Forget about Bart Simpson’s reputation as a hard-ass.

According to one NIU professor, despite the numerous T-shirt and lunchbox appearances which have sent some parents and grade-school teachers into a frenzy, Bart makes a better brother than Theo Huxtable of “The Cosby Show.”

After sifting through hours of Simpson’s episodes, Mary Larson, assistant communication studies professor found (at least in TV land) having a mother with a pillar of blue hair was better than having one that wasn’t around.

Larson tediously transcribed every (1,700 in all) interaction between the bugged-eyed stars of “The Simpsons,” the first hit prime-time cartoon family since the “Flintstones.”

She noted verbal and non-verbal interactions, looking for sarcastic, opposing and supportive types of behavior and compared them with those of other TV families.

“I looked at sibling conflicts in family portrayals on ‘Cosby,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Family Ties’ and ‘Growing Pains,'” Larson said.

What she found surprised her.

Although the family members in “Cosby” and “Pains” are often considered positive role models, “even there, there is a great deal of hostility,” Larson said.

On “Cosby” she found a lot of sarcastic comments, even from Super Dad Cliff Huxtable, played by Bill Cosby.

“In contrast, family interaction in ‘The Simpsons’ is overwhelmingly supportive,” Larson said. “Even Bart will congratulate his dad Homer with ‘Way to go, Home-boy!’ Marge tells Homer what to do just as often as the other way around. And the kids are quite supportive of their parents, for example, when Homer gets fired from his job.”

Larson found that about 80 percent of the communication between Bart and Homer was positive. During the 1986-87 season, the Huxtable kids’ comments to each other were positive only 64 percent of the time, while sibling interchanges on “Family Ties” were rosy 63 percent of the time.

The Seavers of “Growing Pains” were the nastiest, Larson said. The number of negative comments coming from Seaver siblings outweighed supportive comments. Only 43 percent of their comments to each other were positive, she said.

Larson said she thinks much of the criticism of “The Simpsons” may be a reaction to the prolification of Simpson-based merchandise which only shows one side of Bart’s personality.

For example, while Bart is famous for T-shirts inscribed with, “I’m Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?” Larson only heard him make the assertion once during the season.

“You get the impression that Bart says ‘Eat my shorts’ in every episode,” Larson said.

“The Simpsons do a lot of things together. They play together,” Larson said. “In contrast, in ‘Cosby’ you don’t see much interaction between the parents and the kids.”

While the Simpsons are often shown squeezed into their couch, perched in front of the television, they are together.

The other sitcom families Larson examined contained “mothers who are almost always absent, fathers who are ‘super fathers’ who don’t spend time at work,” she said.

Larson said she had a hard time deciding which of the sitcom families were closest to a real family because nobody knows what a real family is. She concedes, however, that hers most closely resembles the Simpsons.