Homer the Vigilante

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The Simpsons episode
"Homer the Vigilante"

Episode no.	92
Prod. code	1F09
Orig. Airdate	January 6, 1994
Show Runner(s)	David Mirkin
Written by	John Swartzwelder
Directed by	Jim Reardon
Chalkboard	"I am not authorized to fire substitute teachers"
Couch gag	While running to the couch, the family explodes, leaving only Maggie's pacifier.
Guest star	Sam Neill as Molloy
DVD commentary by	Matt Groening David Mirkin David Silverman
Season 5 September 30, 1993 – May 19, 1994
Homer's Barbershop Quartet Cape Feare Homer Goes to College Rosebud Treehouse of Horror IV Marge on the Lam Bart's Inner Child Boy-Scoutz N the Hood The Last Temptation of Homer $pringfield Homer the Vigilante Bart Gets Famous Homer and Apu Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy Deep Space Homer Homer Loves Flanders Bart Gets an Elephant Burns' Heir Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song The Boy Who Knew Too Much Lady Bouvier's Lover Secrets of a Successful Marriage
List of all Simpsons episodes...

"Homer the Vigilante" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons' fifth season.

1 Synopsis
2 Trivia
3 Cultural references
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A numbers of burglaries take place in Springfield, hitting even the Simpsons' and Flanders' houses and stealing Lisa's beloved saxophone. In response, a vigilante group organizes around Homer. The group goes to buy guns although they prove to be very inept with them. The group turns out to be more criminal than protective, when they attack a busker because he plays the saxophone, destroy a bystander's leaf-fire in turn setting his house alight (although he had a license), and allow Jimbo to vandalise a wall using spraypaint as he felt like a man. Homer is interviewed on Smartline and the Cat Burgular calls the show and informs him that he will rob the Springfield museum of it's 'World's Largest Cubic Zirconia' centrepiece. While guarding the museum, Homer sights teenagers drinking and in an effort to stop then, he quickly ends up drunk, thus dropping his guard and allowing the cat burglar to steal the gem. Thanks to a tip from Grampa Simpson, the burglar is exposed as being a resident in the local retirement home named Malloy (voiced by Sam Neill). Despite returning the saxophone and various other objects of curiosity, he is imprisoned but later outsmarts the townspeople by inspiring them to search for a non-existent treasure while he escapes. The treasure search parodies the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Trivia

The score of this episode borrows several music cues from The Pink Panther and other thief films.
One of the reporters in the news session looks a lot like Amy Wong from Futurama. However, this seems only to be a coincidence as the episode was made about half a decade before the series started.
All four members of Homers vigilante squad wear uniforms of some kind -- Apu's from the Indian Army, Homer's is of a "jungle explorer", Principal Skinner wears his U.S. army uniform, Moe's is that of the Prussian/German Army from World War I and prior, and Barney's comes from an (unnamed) fast food restaurant. Apu's Indian Army uniform would later be one of his alternate costumes in the video game The Simpsons Hit & Run.
Jimbo is spraying the phrase "Carpe diem" on the wall, in Latin this translates as "seize the day"

[edit] Cultural references

Homer's dream of riding a nuclear bomb into oblivion is a spoof of the famous scene from Dr. Strangelove.
Lisa's quote, "I mean, if you're the police, who will police the police?" could be a reference to Alan Moore's: Watchmen graphic novel which in turn was derived from Juvenal's Satire VI. Throughout Watchmen, there's graffiti of "Who watches the watchmen?".
The end of this episode is a direct homage to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in score, shots and characters, such as:
- The plane flying through the billboard. (Similar to Mickey Rooney's flight in a plane)
- Selma hitting Barney with her purse. (An action performed several times by Ethel Merman in that film.)
- Bart tricks a man into driving into a river, who yells at him as his car sinks. (The man looks similar to Phil Silvers and the scene in the film, especially Bart's hand waving motion is exactly from the scene.)
- The cars drive up an incline similar to the California incline. (Exactly from the film, including one car spinning around on the turn up.)
- The Springfieldians walk up to the T tree to heavenly music. (Exactly from the film. We even see the W tree from the original movie).
- Several characters, such as Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers and Buddy Hackett, from the film are seen as the treasure is dug up.
The character of Malloy could be partially based off of General Zaroff in The Most Dangerous Game, especially when he says that he was grateful that out of anyone who could have caught him, it was Homer.