"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
Famous quotes containing the words city, york, homer and/or simpson:
“I have developed a visionary modern lyric, and, for it, an idiom in which I can write lyrically, colloquially, and dramatically. My subject is city life—with its sofas, hotel corridors, cinemas, underworlds, cardboard suitcases, self-willed buses, banknotes, soapy bathrooms, newspaper-filled parks; and its anguish, its enraged excitement, its great lonely joys.”
—Rosemary Tonks (b. 1932)
“Rome, like Washington, is small enough, quiet enough, for strong personal intimacies; Rome, like Washington, has its democratic court and its entourage of diplomatic circle; Rome, like Washington, gives you plenty of time and plenty of sunlight. In New York we have annihilated both.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand years longer, the publishers wouldn’t have needed anyone since.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“If you have any information or evidence regarding the O.J. Simpson case, press 2 now. If you are an expert in fields relating to the O.J. Simpson case and would like to offer your services, press 3 now. If you would like the address where you can send a letter of support to O.J. Simpson, press 1 now. If you are seeking legal representation from the law offices of Robert L. Shapiro, press 4 now.”
—Advertisement. Aired August 8, 1994 by Tom Snyder on TV station CNBC. Chicago Sun Times, p. 11 (July 24, 1994)