Why you little!

Why you little!
Character	Homer Simpson
Reason for Saying	Strangling Bart.
First Heard	Family Portrait

"Why you little!" is one of Homer's catchphrases. It is traditionally and almost always followed by Homer angrily strangling Bart for whatever reason he was provoked, usually being Bart insulting Homer verbally, but in the episode Homer's Phobia, Bart slapped Homer on account of seeing people hitting each other. Homer strangles Bart because he is too far away, and another time, Homer strangles Bart for slapping him, and yet another time has Homer say it yet not actually do anything about Bart due to being distracted with an opportunity Bart's prank provided him. On this occasion, the catchphrase is echoed (“Mona Leaves-a”). Another time, Homer eats a fire stick and tries to burn and strangle Bart after the latter made his burning mouth even worse by guzzling lighter fluid instead of water (“Father Knows Worst”). In some episodes, Homer doesn't say Why you little! before furiously strangling Bart, but instead says something different (i.e, in Blood Feud, when Homer learns Bart already mailed his letter to Mr. Burns, he says I'll show you mad in the morning! before choking Bart). In some cases, even though he yells the catchphrase or a similar wording thereof, his target is actually someone else, not Bart. Krusty the Clown uses this phrase in the short The Krusty the Clown Show.

Variations

A count of 22 variations was heard on television/mentioned in comics. These uses often differed because the phrase would change to suit the current situation.

