Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Recap / TheSimpsonsS8E18HomerVsTheEighteenthAmendment

Go To

1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simpsonsgood460.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:350: [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life's problems.]]]]
3
4'''Original air date:''' 3/16/1997 ''(produced in 1996)''
5
6'''Production code:''' 4F15
7
8After Bart becomes intoxicated at the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Springfield enforces a [[TheRoaringTwenties Prohibition-era law]]. As a result, Homer and his friends open a speakeasy while a no-nonsense [[Series/TheUntouchables Elliot Ness]]-style lawman sets out to stop them.
9
10----
11!!Plot Summary
12It's St. Patrick's Day and everybody in Springfield is hyped up to the point Bart is harassed for having forgotten to wear green to school and Moe bars designated drivers from patronizing his tavern. The day's main event is of course the downtown parade, with floats celebrating "200 years of Irish policemen" (who do not hesitate to club onlookers), the "drunken poets of Ireland" (who fight whoever they find) and a "small Irish family" (a woman scolds her drunken husband while their ten or so children run around). Meanwhile, drunken revelers harass Kent Brockman in his broadcasting booth and the crowd cheers when a British "chip shop" suddenly blows up.
13
14Trying to get a better view, Bart decides to make his way through the crowd unaware that a Duff truck about is to spray beer on the expectant revelers and the whole thing ends up on Bart's long horn, inebriating him instantly. He is soon caught tipsily strolling along the parade, with the debauched celebration turning to outrage, with Brockman suggesting Prohibition as a measure. Homer scoffs at the idea, but the town's MoralGuardians, led by Helen Lovejoy and Maude Flanders, press Mayor Quimby to declare Springfield dry. The man at the registry then uncovers two 200-year-old laws: one about ducks having to wear long breeches, and another declaring alcohol prohibition in Springfield, which was apparently still in force. The news lead the town's boozehounds to pass out.
15
16H.K. Duff VII, of Duff breweries, tries to comfort the public by announcing a non-alcoholic version of the popular beer, but goes out of business only a half-hour later. Meanwhile, Moe's is still operating as if nothing has changed, even earning new clientele as the Mafia smuggles beer into town, unpunished by the easily bribed SPD, who actually wonder why mobsters have a bad reputation. At night, Mrs. Lovejoy's entourage finds Chief Wiggum drunkenly dancing at the tavern and forces Quimby to look for federal assistance (partly because the mayoral elections are incoming), with Treasury agent Rex Banner being selected to enforce prohibition; his first action is firing Wiggum on the spot.
17
18As all accesses to Springfield are blocked out by Banner, Homer sees an opportunity to become a bootlegger by retrieving the town's buried beer supply, which he hides in bowling balls which are sent to Moe's via a series of pipes from the Bowl-A-Rama. Marge soon finds out what Homer and Bart have been up to and...is actually supporting of their deeds, much to Lisa's chagrin, being sent to bed when she complains that they're breaching a law that might be unpopular, but it's still the law. Rumors arise about a "Beer Baron" baffling Banner, who vows to bring him to justice and deems the very idea of a bootlegger operating under his jurisdiction to be laughable, even though he struggles to make even a slight chuckle.
19
20As the buried beer supply runs out, Homer resorts to homebrewing liquor for Moe's Tav...er, Pet Shop. But this endeavor proves short-lived as the stills begin exploding and Marge asks him to stop. While Banner keeps on searching for the Baron, Homer finds a hungry Wiggum trying to hold him up...but his gun has no trigger[[note]]or handle[[/note]], as he had to sell it to feed his family. Pitying his desperate situation, Homer offers to turn himself in so Wiggum could get his old job back...unaware that the punishment for violating the law of prohibition is being catapulted. When Marge protests such a form of punishment, Banner goes into a rant about why laws must be upheld, including the fact he'd kill everybody if it were not for the law. He then ends up flung by the catapult by "accident"...on Wiggum's orders. Just before Homer's execution takes place, the registry clerk finds out the 200-year-old prohibition law had actually been repealed for 199 years. Homer is immediately exonerated and vows to bring back booze at once, proclaiming it to be both the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
21----
22!!"Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" contains examples of:
23* AccidentalPervert: When the anti-alcohol ladies’ group catch a drunk Chief Wiggum dancing with Princess Kashmir in Moe's tavern, Wiggum attempts to save face and "give them the old Wiggum charm." Just as he struts up to the group, smiling, Helen Lovejoy screams, "PERVERT!" thinking that he was going to sexually molest her.
