History Recap / TheSimpsonsS2E2SimpsonAndDelilah

* ItWasWithYouAllAlong: Karl convinces Homer that it's his own competence and personality, not his hair, that makes him a shining employee. However as it turns out, the plant's community are genuinely ''that'' shallow, quickly rejecting him for his baldness and leaving him demoted back to his old job (they don't even let him finish the exposing of ideas he had written and tried to expose while bald).

* WhatTheHellHero: After Bart destroys his one bottle of Dimoxinil, Homer decides not to kill him, but to tell him he's ruined his father, crippled his family, and that [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking baldness is hereditary]]. Bart seems pretty choked up about the final one.[[note]]Though it's actually inherited from the mother's side.[[/note]]

* StraightGay: Karl (and his appearance is not only the first time a celebrity [Harvey Fierstein voices Karl] has done voicework on the show, but the first time an animated series depicts a character established to be a homosexual kissing another man, though ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' would later go down in animation history as the first animated show to show an established gay male couple kissing). And unlike how Homer acted in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E15HomersPhobia Homer's Phobia]]", he doesn't even notice or care that his secretary Karl is gay, but he does find it odd that Karl kissed him.

[[caption-width-right:268:[["I have hair! ''I have hair!''"]]]]

* HeroicSacrifice: When Homer is exposed for using the company's health plan to buy the Dimoxinil for his hair, Karl takes the fall to avoid Homer getting fired.

* {{Irony}}: Marge dislikes the idea of Homer working with pretty women, and suggests him to hire Karl. He kisses Homer later, and judging from Homer's comments, he has some sort of a man-crush on Karl too.
* ItWasWithYouAllAlong: Karl convinces Homer that it's his own competence and personality, not his hair, that makes him a shining employee. However as it turns out, the plant's community are genuinely ''that'' shallow, quickly rejecting him for his baldness and leaving him demoted back to his old job (they don't even let finish the exposing of ideas he had written and tried to expose while bald).

* LoopholeAbuse: Every year, Mr. Burns must promote one of his employees. For as long as he gives the employee's job a different name, it doesn't matter if said employee's work ''and'' pay remain the same.

** Also, when Homer's colleagues suggested him to fraud the company's insurance plan, they reasoned Burns would probably use the Money to buy a backscratcher made of ivory. In fact, that's what Burns moaned about when he learned about the fraud.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In this episode, Smithers is a {{Jerkass}} with a strong hatred of Homer; so much, that he goes as far as to ruin his life by getting Karl fired, and take sadist pleasures of Homer's misery, even to the point of a SuicideDare. His characterisation here is way different from his morally conflicted YesMan with a SingleTargetSexuality towards Burns in later episodes, and is more on par with Frank Grimes in Season 8.

* AbsurdlyDedicatedWorker: Homer uses a hair grower to get his hair back and is promoted and gets an assistant, Karl, who then takes the blame for something Homer did, gets fired, and still writes Homer's speech for him even after having been fired. The assistant is absurdly faithful to Homer.

* TheCassandra: When Mr. Burns commented on how the productivity increased and the number of accidents decreased ever since Homer's ideas started being implanted, Smithers pointed out the productivity only increased to the level it usually does during Homer's vacations and the number of accidents only decreased to the level he was either guilty or suspected of but Burns dismissed this as jealousy.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In this episode, Smithers is a {{Jerkass}} with a strong hatred of Homer; so much, that he goes as far as to ruin his life by getting Karl fired, and take sadist pleasures of Homer's misery, even to the point of a SuicideDare. His characterization here is way different from his YesMan and SingleTargetSexuality towards Burns in later episodes, and is more on par with Frank Grimes in Season 8.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In this episode, Smithers is a {{Jerkass}} with a strong hatred of Homer; so much, that he goes as far as to ruin his life by getting Karl fired, and take sadist pleasures of Homer's misery, even to the point of a SuicideDare. His characterization here are way different from his YesMan and single-target sexuality towards Burns in later episodes, and is more on par with Frank Grimes in Season 8.

* StraightGay: Karl (and his appearance is not only the first time a celebrity [Harvey Fierstein voices Karl] has done voicework on ''TheSimpsons'', but the first time an animated series depicts a character established to be a homosexual kissing another man, though ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' would later go down in animation history as the first animated show to show an established gay male couple kissing). And unlike how Homer acted in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E15HomersPhobia Homer's Phobia]]", he doesn't even notice or care that his secretary Karl is gay, but he does find it odd that Karl kissed him.

* InstantlyProvenWrong: As poor Homer found out, Karl's pep talk to him about the plant community not caring that he didn't have hair was incorrect.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Karl convinces Homer that it's his own competence and personality, not his hair, that makes him a shining employee. However as it turns out, the plant's community are genuinely ''that'' shallow, quickly rejecting him for his baldness and leaving him demoted back to his old job.

* StraightGay: Karl (and his appearance is not only the first time a celebrity [Harvey Fierstein voices Karl] has done voicework on ''TheSimpsons'', but the first time an animated series depicts a character established to be a homosexual kissing another man, though ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' would later go down in animation history as the first animated show to show an established gay male couple kissing). And unlike how Homer acted in "Homer's Phobia," he doesn't even notice or care that his secretary Karl is gay, but he does find it odd that Karl kissed him.

* AmbiguouslyGay: Karl (and his appearance is not only the first time a celebrity [Harvey Fierstein voices Karl] has done voicework on ''TheSimpsons'', but the first time an animated series depicts a character established to be a homosexual kissing another man, though ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' would later go down in animation history as the first animated show to show an established gay male couple kissing). And unlike how Homer acted in "Homer's Phobia," he doesn't even notice or care that his secretary Karl is gay, but he does find it odd that Karl kissed him.

* AmbiguouslyGay: Karl (and his appearance is not only the first time a celebrity [Harvey Fierstein voices Karl] has done voicework on ''TheSimpsons'', but the first time an animated series depicts a character established to be a homosexual kissing another man, though ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' would later go down in animation history as the first animated show to show an established gay male couple kissing). And unlike how Homer acted in "Homer's Phobia," he doesn't even notice or care that his secretary Karl is gay, but he does find it odd that Karl kissed him. The difference is that Marge wasn't around to tell Homer about Karl's sexual orientation and these were the early episodes where Homer wasn't very bright, whether intellectually or socially.