(originally aired October 3, 1991)
If Homer is meant to be our hero, a character we hope will succeed beyond all odds and obstacles, then why do we accept, even love, his irrational hatred of his friendly neighbor-eeno? There’s a couple ideas about this, but there are two main ones I think explain it best. First, Ned is never, ever bothered by Homer’s back-handed, or overtly antagonizing, comments. Whether he even registers them as insults or not, Ned always leaves frame with a smile on his face. Second, it’s been established that Homer has a deep jealousy toward his cheery neighbor. Ned has a well-paying job, a family that openly loves him, and things always just seem to go his way, which is basically the exact opposite of what Homer has going for him. So in this episode, when things start to go sour for Ned, Homer’s behavior seems a bit more relentless and cruel, almost going too far, until his heel face turn at the end when he saves the day.

We start with an invitation to the Flanders backyard for a barbecue, which promises to have “incredibly Ned-ibles” and “Maude-acious vittles.” Homer adamantly refuses to go, but in the end, his stomach wins over his mind and he scurries next door, grabs a plate of burgers and sits by himself under a tree. So Homer’s pretty rude right from the get-go here. With his guests gathered, Ned announces that this event is in celebration for his new business venture: a new store at the mall that caters to left-handed folks like himself, dubbed “The Leftorium.” Later, upon breaking a wishbone with Ned, Homer gets the larger piece, and wishes that Ned and his store go belly-up.

Homer’s dreams become a reality ever so slowly: every time he checks in with Ned, his situation seems more and more dire, despite Ned’s attempts to put a happy face on things. It’s at the most desperate points for Ned that it becomes the hardest to not see Homer as a complete and total asshole, the worst being at an impromptu yard sale where Homer gets Ned to sell him his entire living room set, furniture and all, for seventy-five bucks. He also finds a handful of left-handed citizens who would be in need of wares catered to their needs, but ultimately says nothing. It takes Ned’s home to be foreclosed and for him to be nearly bankrupt for Homer to finally garner enough sympathy to do something for his neighbor, nearly calling up the entire town to frequent Ned’s store, saving the day. It’s probably the most cloying ending to date; the It’s a Wonderful Life send-up is kind of nice, but the sing-a-long to “Put On A Happy Face” is really a bit much. The producers of the show always used to joke that their old formula was to have 21 minutes of nasty cynicism and then 30 seconds of a sappy happy ending, and it couldn’t be more true here. Homer does save Ned at the end, but the road there felt kind of unpleasant.

Oh yeah, there’s also a B-story about Bart skipping out on karate class, but it’s mostly glossed over, and I really don’t have much to comment about it. Yep.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The Leftorium is really a wild financial venture. Sure, the store itself is a joke (“Left-handed pinking shears!”) but this show has always tried to be somewhat realistic. Even with Springfield appearing to have a larger population of left-handers than usual, and with Burns buying his car with the left-handed gear shift (one of three ever made), I really don’t see how Ned could keep this place in business on a regular basis. That’s kind of why the ending feels a bit empty, since I know a store like this would never survive. Today, this would be perfect as an Internet store, but paying out space at the mall and having all those products on hand seems like way too much for these specialty products.
– I like Homer’s amusement over schoolyard insulting epithets (“You lie like a fly with a booger in its eye!” “The fly was funny, and the booger was the icing on the cake!”)
– I totally forgot Ned was in pharmaceuticals prior to his new business. Probably because this is the only time it’s mentioned ever. This would make a great question for an insanely hard trivia contest.
– We get Homer’s threshold of his Flanders hatred early as he imagines what he could wish for, first a poor, penniless Ned, then him next to his failed store, next his gravestone. Even Homer thinks this is going too far, so he back-pedals to just his failed store.
– I guess I’ll talk briefly on the B-story: Bart is enrolled in karate class, but when he quickly sees that it’s not all about learning video game moves like ‘The Touch of Death,’ he skips out to play video games and screw around at the mall. We get a second appearance by Akira, here voiced by Hank Azaria, doing a dead-on George Takei impression. The commercial is funny off the bat; Akira introduces himself and smashes a board with his face, commenting, “That didn’t hurt very much, because I know the ancient art of karate.” Later on the first day, an impatient Bart asks when they’ll be breaking blocks of ice with their heads. Akira replies, “First, you must fill you head with wisdom, then you can hit ice with it.”
– The Itchy & Scratchy cartoon is pretty standard fare: Itchy serves Scratchy a bomb wrapped in spaghetti at a restaurant, Scratchy freaks out and runs out the door, decapitating himself and his body explodes in the street. Only a little funny. Then a dog waiter walks in and trips over Scratchy’s head. Now that’s funny.
– I love the scene with Homer in Burns’s office with the complaint box, which only has two slips of paper inside: one a kiss-ass note from Smithers (“Keep that handsome owner out of sight, he’s distracting the female employees,”) and the other Homer’s. I love the incredibly wide shot of the whole office as Burns reads it (“‘No more apples in the vending machine please.’ Well that’s almost a sentence!”) Then there’s some wonderful acting as Burns patronizes him (“Tell my secretary that you could have a free apple!”)
– I like that the Leftorium will be closed and replaced by Libertarian Party Headquarters.
– As questionable I find the ending, I do enjoy Ned’s final line (“Homer, affordable tract housing made us neighbors, but you made us friends.”)

