"The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" is the first episode of The Simpsons' ninth season, and the show's 179th episode overall. It premiered on September 21, 1997 in the United States on Fox. The episode sees the Simpson family traveling to Manhattan to recover the family car, which was taken by Barney Gumble and abandoned outside the World Trade Center complex, thereby gaining numerous parking tickets and a wheel clamp. Upon arrival, the family tours the city, while Homer waits beside his car outside the World Trade Center for a parking officer to remove the clamp. However, that officer turns up while Homer is using the restroom inside one of the towers. In frustration, Homer decides to drive the car with the clamp attached. He eventually succeeds in removing it and races to Central Park to find his family and leave the city.
Writer Ian Maxtone-Graham was interested in making an episode where the Simpson family travels to New York to retrieve their lost 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 generally positive reviews, and has since been on accolade lists of Simpsons episodes. The "I'm Checkin' In" musical sequence won two awards. Because of the World Trade Center's central role, the episode was initially taken off syndication in many areas following the September 11 attacks, but has come back into syndication in recent years.
Read more about The City Of New York Vs. Homer Simpson: Plot, Production, Cultural References, Reception, Censorship
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“Overcome the Empyrean; hurl
Heaven and Earth out of their places,
That in the same calamity
Brother and brother, friend and friend,
Family and family,
City and city may contend.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“New York loves itself in an unkind and fanatical way.”
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“In the great and deep qualities of mind, heart, and soul, there is no change. Homer and Solomon speak to the same nature in man that is reached by Shakespeare and Lincoln. but in the accidents, the surroundings, the change is vast. All things now are mobile—movable.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“I don’t want to stay on the line. He’s going to beat the s— out of me.”
—Nicole Brown Simpson (1957–1994)