 6, episode 1). He starts signing his name, thinks about the pool, and writes MILPOOL. Then he goes swimming.
The short version
Milpool is Milhouse's unfinished signature on Bart's cast. He gets as far as "MIL", his mind drifts to the Simpsons' new pool, and "POOL" is what comes out of the pen.
Wear it
The scene
The Simpsons get an above-ground pool, and kids they've never met start turning up every day to swim. Bart is dared to jump in from the treehouse, gets distracted by Nelson, falls, and breaks his leg. He spends the rest of the summer in a cast he can't get wet.
On a banana lounge by the pool, he asks the passing kids, "Hey, guys, sign my cast?" Nobody stops. Then Milhouse sits down with a pen.
"Faithful Milhouse," says Bart. "You'll spend the long, hot days by my side, won't you?"
Milhouse, still writing: "Oh, I think I lost my glasses in your pool."
Bart points out he's wearing them. "No, I'm not." He's gone before the last letter is finished. The cast reads MILPOOL, the final L dragged into a line where the pen left.
What does Milpool mean?
Nothing more than that. It isn't an insult, a code or a word Bart was trying to write. It's Milhouse's name with his attention already in the water. The cast is the record of a friend who wanted to be somewhere else, written in his own hand.
- Episode
- Bart of Darkness
- Season and episode
- Season 6, Episode 1
- First aired
- 4 September 1994
- Written by
- Dan McGrath
- Directed by
- Jim Reardon
- Who writes it
- Milhouse, on Bart's leg cast
Milpool and Thrillho
The show cut his name short again a season later. In "Marge Be Not Proud" (S7E11, 1995), Milhouse has Bonestorm, the game Marge won't buy Bart for Christmas. He's delighted: "And all I've done is enter my name." The screen reads WELCOME THRILLHO.
One Milhouse lost to a wandering mind, one to a name-entry screen that ran out of room.
The episode
"Bart of Darkness" aired on 4 September 1994. The main plot is a Rear Window parody: stuck inside with a telescope, Bart becomes convinced Ned Flanders has murdered Maude. Lisa, meanwhile, is popular for the first time because of the pool, until Martin Prince's family puts in a bigger one.
The close-up of the cast is on screen for a couple of seconds.
The Milpool tee and the Milpool tote.
More lore: what the extra B in BYOBB is for and cromulent.
