"Homer the Moe" Reviews

[Voodoo Monkey]

You guys got what you wanted. Bart (kind of) prank called Moe.

[Cole]

I thought the episode was decent. The plot was. . . well. . . week at best. But it did have its shining moments. The REM part was much better than I had expected (can't wait to see Phish on!). Moe changing his bar was very funny. The Hunting scene was semi-funny. The story at the beggining (Bart digging) was pointless. The part where Moe went back to the University went on way to long (The Professor killing himself did not fit in with the pace of the episode). But, I still enjoyed it.
I give it a B-

[DotheBartman]

Lets see, so far the grades for season 13 are B, B, D-

[PrinceBejeeta]

Originally posted by DotheBartman
Lets see, so far the grades for season 13 are B, B, D-

Yeah that seems about right to me.

[SuperShaneSpear]

I'd go B, C, C+

[Voodoo Monkey]

I'd say B-, B+, C+

[Cole]

My Vote goes for B, B, B-

[Tamaki Suoh]

Great episode with a multi-faceted and well-paced plot featuring entertaining scenes throughout. Homer's characterization was kind of overdone--a bit too stupid, childlike, and jerkassy--but he still had plenty of good moments to pretty much make up for it. Moe was great, as usual. It was also refreshing to see the episode end with a sweet moment instead of a joke. All in all, a satisfyingly good episode. 4/5

[TriforceBun]

Whoa, this thread is a blast from the past. Very nostalgic.

Tomacco, whatever happened to your reviews, episode guides, and Springfield Shopper as a whole? Those were really great for post-episode viewing.

I remember some sort of legal issue with the guides, but I'd like to see you keep a review archive still...

[HOMR]

I think we have a new record for biggest bump ever. 2360 days.

Anyways, I haven't seen this episode in a long time, and probably won't, since it's one of my least favorite episodes. The plot is reeeally disjointed, and there are so many stupid jokes.

[D'ohmer]

I don't understand the hate for this episode. It has some Scullyish moments that some fans may not like, such as Homer shooting Moe, but I still think it has a great plot and great humor. The only thing I didn't like is Bart digging a hole, which felt like a filler. Overall, I think this is an underrated episode that I enjoy. B+

[I-CloWn-I]

i REALLY didnt like this episode its very boring and lame
C-

[General Bart]

Horrible episode, makes my bottom 10. No plotflow at all and Homer's way too much of a jerkass. The plot rips off Flaming Homer, and Homer hitting his hand on the jukebox is too Family Guy-esque. F

[Moe Nopoly]

A really like this episode
Funny and entertaining story and two of my favorite characters with Homer and Moe.
Maybe not an outstanding episode, but really good one for me.

4/5

[Green_Peaness]

The untrue Bart digging thing was an interesting way to fill time in an episode. Even though it in itself isn't funny, the fact that it's there for no reason makes me laugh. Having said that, the plot is too damn disjointed and unmemorable, and the jokes don't make up for it. It has several funny moments but on the whole it doesn't add up to anything. 2.5/5

[I-CloWn-I]

Horrible episode, makes my bottom 10. No plotflow at all and Homer's way too much of a jerkass. The plot rips off Flaming Homer, and Homer hitting his hand on the jukebox is too Family Guy-esque. F

Agreed

[Jesse Pinkman]

it was alright, nothing i'd brag about- B-/C+ seems right

[TheForbiddenDonut]

Damn this episode sucks. Can't believe this thread isn't one of unifying hatred.

[qwertyuio]

Damn this episode sucks. Can't believe this thread isn't one of unifying hatred.

Agreed, it's a pretty bad episode. One thing that bothers me a lot about this one is the ability to waste the time with pointless idiocies. OK, Bart digging was an untrue story, but anyway... did it have to take so long? And then the plot felt rushed and poorly written. I do like the episodes that focus on Moe's tavern (Flaming Moe's, Bart Sells His Soul), but this one doesn't keep my attention. I don't mean that the fact that Moe wants to modernize his bar is a bad premise, but it was weak. Not the worst development ever but a low point with a really random raising and quite boring scenes. There was nothing passable in Homer substituting for Moe, except for a crappy gore thing; the idea of Homer, Barney, Lenny and Carl feeling discriminated was badly-driven, fast and poorly explained; and Homer's new bar was only a stupid excuse for the hunter license which drove to him going hunting and Lisa joining forces with Moe to avoid his father to kill a turkey.

I must say it had some good gags anyway, and there was a funny satire about modern art, but heck, the completely lame and uninteresting development overall and the extremely disgusting cancer's joke made a total crap of this episode. 4/10

[Jims]

I don't know why I enjoy this episode so much. There are plenty of things wrong with it. In fact, there are plenty of things I downright hate about this episode. But for some reason, I still like it. There are a lot of memorable scenes in this episode.

To get it out of the way, let's talk about the stuff that I hated. I absolutely hated the jukebox pain gag. It's seriously one of those most disturbing Simpsons moments ever. I mean, that blood just sprays everywhere. Almost like a Tarantino movie.

R.E.M.'s appearance really gets on my nerves too. They're so badly shoe-horned into this episode and they don't contribute anything at all... Not even any decent jokes. I was going to compare this to The Who from A Tale of Two Springfields, but at least that episode tied them into the plot! This episode just chose to throw in a couple jokes about them being environmentalists that sound like the writers not being able to find something else to make a joke about. The whole scene at Homer's bar gets on my nerves in general.

Other than those two things, everything else was fine.