24-->'''Wiggum:''' Oh boy. That sounded bad.
25* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: The newspaper headlines "Beer Baron Beats Banner" and [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment "Banner Bars Booze (Booze Barred By Banner)"]].
26* AnachronismStew: Banner is first seen stepping out of a Treasury Department building. The Treasury doesn't handle illegal alcohol production anymore; that bureau got absorbed into the Justice Department in 1930 and became the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). It's probably just another joke referencing Eliot Ness, and in any case a modern-day American town practicing Prohibition and having jazzy speakeasies is pretty anachronistic anyway.
27* ArtImitatesArt: The shot of the diner quotes Edward Hopper's ''Nighthawks'' painting.
28* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Already a RabidCop who casually admits he'd kill anyone who looked at him funny if he could get away with it, Rex Banner has no qualms about testing the catapult with an actual cat. The poor creature ends up launched into the horizon.
29* BarrierBustingBlow: On the same scene where Banner says that he's starting to suspect that a booze baron exists, Banner notices that Barney is standing by the window blackout drunk and mocking him. Banner's response is to ''punch right through the window'' to grab a hold of Barney's shirt and interrogate him.
30* BehindTheBlack: After returning from a Beer Baron run, Homer briefly considers checking to see if the coast is clear before taking his wheelbarrow inside... and running into Marge, who's standing right in front of him.
31* BlackAndGrayMorality: There's nothing noble about Homer's bootlegging--even taking the prohibition law as unjust, he's not so much fighting it as using it for his own profit (his justification to Marge is "it made us money"), not to mention the beer he's selling was basically stolen from the trash. Homer only really remains sympathetic because the man sent after him is a [[RabidCop complete psychopath]] and the town [[FelonyMisdemeanor wants to execute him for a very minor crime]].
32* BlackComedyBurst: During the St. Patrick's Day celebration, an English pub suddenly explodes, which is heavily implied to be an attack by Irish nationalists. Cue everyone cheering.
33* BlatantLies:
34** After escaping Banner, Homer insists to Marge that nothing happened to the car, despite the obvious damage to it.
35--->'''Marge:''' What happened to you, Homer? And what have you done to the car?\
36'''Homer:''' Nothin'.\
37'''Marge:''' I don't think it had broken axles before.\
38'''Homer:''' Before! Before! You're livin' in the past, Marge. Quit livin' in the past.
39** Subverted in the next scene when Marge asks why he has so many bowling balls. He simply does not answer.
40--->'''Homer:''' I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge. So long. [''Leaves'']
41** When the tub alcohol starts exploding like crazy, Homer keeps saying that the explosions that are ''rocking the house to its foundations'' are his farts. It takes an explosion setting him on fire and Marge calling him out for him to admit it.
42* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: The Springfield Police pulls out a catapult from the museum at the climax to enforce the "exile ''by catapult''" part of the 200-year-old law. A cat and Banner both end up being tossed by it.
43* CantHoldHisLiquor: The plot gets kicked off by Bart accidentally ingesting a truckload of booze fired from a Duff parade float and getting drunk. ''In five seconds.'' You ''could'' justify it by the fact that he's a kid, so he doesn't have any experience with the stuff, and his dad's a noted alcoholic, but even then, he probably only would've been drunk in a few minutes, not seconds.
44* CatapultToGlory: The catapult is the method of punishment for breaking Springfield's (obviously outdated) prohibition law.
45* ChaseScene: Homer and Bart are chased by the police (with Banner himself trying to shoot them) after they unbury the Duff beer barrels, forcing Homer to drive through a graveyard to lose them.
