Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment
Encyclopedia
"Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" is the eighteenth episode of The Simpsons
' eighth season
, which originally aired March 16, 1997. Prohibition is enacted in Springfield and Homer helps fight it by illegally supplying alcohol to the town. It was written by John Swartzwelder
, and directed by Bob Anderson
. Dave Thomas
guest stars as Rex Banner and Joe Mantegna
returns as Fat Tony
.
accidentally gets drunk during a St. Patrick's Day celebration. The municipal government discovers alcohol
has actually been banned for two centuries, and moves to enforce the law, prompting Moe
to disguise his bar as a pet shop
. With the town becoming impatient with the police's incompetence, Chief Wiggum is replaced by Rex Banner, an officer of the U.S. Treasury Department
.
In the meantime, Homer
figures out a way to keep Moe's bar operating, through bootlegging
. One night, he and Bart sneak out to the city dump to reclaim the beer that was disposed of when the Prohibition law began to be enforced. He then sets up shop in his basement pouring the beer into hollow bowling ball
s. Using an intricate set of pipes under the Bowl-a-rama, he bowls the balls into Moe's. Upon catching on, Marge
actually thinks it is a good idea (since Homer is actually using his intellectual faculties), though Lisa
does not. The media realizes someone is allowing Springfield's underground alcohol trade to flourish, and they give the still-unknown Homer the nickname "Beer Baron". Rex Banner fails to catch the Baron and resorts to stopping people in the street to demand if they are the Beer Baron; he even arrests Ned Flanders who pleads guilty to drinking only root beer.
When his supply of liquor runs out, Homer begins to brew his own
. However, his still
s start to explode. He is then confronted by a desperate ex-Chief Wiggum. In an attempt to rekindle Wiggum's career, Homer allows the former Police Chief to turn him in. The punishment that awaits him is expulsion from the town (and presumably death) by an archaic catapult
, showing how anachronistic the law really was. Marge tells everyone that this law and punishment do not make sense and it is meaningless to punish Homer, especially for their freedom to drink. Rex Banner steps up to lecture the town on the reasons why the law must be upheld. While he lectures the assembled Springfield citizens, Wiggum has him catapulted and gets his job back. The town clerk then finds out that the Prohibition law was actually repealed a year after it was put in place
, and so Homer is released. Within five minutes Fat Tony is only too happy to oblige when Mayor Quimby
asks him to flood the town with alcohol once more, and Springfield salutes its qualities as Homer announces, "To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
laws of the 1920s, in which alcohol was banned in America. As The Simpsons has many episodes that have stories and jokes related to alcohol, the writers thought it was strange that they had never done an episode related to Prohibition, and that the idea seemed "perfect." The episode features a vast amount of Irish
stereotyping at the St. Patrick's Day celebration. This was a reference to when Conan O'Brien
was a writer for the show, and his use of Irish stereotypes. Various writers were very concerned about Bart getting drunk. This was why he drank the beer through a horn, to show that it was only accidental. This was a toned down version of what was in John Swartzwelder's original script. Originally Chief Wiggum's first line was "They're either drunk or on the cocaine
", but it was deemed too old-fashioned. The discovery of "more lines on the parchment" was simple way to get Homer freed and to end the episode.
When Homer first enters Moe's "Pet Shop" the man that tips his hat to him outside was a background character used in the early seasons. The riot at the beginning of the episode was taken from footage from the end of the season 6 episode "Lisa on Ice
" and updated. The line "To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems," was originally the act break line at the end of act two, but was moved to the very end of the episode.
The episode parodies the series The Untouchables
, with the character of Rex Banner based on Robert Stack
's portrayal of Eliot Ness
, and the voice of the narrator being based on that of Walter Winchell
. Barney leaving flowers outside the Duff brewery is, according to show runner Josh Weinstein
, a reference to people leaving flowers at the grave sites of various Hollywood
figures, with him specifically citing Rudolph Valentino
and Marilyn Monroe
as examples of this trend. The shot of the diner is a reference to Edward Hopper
's Nighthawks
painting.
of 8.9, equivalent to approximately 8.6 million viewing households. It was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-files
.
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 "A nice episode in which Homer actually devises a clever plan to keep the beer flowing." The Toronto Star
described the episode as one of Bob Anderson's
"classics." The Daily Telegraph
also characterized the episode as one of "The 10 Best Simpsons TV Episodes." Robert Canning gave the episode 9.8/10 calling it his favorite episode of the series.