• Homer's characterization - Pretty uneven. They show a lot of Homer's playful naive side ("No, Moe, you don't understand... We buy beer from you", "Cecil is a girl's name"). But we have a good amount of jerkass behavior too ("Father, give me legs!", Lisa cutting lemons). Even though he's a bit of a jerkass, it surprisingly doesn't bother me much because the jokes are silly/dark/harmless enough. Also, it doesn't fuel the plot that much, unlike other Scully episodes.
• Humor with an edge - This is a Scully episode, after all. They really throw the dark humor at us (the professor walking into the lake, the dead rabbit, the aforementioned robot). The humor is so caustic, so mean-spirited sometimes... Because I personally think the jokes work, it gives me a better understanding for what the writers were going for during the Scully Era in their joke-writing.
• Moe's new bar - Everything about it was great. It was a fun commentary on post-modernism and trendy nonsense.
• Formico - "My name must never be spoken" is such a hilarious line.
• Lisa and Moe - Lisa's "Why does a deer have to die just because you're having a fight with Moe?" lampshades the ridiculous situation so perfectly. Also just love the Lisa/Moe "I don't like you and you don't like me" exchange that ends with Moe offering Lisa a towelette (which seems so like Moe).
• Professor ghost's evil laugh - So, yeah, why was he being mean to Moe anyway? Nice call out.
• Bart digging a hole - Hilarious because it does seem like the kind of 1st act the show was doing at the time. So it's enjoyable both for the random pointlessness and also in the weird meta way.

I hate to admit this, because I feel like it ruins my credibility (further), but I'd give this episode a 4/5. It seems like a bad episode, but I enjoy it way more than I really should. For me, it's almost like the answer to the question, "What would a prototypcial Scully episode be like if 80-90% of the jokes worked?" Humor is such a subjective thing, so it's doubtful that many would agree with that assessment, however.

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

Season 13 continues with another Moe episode. But first we begin at the Simpson house where Bart is digging a hole just for the hell of it. After we waste 3 and a half minutes on this it is revealed the whole thing is but a story being told by Homer to the guys at Moe's. Moe becomes fed up with them all and feels like he isn't appreciated and has lost his love for getting people drunk. To get it back he visits his old college while leaving Homer in charge of the bar. Moe gets some advice from his old professor and decides to post-modernize the bar. This doesn't go well with Homer, Lenny, Carl, and Barney though. They leave Moe's and decide to drink at Homer's with REM. After some hunting shenanigans Moe realizes the error of his ways and restores the bar to its former incarnation. He enjoys a Thanksgiving meal there with the Simpsons and REM as we end the episode.

Before rewatching this one I was prepared to say I hated it. I was going to say this because I remember it being both boring and painfully unfunny. However now I realize it really isn't that bad. I enjoyed the hole story even if it was all filler and had no problems with anything until Moe changes the bar. I even out right enjoyed Bart's prank call to Homer and Homer almost fainting. All the new bar scenes though really had no effect on me and I just waited for them to end. I also felt that the entire hunting and Thanksgiving aspect at the very end came out of nowhere and didn't really have many good jokes. The only one I liked for sure was Moe's bird call and Hank Azaria's ad-libs during it.

In fact I was thinking just the other day how surprising it felt to me that the show hadn't done any Thanksgiving episode since Season 2. I somehow remembered hours later that they did have another one of sorts here, and also in Kill Gil(I think?). I would still like them to do another Thanksgiving episode, but make the whole episode about it rather than the last minute or so. That really doesn't have much to do with this episode though.

Two rather dark jokes here that I actually tend to flip-flop on liking are Moe's old professor's suicide and the robot Homer throws away. I think I've warmed up more so to the professor gag though. I also liked his reappearance as a ghost. Homer seems so very jerkassy during that robot scene but the animation on the robot as he looks back is pretty great. Homer is also something of a jerk/oaf mix to Lisa in this episode, particularly while she works at his bar. Overall though this one remains fairly unmemorable for me honestly. I was gonna give it a below average grade but I'll still give it a 3/5 since it was better on this most recent viewing but it isn't anything great and there are many much better Moe episodes in even later seasons than this.

PS: I really felt totally indifferent about the REM appearance, but Homer singing his own lyrics to the one song made me smile.

[cloneasaurus]

Uh, I didn't really like this episode. I didn't hate it, but.... it just wasn't very funny or interesting. Moe was in good character, but Homer actually bugged me here. He was just so stupid, but also childish. I can handle Homer acting stupid, because obviously that's one of Homer's key traits. But there were numerous moments here where he was childish and annoying in his stupidity, crossing a boundary (for me).

As for the dark humour in the episode, I'd actually say it was funnier than the rest of the jokes in the episode which I didn't find funny at all (the Chinese spying, the Russian models, the pain gags). I didn't find the professor dying funny, but I got a laugh out of the absurdity of Homer making Lisa cut lemons for no apparent reason. The robot was also quite amusing. I guess I find Jerkass Homer funny sometimes. Never likeable, but funny the odd time.

Other positives include Moe and the gang at "m" which was actually quite a nice satire on the empty world of pretentious post-modernism. Unfortunately this part of the plot is minimal and the episode soon descends in to some weird hunting trip that feels like it was plucked straight from Homer's Phobia. In fact the plot, on the whole, was a bit messy.

Overall, poor. I tend to like Moe episodes but there were just little bits about this episode that bugged me. C/C-

[Boris Johnson]

Really funny episode, sure, it wasn't a very good plot, but as with all good Scully episodes, the humour always makes up