1st episode of the 9th season of The Simpsons
"
The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
" is the first episode of the
ninth season
of the American animated television series
The Simpsons
. It was originally broadcast on
Fox
in the United States on September 21, 1997, as the 179th episode of the series. The episode features the
Simpson family
traveling to
Manhattan
to recover the family car, which was taken by
Barney Gumble
and abandoned outside the
World Trade Center
, where it had been repeatedly posted with
parking tickets
, and disabled with a
parking boot
.
Writer
Ian Maxtone-Graham
was interested in making an episode where the Simpson family travels to New York to retrieve their misplaced car. Executive producers
Bill Oakley
and
Josh Weinstein
suggested that the car be found in
Austin J. Tobin Plaza
at the World Trade Center, as they wanted a location that would be widely known. Great lengths were taken to make a detailed replica of the
borough
of Manhattan. The episode received acclaim from fans and television critics, and has since been on accolade lists of
The Simpsons
episodes. The "You're Checkin' In" musical sequence won two awards. Because of the World Trade Center's main role, the episode was taken off
syndication
in many areas following the
September 11 attacks
, but returned to syndication by 2006. The episode also features the first appearance of
Duffman
, who would become a recurring character in the series.
Plot
[
edit
]
The World Trade Center, seen here in March 2001, was prominently featured in the episode.
At
Moe's Tavern
,
Moe
informs
Homer
and his friends that one of them must be a
designated driver
, and
Barney
loses the choosing draw. After Barney drives the drunken men home in Homer's car, Homer allows him to use it to drive himself home, expecting Barney to return it the following morning. In his distressed state, 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 the
New York City
government
, which informs him that his car has been found parked in the
World Trade Center plaza
and will be destroyed if not picked up in 72 hours. Homer reveals to the family that he had once been to New York before when he was 17 years old, and had a horrible experience.
Marge
and the children persuade Homer to go retrieve the car, and he reluctantly agrees.
When the family arrives in
Manhattan
, they decide to split up. 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 buys
khlav kalash
(a fictionalized
kebab
served on a stick) and several cans of crab juice (in order to wash away the taste), and now needs to urinate, but is afraid to leave his car behind. He rushes into the restroom at the South Tower's
indoor observation deck
, but discovers that it is out of order and locked so he must use the one at the
top of the North Tower
. While he is in the restroom, the officer arrives and issues another parking ticket as no one was present. Meanwhile, the rest of the family tours the
Statue of Liberty
,
Little Italy
,
Chinatown
, and the
Empire State Building
.
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 takes a carriage through
Central Park
to where they are planning to meet Homer.
Homer realizes that he needs to reach Central Park to pick up the family and get out of New York before nightfall. Ignoring the wheel clamp, he drives away but destroys the car's left front
fender
. After driving for some distance with the clamp, he borrows a
jackhammer
from a road construction crew and uses it to remove the clamp, but damages the car further as well. Homer eventually gets the boot off and races to Central Park and reunites with his family. While driving back to
Springfield
, the family reflects on their wonderful time, while Homer's hatred for New York remains.
[3]
Production
[
edit
]
David Silverman
was sent to Manhattan to take photographs of the area in order to make the episode more accurate.
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 is 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 printed out. With the print outs,
photocopies
were made traced onto the animation
cels
.
[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, "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 sings, "Hey, that's just my
aspirin
!", claiming that a better line could have been written.
[5]
Due to the prominence of the World Trade Center in the plot, the episode was removed from syndication after the
September 11 attacks
.
[5]
[8]
By 2006, the episode had come back into syndication in some areas; however, parts of the episode were 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 1." Co-executive producer Bill Oakley commented in retrospect that the line was "regrettable".
[5]
In 2019, a hand-drawn cel from the episode, depicting the two towers, was given to the
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
, in what the curator termed a "hilarious and tender" donation.
[9]
The "9" and the
Twin Towers
to the right of it have been described by some conspiracy theorists as foreshadowing the
9/11 attacks
Some conspiracy theorists believe that a scene in the episode foreshadows the September 11 attacks: in it,
Lisa
holds a brochure for a $9 bus fare with the World Trade Center shown in the background.
