The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson

"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
The Simpsons episode
File:Theconyvhs1.PNG
Episode no.	Season 9
Directed by	Jim Reardon
Written by	Ian Maxtone-Graham
Original air dates	September 21, 1997
Episode features
Couch gag	The Simpsons are dressed as the Harlem Globetrotters, showing off elaborate basketball tricks to the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown”.
Commentary	Commentary 1: Bill Oakley Josh Weinstein Jim Reardon Commentary 2: Ian Maxtone-Graham Dan Castellaneta

"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of The Simpsons' ninth season, which first aired on September 21, 1997 on Fox. The episode sees the Simpson family going to Manhattan, New York in order to recover the family's car, which was taken by Barney and left there. Homer, who had a negative experience in the city at a younger age, wishes to leave the city as fast as possible, though the rest of the family enjoys their time in the city. While the rest of the family tours the city, Homer finds the car in the plaza of the World Trade Center with a wheel clamp attached to it, and when he fails to be with the car when an officer comes to unlock it, he decides to drive the car even with the clamp attached. He is also later successful in removing it, and races to Central Park to find his family and leave the city.

Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham had interest in making an episode where the Simpsons family would go to New York to recover their lost car. Executive producers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein suggested that the car be in the World Trade Center's plaza, as they would want an area of New York which would be widely known. To produce the episode, great lengths were taken to make a very closely detailed replica of the city of Manhattan. The episode received generally positive reviews, and has since been on several accolade lists of Simpsons episodes. The "You're Checkin' In" musical sequence won two awards. Because of the WTC's central role, the episode was initially taken off syndication in many areas following the September 11, 2001 attacks, but it has come back into syndication in recent years.

Plot

Following an announcement made by Moe, one of the frequent visitors of Moe's Tavern is chosen to be the designated driver for the night. The task falls to Barney, who remains distressed while the other men are free to consume their beers. Later, while driving the drunken men home, Homer allows Barney to use his car to get to his own home, in the expectancy that Barney will return it the following morning. In his distressed state however, Barney disappears for two months, leaving Homer without a car. However, when Barney finally returns to Moe's Tavern, he is unable to recall where he parked the car.

On hearing from Barney, Homer attempts to build a car himself, but stops when Lisa informs him that a letter from the City of New York has arrived, revealing that the car has been found parked in the middle of the World Trade Center plaza. Homer is unwilling to go to New York, and there is a brief flashback of him visiting New York many years previously. The memories are unpleasant, but the family finally persuades him to go.

When the family arrives in Manhattan, New York, they decide to split up to allow Homer to obtain the car while the rest of the family tours the city. However, when Homer arrives at the car, he discovers that the car has been clamped, which can only be unlocked by a police officer. While waiting for the officer, Homer grows hungry and decides to purchase street food from a vendor who sells Khlav Kalash, Crab Juice, and Mountain Dew. However, after consuming much Crab Juice, he finds himself in need of a toilet. After discovering that the facilities in Tower 1 are locked, he wanders through Tower 2 looking for an alternative. Meanwhile, a police officer has been at the car, and finding no one present, issues another ticket and then leaves.

Meanwhile, the rest of the family tours through much of the city, visiting places such as the Statue of Liberty, Little Italy and China Town. Bart also leaves the group while they are examining shoes to visit the offices of Mad Magazine, and is in awe when he sees Alfred E. Neuman. They then watch a Broadway musical about the Betty Ford Clinic, and finally decide to ride a carriage in Central Park where they are to meet with Homer.

Upon arriving at the car, Homer realizes he must make it to Central Park soon to find his family and leave. Ignoring the wheel clamp, he tries to accelerate, which is successful but destroys the car's fender. After much frustration, Homer stops by a road construction crew and steals a jackhammer to attempt to remove the clamp himself. The car is damaged further, but is finally free of the clamp. He races to Central Park, interrupting several picnics and a basketball game, but finally finds the carriage and stops it to allow the family to enter the car. 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.

