Trivia / The Simpsons S8 E15: "Homer's Phobia"

• The Danza: John Waters as John.
• Edited for Syndication: Syndication cuts the scene where John comments on Marge's corn-pattern drapes in the kitchen.
• Executive Meddling: The episode came very close to being killed by the network before it aired. After viewing a cut of the episode, the censors came back with pages of notes and edits that would have been impossible to make by the deadline. There was a shake up at FOX, though, which included replacing the censor. When they showed them the cut, a new note came back that only said, "Acceptable for broadcast." As John Waters noted in the DVD Commentary, "It's all politics." In the end, only two things were changed: use of the word "fag" as the word that straight people use to make fun of gays (it was changed to "queer"), and John's line about how Homer reminds him of his father was changed to Homer reminding John of his landlord (though this was done because John didn't want people to think his real-life father was intolerant of his sexuality).
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: The very gay John Waters as John.
• Wag the Director:
  • John's line "Do you know who would like [Homer]? My landlord." was originally "...my father", but was changed at John Waters' request. (Waters didn't want to imply his actual father was intolerant of Waters' sexuality.)
  • Waters also changed the word Homer berates gays for "stealing" from "fag" to "queer", telling the writers that gay watchers would find "fag" too offensive^note it's pretty obvious that this was changed, as "fag" is more used as a derogatory term for gay men than "queer" is.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, this episode wasn't supposed to air at all because the censors at the time were wary about the subject matter (see "Executive Meddling" above).
  • This episode was supposed to be called "Lisa Goes to Camp" in which Lisa finds an interest in kitschy collectibles and Bart gets into it too, only for Homer to worry about Bart's sexuality. The "Homer worries about Bart's sexuality" part was still there, but the rest of the story was changed to the story of Homer befriending the John Waters-esque antique store owner.
  • The episode originally had a different third act. Instead of Homer, Bart, Barney, and Moe going deer hunting and ending up at "Santa's Village" they would go back to the steel mill. There, Homer would attempt to prove his heterosexuality by having a human tractor pulling contest with some of the steel mill workers. It was decided that it "didn't really service the story" and was dropped.
  • The steel mill workers were originally supposed to be longshoremen, but were changed after animating the landing of ships proved too difficult.
  • Homer was supposed to call John the F-word slur at one point but John Waters was asked to proofread the script and told them to cut it.
• Working Title: "Bart The Homo." Mercifully, it was quickly nixed. It was then called "Bart Goes to Camp" (to go with the original story of Lisa getting into kitsch and Bart getting into it too, which causes Homer to worry about Bart's sexuality).

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