The Homer They Fall

"The Homer They Fall"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.	Season 8
Directed by	Mark Kirkland
Written by	Jonathan Collier
Original air date	November 10, 1996
Episode features
Chalkboard gag	"I am not my long-lost twin"
Couch gag	The living room is in a desert and the family is dressed as cowboys and cowgirls. When the family sits down, the couch neighs and gallops away.
Commentary	Matt Groening Josh Weinstein Dan Castellaneta Yeardley Smith Mark Kirkland David X. Cohen George Meyer

"The Homer They Fall" is the third episode of The Simpsons' eighth season and originally aired November 10, 1996. After Homer Simpson realizes he has a bizarre medical condition that renders him unable to be knocked out, he decides to embark on a career as a boxer with Moe Szyslak as his manager. It was written by Jonathan Collier and directed by Mark Kirkland. The episode guest stars Michael Buffer as himself and Paul Winfield as Lucius Sweet.

Plot

File:Homer They Fall Painting.png

A parody of the George Bellows painting "Dempsey and Firpo"

The Simpson family visits a high-tech gadget store and Bart buys a gimmicky utility belt from Comic Book Guy, which he cannot return due to no proof of purchase for $4. He shows off its features to his classmates until he is beaten up by Dolph, Jimbo and Kearney, who steal the belt. In response, Homer decides to talk with the bullies' fathers at Moe's Tavern, but he is also beaten; however, they are unnerved when they cannot even knock Homer down and are then chased away by a shotgun-wielding Moe.

Moe is impressed by Homer's ability to absorb punishment and suggests he take up boxing, with Moe – a failed boxer himself – as his trainer and manager. Marge is appalled by the idea, but a medical test diagnoses Homer with a rare genetic abnormality effectively rendering him near-invulnerable to knockout punches. However, while training, it is discovered that Homer is a weak puncher, and is so out of shape that throwing one punch completely exhausts him. Moe strategizes that Homer should stand still in the ring and let his opponents exhaust themselves trying to knock him out and then knock them down with a tap.

Homer does well in his first fights, mostly facing underfed hobo opponents who cannot force Homer to fall. At every match, he follows Moe's advice and starts to gain widespread attention. Moe's former boxing manager, Lucius Sweet visits Moe and announces that the current Heavyweight Champion, Drederick Tatum is being released from prison and is ready for a comeback fight, and Sweet wants Tatum to fight Homer. Moe, despite knowing full well that Tatum is far too good for a fighter of Homer's ability, still wants to take his last shot at the big time and promises Sweet that Homer will last three rounds with Tatum.

Tatum is paroled and the media begins hyping the fight. The odds against Homer are 1000–1 and everybody believes that Homer will lose. Even Homer himself visualizes that the only way he could win is if a heart defect fells Tatum before entering the ring. Marge makes Moe promise her that the moment Homer is in any danger, he will throw in the towel. But after Marge leaves, Moe throws away the towel in a garbage can.

The fight starts and it is soon obvious that Homer cannot withstand Tatum's fearsome barrage and is in danger of being knocked out within six seconds. Homer decides to fight back, but misses completely. Moe, seeing Homer get destroyed, flees. As Tatum readies himself to deliver the final blow, Moe flies in using the Fan Man's paramotor and carries Homer away, saving him. Outside the arena, Homer thanks Moe for saving him and Tatum shows respect for the love Moe showed for Homer. Sweet declares that Moe will always be a loser but still gives him a check for a hundred thousand dollars. Moe starts up the paramotor and flies off into the night. During the credits he is seen helping people around the world with the paramotor.

Production

File:HomerTheyFallPoster.png

A poster advertising Szyslak vs. Oakley and also Kirkland vs. Silverman.

The episode was written by Jonathan Collier, who is a huge boxing fan. Knowing that the people on the internet would "give them grief", the writers went to a lot of effort to explain how Homer would be able to challenge for the Heavyweight Title. A lot of the stuff involving Homer fighting hobos was pitched by John Swartzwelder. Lucius Sweet is a parody of Don King, voiced by Paul Winfield who had previously played King in HBO's 1995 biopic Tyson. In the script, Sweet was described as "A Don King type who looks and sounds exactly like Don King." The similarity is even pointed out by Homer with the line "He is exactly as rich and as famous as Don King - and he looks just like him, too!" King was asked to guest star, but turned the part down. Drederick Tatum is a parody of Mike Tyson. The name came from George Meyer, who went to high school with a boy named Drederick Timmins, which Meyer thought was a cool name. Tatum's having done time in prison is a reference to the fact that, at the time of the episode's production, Tyson had just recently been released from prison after serving three years for rape. Homer is named "The Southern Dandy" as a reference to the old-time boxers and wrestlers who had similar nicknames.

In preparation for this episode, Mark Kirkland watched several boxing films and is satisfied with how it turned out. Whenever designing rooms, Kirkland tries to show a bare lightbulb because he feels that it makes things more depressing. In the scene in Moe's office, there is a brief shot of a poster advertising "Szyslak Vs. Oakley" and "Kirkland Vs. Silverman," referring to then-Executive Producer Bill Oakley and Simpsons directors Mark Kirkland and David Silverman. The scene where Tatum is walking to the ring surrounded by shady characters, one of whom appears to be cross-eyed, is based on a real life photo of Tyson.

Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney's fathers make their first and only appearances in the history of the show.

Cultural references

The episode opens with a parody of Bonanza. The montage of Homer fighting various hobos was based on a similar montage in Raging Bull. The music is "The Flower Duet" from the opera "Lakmé" by Léo Delibes. During the montage, there is a brief parody of the George Bellows painting "Dempsey and Firpo". The "Fan Man" is based on James Miller, a fan famous for parachuting into arenas during big events. Homer's theme song is "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War and Tatum's is "Time 4 Sum Aksion" by Redman. The song heard over the end credits is a rendition of Barbra Streisand's "People," sung by Sally Stevens.

Reception

In its original broadcast, "The Homer They Fall" finished 29th in ratings for the week of November 4-10, 1996, with a Nielsen rating of 10.0, equivalent to approximately 9.7 million viewing households. It was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-Files.

In response to "Barting Over", which is about skateboarding, Raju Mudhar of the Toronto Star listed what he thought were "excellent" Simpsons episodes and scenes also related to sports. He included "The Homer They Fall," writing that Drederick Tatum is "a thinly veiled Mike Tyson parody who's made cameos over the years." Similarly, in 2004 ESPN.com released a list of the Top 100 Simpsons sport moments, ranking the entire episode at #2, saying "Greatest sports introduction ever: In the Tatum fight, Homer is introduced as the Brick Hithouse (and is also known as the Southern Dandy), and his walk-to-the-ring music is 'Why Can't We Be Friends?'" Drederick Tatum was placed at the eighteenth spot on the list. Conversely, the authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called it "the dullest, one-joke episode of the entire series."

External links

• "The Homer They Fall" at The Simpsons.com
• "The Homer They Fall episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• Template:Tv.com episode
• The Homer They Fall at IMDb