46* ChekhovsGag: The punishment via being flung out of a catapult is mentioned when the law is read aloud earlier in the episode. By the time it's reiterated by the clerk (during the GilliganCut to Homer being readied to be flung out of it after being arrested), the episode spends approximately twenty minutes dealing with all of the craziness of the prohibition and Homer's booze baron antics and it's probably been forgotten by the audience.
47* TheComicallySerious: Rex Banner. For example, look at him on [[http://britfa.gs/poof/src/133546925442.png his birthday]] and his inability to laugh naturally.
48* CouchGag: The couch sits in the middle of a desert; and the family, in western attire, sit on the couch, which gallops into the sunset.
49* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: Most of the episode's plot would not have happened if the town clerk had bothered to read a few more lines on the parchment.
50* DesignatedDriver: Moe tells all the arriving patrons that, since it's St. Patrick's Day, it's going to be the biggest drinking day of the year. Moe then asks for the designated drivers to identify themselves, then tells them, "Beat it. I got no time for cheapskates."
51* DeusExMachina: At the exact moment before Homer is to be exiled (or probably executed) by catapult, the clerk that discovered the ancient prohibition law finally notices it was repealed one year later, meaning Homer never broke any law... [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative punishable by catapult]].
52* DidntThinkThisThrough:
53** The Duff Brewery Head honestly believed that people would like beer for a reason besides its alcohol content, and invested time and money in a non-alcoholic beer based on this idea alone. How wrong he was...
54** Homer's scheme initially goes off without a hitch, but he forgot to account for the fact his entire beer supply consists of Duff's dumped inventory and he only has a limited number of barrels. He soon runs out and has to start making his own liquor to meet the demand.
55* DoWrongRight: Marge is impressed with Homer for running such a successful operation with less of his characteristic stupidity than usual.
56* DryCrusader: A prohibition movement is started after Bart is caught drunk on camera during the St. Patrick's Day parade. Soon after, it's discovered that alcohol has actually banned in Springfield for over two centures, but has never been enforced, and the government agrees to the ban. At the end of the episode, it's discovered that the prohibition law was repealed only a year afterwards, and everything returns to normal.
57* DumbassHasAPoint: When Lisa objects to Homer making alcohol after running out of it from Duff's dumped barrels, Homer makes the point that the law he's fighting against is unjust. Considering the only citizens who called for it were Helen Lovejoy, Maude Flanders, and their {{Moral Guardian|s}} posse, the law just happened to be written on the town charter but never enforced (and was actually repealed one year after it was drafted), and those opposed to the idea in the current day never got a chance to have their say or vote on it, he's not wrong.
58* EpicFail: Duff Brewery's attempt to sell non-alcoholic beer in Springfield just can't be classified with any other term: the company shuts down ''half an hour'' after the press conference.
59* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Rex Banner's first scenes after obtaining his telegraph show how brutal he is. He literally kicks Chief Wiggum out of his seat to take his job, and causes a major (and obviously fatal) accident on a highway for the sake of keeping alcohol out of the city.
60* EveryoneHasStandards:
61** Kent Brockman, who is not adverse at [[ImmoralJournalist exposing sleaze on his newscasts]] and [[KentBrockmanNews being nonchalant (when he is not absurdly alarmist) about it]], is outright disgusted at how all of the drunks of Springfield are acting.
62** Springfield wholly embraces getting drunk off their ass on St. Patrick's Day, with Apu even telling everyone to get naked. But as soon as attention is drawn to Bart being drunk, every single adult acts horrified.
63** As usual, Marge is the most laid-back of Springfield's MoralGuardians by a mile, seeing the prohibition law as unjust and a violation of freedom and therefore being perfectly okay morally with Homer and Bart's bootlegging operation (her concern is simply about the potential consequences if they get caught). This is despite the fact that it was ''her'' son who sparked the moral panic by getting drunk at the St. Patrick's Day parade--of course, [[PoorCommunicationKills she would know that this happened entirely by accident and that the reaction of the community was overblown]].