(originally aired September 26, 1991)
“Crepes of Wrath” was the first instance that explored the world of the show beyond Springfield, but here we have our first of many “The Simpsons are going to [blank]!” episodes, wherein the family travels to another state or country and wacky hijinks ensue. Episodes like these are rife with plenty to mock and parody, and no stone goes unturned. Our show begins rather innocuously though, as Homer discovers the magic of reading… well, sort of. He becomes enamored by Reader’s Digest… or rather, its legally distinguishable equivalent Reading Digest. The actual magazine is big on bite-sized, low-impact stories and factoids, so it’s perfect that a lazy slob like Homer would take a vested interest in it. As he puts it, it’s the ultimate magazine (“They take hundreds of magazines, filter out the crap, and leave you with something that fits right in your front pocket.”)

In said magazine, Homer reads of an essay-writing contest with the prize being an all-expense-paid trip to Washington D.C., but bemoans that it’s just for children and tosses it in the trash. The entire first act has been nothing but him fawning over the magazine, and he throws it away without a second thought, but hey, that’s Homer. Lisa, however, takes interest, and writes an impassioned speech about the origins of democracy. Her paper is selected for the finals, so the Simpsons are going to D.C.! The second act is a long string of bits featuring the family visiting the White House, the Smithsonian, the Treasury building, and other places. There are a lot of great moments, like Homer yelling “Boo!” at the IRS building (with a disgruntled employee shooting back, “Oh boo yourself!”) and Marge giggling about the Washington Monument. Between antics in the hotel room and this stuff, it felt like a bit too much padding aside from the Lisa story, but this is a minor gripe.

Lisa’s patriotic perspective is shattered upon witnessing corrupt congressman Bob Arnold accept a bribe for a logging permit of Springfield Forest, and she angrily scribes a new essay, venting about the wrong-doing she witnessed. Before that, we get the best scene in the episode, where Lisa seeks guidance from the Lincoln Memorial, but when her questions are drowned out by a crowd of people asking their own, she goes to Thomas Jefferson’s statue instead, who complains that no one ever visits him for guidance (“I never did anything important. Just the Declaration of Independence! The Louisiana Purchase! The dumbwaiter!”) In the first of a long line of disappointments over the course of the series, Lisa loses the contest, but we get a happy ending anyway in the most sneering way possible. Due to an onlooker’s phone call to a senator (“A little girl is losing faith in democracy!”), the US government kicks into overdrive, exposing and impeaching the corrupt congressman in a matter of a few hours. We even get a look at President H.W. Bush, signing a bill that he claims will make his bosses very happy: all 250 million of them. It’s an ending that seemingly honors America, but is completely stewed in snark and irony that it cannot be taken seriously. But what a great ending it is.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The cartoon in the Reading Digest is perfect: it’s exactly the kind of poorly drawn piece of crap that you’d see in one of those magazines. That leads to the great bit where Homer tells Marge (“Cartoons don’t have any deep meaning. They’re just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh.”) He then immediately stands up, revealing his butt crack.
– There’s some more good stuff with the magazine: Homer reading the story about the explorer fighting a the sea lion, not knowing whether the author was killed or not, and his late night attempt to utilize the Seven Ways to Spice Up Your Marriage (“Marge, you have a nice body. And if you’d like to see me in a costume, you have only to ask.”)
– Good stuff at the Veterans of Popular Wars (great name, of course) with Nelson’s tirade of a speech, the random disgruntled father (“We the purple? What the hell was that?!”), awarding Lisa five extra points after seeing the limited mental capacity of her father, and the immortal act closing line, “Who would have guessed reading and writing would pay off!”
– “I call first bedsies!” is something I say a lot, re-appropriated to suit the situation, like “first seatsies.”
– I love the lobbyist’s visual aids displaying a dark and dangerous forest filled with horrible trees, and the afterward of the animals loving having a field of tree stumps on which they can have tea and crumpets.
– The fantasy sequence on the steps of Congress is done in a really cool style, with muted colors and slight cross-hatching. It’s a great piece of animation.
– I really like Lisa’s new title, “Cesspool on the Potomac,” and Bart’s chants of encouragement (“Cesspool! Cesspool! Cesspool!”)

