Aye carumba, Bart comes to Pitt

This might sound a little crazy, but yesterday afternoon, Bart Simpson was walking around… This might sound a little crazy, but yesterday afternoon, Bart Simpson was walking around Hillman Library, and no one recognized him.

Yes, that is the truth.

Nancy Cartwright, who serves as the voice of Bart Simpson, is used to not being recognized — and she likes the anonymity.

“It’s cool, because I get all the perks, but I don’t get the invasion,” Cartwright said.

That is, of course, unless she approaches someone with her favorite line, “I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?”

The Emmy award-winning Cartwright gave a speech last night in the William Pitt Union Assembly Room, titled, “My Life as a 10-year-old Boy.” The Pitt Program Council sponsored the event, which was free to all Pitt students.

Cartwright began her speech — in the voice of Bart — with an energetic, “You rock, man. Go, Pitt Panthers, go!”

Switching back to her own voice, Cartwright assured the audience that, unlike Bart Simpson, “I don’t have bulgy eyes, or big spikes on my head.”

Since she was about 10 years old, Cartwright has known that she wanted to use her unique voice talent in her career, she told the audience. She used to sit in her elementary school classroom making dripping water sounds — which would, of course, confuse her teacher about the source of the leaky faucet noises. This amused young Cartwright a great deal.

The Dayton, Ohio, native used her voice talent to do theatre in elementary- and high school plays. She eventually received a scholarship from Ohio University, to be a member of their speech team.

When she was in college, Cartwright’s mother died. Doing voices helped her to channel her energy into something positive and cheer her up after her loss, she explained. Her mother would be proud that she was doing something that she loved, she said, and that she was becoming successful at it.

Throughout the evening, Cartwright switched back and forth between her own voice and various cartoon ones. Her voice changes provide a good means of lightening up the speech, she said. When she felt the talk might become come too dull, she also inserted some of Bart’s favorite phrases.

She educated the audience on the two different laughs of Bart Simpson: the “evil laugh,” and the more joyful one that Bart uses when watching his favorite cartoon show, “Itchy and Scratchy.”

A multimedia presentation of Cartwright’s various characters accompanied the lecture. Throughout the evening, she showed numerous clips of “The Simpsons,” as well as various other cartoons in which she has starred.

“If you tie a string around your finger real tight, you can make it turn purple,” Cartwright said, laughing as she told the audience what she described as one of her favorite Nelson Munz quotes from “The Simpsons.” The famous “HaHa” laugh of Nelson the bully can be a little challenge for her, she said, because it is rather difficult to do.

“Then the doctor told me that both my eyes were lazy, and that was the best summer ever,” Cartwright said, continuing with one of her favorite Ralph Wiggum lines and telling the audience how much she loves his rather simple-minded character.

The Naked Mole Rat has become a famous animal that Cartwright can take credit for bringing to cartoon fame. She describes it as being neither a mole nor a rat, looking like an overcooked hot dog and measuring about three inches long.

Cartwright told the audience to watch out for an upcoming episode of “The Simpsons,” in which Nelson moves in with the Simpson family. Apparently, Marge Simpson, Bart’s mother, takes the boy in, causing Bart to become a little jealous.

Cartwright has a 12-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter. Much to the surprise of many audience members, she claimed that they hate it when she uses her character voices on them. She explained that she used to try out new voices when reading them bedtime stories in their younger years.

“Just be mommy,” they would respond, pleading with her to stop.

Showing a video clip of a typical day in her life, Cartwright let the audience see her at work in the studio, acting out the voices of Bart and a variety of other famous characters. The video continued to show that, on her way home from work, Cartwright was pulled over for speeding.

The clip reveals one of the many perks of being a celebrity, when the star-struck cop excitedly said, “I can’t give a ticket to Bart Simpson.”

Cartwright also spoke about having the chance to work with many celebrities, such as Meryl Streep, on “The Simpsons.” Cartwright said she was really impressed with how quickly Streep adapted to the unfamiliar environment of working in animation. She realized that animation creates a very different routine from the typical acting to which most of their guests are accustomed.

Cartwright also added the fact that no one can wear leather, or other squeaky clothes, while recording, as even slight noises can disrupt the microphone sound.

Aside from “The Simpsons,” Cartwright has had parts in numerous other cartoons. Some of her credits include “Animaniacs,” “Elmyra,” “Pinky and the Brain,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, “My Little Mermaid,” “Richie Rich,” “My Little Pony,” “Pound Puppies” and “The Snorks.”

She has also appeared in an episode on the sitcom “Cheers” and in a Payless commercial.

Cartwright earned a spot on the Los Angeles Times Best Seller List in 2001 with her biography titled, “My Life As a 10-Year-Old Boy.”

In 2002, she was presented with the key to her hometown of Kettering, Ohio.

One of the parts of the job that Cartwright enjoys the most is being able to make phone calls to sick and injured children, in order to brighten their days. She spends much of her spare time volunteering for various charities. Some of these include Famous Fone Friends, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, The Way to Happiness and the Neko Learning Center.

Cartwright emphasized the importance of following one’s dreams. She told the audience that it is very important to be able to do something that inspires passionate care in life.

Despite not looking much like Bart Simpson, Cartwright receives many requests for autographs. She was not able to sign autographs last night, but she told the audience to go to www.NancyCartwright.com, get her address and send her a self-addressed envelope. She said she would be happy to accommodate her fans with personalized envelopes.