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The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson

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"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
The Simpsons episode
File:Cityofnewyorkvshomersimpson1.PNG
Episode no.Season 9
Directed byJim Reardon
Written byIan Maxtone-Graham
Original air dateSeptember 21, 1997
Episode features
Couch gagThe Simpsons are dressed as the Harlem Globetrotters, showing off elaborate basketball tricks to the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown”.[1]
CommentaryCommentary 1:
Bill Oakley
Josh Weinstein
Jim Reardon
Commentary 2:
Ian Maxtone-Graham
Dan Castellaneta
Episode chronology
The Simpsons season 9
List of episodes

"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 they must choose a designated driver. Barney is the unlucky one, and spends a night being tortured by sobriety. After dropping Homer off, he drives away with Homer's car. Two months later he returns to Moe's with no memory of what happened to 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. Homer is reluctant to go to New York because of a bad experience he had there when he was younger, but the family persuades him.

The Simpsons arrive in New York by bus. Homer leaves to find his car while Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie go sight-seeing. Homer finds his car parked between the two towers of the World Trade Center, the windshield covered in parking tickets and the wheel booted. While waiting for a parking officer, Homer drinks too much crab juice from a street vendor and needs to use the bathroom. He runs to the top of one of the towers and relieves himself, only to see out the window that he has missed the parking officer and received yet another ticket. Meanwhile, the family visits the Statue of Liberty and takes in a Broadway show, and Bart visits the offices of Mad Magazine.

The sun begins to set and Homer panics, not wanting to be on the streets of New York after dark. He drives away with the boot still attached to the wheel, severely damaging his car. His slow speed holds up traffic, so he attempts to use a jackhammer to remove the boot. It works, but it does further damage to his car, which is already falling apart. He meets the family in Central Park, where they are enjoying a hansom cab ride. He rushes them into the car and they drive away, the family happy and wishing to return, Homer gritting his teeth and swallowing his rage as he is pelted with medical waste by the open garbage truck in front of them. [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 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 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. (à la his character Julian Wells from Less Than Zero), 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 referring to Russian immigrants, but this may refer mostly to the former since Homer fell into a manhole while escaping an angry pimp.[2]

Reception

"You're Checkin' In"
Sample of the musical "You're Checkin' In", which won awards for its music and lyrics.
Problems playing 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

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Martyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian (2000). "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson". BBC. Retrieved 2008-01-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ a b c d e f Gimple, Scott (1999). The Simpsons Forever!: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family ...Continued. Harper Collins Publishers. pp. 10–11. ISBN 0-06-098763-4.
  3. ^ ""The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"". The Simpsons.com. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ "National News Briefs; Actor Sent to Jail For Continued Drug Use". The New York Times. 1997-12-09. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
  9. ^ "Every show, every winner, every nominee". The Envelope. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
  10. ^ "Legacy: 26th Annual Annie Award Nominees and Winners (1998)". Annie Awards. Retrieved 2007-10-16.
  11. ^ "The Family Dynamic". Entertainment Weekly. 2003-02-06. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  12. ^ Weir, Rich. "Top 10: Simpsons Episodes". Askmen.com. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  13. ^ Goldman, Eric; Dan Iverson, Brian Zoromski (2006-09-08). "The Simpsons: 17 Seasons, 17 Episodes". IGN. Retrieved 2008-01-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ Vancini, Daniel. "The Simpsons - The Complete Ninth Season (1997)". Editorial Reviews. Amazon.com. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
  15. ^ Staff (2007-02-02). "DVDS: NEW RELEASES". The Mirror. p. 7.
  16. ^ Evans, Mark (2007-01-27). "Simpsons Season 9". Evening Herald. p. 25.
  17. ^ Staff (2006-12-17). "Present perfect; Still scrambling? Try these panic gifts with class". Grand Rapids Press. pp. D1.
  18. ^ Williams, Steve (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. Retrieved 2008-01-23. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  19. ^ Williams, Steve (March 2005). ""That is so 1991!": Steve Williams and Ian Jones on the BBC's scheduling of The Simpsons". Off the Telly. Retrieved 2008-01-23. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

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