(originally aired September 19, 1991)
The Simpsons was basically a smash hit right out of the box, and after two seasons, it was a total phenomenon. Fans loved it, critics loved it, people couldn’t get enough. Celebrities like Tony Bennett and Albert Brooks lended their credibility by having guest roles. But none would be bigger than the focus of this episode, Michael Jackson. Now for me, I grew up right during the turning point of his career from international pop superstar to ghost-faced weirdo who sleeps in hyperbaric chambers and dangles infants out windows. In the late 80s/early 90s, as I’m told, Jackson was the biggest star in existence. Ever. His fame could not be topped. As it turned out, he was a big fan of the show and called up the producers, telling them he wanted to give Bart a number-one song. And damn if he didn’t mean it: “Do the Bartman” was a #1 hit single (in the UK and other countries, but still). Anything Jackson was involved in turned to gold, so why wouldn’t The Simpsons say “yes” when he also asked if he could do a voice on the show?

If there’s one thing this show does best, it’s having its cake and eating it too, where they treat their guest stars with respect, but present them in biting, subversive ways. But let’s back up a bit. The festivities begin in typical fashion: a questioning of Homer’s sanity. This is a result of him wearing a pink shirt to work, thanks to Bart throwing his red cap in with the white laundry. He fails a psychological exam (which Bart fills out for him) and he’s hauled off to the nut house. There, he meets Michael Jackson. Sort of. He’s actually a hulking three-hundred-pound mental patient who thinks he’s the pop star. It’s a truly brilliant solution on how to deal with fitting Jackson into the show without making it seem like a 22-minute ass kissing session. You get your laughs with the context of it all, but “Jackson” is also presented as a nice guy, helping Homer through this new and strange situation. Homer is also the only man on the planet who has never heard of the King of Pop, which is a bit of a stretch, but if anyone is going to be that oblivious, I think it’d be Homer.

The emotional through-line in the episode involves Lisa’s urgings to her brother to not forget her birthday, which of course he does. Instead, Bart inadvertently sparks a media circus who expect Michael Jackson to arrive at the Simpson house, who are then infuriated by what they ultimately get. Lisa is devastated, so Jackson offers to help Bart write a song to make it up to her, in a story beat mirroring real life. Their happy birthday song, which Jackson himself wrote, is a very sweet song, and performed quite well by Nancy Cartwright and Jackson (or his sound-alike Kipp Lennon. Either or). The Jackson role becomes even more complicated when he reveals himself to be Leon Kompowski, speaking in a gruffer voice (done by Hank Azaria), explaining how he adopted the Jackson persona because he found it made people happy. Perhaps Michael Jackson in this episode is not so much about himself but about the idea of himself; similar to the real Jackson, he was larger than life, something that fans could adopt for themselves for their own purposes to make them happy, a sentiment that seems even truer now after his passing. While its Jackson content gives it a little age, this is still a wonderful episode. An epic collision of two pop cultural juggernauts? I can’t think of a better way to start a season.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The Krusty hotline is fantastic. It’s not only another example of the clown’s shameless merchandise hawking and half-assery of said products, but an examination of his “comedy.” Sometimes we see shots of the show in the background of just Krusty laughing at a camera. And here we get him laughing over the phone. But hey, the kids love it! “Thanks for calling, kids! A new message every day!”
– Great early line from Homer, aghast at his discolored attire (“Marge, I can’t wear a pink shirt to work. Everybody wears white shirts. I’m not popular enough to be different.”)
– I do like the running theme of non-conformity: wearing a pink shirt gets Homer labeled a wild, free thinking anarchist, while Kompowski decided to adopt his Jackson guise and ended up helping a lot of people.
– The America’s Funniest Home Videos parody is absolutely spot-on, complete with Bob Sagat’s dumb little voice-overs he does over the videos. Also interesting is that one of the finalists is “Baby with a Nailgun,” a situation that would occur a good nine seasons down the road between Homer and Maggie.
– We get our first “inappropriate hold music” joke, where Marge calls the mental institution and has to listen to “Crazy” by Patsy Cline.
– I love the obligatory One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest parodies in the hospital, from the Chief (“It’s about time someone reached out to me!”) to the agoraphobic guy who Homer mocks (“Pfft. Baby.”)
– The “Not Insane” certificate is fantastic. I wish it would have become one of the staple items you’d always see hanging up in the Simpson house, like something Homer would be proud of and display, but I guess not.
– The Michael Jackson media storm is so indisputable, it’s great enough for Apu to close the Kwik-E-Mart (turning his “We never close” sign over to read “Closed for the first time ever.”) We also get Mayor Quimby declaring they’ll be renaming the Dalai Lama Expressway to the Michael Jackson Expressway, implying that the Dalai Lama has visited Springfield. Now that would be a good episode.
– I love Lisa’s angry letter (“Dear Bart, I am using the stationery Mom and Dad gave me for my birthday to inform you that we are now brother and sister in name only. Perhaps if a professional so advises, I will give you a hug at some far-distant family reunion. But rest assured, it will be purely for show.”)
– At least Homer shows off his cool sanity certificate at the end. After Kompowski’s touching speech about how his Jackson voiced helped himself and others, he asks, “To make a tired point, which one of us is truly crazy.” Homer, holding up the certificate, gleefully responds, “Not me! I got this!” Brilliant.