64* ExactWords:
65** When Marge confronts Homer about the bowling balls (which are hollowed to smuggle beer), Homer's response is "I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge." He then proceeds to drive off without saying anything.
66** The dry law's penalty is "exile ''by catapult''". Much to Homer's distress, that means that Springfield ''will'' pull out a 200-year-old catapult from the museum to enforce it.
67* {{Expy}}: Rex Banner is a clear spoof of Elliot Ness of ''Series/TheUntouchables'' (specifically the Robert Stack version, who was TheStoic).
68* {{Fartillery}}: Homer's BlatantLies about what is causing the house-rocking explosions are that it's his farting, rather than admitting that he mixed up the bathtub brews incorrectly. Marge finally calls bullshit when the explosions continue well into the night and they're lying side by side in bed.
69* FailedASpotCheck:
70** Banner, and the police he's got with him, don't notice at all that the customers of Moe's are holding beer glasses filled with beer, even when they have them in full view (bear in mind, this instance mentioned as an example is the ''second time'' that Moe's speakeasy is raided during the episode -- the first time, done by the Anti-Liquor League ladies, was actually successful and established Wiggum as incompetent and dirty). Later, Banner is getting a hold of random people on the street and asking them if they're the booze baron but fails to notice that Bart and Homer are on the same sidewalk wheeling a wagon full of ingredients for liquor production.
71** The clerk who unveiled the old Prohibition law doesn't notice that there's a note on the manuscript that explicitly says it had been repealed one year after it was passed, because the paper was rolled up.
72* FelonyMisdemeanor: Springfield's dry law says that people caught smuggling booze are to be exiled from town ...by being tossed with a catapult and having nothing to catch them.
73* FightingIrish: The St. Patrick's Day parade easily turns into a melee.
74-->'''Kent Brockman:''' Ladies and gentlemen, what you are seeing is a total disregard for the things St. Patrick's Day stands for. All this drinking, violence, destruction of property--are these the things we think of when we think of the Irish?
75* FreezeFrameBonus: Inside Moe's Tavern on St. Patrick's Day, right next to the large, standard "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" banner is a smaller [[HypocriticalHumor "Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply" sign.]]
76* {{Gasshole}}: When the stills for his homemade liquor start exploding, Homer tries to pass it off as him being gassy from eating beans for dinner. Marge doesn't buy it.
77* GenreRefugee: Rex Banner. He is an animated copycat of Elliot Ness as portrayed by Robert Stack in ''Series/TheUntouchables''' TV series and an exaggeration of Ness' Hays Code-era stoicism and righteous mentality, and that alone makes him stand out in a cartoonishly corrupt nuthouse like Springfield.
78* GilliganCut:
79** The head of Duff Brewery, under the belief his customers like beer for its flavor and not for its alcohol, announced Duff Zero. Cut to thirty minutes later, the brewery was out of business.
80** When asked what'd happen to him, Homer said he'd probably just be fined. Cut to the town ready to give him death by catapult.
81* GoneHorriblyRight: Because he's the only one who can supply it, eventually Homer is overtaxed with liquor requests and after he runs out of the barrels of liquor left by Duff Brewery's closing and getting too proud of the homemade liquor he'd made, he starts experimenting with the recipes, and suddenly the house is rocked with explosions around the clock.
82* GoToYourRoom: When Marge and Lisa finds out Homer's beer smuggling, the former is very impressed that Homer is using his own intellect for once and raising money for the family. When Marge says the prohibition was a dumb law, Lisa says it's still a law and was about to provide some additional speechifying when Homer, Marge, and Bart [[ShutUpKirk interrupt]] [[ShutUpHannibal her]] to send her to her room.
83* HairTriggerTemper: Implied with Banner. During his speech about the necessity to maintain law regardless of public opinion, he says that if there were no laws, he would kill anybody who "looked at [him] cock-eyed."
84* HiddenDepths: Homer manages to brew more than forty different beverages in the basement.
