Homer Badman

"Homer Badman", also known as Homer: Bad Man is the ninth episode of The Simpsons ' sixth season and originally aired November 27, 1994. It was written by Greg Daniels and directed by Jeffrey Lynch. After an attempt to grab a gummy candy off of the seat of a young woman's pants is mistaken for sexual harassment, Homer becomes public enemy number one. Dennis Franz guest stars as himself.

Synopsis
Homer and Marge attend a candy convention and hire Ashley Grant, a college-aged feminist, to babysit Bart, Maggie and Lisa. At the convention, Homer outfits Marge with an oversized trenchcoat and is vigilant in smuggling out as much candy as possible in her pockets, until a gummy Venus de Milo catches his eye. Using Marge as a distraction and a deploying a bomb made out of Pop Rocks and a soft drink, Homer is able to steal the Gummy Venus.

That night, Homer searches for the gummy Venus but is unable to find it. Marge reminds him to take Ashley home and Homer grudgingly obliges. As Ashley is exiting Homer's car he sees the gummy Venus stuck to the backside of her pants. Homer innocently grabs the candy and Ashley turns around to see Homer drooling lustily. Misinterpreting his poor tact as a deliberate sexual advance, Ashley runs off screaming in terror while Homer gleefully eats the candy. The next morning, an angry mob marches onto the Simpsons' lawn and claim that Homer sexually harassed Ashley. Homer tries to explain his actions, but the crowd is not interested in his side of the story and continually harass Homer. "Rock Bottom", a tabloid news show, wants to interview him about his predicament and Homer immediately agrees to be interviewed. However, the interview is heavily edited into a totally inaccurate segment where Homer is portrayed as a sexual pervert. Things go from bad to worse as a media circus arrives at the Simpson home and provide 24 hour coverage of things such as Marge letting the cat out and the family watching TV. Lisa and Marge suggest Homer videotape himself telling his side of the story to air on a public access TV channel, but all he succeeds in doing is angering an old-time bicyclist.

However, Groundskeeper Willie also saw Homer's speech, and arrived at the Simpson home with a video tape of what happened the night Homer took Ashley home. The tape clearly shows that Homer was grabbing the Gummy Venus and Ashley and the media apologize for labelling Homer as a monster. Later on, the Simpson family are watching a "Rock Bottom" episode that labels Willie as a disgusting voyeur and Homer immediately declares that he is evil. Marge asks Homer if he learned anything from his experiences, to which Homer replies that he hasn't learned a thing.

Production
Greg Daniels, the writer of the episode, originally pitched this episode as being more centered on Lisa and Homer's opposing ideas on feminism. Eventually, the episode became more of a satire of the media and shows like Hard Copy. David Mirkin, the show runner at the time, felt very strongly about the "tabloidization of the media" and has said that the episode is as current today as it was at the time and things have since gotten worse. Several gags in the episode are based on what real life shows like Hard Copy would do, such as making people look to be guilty without a trial as well as a complete invasion of privacy by setting up camp outside peoples homes. The talk show "Ben" reflects the writers' feeling that any person could host a talk show because all they need is a microphone and an audience.

Casting
Dennis Franz was the writers' second choice for the role of Homer but the first choice pulled out. The original actor, whose name they refused to say, was apparently "barrel chested."

Cultural references

 * The action sequence at the Candy convention is "based on every Bruce Willis movie ever made."
 * Homer's imagination of living underwater is a parody of the song "Under the Sea" from the Disney film The Little Mermaid. David Mirkin says he thought the sequence would be funny because Homer would eat all of the characters from The Little Mermaid.
 * Among the TV shows parodied during the episode: Hard Copy, Sally Jessy Raphael, the Late Show with David Letterman and media coverage of the O.J. Simpson standoff.
 * In the ending, Rock Bottom corrects some affirmations the show has made. The list can only be read in slow motion, and includes various mockery, such as "V8 juice is not 1/8 gasoline", "Women aren't from Venus and men aren't form Mars", and "The people who are writing this have no life".

Reception
According to David Mirkin, this episode is very highly ranked among Simpsons fans. In Entertainment Weekly's top 25 The Simpsons episodes in 2003, Homer Badman was placed eighteenth. The Quindecim, a college newspaper, made their own top 25 list, placing this episode at 15th place. The episode earned an 8.0/10 on IMDB, and a 9.1/10 out on TV.com