Homer's line "To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems" was described by Josh Weinstein as "one of the best, most truthful Simpsons statements ever." In 2008, Entertainment Weekly
included it in their list of "24 Endlessly Quotable TV Quips".
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
The Simpsons (season 8)
The Simpsons eighth season originally aired between October 27, 1996 and May 18, 1997, beginning with "Treehouse of Horror VII". The show runners for the eighth production season were Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. The aired season contained two episodes which were hold-over episodes from season...
, which originally aired March 16, 1997. Prohibition is enacted in Springfield and Homer helps fight it by illegally supplying alcohol to the town. It was written by John Swartzwelder
John Swartzwelder
John Swartzwelder is an American comedy writer and novelist, best known for his work on the animated television series The Simpsons, as well as a number of novels. He is credited with writing the largest number of Simpsons episodes by a large margin...
, and directed by Bob Anderson
Bob Anderson (director)
Bob Anderson is an animation director on The Simpsons. He also contributed additional sequence direction on The Simpsons Movie....
. Dave Thomas
Dave Thomas (actor)
David "Dave" Thomas is a Canadian comedian and actor. He was born in St. Catharines, Ontario, but moved to Durham, North Carolina where his father, John E. Thomas, attended Duke University and earned a PhD in Philosophy. Thomas attended George Watts and Moorehead elementary schools...
guest stars as Rex Banner and Joe Mantegna
Joe Mantegna
Joseph Anthony "Joe" Mantegna, Jr. is an American actor, producer, writer,director, and voice actor. He is best known for his roles in box office hits such as Three Amigos , The Godfather Part III , Forget Paris , and Up Close & Personal...
returns as Fat Tony
Fat Tony
Marion Anthony "Fat Tony" D'Amico is a recurring character in the animated sitcom The Simpsons. He is voiced by Joe Mantegna and first appeared in the third season episode "Bart the Murderer"...
.
Plot
A prohibitionist movement emerges in Springfield after BartBart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
accidentally gets drunk during a St. Patrick's Day celebration. The municipal government discovers alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
has actually been banned for two centuries, and moves to enforce the law, prompting Moe
Moe Szyslak
Momar / Morris "Moe" Szyslak is a fictional character in the American animated television series, The Simpsons. He is voiced by Hank Azaria and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire"...
to disguise his bar as a pet shop
Speakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition...
. With the town becoming impatient with the police's incompetence, Chief Wiggum is replaced by Rex Banner, an officer of the U.S. Treasury Department
United States Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue...
.
In the meantime, Homer
Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
figures out a way to keep Moe's bar operating, through bootlegging
Rum-running
Rum-running, also known as bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law...
. One night, he and Bart sneak out to the city dump to reclaim the beer that was disposed of when the Prohibition law began to be enforced. He then sets up shop in his basement pouring the beer into hollow bowling ball
Bowling ball
A bowling ball is a spherical ball made from plastic, reactive resin, urethane or a combination of these materials which is used in the sport of bowling. Ten-pin bowling balls generally have a set of three holes drilled in them, one each for the ring and middle finger, and one for the thumb;...
s. Using an intricate set of pipes under the Bowl-a-rama, he bowls the balls into Moe's. Upon catching on, Marge
Marge Simpson
Marjorie "Marge" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
actually thinks it is a good idea (since Homer is actually using his intellectual faculties), though Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
does not. The media realizes someone is allowing Springfield's underground alcohol trade to flourish, and they give the still-unknown Homer the nickname "Beer Baron". Rex Banner fails to catch the Baron and resorts to stopping people in the street to demand if they are the Beer Baron; he even arrests Ned Flanders who pleads guilty to drinking only root beer.
When his supply of liquor runs out, Homer begins to brew his own
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
. However, his still
Still
A still is a permanent apparatus used to distill miscible or immiscible liquid mixtures by heating to selectively boil and then cooling to condense the vapor...
s start to explode. He is then confronted by a desperate ex-Chief Wiggum. In an attempt to rekindle Wiggum's career, Homer allows the former Police Chief to turn him in. The punishment that awaits him is expulsion from the town (and presumably death) by an archaic catapult
Catapult
A catapult is a device used to throw or hurl a projectile a great distance without the aid of explosive devices—particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. Although the catapult has been used since ancient times, it has proven to be one of the most effective mechanisms during...