85* {{Homage}}: Multiple details from the episode from the moment the law is enabled and Banner arrives (such as the Walter Winchell "newsreel"-style narrator) is an obvious aping of the TV series of ''Series/TheUntouchables''.
86* HonorBeforeReason: Lisa is the only character besides Banner to support the still-on-the-books (if outdated) anti-alcohol laws, as she calls her family out on the smuggling (and supporting). She's grounded as a result.
87* IntoxicationEnsues: Bart getting drunk at the St. Patrick's Day parade after beer is sprayed by the Duff float that winds up in the plastic horn he's blowing is the inciting incident that leads to alcohol getting banned in Springfield through the invocation of an unenforced prohibition law.
88* InsaneTrollLogic: Banner has Ned Flanders arrested for public drunkenness just because he can't understand Ned's idiosyncrasies.
89* IOwnThisTown: Hilariously averted. After Wiggum is caught partying in Moe's "secret" bar:
90-->'''Helen Lovejoy:''' We demand you bring in a police chief who will enforce the Prohibition Law!
91-->'''Quimby:''' Demand? Who are you to demand anything? I run this town. You're just a bunch of low-income nobodies!
92-->'''Quimby's Assistant''': ''[Whispering]'' Uh, election in November. Election in November.
93-->'''Quimby:''' What? Again? This stupid country!
94* IShallTauntYou: A funny example here, when Rex vows to get the Beer Baron. Homer taunts him from a very far distance.
95-->'''Rex Banner:''' You're out there somewhere, Beer Baron, and [[IWillFindYou I'll find you!]]
96-->'''Homer:''' ''*shouts offscreen*'' No you won't!
97-->'''Rex Banner:''' Yes, I will.
98-->'''Homer:''' Won't!
99* IfIDoNotReturn: Homer starts telling Marge, "If we're not back, avenge our deaths" when he and Bart go out to deliver their brew. Marge agrees to do so.
100* JerkassHasAPoint:
101** Obnoxious as they were, the anti-alcohol ladies’ group were right that the St. Patrick's Day parade was celebrating grotesque levels of alcoholism, which got a 10-year-old boy drunk when someone fired alcohol into the crowd. They're also right that Wiggum was brazenly not enforcing the prohibition law (a law everyone thought at the time was in effect) by getting drunk at a speakeasy. Their protest would've had more weight to it if they'd gone after the beer company that got Bart drunk to begin with.
102** Banner is a completely absurd RabidCop, but he rose a quite valid point with his speech against ignoring a law just because it's not liked--then makes himself look even ''worse'' by saying that he would be [[AxCrazy killing anybody who was looking at him funny]] if there weren't laws in place to prevent that.
103* KarmicDeath: Rex Banner gets flung by the same catapult he'd just tested by flinging a cat.
104* KentBrockmanNews: Averted. Kent Brockman is disgusted by everyone's behavior during the St. Patrick's Day parade.
105* KickTheDog:
106** In Banner's EstablishingCharacterMoment, he bricks up a road and causes multiple cars to crash. He smiles at the carnage.
107** Later, Banner has a more literal kick the dog moment of sorts; he decides that before using a catapult to fire Homer out of town for breaking the law, he's going to test it on a harmless cat. This is probably to set it up so that you don't feel very sorry for him when he gets launched from the catapult a minute later.
108* KnightTemplar: As the road blockage shows, Banner is willing to kill innocent people if it means stopping alcohol from getting into Springfield.
109* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Rex Banner presents himself as a competent, no-nonsense detective, but is consistently outwitted by [[BumblingDad Homer]] and makes absolutely no progress in catching him or slowing down his production of alcohol, while also arresting Flanders based on InsaneTrollLogic.
110* LaserGuidedKarma:
111** Duff Brewery is the UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom for the episode when their parade float was drenching people in beer, and were thus the ones responsible for getting Bart drunk in the first place and kickstarting the prohibition call. When the company tries to push on by releasing non-alcoholic beer, they go bankrupt in half an hour.
