Do the Bartman

"Do the Bartman" is a song from the 1990 album The Simpsons Sing the Blues, featuring the voice cast of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It was performed by The Simpsons cast member Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson), with backing vocals from American singer Michael Jackson, alongside additional vocals from Dan Castellaneta (voice of Homer Simpson). Jackson also produced the song, which was written by American recording artist Bryan Loren, and Geffen Records released it as a single on November 20, 1990.

Despite receiving much radio airplay in the United States, "Do the Bartman" was never officially released as a single there. It topped the charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom. The song additionally reached the top 10 in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. A music video, directed by Brad Bird, was released for the song in 1991. The video became a hit on the American network MTV, and received a nomination at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. It was also number 9 goofy great one hit wonders in an episode of the VH1 series One Hit Wonders. This music video was directed by Brad Bird, with dance choreography by Michael Chambers. Nobody from the staff of The Simpsons wanted to direct it because they were busy doing the show, but Bird finally agreed to do it after having been asked four times. He had a very short amount of time to finish the video because it was supposed to coincide with the release of The Simpsons Sing the Blues.

The entire music video was storyboarded in only two days in the United States. Bird then got on a plane to Budapest, Hungary, where the video was animated by Varga Studio. They thought the video was going to be animated as simply as the original The Simpsons shorts, shown on The Tracey Ullman Show, so when Bird told them that it was going to be done in full animation with no repeated scenes, they "went into deep shock".

The animators added the wraparound at the beginning to set Bart against the crowd and put the video in "some sort of context." "Hardest thing I’ve ever done. Full animation. To music. Banged out in a few weeks. In a foreign country. With a ton of different characters, a crew that had never drawn them before & a simultaneous world TV premiere weeks away. Oy. Varga Studios pulled it off.". - Brad Bird

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. The alternative version also removes the lyric, "She can do it, you can do it, so can I".

A track from the same album titled "Deep, Deep Trouble", was also given the animated music video treatment.