[10]
Showrunner
Al Jean
said in an interview with
The New York Times
in 2018, "There is a frame where there's a brochure that says New York at $9 a day, and behind the nine are the twin towers. So they look like an 11, and it looks like a 9/11. That one is a completely bizarre, strange thing."
[11]
Bill Oakley, the episode's showrunner, reacted to a
New York Observer
article in 2010 via
Twitter
by saying, "$9 was picked as a comically cheap fare...To make an ad for it, the artist logically chose to include a silhouette of NYC. I signed off on the design. It's pretty self-explanatory. And I will grant that it's eerie given that it's on the only episode of any series ever that had an entire act of World Trade Center jokes."
[10]
Cultural references
[
edit
]
Bart mistakes a group of
Hasidic Jews
for
ZZ Top
.
The song used during
Duffman
's first and subsequent appearances is "
Oh Yeah
" by
Yello
, popularized in the film
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]
The musical sequence played during the
Flushing Meadows
segment is a stylistic parody of the piece "
Flower Duet
" from the opera
Lakme
by
Leo Delibes
. When the traveling bus passes some
Hasidic Jews
, Bart mistakes them for
ZZ Top
,
[1]
[3]
and when he visits
Mad
magazine's offices, he sees
Alfred E. Neuman
, the
Spy vs. Spy
characters, and cartoonist
Dave Berg
.
[1]
The actor in the musical number "You're Checkin' In" was based on
Robert Downey Jr.
, who was battling a
cocaine
addiction during the time of the episode creation, just as the character in the musical was.
[4]
[12]
The sequence where Homer races alongside the carriage in
Central Park
was a reference to a similar scene in the film
Ben-Hur
.
[1]
[3]
The final scene when the family is crossing the
George Washington Bridge
uses a version of the song "
Theme from
New York, New York
", which continues to play throughout the credits.
[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, "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
, which are playing
The Godfather's Parts, II
,
Jeremiah's Johnson
, and
Five Sleazy Pieces
, plays on the names of
The Godfather Part II
,
Jeremiah Johnson
, and
Five Easy Pieces
, respectively.
[3]
A character resembling
Woody Allen
can be seen during the flashback, pouring trash out of his window onto Homer.
[1]
[3]
When Homer falls into the sewer, he falls down to the underground world of mutants portrayed in the movie
C.H.U.D.
Reception
[
edit
]
Sample of the musical "You're Checkin' In", which won awards for its music and lyrics
In its original broadcast, "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" finished 18th in ratings for the week of September 15?21, 1997, with a
Nielsen rating
of 10.7, equivalent to approximately 10.5 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, beating
King of the Hill
's
season two opener
"How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying".
[13]
The episode was well received by fans and television critics. The song "You're Checkin' In" won a
1998
Primetime Emmy Award
for
Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics
,
[14]
and an
Annie Award
for
Outstanding Music in an Animated Television Production
in the same year.
[15]
In honor of
The Simpsons
'
300th episode milestone in 2003,
Entertainment Weekly
ranked the episode at number 13 on the list of their 25 favorite episodes,
[16]
and
AskMen
ranked the episode at number seven on their top ten;
[17]
in both cases it was the second-most-recent installment chosen to co-inhabit the lists.
IGN
named the episode the best of the ninth season, claiming "this is a very funny episode that started season 9 off on a strong note".
[18]
Since the release of the
season nine DVD box set
, the episode has been highlighted by newspaper reviewers to show excellence of the season.
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
Ian Jones and Steve Williams, writers for British 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 season of
The Simpsons
.
[23]
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 in October 2001.
[24]
Screen Rant
called it the best episode of the ninth season.
[25]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Martyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian (2000).
"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
. BBC. Archived from
the original
on December 23, 2003
. Retrieved
January 4,
2008
.
- ^
"HRX Records Releases Hell...It's Christmas Featuring Simpsons' Alumni Michael Dees"
(Press release). Los Angeles, California: HRX Records. November 29, 2011.
Archived
from the original on October 12, 2013
. Retrieved
April 1,
2013
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Gimple, Scott M.
, ed. (1999).
The Simpsons Forever!: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family ...Continued
. HarperCollins Publishers. pp.
10?11
.
ISBN
978-0-06-098763-3
.
- ^
a
b
c
Maxtone-Graham, Ian (2006).
