1992 was a memorable year for America. Nirvana's album Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous out of the top spot on the Billboard charts, a then little-known ex-governor of Arkansas, a fellow name of "Bill Clinton", was elected president, and one of the most popular (and certainly my favorite) television shows on the air was a sitcom starring animated yellow people with four fingers; a show called The Simpsons. Fox, the network behind the show, had merchandised The Simpsons nearly to death; everywhere you went you saw t-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, Pez dispensers, and, of course, video games.

Although there had been half a dozen Simpsons games released in 1991, my favorite of the early bunch was Bart's Nightmare, the first Simpsons game released for a (at the time) "next-gen" system - the SNES. The idea behind the game was simple enough: while trying to finish his homework, Bart Simpson falls asleep. He dreams that his homework pages fly out the window and he goes chasing after them. You, as Bart, must make your way through "Windy World" to find the missing eight pages. Finding a page in Windy World takes you into one of five sub-levels, at the end of which you would collect a page. When you ran out of lives, or collected all the pages, you would be shown a short cinematic of the Simpson family gathered around the refrigerator, with Bart's homework showing the grade (A+ through F) that you had earned. It sounds simple enough, but it was anything but.

First of all, the game had absolutely no save system. None whatsoever. So if you wanted to try to round up all eight pages, you had to set aside a solid two to three hours (or be willing to leave the game paused while you went about your daily life). Secondly, while some of the sub-levels were relatively simple to beat, many of them were incredibly difficult. What's worse were the levels that required you to memorize your move order (think Mega Man) but only gave you one life at a time. You'd make your way to maybe the boss fight, catch a cheap fireball in the back, and then you're back to the drawing board.

At the time, I was a sophomore in high school and a rabid Simpsons fan (while I've graduated from high school, I still do love The Simpsons). My need to collect all eight pages and score Bart that A+ was a gaming urge that I'm not sure I've been able to match since. Within a month of getting the game, there were mini-levels that I knew like the back of my hand. I was a wiz at destroying the viruses in Bart's Bloodstream, I could have drawn a treasure map for Indiana Bart and the Temple of Maggie, and as Bartzilla I had climbed to the top of the Springfield State Building and vanquished both Homer Kong and Momthra more times than I could count. But it seemed like Windy World's solution would be forever elusive to me, as for the longest time, the best grade I could get was a C+.

This was unacceptable.

So taking a page from the Simpsons (although from an episode that, at that point, hadn't been made yet), I decided to play hooky and use my sick day to earn that A+. Faking a stomachache on a Friday, thus allowing me a three day weekend to dedicate to this most important task, I began my quest shortly after my mother left for work. For the next 68 hours (with small breaks for sleep and food) I went about methodically figuring out how to get each page. I began keeping a notebook of tips and hints I had figured out along the way. Each time I died, and saw that D- or C grade on the fridge, I became re-dedicated to my task.

Finally, on Sunday night, I could tell I was, as the saying goes, in the zone. My first homework page attempt was on the Itchy & Scratchy level, one that had been a perrennial thorn in my side. I knew I was on a roll when I got the page on the first try. The next six pages came rapid fire. I was barely conscious of hitting the buttons or using the D-pad. My hands had been taken over by some primal force, some energy that was flowing through me. After just over two hours, I had grabbed the final page. Final grade: A+. I had done it.

The next morning I awoke with a renewed sense of purpose. Although I couldn't share my enthusiasm with everyone, there were a few friends who I confided my joy in, and they were duly proud. I was on cloud nine. That is, until I got to my Western Civilization class.

Turns out that on Friday our teacher, Mr. Swetkowski, had announced that he would be giving us a test on Monday. I sat down and was handed a seven page test, each page featuring a map of one-seventh of the globe, with the national boundaries drawn in, but no country names. We were supposed to fill in all the nations of the world. I hadn't looked at a map in three weeks. I ended up getting a C-.

Although I'll always have fond memories of Bart's Nightmare, I can also point to it as a moment in time when video game accomplishment took precedent over real life. That this would become a theme for my life for many years to come is a completely different story.

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