The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson

The Simpsons episode
"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
New York City as depicted in the episode.
Episode no.	179
Prod. code	4F22
Orig. airdate	September 21, 1997
Show runner(s)	Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein
Written by	Ian Maxtone-Graham
Directed by	Jim Reardon
Couch gag	The Simpsons are dressed as the Harlem Globetrotters, showing off elaborate basketball tricks to the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown”.[1]
DVD commentary	Commentary 1: Bill Oakley Josh Weinstein Jim Reardon Commentary 2: Ian Maxtone-Graham Dan Castellaneta
Season 9 September 21, 1997 – May 17, 1998 "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" "The Principal and the Pauper" "Lisa's Sax" "Treehouse of Horror VIII" "The Cartridge Family" "Bart Star" "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons" "Lisa the Skeptic" "Realty Bites" "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" "All Singing, All Dancing" "Bart Carny" "The Joy of Sect" "Das Bus" "The Last Temptation of Krust" "Dumbbell Indemnity" "Lisa the Simpson" "This Little Wiggy" "Simpson Tide" "The Trouble with Trillions" "Girly Edition" "Trash of the Titans" "King of the Hill" "Lost Our Lisa" "Natural Born Kissers" List of all The Simpsons episodes
Seasons 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21

"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of The Simpsons' ninth season, and premiered on September 21, 1997 on Fox. The episode sees the Simpson family traveling to Manhattan to recover the family car, which was taken by Barney Gumble and abandoned outside the World Trade Center complex, thereby gaining numerous parking tickets and a wheel clamp. Upon arrival, the family tours the city, while Homer waits beside his car outside the World Trade Center for a parking officer to remove the clamp. However, that officer turns up while Homer is using the restroom inside one of the towers. In frustration, Homer decides to drive the car with the clamp attached. He eventually succeeds in removing it and races to Central Park to find his family and leave the city.

Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham was interested in making an episode where the Simpson family travels to New York to retrieve their lost car. Executive producers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein suggested that the car be found in the World Trade Center plaza, as they wanted a location that would be widely known. Great lengths were taken to make a detailed replica of the city of Manhattan. The episode received generally positive reviews, and has since been on accolade lists of Simpsons episodes. The "I'm Checkin' In" musical sequence won two awards. Because of the World Trade Center's central role, the episode was initially taken off syndication in many areas following the September 11, 2001 attacks, but has come back into syndication in recent years.

Plot

At Moe's Tavern, Moe informs Homer and his friends that the Springfield Police have told him that the six of them cause 91% of all traffic accidents and the tavern has to start selecting designated drivers. Subsequently, a draw involving pickled eggs results in Barney becoming the designated driver for the night. After a distressed Barney drives the drunken men home in Homer's car, Homer allows him to use the vehicle to drive himself home, expecting Barney to return it the following morning. However, Barney disappears with the car. Two months later, Barney returns to Moe's Tavern, unable to recall where he left the car.

Homer later receives a letter from New York City, which informs him that his car has been found illegally parked in the center of the World Trade Center plaza. If it is not moved within 72 hours, the car will be dumped into the East River at Homer's expense. Marge and the kids are excited about going to the city, but Homer is not. He shares a story with the family that he had been to New York before when he was a teenager, and had a horrible experience. He reluctantly agrees to go when Bart offers to pay for the $9 bus fare.

When the family arrives in Manhattan, they decide to split up in order to allow Homer to obtain the car, while Marge and the kids tour the city. Upon arrival at his car, Homer discovers it has been issued many parking tickets and has been wheel clamped. While waiting for a parking officer to come and remove the clamp, Homer leaves the car to use the restroom. However, an officer arrives while he is still in the restroom at the top of one of the World Trade Center towers. Finding no-one present, the officer issues another ticket (for $250) and leaves, much to Homer's annoyance.

Meanwhile, the rest of the family tours the Statue of Liberty, Little Italy and China Town. Bart leaves the group to visit the offices of MAD magazine, and is in awe when he sees Alfred E. Neuman. The family attends a Broadway musical about the Betty Ford Clinic, and then take a carriage through Central Park to where they are planning to meet Homer.

After Homer returns to the car, he resolves to make it to Central Park to find his family and leave before dark. Ignoring the wheel clamp, he tries to accelerate and in the process destroys the car's fender. Eventually, Homer stops by a road construction crew and borrows a jackhammer so he can remove the clamp. He succeeds in freeing the car of the clamp, but damages the vehicle further as a result. Homer then races to Central Park, interrupting picnics and a basketball game, and reunites with his family (interrupting their carriage ride as he does so). On the way out of the city, Homer's opinion of New York remains unchanged, while the rest of the family have had a pleasant trip.^[2][3]

Production

Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham, a former resident of New York, had conceived the idea of having the family travel to the city to locate their missing car and believed it to be "a classic Manhattan problem".^[4] Bill Oakley, who had visited the World Trade Center when the construction of the towers was completed in 1973, suggested parking the car in the plaza of the buildings.^[5] Josh Weinstein observed that, "When we realized that there was a plaza between the two towers, we knew it was a perfect spot to have Homer's car."^[6]