• "Why, you little! I'll teach you to laugh at something that's funny!"/"Why, you little! I'll strangle-angle you!" (The Simpsons Movie)
• "Don't tell me I'm not capable of good behavior!" (Donnie Fatso)
• "Why, you metal...!" (Used for Bart's replacement robot David in "Treehouse of Horror XVI")
• "Why you little...! Hmm, free wig eh?" (Homer says this after Bart tricked him into getting a coupon for a free wig under the pretense of getting tickets for a game, being about to strangle Bart for the prank, but then gets the idea to actually GET a wig modeled after Marge to use for himself as a means to mimic her enough to not need her anymore and ignoring Bart afterward in "Homer Loves Flanders")
• "Why, you little Borderline psycho-" (Said by B.F. Sherwood in Family Therapy [this is the first variation])
• "Why, you cotton-pickin'!" (Used on Cletus in "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily")
• "Choke on your candor!" (Used on Bart after he makes fun of him being attacked by a grizzly bear in "The Fat and the Furriest")
• "Well, take note of THIS!!" (before strangling Bart, believing that he has cheated on his geography test, though he later finds out that he didn't in "Sleeping with the Enemy")
• "Why, thee little!" (The pilgrim portrayals of Homer and Bart employed this gag in "The Wettest Stories Ever Told")
• "Uh... oh, you little! Need a reason for strangling you..." (when Bart asks what he did that caused Homer to strangle him a minute earlier in "She Used To Be My Girl")
• "Pretend to care!" (the second time he strangles Bart in "She Used To Be My Girl")
• "Why you little bastard!" (after Bart makes a smart remark at Homer's expense shortly after Lisa points out that there are two types of bastard; it should be noted that while Homer is strangling Bart, she comments, "THAT'S the angry one." in "Wedding for Disaster")
• "You call that saying Grace?!" (Used on Bart after he allegedly did the Grace prayer wrongly or rudely in "Lisa the Tree Hugger")
• "WHY! YOU! LITTLE! Burn, Barty burn! (roar)!"(After Bart pranked Homer, after the latter stupidly ingested a flaming fire-breathing torch thinking it was a "fire kabob", by tricking him into ingesting lighter fluid when he needed water, proceeded to shout his catchphrase while consequently breathing fire while trying to pursue Bart, and upon getting him into a stranglehold, proceeds to spray fire at his face in "Father Knows Worst")
• "Why, you big...!" (Marge says this as she enters a two-way "why you little!" by strangling Homer who was himself about to do so with the gag's traditional victim in "Homer's Night Out")
• "You stole my money!" (Bart says this as he attempts to reverse the roles in "Barting Over". Bart's hands are too small so he pulls Homer's belt off and uses it as a Homer-strangler instead.)
• "I paid for your splendor!" (Homer to Bart in "Barting Over" after seeing Bart's new home and that half of his paycheck went to Bart in him settling in on his new luxuries.)
• "I'll Kwanzaa you!" (Homer after Bart demands Homer's mother, Mona, to give him several years worth of holiday money in "Mother Simpson")
• "Grr!! You broke our deal! We had an oral contract!" (Used on Santa's Little Helper upon learning that he impregnated Rosa Barks in "Today, I Am a Clown")
• "I'll audience you!" (after Bart tells him that he lost his stranglehold on the audience in his show in "Today, I Am a Clown")
• "Choke on your LIES!!!!!" (when Bart tells Homer that he did not make a prank call to Brazil in "Blame It on Lisa")
• "Why that little..." (when realizing Bart made the Angry Dad cartoons and humiliated him in "I Am Furious (Yellow)" Note that he hadn't actually strangled Bart as he was still at the Power Plant.)
  • "DIE, MONSTEEEERRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (upon arriving back at home and finding Bart at the computer evidently watching and uploading a new Angry Dad short after the scene listed above in the aforementioned episode).
  • "That's so obvious! It...should...be...Gary Oldman!" (Homer in response to Bart suggesting that John Goodman play the role of Angry Dad when Homer, in an attempt at covering his furious behavior to Bart, claimed he was rehearsing for the Angry Dad motion picture.).
• "Just run the the camera, you little--!" (when Bart is filming Homer's speech to Marge that he is leaving her because she is going out with Artie Ziff and says "Patty and Selma?! Screw that!" in "Half-Decent Proposal")
• "Bart, you promised you'd stop making that comparison! Per...our...agreement!" (when Bart compares Homer to a monkey due to him eating a banana in "Fraudcast News")
• "Why, you very little--!" (strangling Bart in a video on "The Girl Who Slept Too Little")
• "Boy - must - die!" (when Bart spills the lotion that makes hair grow in "Simpson and Delilah")
• "I'll show you mad in the morning!" (when Homer realizes that Bart mailed the letter, but Marge scolds him, "Homer, you encouraged him. You should be strangling yourself!" in "Blood Feud")
• "Why, you little! I'll teach you to have a libido!" (Strangling Bart as Homer catches him and Milhouse watching softer-than-soft-porn on the Internet, which is actually Flanders' two female tenants transmitting slightly naughty live webcam shows (no nudity though!) from inside Flanders' own house in "Home Away from Homer")
• "YOU!! You did this to me!" (when Homer realizes that Bart turned his shirt pink with his lucky red cap in "Stark Raving Dad")
• "Why you monster! And you took my daughter's saxophone, too!" (Homer's rage at the cat burglar directed at the Channel six stage manager in "Homer the Vigilante")
• "Choke on my numb, blue hands!" (Homer attempting to strangle Bart with frozen hands in "A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again")
• "Why, you slimy little!" (Homer on snail Bart in "Married to the Blob")
• "Why, you little! Just see if I die!" (Homer after Bart says that Marge would remarry in about two seconds in "The Wife Aquatic")
• "Why, you little! I'll teach you to make fun of my socks!" (Homer after Bart ridicules him about the smell of his gym socks while the therapy room gets flooded with fish in "How I Wet Your Mother")
• "Why, you little! There's nothing in this dreamworld that can't strangle you!" (Homer strangles Bart through the chair he's sitting on after Bart ridicules him again for ingesting a fishing hook in his childhood while watching Homer's childhood memories in "How I Wet Your Mother")
• "Why, you little! I'll show you who's a flabby!" (Homer rolls Bart's face on his big stomach in "Clown in the Dumps")

