805. Homer? A Cracker Bro?

Original airdate: February 15, 2026

The premise: Homer goes into business with Kirk Van Houten, who has invented a revolutionary crumble-less cracker. Everything seems to be going great until Kirk’s behavior starts becoming more erratic as a result of him stopping taking his bipolar medication.

The reaction: As the years have gone on, we’ve seen the show begin to flesh out a number of the secondary and tertiary denizens of Springfield. I’ve bitched before that certain characters I’m totally fine leaving as simple joke characters, like Mayor Quimby or Cletus and Brandine. Kirk Van Houten doesn’t seem like the most fruitful person to develop an inner life for, but I’m not totally against it. Surprisingly, this sad sack has had quite a number of episodes to his name already. Even though he’s been back together with Luann for decades now, he’s still portrayed as a sad loser who is desperate for attention, one that Homer can barely stand to be near, which is a promising start. He’s still slaving away at that cracker factory, and despite being with Luann, is stuck sleeping on the couch at night (“‘Cause of my night sweats and night farting and also something I’m too embarrassed to talk about.”) An off-hand observation from Homer about Marge being pissed about crumbs in the bed throws Kirk into a frantic multi-day brainstorm, culminating in the invention of a new cracker that doesn’t shatter upon biting. He convinces Homer to go into business with him, with “Kirkers Crackers” becoming an enormous success. I’m not quite sure why Kirk didn’t just pitch this idea to the company he works for, get a huge raise and a promotion and leave it at that. Instead, I guess Kirk has the capital to start his own damn company by himself, and this miracle cracker is enough to make him stinking rich. Things start going off the rails at a celebration dinner with the Simpsons and the Van Houtens. Kirk begins to act strangely, aggressively coming onto his wife with their kid sitting right across the table, rubbing his body and gyrating on top of the table (“Come on, baby, shake your Milhouse maker! I wanna bang the whole world!!”) It’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen on this show. Dr. Hibbert sheds some light on the subject that Kirk has stopped taking his bipolar medication and is experiencing a manic episode. He later appears on a cable news show, ranting and raving about needing to fund an aquatic rocket to save humanity from an apocalyptic event. I guess this is supposed to be reflective of Elon Musk’s continual delusion lie about colonizing Mars or maybe Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin as well. Later on in Kirk’s depressive state, he’s of no help with the FBI ransacks the company for misappropriated funds to his stupid rocket, and Homer volunteers to have the whole wrap pinned on him. Let’s back pedal though. I remember season 28’s “There Will Be Buds,” the first episode exploring a would-be friendship between Homer and Kirk, where Homer was pretty turned off by this sad weirdo and his bizarre behavior. He often frequents strip clubs to whine and cry to the dancers, he asks Homer in the car where the strangest place he had sex with Marge is, with their kids in the backseat… he’s kind of a dang ass creep. This characterization is consistent at least, and I can definitely buy Kirk being a disturbed deviant who’s completely beaten down by his wife, so he indulges his sexual urges and fantasies in other ways. That said, it’s not very fun to watch. On the flip side, Luann is just in generic bitch mode, only turning around when Kirk makes her rich of course, with the running gag that Marge keeps coming over to try and help Kirk, but Luann assumes she’s a gold digger wanting to fuck her husband. It’s a sad state of affairs. Kirk is an unsavory freak, but he’s depicted with an actual disorder and clearly needs help, but Luann turns a blind eye to him the entire time, cavorting in expensive clothes as Kirk is lying in a fetal position in tears inside his giant safe. There’s no resolution to this, as the crux of the episode is Marge convincing Kirk to stop Homer from taking the fall for him, and the fate of their friendship. But what is their friendship? Homer inspires Kirk about the cracker, and Kirk does a big rousing speech to convince him to go into business with him. But what do they bond over? What’s their connective glue? I just don’t see any reason to care. I’d rather this had been a Kirk and Luann episode with the two of them ending in a better place. I dunno, as fucked up as he is, I can see Kirk being a wildcard character who we can have some affection for, even if it’s just sweet, sweet pity, but it’s easy to push things too far, and with moments in this episode and the aforementioned “Buds,” I find myself incredibly turned off.

Two items of note:
– I gotta say, now that we’re almost a season in, Kelly Macleod really is an incredibly recast for Milhouse. Of course it’s not an exact one-to-one, but similar to Grey DeLisle as Martin, it gets so damn close and the rest is pulled off by just getting the spirit of the character. Even someone like Alex Desert, whose Carl sounds very different from Hank Azaria’s, became natural sounding to me fairly quickly just because his voice seemed to fit with the character. The one recast I just have not been able to get over is Kevin Michael Richardson as Dr. Hibbert. Maybe it’s just that Richardson’s voice is too recognizable, but I could also say the same about DeLisle. It’s definitely in the Hibbert ballpark, but it takes me out every time I hear him show up. I guess all these recasts are totally subjective based on how you find yourself still being able to connect with the characters with a new voice. It’s a similar situation with the “new” performer for Kermit the Frog, Matt Vogel. I could go on forever about this, but I think he’s doing an incredible job, and I think a big part of the difficulty of getting used to the recast is a result of there barely being any Muppet productions in the now ten years since Vogel assumed the role, and even fewer Muppet productions that featured Kermit prominently (or in the case of Muppets Mayhem, he didn’t appear at all.) I thought Vogel absolutely killed it in the new Muppet Show special, and I’m hoping that a lot of other people warmed up to him too.
– We get an almost two minute music video of depressed Kirk set to guest star Michael Stipe doing a parody of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” (“Everybody Kirks, crumb-times…”) The man can still nail that song after all these years, but it’s just empty time filler. I get we need to reestablish the terrible mental state Kirk is in, but you could do it in a faster, funnier way than devoting so, soooo much time to a parody song that is mildly cute at best. The reveal of the chorus is a little smirk-worthy, even though you can basically figure out where it’s going by the time it gets there. Then we end on R.E.M.’s “Superman,” because why not. Hey, you know Scrubs is coming back? Oh wait, that’s the other “Superman” song. Who sang that? Oh, who cares.