Maximum Homerdrive - Release and Reception

Release and Reception

In its original American broadcast on March 28, 1999, "Maximum Homerdrive" received a 9.4 rating/15 percent share, according to Nielsen Media Research, meaning it was seen by 9.4 percent of the population and 15 percent of the people watching television at the time of its broadcast. Among adults between ages 18 and 49, the episode received a 7.8 rating/20 percent share, the strongest rating The Simpsons had in the demographic since "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", which aired on January 17 the same year. Tom Bierbaum of Variety credited the boost in ratings to the premiere of Futurama, which aired after "Maximum Homerdrive", writing that "Sunday's Futurama preview energized Fox's entire lineup" that night. On August 7, 2007, "Maximum Homerdrive" was released as part of The Simpsons - The Complete Tenth Season DVD box set. Matt Groening, Mike Scully, George Meyer, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Ron Hauge, Matt Selman, Swinton O. Scott III and Mike B. Anderson participated in the DVD's audio commentary of the episode.

Following its home video release, "Maximum Homerdrive" received mixed reviews from critics. James Plath of DVD Town described it as "funny," and Brian Tallerico of UGO Networks considered it to be one of the season's best episodes, describing it as having "some awesome road comedy." Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood of I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide gave the episode a positive review as well, writing "The life of the trucker, as made popular in C. W. McCall's 1976 hit single "Convoy", is brought to life here in all its glory. For once, Homer is in the right and you cannot help but cheer as the truckers spectacularly fail to stop him getting to Atlanta." They concluded by writing "A nice, bonding story for Homer and Bart which is diametrically opposed to the one featuring Marge and Lisa." On the other hand, giving the episode a more mixed review, Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide wrote "If nothing else, 'Homerdrive' takes unanticipated paths. The eating contest leads to a long truck drives leads to that 'shocking secret'. All of this means the show manages to become pretty unpredictable." However, he maintained that the episode is only "sporadically" funny, and that it "doesn’t ever excel in that department – at least not in terms of the trucker story." He enjoyed the episode's B-story more, because of its "absurdity," however he criticized the inclusion of Gil in the episode, calling the character "increasingly overused." Jake McNeill of Digital Entertainment News gave the episode a mixed review as well, writing that it "may have been a fairly decent episode but for the fact that something similar was done (and done better) on King of the Hill."