• "He what?! You monster!" (Homer says this in "Angry Dad: The Movie")

• "Why, you little! I'll give you a good night kiss you won't soon forget! Grr! Come here, you!" (Rubs Bart's face with his facial hair in Labor Pains)
• "Oh, my God! He's stealing all the burgers! Why you LITTLE! I've...got...you!" (Homer says this to the Estonian Dwarf playing the role of The Krusty Burglar when tackling him, throttling him, and then proceeding to do a massive beat down on him to within an inch of his life under the belief that the latter was actually trying to steal all the burgers, traumatizing the present children while subbing for Krusty the Clown as part of a promotional gig at Krusty Burger in "Homie the Clown")
• "I'll mace you good!" (Homer in a videotape exposing his less than stellar parenting methods to his own children, where it showed a very incriminating clip where Homer is chasing Bart with a swinging mace, or rather, medieval flail, with the clear intention of beating him with it in "Children of a Lesser Clod")
  • "That was taken out of context! Why you little! (Roars)" (Homer says this in response to the above clip, only to further prove the film's veracity regarding its claims that Homer was a horrible parent to his own children by climbing up onto the stage and proceeds to strangle Bart in anger in the aforementioned episode).
• "P, Q, R, S, T, U, W, X, Why, you little!" (Homer, who at the time was trying to teach Maggie the alphabet, while at the same time, trying to implicitly beg Bart into giving him some Butterfinger BBS that he and Lisa were eating; Bart, in the style of the alphabet, refuses, so Homer proceeds to rush through the rest of the alphabet before reaching the letter "Y", and attempts to attack Bart in retribution upon reaching the letter while yelling his catchphrase in the Butterfinger BB's "A to Z" commercial)
• "Huh? Why you little...!" (Moe Szyslak says this after being on the receiving end of a prank call in Bart vs. the Space Mutants)
• "I'll teach you to beat up yester-me!" (Present-day Homer, while going through the past in his brain, says this to Bart Simpson when the latter effortlessly beat up 20-year-old Homer in "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind")
• "Why you little! I'll teach you to mess with your sister!" (Homer says this in "Stop or My Dog Will Shoot!" after Bart tricked Lisa into touching Strangles, his new python, after soaking him in slime, which ironically resulted in Strangles proceeding to strangle Homer in turn)
• "Why you millennial!" (Homer yelling at Jamshed Nahasapeemapetilon when Jamshed tells him they don't sell hot dogs anymore in "Much Apu About Something")
• "Yeah, now that I look closer, that guy couldn't fool anybody...Why you little...!" (Homer says this in "Stealing First Base" when Skinner portrayed Bart in a re-enactment of a recent incident and said to him rather casually, "Shut up, Fatso" before he proceeded to strangle the principal as if he were Bart)
• "Why you little...! [...] Worse! [...] Much better!" (Homer says this after Bart tricked Homer to read "I ate pee-pee" during an eye exam, with the proctor proceeding to ask him if his current eyesight is improving or worsening and switching between lens while he is strangling Bart in "Last Tap Dance in Springfield")
• "Why you little...!" (Abraham Simpson delivers this variation on Homer when the latter snapped at him that the former was the screw up while arguing about Abe's tendency to put down Homer during his youth in Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy. Bart also delivers this variation when doing this onto himself in an attempt at making Homer feel better when the latter was forced to spend a decade in prison for "cheating" ZiffCorp's shareholders.).
• "Idiot?! Why you little...!" (Homer delivers this variation when he, in an attempt to force Snake's living hair off Bart's face by punching it, was insulted by Bart via denouncing Homer as an idiot due to his face evidently being affected by Homer's punches in the Hell Toupée segment of Treehouse of Horror IX).
• "No need to apologize, Apu. It was as much my fault as it was yours. […] I... accept... your apology... Apu!" (Homer says this to Apu when the latter is about to strangle him in fury after Homer ended up obliviously blowing Apu's chance at being hired back into the Kwik-E-Mart when talking with the Kwik-E-Mart President in Homer and Apu, believing Apu's threatening gesture to be Apu apologizing due to Apu earlier adopting a similar gesture when apologizing to Homer for giving him food poisoning via rotted meat. Also one of the few instances where Homer makes a remark when a victim to the gag rather than delivering it.).
• "Why you little! ...Wait a minute, does this mean you like my present?" (Homer says this after learning that the "martian invasion" broadcasted on the radio was actually a prank conducted by Bart, causing him to initially try to strangle Bart for it in retribution, only to realize that Bart pulled the prank via Homer's birthday present to him and asked if that was Bart's way of saying he truly liked the present.).