The Simpsons season 9 DVD commentary for the episode "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
(DVD). 20th Century Fox.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
Oakley, Bill (2006).
The Simpsons season 9 DVD commentary for the episode "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
(DVD). 20th Century Fox.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Weinstein, Josh (2006).
The Simpsons season 9 DVD commentary for the episode "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
(DVD). 20th Century Fox.
- ^
a
b
c
Reardon, Jim (2006).
The Simpsons season 9 DVD commentary for the episode "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
(DVD). 20th Century Fox.
- ^
Snierson, Dan (March 27, 2011).
"
'Simpsons' exec producer Al Jean: 'I completely understand' if reruns with nuclear jokes are pulled"
.
Entertainment Weekly
.
Archived
from the original on July 8, 2018
. Retrieved
January 23,
2022
.
- ^
Mashberg, Tom (September 10, 2019).
"The Twin Towers After September 11: A Tribute or a Painful Reminder?"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on April 29, 2020
. Retrieved
September 11,
2019
.
- ^
a
b
Gell, Aaron (November 9, 2010).
"Why Conspiracy Theorists Think 'The Simpsons' May Have Predicted 9/11"
.
The New York Observer
.
Archived
from the original on August 5, 2019.
- ^
Salam, Maya (February 2, 2018).
"
'The Simpsons' Has Predicted a Lot. Most of It Can Be Explained"
.
The New York Times
.
Archived
from the original on August 5, 2019.
- ^
"National News Briefs; Actor Sent to Jail For Continued Drug Use"
.
The New York Times
. Associated Press. December 9, 1997.
Archived
from the original on January 23, 2022
. Retrieved
January 23,
2022
.
- ^
"NBC lands on top; new season starts".
Sun-Sentinel
. Associated Press. September 25, 1997. p. 4E.
- ^
"Every show, every winner, every nominee"
.
The Envelope
. Archived from
the original
on February 13, 2012
. Retrieved
September 25,
2007
.
- ^
"Legacy: 26th Annual Annie Award Nominees and Winners (1998)"
. Annie Awards. Archived from
the original
on March 13, 2012
. Retrieved
October 16,
2007
.
- ^
"The best
Simpsons
episodes, Nos. 11-15"
.
Entertainment Weekly
. January 29, 2003. Archived from
the original
on January 21, 2007
. Retrieved
January 23,
2022
.
- ^
Weir, Rich (February 1, 2006).
"Top 10: Simpsons Episodes"
.
AskMen
.
Archived
from the original on January 24, 2022
. Retrieved
January 23,
2022
.
- ^
Goldman, Eric; Iverson, Dan; Zoromski, Brian (January 8, 2010).
"The Simpsons: 20 Seasons, 20 Episodes"
.
IGN
. Archived from
the original
on May 27, 2007
. Retrieved
January 23,
2022
.
- ^
Vancini, Daniel.
"The Simpsons ? The Complete Ninth Season (1997)"
.
Editorial Reviews
. Amazon.
Archived
from the original on August 3, 2011
. Retrieved
December 3,
2007
.
- ^
"DVDS: New Releases".
The Mirror
. February 2, 2007. p. 7.
- ^
Evans, Mark (January 27, 2007). "Simpsons Season 9".
Evening Herald
. p. 25.
- ^
"Present perfect; Still scrambling? Try these panic gifts with class".
The Grand Rapids Press
. December 17, 2006. p. D1.
- ^
Williams, Steve; Jones, Ian (March 2005).
"
"Now Let us Never Speak of it Again": Ian Jones and Steve Williams on the second decade of The Simpsons"
.
Off the Telly
. Archived from
the original
on December 14, 2007
. Retrieved
April 22,
2012
.
- ^
Williams, Steve; Jones, Ian (March 2005).
"
"That is so 1991!": Steve Williams and Ian Jones on the BBC's scheduling of The Simpsons"
.
Off the Telly
. Archived from
the original
on December 20, 2007
. Retrieved
April 22,
2012
.
- ^
Sim, Bernardo (September 22, 2019).
"The Simpsons: The Best Episode In Every Season, Ranked"
.
Screen Rant
.
Archived
from the original on September 24, 2019
. Retrieved
September 22,
2019
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]