, showing how anachronistic the law really was. Marge tells everyone that this law and punishment do not make sense and it is meaningless to punish Homer, especially for their freedom to drink. Rex Banner steps up to lecture the town on the reasons why the law must be upheld. While he lectures the assembled Springfield citizens, Wiggum has him catapulted and gets his job back. The town clerk then finds out that the Prohibition law was actually repealed a year after it was put in place
Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition...
, and so Homer is released. Within five minutes Fat Tony is only too happy to oblige when Mayor Quimby
Joe Quimby
Mayor Joseph "Joe" Quimby, nicknamed "Diamond Joe," is a recurring character from the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta, and first appeared in the episode "Bart Gets an F". A member of the Democratic Party, Quimby is the mayor of Springfield, and is a...
asks him to flood the town with alcohol once more, and Springfield salutes its qualities as Homer announces, "To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
Production
The main plot of the episode is based on the ProhibitionProhibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
laws of the 1920s, in which alcohol was banned in America. As The Simpsons has many episodes that have stories and jokes related to alcohol, the writers thought it was strange that they had never done an episode related to Prohibition, and that the idea seemed "perfect." The episode features a vast amount of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
stereotyping at the St. Patrick's Day celebration. This was a reference to when Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien
Conan Christopher O'Brien is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS....
was a writer for the show, and his use of Irish stereotypes. Various writers were very concerned about Bart getting drunk. This was why he drank the beer through a horn, to show that it was only accidental. This was a toned down version of what was in John Swartzwelder's original script. Originally Chief Wiggum's first line was "They're either drunk or on the cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
", but it was deemed too old-fashioned. The discovery of "more lines on the parchment" was simple way to get Homer freed and to end the episode.
When Homer first enters Moe's "Pet Shop" the man that tips his hat to him outside was a background character used in the early seasons. The riot at the beginning of the episode was taken from footage from the end of the season 6 episode "Lisa on Ice
Lisa on Ice
"Lisa on Ice" is the eighth television episode of The Simpsons sixth season. It was first broadcast on Fox in the United States on November 13, 1994. In the episode, Principal Skinner hands out academic alerts to the Springfield Elementary students, and Lisa discovers that she is in peril of...
" and updated. The line "To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems," was originally the act break line at the end of act two, but was moved to the very end of the episode.
Cultural references
The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s with the help of a...
, with the character of Rex Banner based on Robert Stack
Robert Stack
Robert Stack was an American actor. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he was the star of the 1959-1963 ABC television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.-Early life:...
's portrayal of Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, and the leader of a legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables.- Early life :...
, and the voice of the narrator being based on that of Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
. Barney leaving flowers outside the Duff brewery is, according to show runner Josh Weinstein
Josh Weinstein
Josh Weinstein is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Weinstein and Bill Oakley became best friends and writing partners at St. Albans High School; Weinstein then attended Stanford University and was editor-in-chief of the...
, a reference to people leaving flowers at the grave sites of various Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
figures, with him specifically citing Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
and Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
as examples of this trend. The shot of the diner is a reference to Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
's Nighthawks
Nighthawks
Nighthawks is a 1942 painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is considered Hopper's most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable in American art...
painting.
Reception
In its original broadcast, "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" finished 39th in ratings for the week of March 10–26, 1997, with a Nielsen ratingNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 8.9, equivalent to approximately 8.6 million viewing households. It was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
.
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 "A nice episode in which Homer actually devises a clever plan to keep the beer flowing." The Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
described the episode as one of Bob Anderson's
Bob Anderson (director)
Bob Anderson is an animation director on The Simpsons. He also contributed additional sequence direction on The Simpsons Movie....
"classics." The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
also characterized the episode as one of "The 10 Best Simpsons TV Episodes." Robert Canning gave the episode 9.8/10 calling it his favorite episode of the series.
Homer's line "To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems" was described by Josh Weinstein as "one of the best, most truthful Simpsons statements ever." In 2008, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
included it in their list of "24 Endlessly Quotable TV Quips".
External links
- "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" at The Simpsons.com
- "Homer vs. the 18th Amendment" at TV.comTV.comTV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...
- "Homer vs. the 18th Amendment" at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...