112** Rex Banner is an overall zealot practicing PoliceBrutality on anyone whom he thinks might be the Beer Baron, while fully ignoring every other crime in Springfield. After planning to have Homer catapulted out of Springfield as punishment, and testing it on an innocent cat first, no one is sorry to see him sent flying out of Springfield once everyone's had enough of him.
113* LawfulStupid:
114** Rex Banner is too inept to realize Homer is the Beer Baron he's been hunting down. He also creates ''fatal'' countermeasures against alcohol smugglers, but is totally uninterested in Fat Tony's heroin smuggling ring, presumably since he's not in Springfield to enforce the ban on ''that''.
115** Lisa makes clear that she supports the law even when her whole family have also made it clear just seconds before that they are against it, which obviously gets her sent to her room.
116
117* LoonyLaws: A prohibition law in and of itself isn't "loony". That the sentence for being caught breaking it is to be exiled from the town ''by way of being launched out of a catapult'' is.
118* TheLopsidedArmOfTheLaw: Banner pursues the Beer Baron with excessively violent measures toward suspects and civilians, but doesn't care at all about other crimes--when Fat Tony says he'll stop bootlegging but keep selling heroin, Banner ''insists that he does''.
119* MadeOfExplodium: Eventually Homer gets too greedy with the Baron business and starts experimenting with the tub-made boozes, making them all explode constantly. Part of the reason he agrees to the plan to let Wiggum arrest him is because Marge gets tired of all the ruckus.
120* MeaningfulName: Rex '''Ban'''ner, who does a ''slightly'' better job at keeping Springfield dry than Wiggum.
121* MoralGuardians: The anti-alcohol ladies’ group, again.
122* MoveAlongNothingToSeeHere: A parade float honoring [[OfficerOHara Irish police]] is escorted by several of them, all saying things along the lines of this trope.
123* NeverTrustATitle: Homer's actual dispute is with a city statute and the 21st Amendment, ending national Prohibition but allowing local jurisdictions to continue to ban alcohol, by proxy.
124* NighthawksShot: The opening of the scene where Banner and his assistants are at the diner (on Banner's birthday) is framed like this.
125* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Homer's attempts to make alcohol nearly blow up his house, and when he sees Wiggum is struggling to feed his family, he decides to quit selling beer and turn himself in so Wiggum can get his job back. Too bad the act leads to Homer being sentenced to getting sent out of town on a catapult.
126* NonAnswer: When Marge confronts Homer of bringing so many bowling balls (which are hollowed to smuggle beer) to bowling.
127-->'''Marge:''' Why do you have so many bowling balls?
128-->'''Homer:''' I'm not gonna lie to you, Marge. So long! [''Gets in his car and drives off'']
129* NoSenseOfHumor: Rex Banner never laughs. When he tries to do so (due to him finding the idea of a beer baron operating under his nose without getting caught "laughable"), he fails miserably.
130* NotHyperbole: The law is mentioned at the very beginning when it's revealed to have an "exile by catapult" penalty. As in, the people of Springfield '''will''' pull out a catapult from the museum, load people into it, and launch them with zero concern about whether they will land safely.
131* NotSoAboveItAll: Homer takes it for granted that Marge won't approve of his bootlegging operation, but when she finds out what he's doing, she's impressed by his cleverness--and not averse to the extra cash he's making from it either.
132* OfficerOHara: Springfield's St. Patrick's Day parade features a float honoring "200 Years of Irish Cops."
133* OhCrap: At the beginning, Bart ridicules Lisa for wearing green, saying she looks stupid. When they enter, everyone (even the teachers) are wearing green and looking at Bart who's the only one in his usual clothes on St. Patrick's Day.
134-->'''Bart:''' Uh oh.
135* OnlySaneMan: Kent Brockman, [[KentBrockmanNews of all people]], [[EveryoneHasStandards is appalled by the excess drinking and violence]] that occurs during the St. Patrick's Day parade and distances himself from it.
136* OpenSecret: It's pretty clear that almost everyone in Springfield except Banner knew Homer was the Beer Baron all along, as evidenced by Lenny loudly asking "They caught Homer?" after it's announced Wiggum has caught the Baron.
137* OutsideGenreFoe: Rex Banner, who is sent to Springfield to enforce the dry law. PlayedForLaughs as he's an animated copycat of Elliot Ness and someone who definitely would have done a better job at keeping law and order during the time of the Hays Code (where he would have been handed victory just because he's a lawman) than on the modern (and incompetent) WretchedHive that is Springfield.
138* PetTheDog: Homer allowing himself to be arrested so that Wiggum will get his job back.
139* PoliceAreUseless: Rex Banner takes over the police department from the hopelessly ineffective Wiggum and orders the other officers to: "Get a haircut!" "Get those shoes shined!" and "Take that badge out of your mouth!" Even the Federal Agent wasn't immune to the trope. He was so focused on enforcing the dry law he didn't mind Fat Tony dealing drugs. And he ignored Homer walking next to him with beer ingredients while interrogating an innocent Comic Book Guy (shortly after arresting Ned Flanders because "[[InsaneTrollLogic he sounds drunk]]"). And at the end of the episode he claims that the law is the only thing stopping him from killing everyone who looked at him "cock-eyed".
140* PoliceBrutality:
141** The Irish cop float was surrounded by Irish policemen who clubbed parade viewers while saying MoveAlongNothingToSeeHere.
142** Rex Banner makes it clear he's running on old-school police rules by violently shaking or slapping pretty much everybody he gets his hands on and his only complaint about the use of a catapult is that it has not been used in two hundred years and thus needs to be tested to ensure it's still functional.
143* RabidCop: Banner. The man makes it pretty clear on his big rant at the end that he would go on a killing spree if the law allowed him to do so (and the closest we see to him being ''actually'' happy is when he causes a multiple-car pile-up for the sake of maintaining prohibition). Even then, he goes around kicking people off chairs, slapping them, shaking them hard, grabbing them by the shirt (hell, he gets the knowledge that a booze baron exists by noticing that Barney is drunk and ''punching right through a window'' to get a hold on him to interrogate him) and generally acting as violently as a cop could get away with in a movie made during MediaNotes/TheHaysCode era.
144* RecycledAnimation: The riot at the beginning of the episode was taken from footage from the end of "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E8LisaOnIce Lisa on Ice]]" and updated.
145* ReviveTheAncientCustom: Springfield brings back a 200-year-old law banning alcohol in Springfield in response to Bart accidentally getting drunk at the St. Patrick's Day parade.
146* RightForTheWrongReasons: Homer at one point proclaims that prohibition is doomed to fail because "they tried that in the movies, and it didn't work."
147* RuleOfThree: When the prohibition law is announced, we see Homer passed out on the floor. Then Moe, Barney, and the other regulars at Moe's Tavern passed out. Then Dr. Hibbert laughing as he sees it in the paper... only to realize ''[[LadyDrunk his wife]]'' has passed out.
148* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Rex Banner doesn't accept bribes, to his credit.
149* ShaggyDogStory: The 200-year-old law banning alcohol in Springfield had been repealed the following year.
150* ShoutOut: Comic Book Guy references ''Franchise/{{Superman}}''.
151-->'''Banner:''' Are you the Beer Baron?
152-->'''Comic Book Guy:''' [[SarcasmMode Yes, but only by night. By day, I'm a mild-mannered reporter for a major Metropolitan newspaper.]]
153* SkewedPriorities: Banner shuts down Fat Tony's operation immediately.
154-->'''Fat Tony:''' Okay, you win. From now on, we'll stick to smuggling heroin.
155-->'''Banner:''' See that you do.
156* SmartBall: Homer manages to run circles around Rex Banner via a genuinely clever bowling ball scheme and never actually gets caught. Lampshaded by Marge.
157* SmarterThanYouLook: Trying to evade Rex Banner had to take some serious planning for Homer and Bart. Marge actually shows pride at Homer's skill when he explains his scheme to her.
158* SoapboxSadie: Lisa, once again, gets a big moment when she points out that even if the prohibition law is dumb (so dumb that Marge praises Homer for becoming a booze baron) it still is the law nevertheless and it needs to be obeyed ... and she is given a BigShutUp mid-speech by her brother and parents yelling at her [[YouAreGrounded to go to her room]].
159* StPatricksDayEpisode: The episode opens on St. Patrick's Day, with Bart accidentally getting drunk during the parade kicking off the main plot (and its original airdate was the day before).
160* StoppedReadingTooSoon: A 200-year-old law banning alcohol is discovered in the Springfield Charter. It took until the very end of the episode to discover that it was repealed 199 years ago.
161* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
162** Duff Zero goes over like a concrete zeppelin because the drinkers of Springfield ''do'' like its alcohol content.
163** Prohibiting alcohol didn't make people stop wanting to drink it. Homer himself scoffs at the proposal ("They tried that in the movies, and it didn't work"), so he's also RightForTheWrongReasons about it.
164** Chief Wiggum getting fired from his job is more than earned given his actions in this and previous episodes. But as the episode reminds us he does still have a family to support and is struggling to do so without a job.
165* TakeThat: The concept of non-alcoholic beer gets the standard ''Simpsons'' treatment when Duff Brewery tries to sell some within Springfield and it [[EpicFail does so bad that the company goes bankrupt within a half hour of the announcement.]]
166* ATankardOfMooseUrine: Alcohol is banned in Springfield, and the non-alcoholic Duff Zero is an immediate failure.
167* TemptingFate: Homer predicts that the Kent Brockman's news report on Bart getting drunk will be the last they hear of prohibition. Cut to a group of woman protester chanting "We want prohibition!".
168* ThisIsGonnaSuck: Bart's reaction when he sees just about every kid in school honing in on him to pinch him for not wearing green.
169* ThinkOfTheChildren: Since Helen Lovejoy is part of the anti-alcohol ladies’ group, it's only natural that she say her CharacterCatchphrase at one point. It's slightly more understandable than usual in this episode, since the IncitingIncident was a child getting drunk.
170* ToBeLawfulOrGood: Lisa thinks people should still follow the prohibition law, even if it's unpopular.
171* TotallyNotACriminalFront: Moe fronts his speakeasy as Moe's Pet Shop. However, the fact that it plays jazz music at 1:00AM and attracts a certain partygoing clientele make its true purpose blatantly obvious. Even more stupid of Banner, he had already raided the same place earlier in the episode when he took over Wiggum and he should have at least harbored a stronger suspicion than he showed.
172-->'''Banner:''' What kind of pet shop is filled with rambunctious yahoos and hot jazz music at 1:00AM?
173-->'''Moe:''' Um, the best damn pet shop in town.
174-->[''Crowd cheers'']
175* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom:
176** Most of the episode's plot happens because a clerk unveils an old Prohibition law but doesn't bother to read the whole parchment and learn the law was no longer in effect. It would be a miracle if he managed to retain his job after making such a horrible blunder. Of course, this is Springfield we're talking about.
177** The prohibition itself would almost certainly not have occurred, had the Duff float not been firing out beer into a crowd, not considering the fact that underage people were around, or the illegality of the act itself.
178* VersusTitle: A local dry law, which Homer becomes a Beer Baron to fight, stands in for the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution titular amendment]].
179* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The Springfield anti-alcohol ladies' group that forced the application of the outdated prohibition law in the first place disappears after Rex Banner is hired to head the police force. As a matter of fact, Moe's speakeasy is raided by them earlier in the episode before Banner arrives and it seems they never mentioned that it was a speakeasy to Banner -- otherwise, he would have probably been more driven to check the place out).
180* WholePlotReference: The Prohibition Era of TheRoaringTwenties and ''Series/TheUntouchables''.
181* WorldLimitedToThePlot: There's never any reason given why the alcoholics of Springfield can't just drive to another town when they want to get drunk.
182* WrongGenreSavvy: Rex Banner acts like he's in 1920s UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} rather than [[SurroundedByIdiots Springfield]].

Top