The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of the ninth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It was originally broadcast on Fox in the United States on September 21, 1997, as the 179th episode of the series. The episode features the Simpson family traveling to Manhattan to recover the family car, which was taken by Barney Gumble and abandoned outside the World Trade Center, where it had been repeatedly posted with parking tickets, and disabled with a parking boot.
"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson"
Season 9
Episode 1
4F22
September 21, 1997
The Simpsons are dressed as the Harlem Globetrotters, showing off elaborate basketball tricks to the tune of "Sweet Georgia Brown".[1]
Commentary 1:
Bill Oakley
Josh Weinstein
Jim Reardon
Commentary 2:
Ian Maxtone-Graham
Dan Castellaneta
Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham was interested in making an episode where the Simpson family travels to New York to retrieve their misplaced car. Executive producers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein suggested that the car be found in Austin J. Tobin Plaza at the World Trade Center, as they wanted a location that would be widely known. Great lengths were taken to make a detailed replica of the borough of Manhattan. The episode received acclaim from fans and television critics, and has since been on accolade lists of The Simpsons episodes. The "You're Checkin' In" musical sequence won two awards. Because of the World Trade Center's main role, the episode was taken off syndication in many areas following the September 11 attacks, but returned to syndication by 2006. The episode also features the first appearance of Duffman, who would become a recurring character in the series.
Reception[edit]
In its original broadcast, "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" finished 18th in ratings for the week of September 15–21, 1997, with a Nielsen rating of 10.7, equivalent to approximately 10.5 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, beating King of the Hill's season two opener "How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying".[13]
The episode was well received by fans and television critics. The song "You're Checkin' In" won a 1998 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics,[14] and an Annie Award for Outstanding Music in an Animated Television Production in the same year.[15] In honor of The Simpsons' 300th episode milestone in 2003, Entertainment Weekly ranked the episode at number 13 on the list of their 25 favorite episodes,[16] and AskMen ranked the episode at number seven on their top ten;[17] in both cases it was the second-most-recent installment chosen to co-inhabit the lists. IGN named the episode the best of the ninth season, claiming "this is a very funny episode that started season 9 off on a strong note".[18] Since the release of the season nine DVD box set, the episode has been highlighted by newspaper reviewers to show excellence of the season.[19][20][21][22]
Ian Jones and Steve Williams, writers for British review website Off the Telly, claimed that the episode "ditched all pretence of a plot and went flat out for individual, unconnected sight gags and vignettes". The two noted that it was their least favorite debut episode for a season of The Simpsons.[23] In a separate article in Off the Telly, Jones and Williams write that the episode "... wasn't shown for reasons of taste and has never appeared on terrestrial television in Britain", referring to a BBC Two schedule of the ninth season, which began in October 2001.[24] Screen Rant called it the best episode of the ninth season.[25]