(originally aired January 8, 1995)
I’m sure I don’t need to say, but this is one of the more famous classic episodes. Every Simpsons fan loves the Stonecutters. I’m interested in rewatching these most highly of remembered episodes for a few reasons, one of which is trying to pin what makes them stand out so much amongst the rest. Is it the great song? Is it the general silliness of the premise? Is it the exotic locale and satire of boorish brotherhoods? These episodes also get held under slightly tighter scrutiny, which sometimes can be to their detriment. In the case of “Homer the Great,” it maybe hurt a little: there are a lot of funny bits in here, and great classic moments of course, but as a whole it didn’t gel as well as I’d hoped. But it’s definitely fondly remembered for very good reason.
Homer grows suspect of Lenny and Carl’s suspicious behavior, and soon learns that they are members of a mysterious, exclusive club. He manages to worm his way in himself, becoming anointed into the Stonecutters, a secret society whose members don robes, assign identifying numbers and bow before the visage of their sacred parchment. Now, my knowledge of these kinds of clubs doesn’t extend much farther than the Royal Order of Water Buffalo, but I still get the point here: an organization of phony mysticism and alleged grandeur, but ultimately just an excuse for husbands to ditch their wives for the night, get drunk, eat ribs and play ping pong. But if this is the case, then the clientele should match. Lenny and Carl, Moe, Wiggum, Joe Quimby, Krusty, all make sense. But would Mr. Burns be a member of such a rowdy social gathering? Or Skinner? Dr. Hibbert? I dunno, maybe.
Upon desecrating the sacred parchment in the most spectacular, over-the-top way, Homer is banished from the group, until they notice an conspicuous birthmark that matches their logo. Homer is their fabled Chosen One who would lead their group to glory. Now… what does this mean exactly? If this group is really just a front to get smashed and goof around with the guys, what’s the Chosen One going to do? They keep playing cards and shooting pool, but now they have to let Homer win and bow before his every word. What do they get out of it? Is this a comment on the absurdness of ancient ritual? Like adhering to every word of the Bible? Am I digging too deep? These story issues are ultimately minor quibbles, since this episode’s got way too many classic bits to count. The egg council guy. The Gettysberg monkeys. The Stone of Shame, and the Stone of Triumph. And of course, No Homers Club. And a good sweet and sour ending in true Simpsons fashion. Despite my few issues, who still loves this episode? We do. …er, I do.
Tidbits and Quotes
– A breach of continuity, sure, but it’s really a great gag that Homer parks so far away from the plant, he’s right next to his own backyard.
– The “It’s a secret.” “Shut up!” bit is hilarious, I love Hank Azaria’s annoyed read for Carl, and when Carl can’t follow-up Lenny the third time, Homer steps right in to retort with his own “Shut up!”
– Homer attempts to present an excuse to his wife, but his brain fails to help him out (“I’ll be back in a minute. I’m…going outside. To…stalk… Lenny and Carl. …D’oh!”)
– Some bonehead Homer logic: hooking the paint to Lenny’s car to leave a trail is a good plan, I suppose, but then he tails him pretty much the whole way there. Why do the paint thing then?
– Homer confronting Lenny and Carl the night after witnessing the Stonecutters is great (“I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff! And I want in.”)
– Homer laments to his wife in bed why people don’t like him. Marge responds that he’s a wonderful person. Perfectly on cue, Homer vents, “Why don’t those stupid idiots let me in their crappy club for jerks?” Then cue a classic flashback to the past of li’l Homer being barred from a neighborhood clubhouse: no Homers allowed. But Homer Glumplich is allowed (“Guh-hyuk!”) The explanation is flawless (“It says no Homeeeers. We’re allowed to have one.”) This of course has a pitch perfect callback at the very end.
– I like Abe at the table’s desperate pleas for attention. I could listen to him yell, “I’m a member!” through an entire irrelevant dinner conversation all day. Also great is how Homer carts him around like a possession at the lodge, gloating that now they have to let him in, whether they like it or not (“Okay, Homer, you’re in. Just don’t point that thing at me.”)
– Maybe another conflicting issue with the Stonecutters is Patrick Stewart as Number One, who delivers each dumb line with such a confident and serious air. He does an great, great job of course (his read on “The Paddling of the Swollen Ass… with paddles” is so very powerful), but I take him so seriously in that part, that the jokey nature of the story starts to drift.
– Homer lives it up with his perks as a Stonecutter: the secret passageway with fancy gilded paintings and music is great, and of course, the real 911 (912).
– Homer couldn’t have done more damage to that parchment: wiping his mouth, licking at it, cleaning his ears, blowing his nose… it’s a spectacular sequence, with great shots of the horrified members (my favorite is an incensed Moe, “Oh God!“) Then of course in a fit of merciful passion, he smashes the tattered remnants to bits accidentally.
– The turn at the end with Homer taking Lisa’s advice for the club to be more philanthropous and the group begrudging that makes total sense. He took their fun boy’s club into something that helps people and they hate him for that. I just feel there’s a way it could have worked better and hit the mark I believe it could. At the end, their over zealous anger feels too much when the joke should work better. Now I feel like I’m bitching again. I love the guest spot by H.W. Bush (“I’m afraid I have to disagree with Orville, Jack, and Mr., can’t we just do something to his voice box?”)
– We do have the sweet ending with Marge reminding Homer is club Simpson, where two members have very special rings (not Bart and Lisa’s cereal box ones, which actually look real cool). And then our snark with the team hazing of Homer (“Alright, alright, it’s Lisa’s turn.”) Not much in character for Marge, but hey, still funny.
Me Blog Write Good 
Gotta love how Grampa is the card-carrying president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance for some reason.
This is seriously my 2nd favorite episode of all time. I go into deeper detail here: http://galileo908.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-favorite-simpsons-episodes.html
I loved this episode – and while your commentary makes sense, I feel it’s one of those “don’t worry about it – just go along for the ride” shows.
Grandpa be the president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance and a Communist was perfect, too –
If you had trouble because you were taking Patrick Stewart as #1 too seriously, you really should be watching more American Dad (which is, after years avoiding it out of Family Guy spite, remarkably funny- much to my surprise).
This episode is one of my top 10 favorites, and I think it is because of the song itself. The entire plot is awesome and I love how Lenny keeps accidentally giving things away. And then you have the scene where Carl has something in his mouth so Homer yells at Lenny for not keeping his mouth shut.
I think Mike little issues with this episode are fair, and ive thought the same, but watching this episode again i understood it better: the whole serious atmosphere at the club, the uselessness of the “chosen one”, etc., is really like more a parody of themselves, and what make the whole thing stupid\funny. I mean, all those flaws in the story Mike pointed out were actually the point of the episode. And i love it now more than ever.
One of my favorite forms of humor is taking ridiculous dialogue and/or situations and having at least one of the actors play it totally dramatically. To me, it just makes things even more absurd and hilarious, so I love Patrick Stewart as #1. His delivery of, “Now let’s all get drunk and play ping-pong!” is something I quote quite often.
(Damn lack of an edit option.)
As for the more mystical side of the Stonecutters, just look up conspiracy theories around the Masons/Freemasons and you’ll see where this episode got its ideas. So, I guess the Chosen One would lead the Stonecutters to be able to openly control the world instead of doing it in secret? Anyway, if you take the Stonecutters as a “secret society and secretly rules the world in secret,” it makes perfect sense that Mr. Burns would want to be a part of it.
I also just want to say that I love that the Stonecutter world council (or whatever they were called) was Orville Reddenbacher, Jack Nicholson, Mr. T, and George H.W. Bush. Could you get a more random group of people?
For the record, the Flintstones’ Royal Order of Water Buffalo was based more on the Elk’s Lodge than the Masons. There are some conspiracy theories around them, but not nearly as many.
I absolutely love this episode, but I have to agree with it not gelling as well as I initially thought Mike. There are so many great jokes, the whole cult stuff is wonderful, but compared to other episodes, like Deep Space Homer, this one lacks something. It actually reminds me a lot of Mr Plow in that it is an episode that I will always love, and one I want to have in my top 10 list, but it just misses the mark by not being as strong as other episodes. The song is brilliant nonetheless.
Another fan favorite for good reason. Much like Mr. Plow from season 4, it has a somewhat thin story that is more than made up for by the amount of hilarious jokes. This episode is a pretty neat satire on cults, as well. It also makes great use of Homer’s character in how he’s so lazy he’s kicked from his own club.
The jokes, as I mentioned, are hilarious and come in abundance. There’s the “it’s a secret” “shut up” runner, with Homer butting in on the third one, Homer’s excuse to leave leading him to say exactly what he was trying to hide, the flashback to the No Homers Club (we’re allowed to have one), Abe’s membership, “you better run, egg!”, among many others. It’s a very funny episode, for sure.
Of course, no review of this episode would be complete without mentioning the song. It’s easily in my top 5 songs of the series. It’s a very good song in itself, and it’s also very funny. This episode may not be perfect, but it’s still fantastic in my opinion.
Maybe you should read the bible before you think ‘every word’ is too many to adhere to. In any case, this is a Freemasons pastiche. I was raised to fear the masons, and one of them did threaten our family once. Though I think this is generally the truth for groups like this, and the rest of the Illuminati. They play around at ruling the world and pulling strings for each other (“who, since ancient times, have split the rocks of ignorance that obscure the light of knowledge and truth” etc), but really just goof off, drive tiny cars, wear silly hats, and puff themselves up (and manipulate movie careers and… I guess make friends with aliens).
This episode making fun of them feels a little like the pivotal Superman radio episode whose writer infiltrated the KKK so as to expose their silly rituals as a fictional version. But it seems like a huge swath of people don’t even know about, or even believe in this stuff.
Then again, I don’t believe people from the egg council go around in egg suits convincing people of the healthiness of eggs, but I could be wrong!
But if that seems too wacky for you, consider that all of them feel like they have to bow and scrape to Homer because, if any one of them refused, he’d be kicked out (and shackled naked to a rock probably). They mentioned other chapters, so they might be reluctant to threaten their connection to something so powerful and influential, see. That’s why they only manage to ditch him when they all decide to do so together.
See now I thought the joke with the paint can is that the car was leaving a trail of regular yellow streaks… which makes a single lane road look like any normal two-lane road.. I thought that was supposed to be the confusion, like why didn’t he use a different color.
Also this episode taught me about colobus monkeys! I love that they didn’t NEED to specify the monkey, but dammit there was a writer who knew a specific monkey, and he put it IN!