YMMV / The Simpsons S5E16 "Homer Loves Flanders"

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Homer gets conned out of some money by Bart who deceived him into believing he had tickets to a football game. He was instead given a wig coupon, which then leads to an Imagine Spot featuring him wearing a "Marge" wig, imitating her voice and muttering to himself, "I don't need her at all anymore." ^note Although in a later episode from that same season, "Secrets of a Successful Marriage", we see that, yes, he does need her and would essentially die if he didn't have her to take care of him since he is unable to properly care for himself.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Mr. Burns tries to build inspiration for his team... by breaking Milhouse's leg. If that wasn't enough, then this is what the poor kid says to his parents in the hospital bed:
  Milhouse: I hope they win... or Mr. Burns said he's coming back.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Homer's "Rappin' Ronnie Reagan" tape consists of Ronald Reagan repeating the word "Well?" over and over. Five months after the episode aired, Reagan went public with his Alzheimer's diagnosis.
  • Ned having a dream about snapping and going on a shooting spree may have been morbidly funny in 1994, particularly given its similarities to the 1966 University of Texas Clock Tower Shooting (and the movie based off of the incident, The Deadly Tower). The plethora of mass shooting incidents since dilutes possible comedy within - in particular, the Las Vegas Shooting in October 2017, where a gunman fired out of the window of a high-rise hotel onto a country music festival, killing 58 and injuring hundreds.
  • In this episode, Ned's refusal to just tell Homer that he's being too clingy and needs to back off just comes across as him being too polite for his own good. Given what we later learn in "Hurricane Neddy", however, it's likely that Ned was literally unable to express his frustrations with Homer due to the treatment he was given as a child, with his eventual Freak Out in the church being an early, milder precursor to the spectacular meltdown he had in that episode.
  • The gag where Homer imagines himself wearing a wig resembling Marge's hair and saying "I don't need her at all anymore!" foreshadows the season finale "Secrets of a Successful Marriage," which reveals Marge as a Living Emotional Crutch to Homer to the extent that he fears he'll die if they ever split up.
  • When Homer asks why he's such a loser, Bart replies that his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all losers too and Homer is simply the latest loser in a long line—"It's genetic, man!"—before realizing what this means for him. "Lisa the Simpson" in Season 9 would reveal that he's correct in a very literal way: a "Simpson gene" passed on the male chromosome causes men in the Simpson family to lose their intelligence as they age, preordaining each of them to become a failure.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The episode's story doesn't end with any reason why Homer would go back to hating Ned; instead the Snap Back in future episodes is Lampshaded with a cut to the following week's time slot, when Homer hates Ned again. Later episodes of the show would see Homer happily spending time with Ned, suspending hostilities to help him when he needs a hand, and generally developing such a warm relationship with him that references to his animosity toward him start to seem more like Vitriolic Best Buds banter than anything.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Lenny AND Carl mistake Homer hiding the driver Flanders for driving in a "robot car". This aired before self-driving automobiles became marketable. Also, Homer would actually end up using a self-driving car in "Baby You Cant Drive My Car".
  • Ned's dream of shooting Homer may retroactively recall "The Ned Zone".
  • Homer notes that for "some reason" Moe's Tavern is always closed on Wednesdays, the implication being that it's because this is when Moe secretly volunteers to read to the homeless. Season 6's "Homer the Great" shows that several of Homer's friends, Moe included, are part of a Secret Circle of Secrets that meets on Wednesday evenings and Homer's Locked Out of the Loop.
  • The soup kitchen is called the "Helter Shelter", which would later be the title of a Season 14 episode.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Homer appearing and disappearing from the hedge.
  • Homer sitting and smiling in the car with his family and the Flanders, who are all glaring at him.
• Signature Scene: Two, actually:
  • Homer chasing after the Flanderses' car ala T-1000 from Terminator 2.
  • Thanks to its memetic quality, Homer emerging in and out of the hedge is this. It now has its own Funko!
• Parody Displacement: Many people believe that the "Rappin' Ronnie Reagan" tape was a fictional thing created for this episode when in reality it was based off of the "Rap Master Ronnie" play by Garry Trudeau. Saying that, the episode's version of the tape is more notable than the actual 1980s play.
• Watch It for the Meme: Some watch it solely for the hedge meme.
• Woolseyism: The Italian adaptation inexplicably changes the Rappin' Ronnie Reagan tape to a George H. W. Bush one. Also, Moe reading My Friend Flicka is rendered with him reading "The Ugly Duckling".

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