Editing Lisa Simpson (section)

===Development===
[[File:Lisa - Good Night.png|right|200px|thumb |alt=A yellow-skinned female cartoon character lies in bed, covering most of her body with a blanket. Her hair is noticeably spiked.|Lisa in her first televised appearance in "Good Night", while designers who worked on Lisa, Groening, who was primarily drawing in black and white, "just gave [her] this kind of spiky starfish hair style, not thinking that [she] would eventually be drawn in color"; Lisa's hair points would eventually be made less spiky<ref name="Groening, Matt 2006"/>]]
In ''The Tracey Ullman Show'' shorts, Lisa was something of a "female Bart": equally mischievous but lacking unique traits.<ref name=MirkinBSNTH>Mirkin, David. (2004). Commentary for "[[Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood]]", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Fifth Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> As the series progressed, Lisa began to develop into a more intelligent and more emotional character.<ref name="Sax and Single"/> She demonstrates her intellect in the 1990 episode "[[Krusty Gets Busted]]" ([[The Simpsons (season 1)|season one]]), by helping Bart reveal [[Sideshow Bob]]'s plot to frame [[Krusty the Clown]] for armed robbery.<ref name="Reiss">Reiss, Mike. (2001). Commentary for "[[Krusty Gets Busted]]", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete First Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> Many episodes focusing on Lisa have an emotional nature, such as "Moaning Lisa" (season one, 1990). The idea for the episode was pitched by [[James L. Brooks]], who wanted to do an emotional episode involving Lisa's sadness, to complement the many "jokey episodes" in the first season.<ref name="Reiss1">Reiss, Mike. (2001). Commentary for "[[Moaning Lisa (The Simpsons)|Moaning Lisa]]", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete First Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref>

In the seventh-season episode "[[Lisa the Vegetarian]]" (1995), Lisa permanently becomes a vegetarian, distinguishing her as one of the first primetime television characters to make such a choice.<ref name="PETA"/> The episode was written by David S. Cohen (in his first solo writing credit), who jotted down the idea one day while eating lunch. Then-executive producer [[David Mirkin]], who had recently become a vegetarian himself, quickly approved the idea. Several of Lisa's experiences in the episode are based on Mirkin's own experiences. The episode guest stars musician [[Paul McCartney]], a committed vegetarian and animal rights activist. McCartney's condition for appearing was that Lisa would remain a vegetarian and would not revert the next week (as is common on situation comedies). The trait stayed and is one of the few permanent character changes made in the show.<ref>Cohen, David S.; Groening, Matt; Mirkin, David. (2005). Commentary for "[[Lisa the Vegetarian]]", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/08/26/paul-mccartney-insisted-lisa-simpson-stay-veg/ |title=Paul McCartney Insisted Lisa Simpson Stay VEG |date=August 26, 2009 |publisher=ecorazzi |access-date=November 15, 2009 |archive-date=September 17, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110917210805/http://www.ecorazzi.com/2009/08/26/paul-mccartney-insisted-lisa-simpson-stay-veg/ |url-status=usurped }}</ref><ref name="NZ">{{cite news |url=http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sideswipe/news/article.cfm?c_id=702&objectid=10593582 |title=Sideswipe: McCartney keeps Lisa vegetarian |date=August 28, 2009 |work=The New Zealand Herald |access-date=August 27, 2009}}</ref> In the season 13 episode "She of Little Faith" (2001), Lisa underwent another permanent character change when she converted to Buddhism.<ref>{{harvnb|Pinsky|2007 |p=171}}</ref>

Lisa plays the [[baritone saxophone]], and some episodes use that as a plot device. According to Matt Groening, the baritone saxophone was chosen because he found the thought of an eight-year-old girl playing it amusing. He added, "But she doesn't always play a baritone sax because the animators don't know what it looks like, so it changes shape and color from show to show."<ref name="Saxophone"/> One of the hallmarks of the show's [[The Simpsons opening sequence|opening sequence]] is a brief solo Lisa plays on her saxophone after being thrown out of music class. ''The Simpsons'' composer [[Alf Clausen]] said that the session musicians who perform her solos do not try to play at the second-grade level and instead "think of Lisa as a really good player."<ref name="Sax and Single">{{cite magazine |title=Sax and the Single Simpson |last=Rhodes |first=Joe |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |date=July 26, 1991 |url=https://ew.com/article/1991/07/26/why-lisa-simpson-plays-blues/ |access-date=March 8, 2010 |archive-date=January 9, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100109201759/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,314958,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref>