(originally aired November 15, 1998)
At this point, it seems I’m going to have to settle in with this new personality of Homer’s if I’m going to even remotely enjoy any of these episodes. Brash, misguided and strangely self-righteous, this new Homer has a more get-up-and-go attitude, diving head first into crazy new adventures. Not to say that he didn’t have his fair share of wild endeavors in the past, but the way it’s handled has changed. That being said, if the context is right, alternative characterization can actually make sense, and this episode is almost proof of that. It starts with Homer realizing he doesn’t know his own middle name, sparking a trip with his father to the old hippie commune his mother ran off to to dig up some answers. Inspired by this connection to his past and the laid back lifestyle of his mother’s old friends Seth and Munchie, Homer decides to become a hippie himself. Upon discovering his fellow hippies have “sold out” and run an organic juice plant, he encourages them to rekindle their golden years and let their freak flags fly.
Turning to a life of lazing about, not worrying about bathing or wearing proper attire? That lifestyle fits Homer to a T, and in that respect, I can totally buy this plot. But there’s other aspects to his hippiedom that don’t exactly add up or go anywhere. Trying to live up to his mother’s past is kind of a sweet premise that could have had some emotional weight, but it’s pretty much dropped after the first act. But that’s okay, I don’t expect a story like this to be very deep. But Homer seems way too energetic over his new outlook on life, parroting empty statements about peace, love and understanding. It’s like when someone tries to fit in with a certain group and everyone can tell he’s just trying to look cool even though he doesn’t have a clue what he’s saying. Then there’s his relationship with Seth and Munchie, who seem to like and put up with him at the start, but quickly become exasperated by him. They agree to go out with him to relive their pasts and “freak out squares,” but then they return home to find their latest juice shipment destroyed. Is this a comment on how you can’t go back to your past and must focus on your present? No, it was Homer’s stupid frisbee jammed in one of the machines. What a wacky character.
Homer tries to make things right by reproducing the spoiled juice and shipping it out all over town. But unfortunately, he used crops from Seth and Munchie’s “personal supply,” causing the people of Springfield to start tripping balls. Police arrive at the commune, and Homer ends up shot in the face with a flower. So yeah, this episode’s got its fair share of dumb elements, like Homer’s ramped up enthusiasm, but it’s definitely the best I’ve seen so far from season 10. It had a bunch of laughs from beginning to end, and I can see Homer indulging in the hippie lifestyle far more than I can see him in some of the many absurd jobs we’ll see him hold down the road. Also props to Martin Mull and the great George Carlin who do great work here. Oh, and cool psychedelic ending theme done by Yo La Tengo. A flawed, but still mostly enjoyable episode.
Tidbits and Quotes
– The power plant recruitment commercial is pretty much a big dead zone, although I do like this exchange (“There were script problems from day one.” “Didn’t seem like anybody even read the script.” “That was the problem.”) At least it goes by pretty quick and it’s an adequate stepping stone to our main plot.
– Great reveal of Grampa stuck in the foyer having fallen over Bart’s skateboard. Homer just calls for him casually and no one bothers to help him out.
– In this episode, we learn what the “J” in Homer J. Simpson stands for. Pretty clever that it’s just “Jay,” a tribute to Rocky and Bullwinkle‘s Jay Ward, and his similarly named creations Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocky J. Squirrel.
– It’s a dumb joke, but I love the reading of Homer’s slow, contented “Ouuuuuuucccchhh” when he nonchalantly stick his hand in a bee hive.
– Wonderful flashback to Woodstock with a wonderful portrayal of a younger Abe Simpson, the stuffiest of stuffed shirts played against his much more liberal wife and naked son playing in the mud. Abe is not pleased (“Put some damn pants on, and then pull ’em down! ‘Cause it’s time for a spanking!”) Dan Castellaneta does a great job as always playing his characters younger.
– I don’t know if I care for the implications about Homer’s mother being promiscuous. I mean, I’m sure it happened, but given the sweet matronly image in our minds from “Mother Simpson,” it’s something I’d rather not think about.
– I’ve always loved Munchie’s line about selling their old hippie bus (“In a way, the sixties ended the day we sold it: December 31st, 1969.”)
– Homer, Seth and Munchie show up at school to decree the “conformity factory” closed. The kids all run out cheering. Cut to a displeased Skinner (“Fifteen years of loyal service and this is how they tell me? A jester with an invisible proclamation?”)
– Great bit of news from Kent Brockman (“Stunned league officials say point-shaving may have occurred in as many as three Harlem Globetrotters games.”)
– Highlights of the town-wide freakout consist of Grampa and Jasper reverted to acting like Beavis and Butt-head and Lou spinning around in his chair at the station (“The electric yellow has got me by the brain banana!”)
– Fantastic deadpan reading from George Carlin to the police responding to Homer’s insanity (“You can smash this drug barn all you want, but first you’ll have to smash our heads open like ripe melons!” “This man does not represent us.”)
– The ending is pretty darn silly, but it’s still kind of funny (“He was lucky. If that had been a gladiola, he’d be dead right now.” “Why don’t you just pull it out?” “I’m a doctor, not a gardener!” “Can’t you just prune some of the leaves so I can watch TV?” “What did I just say?”)
Me Blog Write Good 
I love how Mr. Burns wasn’t edited out of the aired Power Plant commercial. It’s like, Burns is so cheap that he refuses to hire an editor.
And the ending, where the camera first shows the cemetery with an ominous bell chord and then quickly pans over to the hospital where Homer’s residing, is gold. I love when they screw with audience expectations like that.
This is one of the best episodes of Season 10 in my opinion. I’ll admit I’m a little biased because I’ve got a huge soft spot for 60’s psychedelic stuff, but I’ve always really enjoyed this one. The jokes work, the characters are mostly very well done, Mull and Carlin are great, plot’s good, pretty standard praise but my absolute favorite thing about this one is the use of 60’s music, particularly my favorite scene of the entire episode, the scene with Homer making the juice to Time Of The Season by The Zombies. I’m a little biased also because I love that song, but the scene is very, very well shot and it really pops out to me, probably because I just love that song.
This is a pretty decent episode. The concept of it is okay, and I absolutely love the reveal that the J stands for Jay. I do have a few issues, such as some of the weird dumb moments and Homer’s characterization at times. Overall, though, it’s definitely one of the better episodes of the season.
I do like this one. Some good oldfashioned square-freakouts will always make me smile. Let’s bring that back.
Soooo… was that magic mushrooms in their ‘personal vegetables’? Because weed sure doesn’t make you hallucinate like that. And neither of those would be juiceable by any stretch. I suppose it could be peyote? That’s a cactus, I suppose there’s juice in that. Also I don’t think weed will even activate if simply pureed, you have to heat it up (perhaps the juice being pasteurized is enough?) but that is the only thing you’d expect them to be growing in such large amounts and hidden..
Chief Wiggum: “My God, it’s nothing but carrots and peyote.”
In the UK, Channel 4 made this ridiculous cut: Wiggum says “My God”, then we go straight to the police raiding the commune. Not only is “carrots and peyote” snipped out, but also Eddie’s “damn longhairs never learn” and Wiggum’s “time for an old-fashioned hippie ass-whomping”.
Actually… I wouldn’t say it’s all that unreasonable to compare Channel 4’s history with that of The Simpsons. For its first ten years on air, 1982-92, C4 was a channel with real balls, doing and showing things that the BBC and ITV didn’t dare to do or show back then – and it won a lot of praise for doing and showing these things, too. Then during the mid and late nineties, it gradually became just another mainstream TV channel, taking fewer and fewer risks, and therefore winning less praise than before. (While of course The Simpsons changed due mainly to most of the good writers moving on, C4 changed due mainly to a change in how it was funded – for those first ten years it was funded by the ITV companies, but from 1993 onwards it had to fund itself, meaning that it couldn’t afford to take quite as many risks as it had done before.)
Obviously, The Simpsons is a TV programme with a (one would think…) limited lifespan, and not a TV channel of any sort (national or local, mainstream or alternative or specialist, or whatever), while C4 is a TV channel and not a TV programme. But I can’t be the only one who spots the similarities in their respective histories… can I?
And coming back to this ridiculous cut, it’s safe to say that the C4 of those first ten years would have left everything in – “carrots and peyote”, “damn longhairs”, “hippie ass-whomping”. And it’s almost safe to say, too, that the time of broadcast would not have mattered – whether at 6 in the evening, or at 11 in the morning. That’s how gutsy C4 was back then.
Funny how the whole world is just letting that happen, nobody’s doing anything even though most don’t want it. The majority used to steamroll over everyone else’s desires. It’s hard not to feel snubbed when it used to be “sorry, you can’t have what you want, old people and the majority won’t let you” and now it’s “sorry, you can’t have what you want, young people and a minority won’t let you”
Right, peyote, okay. That makes sense. Homer would see that and it would look like weird little green pumpkins to him. I could see him adding that to a juice. I always mix it up with various fungal hallucinogens.