Production

"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, and directed by Jim Reardon. It was Graham, who was raised in New York, who had conceived the idea of the family in New York to locate their missing car, as he believed it was, "a classic Manhattan problem." Co-executive producer Bill Oakley decided to have the car parked in the plaza of the World Trade Center, which he had visited when construction was complete. Co-executive producer 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."

Production staff were then told to make a closely detailed replica of the real city. In order to achieve this, animator and director David Silverman was sent to Manhattan to take hundreds of pictures of the city and areas around the World Trade Center. When he returned, animation director Lance Wilder and his team of animators spent a lot of time creating new scenes and backgrounds, with small details such as signs and hundreds of extras that would correctly illustrate the busy city. Oakley and Weinberg were very pleased with the final results, and both noted that all the buildings, streets, and even the elevator cabins were true-to-life in even minute details.

File:Theconyvhs3.PNG

Part of the pull out during the credits.

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, then 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. In order to achieve this effect, a computer model of the bridge pulling out was first made, and then was printed out. With the print outs, photocopies were made, and were traced onto the animation cells. The process took a long time and was expensive, as the use of computer animation was not as widespread when the episode was produced. 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." The production staff also contacted Fox to make sure that they would not run any commercials during the scene.

Cultural references

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

Several cultural references are made during Homer's flashback to his previous visit to New York City. During the entire flashback, "The Entertainer", a song made famous by the film The Sting, is played. Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham had brought the song to director Jim Reardon and asked him to try to fit the song into the flashback, and later commented that, "It turned out that the music and the visual gags fit each other perfectly." 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", which are parodying the films The Godfather Part II, Jeremiah Johnson and Five Easy Pieces, respectively. Woody Allen can be seen during the flashback, pouring trash out of his window on to Homer. At the end of the flashback, Homer mentions that, "... and thats when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me." This is a reference to the film C.H.U.D., an acronym for "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers".

Reception

The episode was well received for the most part. Since the release of the season nine DVD box set, the episode has been highlighted out of the other episodes of the season by several newspaper reviewers. The episode has also been on two accolade lists of Simpsons episodes. Entertainment Weekly ranked the episode as number 13 on their "The best Simpsons episodes" list, a list containing 25 episodes, and AskMen.com ranked the episode as number seven of their list of ten episodes. IGN also 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." However, Ian Jones and Steve Williams greatly criticized the episode, claiming that it, "[...] ditched all pretence of a plot and went flat out for individual, unconnected sight gags and vignettes. Homer discovered his car had been illegally parked between the two World Trade Centre buildings, and then spent the rest of the episode trying to get it back. That was it. Subsequent historical events have kept this winsome edition off most of the planet's TV screens, which is probably just as well. This was the lamest season debut to date."

File:Theconyvhs2.PNG

Part of the "You're Checkin' In" musical scene.

The musical about the Betty Ford Clinic that Bart, Lisa and Marge see, "You're Checkin' In", won a Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics", and an Annie Award for "Outstanding Music in an Animated Television Production" in 1998. Alf Clausen composed the music for the scene, and Ken Keeler wrote the lyrics for the song. He isolated himself in a room for two hours to write them, although some of the lyrics were rewritten when the song was read to the other writers.

Due to the World Trade Center being a prominent location in the episode, the episode was pulled from syndication after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The episode has since come back into syndication in some areas, however, some parts of the episode are edited out. One such edited item are the two men who argue across Tower 1 and Tower 2, with a man from Tower 2 who claims, "They stick all the jerks in Tower 1!" Co-executive producer Bill Oakley commented in retrospect that the line was, "[...] regrettable."

References

Further reading

• Gray, Jonathan (August 2005). "Television Teaching: Parody, The Simpsons, and Media Literacy Education". Critical Studies in Media Communication. 22 (3): Pages 223 - 238. doi:10.1080/07393180500201652. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• McNee, Fiona (September 2002). "Something's Happened: Fictional Media as a Coping Mechanism". Prometheus. 20 (3). Routledge: Pages 281 - 287. doi:10.1080/08109020210141416. Retrieved 2007-12-03. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

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