Notes

It is revealed in "Brawl in the Family" that Homer had strangled Bart since he was a baby because, in the scene where Homer strangled Bart and Lisa told Marge the way she tried to pry them isn't working, Marge told her she had been prying them apart since before Lisa was born.

Bugs Bunny used the same catchphrase with a gremlin in the 1943 Merrie Melodies cartoons, Falling Hare and in 1947's Easter Yeggs with a Dead End Kid.

El Matador from Supa Strikas almost does this to Hack until Coach interrupts it during a discussion about a match against Nakama FC in the airplane on their trip to Japan, but only says this quote in the episode Beautiful Gaming.

In the English dub of Beyblade, Tyson Granger used the catchphrase with Daichi Sumeragi.

In Disney's 1994 show Aladdin, Ayam Aghoul used the same catchphrase while trying to throw the skull at Genie before releasing Pharabu from the web.

In SpongeBob SquarePants, Squidward Tentacles used the same catchphrase with SpongeBob while racing to work and competing for the title of Employee of the Month at The Krusty Krab.

In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius special, Win, Lose, or Kaboom! Sheen says "Why you little! Come back here!" when he is chasing the Needleheads for saying "Meaps"

In Disney's 1989 film The Little Mermaid, there's a reference to it when Vanessa strangles Scuttle.

In Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Count Olaf barely says this line to Klaus before Sunny bites him.

In 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, Cruella De Vil also says this catchphrase to a newspaper dealer who throws a newspaper into her face.

In the Rugrats episode Reptar's Revenge, Leo in the Reptar costume is shown chasing Angelica for the Reptar cereals and he says to Angelica "Why you little!".

In Tom and Jerry: The Movie, Lickboot says the catchphrase after he was being kicked in the leg by Robyn Starling and Tom Cat says it as he angrily grabs Jerry Mouse after realizing that the little mouse was right behind him among the remains the burned cabin.

In Red Alert 3, during the final Soviet mission. Allied President Howard T. Ackerman says this catchphrase after the Soviet forces destroyed Fort Bradley.

In Codename Kids Next Door, Numbuh Four says this to a girl who cheekily says to him, "Hey, Wally! Do you want to borrow my purse?"

In The Amazing World of Gumball, Young Gumball says it in his imagination of protecting a baby Anais from a kid in the episode The Rival.

In The Good Dinosaur, Arlo says it when Spot bites him on the leg to make a bridge to cross on.

In Shrek, one of Robin Hood's Merry Men says this line just after Princess Fiona knocked out Robin Hood via a karate move, right before firing a crossbow arrow at her and her friends.

In Power Rangers Turbo, Elgar says this line after he falls off the Lightning Cruiser as it drives off along with Storm Blaster.

In The Ant and The Aardvark, Eli The Elephant says the same catchphrase when Marking Bird Mike copies him.

In the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "An Ed is Born", Eddy says the line when Jonny 2x4 steals the camera off of him.

In Dragon Ball Z Kai, Dr. Gero/Android 20 says the line during his fight against Piccolo.

In Megaman Legends Teisel Bonne says the line during the fight with Megaman Volnutt who slowed down his Marlwolf