Simpsons Review: "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment"

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I love this holiday for a few reasons. For one, it's one day before my birthday. Also, it's a green day, and you know I have green--it comes with being a Packers fan. And one of the reasons why I love St. Patrick's Day is because of the episode of The Simpsons that I am about to review. Despite the long time the show's been on, despite the many things that can be disputed, this is one thing that can't be disputed: this episode, "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment," is my all-time favorite.

So this episode kicks at school. Bart mocks Lisa's green dress, but somehow, she doesn't feel embarrassed. It's not until Bart sees all of the kids in green that he finally realizes that it's St. Patrick's Day, and all other kids pinch him. That is a thing. If you're not wearing green on St. Patty's Day, you get pinched. Elsewhere, Homer and the other "social drinkers" are waiting outside Moe's, and then the man himself, Moe Szyslak, appears, and kicks out the lightweights, as St. Patrick's Day is the biggest drinking day of the calendar year.

Springfield's St. Patrick's Day parade takes place, and it's a huge celebration full of Irish-American representation, and of course, a group of New Englanders. We see Bart walking around with one of those big, long horns, but at a random moment, a decent amount of beer gets sprayed through the horn, and Bart is liquored up, with his fellow students cheering him. Bart's brief drunken escapade hits the news the next day, and the report includes a threat of prohibition, aka the aforementioned 18th Amendment. Homer is very sure that prohibition will not be a thing in Springfield.

Yeah, about that.

After outrage from Maude Flanders and Helen Lovejoy, the latter being Springfield's resident, pearl-clutching Karen, an old prohibition law is dug up and enforced. Homer's shocked. Moe and Barney Gumble are stunned. Even Dr. Hibbert's wife couldn't believe it. However, it would not last. Moe's was back in business selling beer, but the anti-booze Karen squad crashed the bar and caught them in the act. Even crazier, Chief Wiggum was the drunkest one in the bunch, and was hitting on Helen. Ay caramba.

So the ladies demanded a change in law enforcement, and the pearl-clutchers got what they wanted.

Enter Rex Banner. A clear homage of Eliot Ness, in fact, most of this episode was an homage of The Untouchables TV series, with Dan Castellaneta channeling the late, great Walter Winchell with the narration. Plain and simple, Banner's in, and Wiggum is out. With Banner in charge, Springfield is dry, because Banner's much smarter than Wiggum; though that really doesn't take much. Homer frets in his usual fashion ("Without beer, prohibition doesn't work"), but after he and Bart see a news report from the Duff Brewery, the wheels start clicking and Homer and Bart head to the brewery to dig up the discarded Duff Beer.

The duo avoided gun-toting security guards and successfully absconded with the beer, and afterwards, Homer devised a clever way to get the beer to Moe's. The beer would be placed in bowling balls, and Homer would intentionally bowl gutter balls into a long tunnel that sent them to Moe's. How very Hogan's Heroes of them! And it was lucrative; Homer would get paid for his services.

And with that, the Beer Baron was born.

Homer was really basking in his secret operation, but Rex Banner was dismayed. On his birthday, Banner was not in a celebratory mood, as he showed a newspaper article detailing the Beer Baron's existence. Homer and Bart's latest escapade saw them run into Marge and Lisa, with the former seeing the beer out of one of the balls. Marge realizes that Homer's the Beer Baron and she asked Homer how he had been getting away with it. Homer details the entire scheme, and in response, Marge--to Homer and Lisa's surprise--commends Homer, and says that in all the years that she's known Homer, this scheme is the cleverest thing he's done, and she marveled over the moolah he's making from "breaking a silly 200-year-old law."

So Homer has everything in his advantage, but that would change slightly. Bart informed Homer that they were out of the Duff beer, and after Moe appeared looking for more booze, Homer and Bart go with Plan B: they make their own booze. Meanwhile, Banner goes crazy looking for the Beer Baron, accusing Ned Flanders and Comic Book Guy of being the Baron, while Homer--with a load of evidence--walks past Banner without notice. OK, so maybe Banner isn't as smart as Wiggum.

Homer's operation hits another snag: one of the vats exploded. Homer covers it up, but the explosions continue. Marge, upon hearing them, sweetly advises Homer to quit while he's ahead. Homer checks the proverbial traps, and a huge explosion sees Homer on fire. After putting himself out, Homer decides to take Marge's advice and step down. Homer counts his Beer Baron money when he's confronted by Wiggum, who attempts to rob Homer with, well, half of a gun. Wiggum frets that he had to sell parts of that gun to feed his family; he was totally down and out after losing his job.

Upon seeing this, Homer decides to do Wiggum a solid, and that solid would be announced while Banner was boasting about the Baron's activities being stopped. Kent Brockman announced that Wiggum had captured the Beer Baron, and that part always tickles me. The reason is that among all of the murmurs, we hear Lenny loudly say, "They captured Homer?!" Homer clearly told him, because there's no way in hell Lenny would have figured that out on his own. So yeah, Wiggum's announcing the capture, and Homer is as cool as a cucumber. Homer figures that he'd get off easy.

Yeah, about that.

So it looks like the punishment for violating the prohibition laws is catapulting, and even Wiggum figured that the worst that Homer would get was a three or four years in jail. Marge stands up for Homer and stated that he violated a law that didn't make sense, but despite the cheers, Banner stands up and says, "It's not up to us what laws we choose to obey. If it were, I'd kill everyone who looked at me cockeyed!" Banner makes the mistake of standing on the catapult while ranting, and he is sent flying. They are about to do the same to Homer, when that old character takes out the parchment and realizes that Springfield's 200-year-old prohibition law was repealed... 199 years ago.

Homer is released, and Fat Tony gets booze back in the town. This leads to Homer's last line in the episode:

"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

"Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" was the 18th episode of Season Eight, and aired on Fox on Sunday, March 16, 1997--one day before St. Patrick's Day and two days before I received a Super Bowl XXXI Champions t-shirt as one of my gifts for my 12th birthday. Funny story: I actually watched this entire episode at Circuit City. That's one of the reasons why it's my favorite. That and the crazy turn the story took; a St. Patrick's Day celebration becoming an Untouchables homage, it was absolutely awesome! The main guest voice for the episode was Dave Thomas providing Rex Banner's Robert Stack-esque voice, and it definitely fit the entire episode.

I loved this episode so much, it definitely fit the tone of Season Eight, which was full of wildly hilarious and outlandish episodes. People keep labelling Season Four as the show's last great year, I really don't know why. every season since then improved greatly, and that included Season Eight. This episode showed why Season Eight was oh so great!

* * *

If you like this story and review, click the heart and the subscribe button, and feel free to comment below! Tips and pledges would be greatly appreciated, but only if you want to do so!