The animators were told to make a detailed replica of the city. David Silverman was sent to Manhattan to take hundreds of pictures of the city and areas around the World Trade Center.^[5] When he returned, Lance Wilder and his team spent time creating new scenes and backgrounds, incorporating small details such as signs and hundreds of extras that would correctly illustrate the city.^[7] Oakley and Weinstein were pleased with the final results, and both noted that the buildings, streets, and even elevator cabins were detailed closely to their real life counterparts.^[5][6] In the final scene, as the family are seen driving away from New York on the George Washington Bridge, the credits roll with the "camera" gradually pulling back from a view of the car, to a view of the side, and then on to a panorama view of the city; as if the whole sequence was being shot from a helicopter. To achieve this effect, a computer model of the bridge pulling out was made and then was printed out. With the print outs, photocopies were made traced onto the animation cells.^[7] The process took a long time and was expensive, as the use of computer animation was not widespread when the episode was produced. Director Jim Reardon wanted to replicate films that ended in a similar way, and commented that, "I remembered that every movie located in New York would pull back if you were leaving town on a bridge."^[7] Shortly before the episode aired, the production staff contacted Fox to make sure they would not run commercials during the credits.^[6]

Ken Keeler, who wrote the lyrics for the "You're Checkin' In" musical number, spent two hours in a room alone to write the song. Upon sharing the lyrics with the rest of the production staff, some revisions were made, although little was changed. Bill Oakley was unsatisfied with the part of the musical where the actor claims, "Hey, that's just my Aspirin!", claiming that a better line could have been written.^[5]

Cultural references

The song used during Duffman's first and subsequent appearances is "Oh Yeah" by Yello, popularized in the final scene of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.^[5] The Original Famous Ray's Pizza shop Homer sees is a parody of independently owned pizza stores that carry the name "Ray" in their name.^[5] When the traveling bus passes by Hasidic Jews, Bart mistakes them for ZZ Top,^[1][2] and when Bart visits Mad Magazine's offices, he sees Alfred E. Neuman, Spy vs. Spy and cartoonist Dave Berg.^[1] The actor in the musical, "You're Checkin' In", was based on Robert Downey Jr., who was suffering a cocaine addiction during the time of the episode creation, just as the character in the musical was.^[4][8] The sequence where Homer races alongside the carriage in Central Park was a reference to a similar scene in the film, Ben-Hur.^[1][2] The final scene when the family is crossing the George Washington Bridge and throughout the credits has a version of the song, "Theme from New York, New York".^[1]

Several cultural references are made during Homer's flashback to his previous visit to New York City. During the entire flashback, "The Entertainer", a piece made famous by the film The Sting, is played.^[1] Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham had brought the piece to the attention of director Jim Reardon and asked him to try to fit the piece into the flashback. Maxtone-Graham later commented that, "It turned out that the music and the visual gags fit each other perfectly."^[4] In the beginning of the scene, Homer passes by three pornographic film theaters playing "The Godfather's Parts, II", "Jeremiah's Johnson" and "Five Sleazy Pieces", a play on the names of The Godfather Part II, Jeremiah Johnson and Five Easy Pieces.^[2] Woody Allen can be seen during the flashback, pouring trash out of his window onto Homer.^[1][2] At the end of the flashback, Homer mentions, "... and that's when the C.H.U.D.s came at me". This is either a reference to the film C.H.U.D., an acronym for "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers" or the slang term "chud" as refering to Russian immigrants.^[2]

Reception

	"You're Checkin' In" Sample of the musical "You're Checkin' In", which won awards for its music and lyrics.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The episode was mostly well received. The song "You're Checkin' In" won a 1998 Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics",^[9] and an Annie Award for "Outstanding Music in an Animated Television Production" in the same year.^[10] Entertainment Weekly ranked the episode at number 13 on the list of their favorite 25 episodes,^[11] and AskMen.com ranked the episode at number seven on their top ten.^[12] IGN named the episode the best of the ninth season, claiming "this is a very funny episode that started season nine off on a strong note".^[13] Since the release of the season nine DVD box set, the episode has been highlighted by newspaper reviewers to show excellence of the season.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Ian Jones and Steve Williams, writers for review website Off the Telly claimed that the episode "ditched all pretence of a plot and went flat out for individual, unconnected sight gags and vignettes". The two noted that it was their least favorite debut episode for a Simpsons season.^[18] In a separate article in Off the Telly, Jones and Williams write that the episode "...wasn't shown for reasons of taste and has never appeared on terrestrial television in Britain," referring to a BBC Two schedule of the ninth season, which began October 2001.^[19] It has since been shown on British television, on Channel 4.

Due to the prominence of the World Trade Center in the plot, the episode was removed from syndication after the September 11, 2001 attacks.^[5] It has since come back into syndication in some areas; however, parts of the episode are often edited out.^[6] One previously such edited item is a scene of two men arguing across Tower 1 and Tower 2, where a man from Tower 2 claims, "They stick all the jerks in Tower One!" Co-executive producer Bill Oakley commented in retrospect that the line was "regrettable".^[5]

References

Further reading

External links

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• "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" at The Simpsons.com
• "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
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