THE SIMPSONS Greatest Hits: Homer’s Barbershop Quartet

Welcome to The Simpsons Greatest Hits, my never-ending quest to find the greatest episode of The Simpsons. Please come find me on twitter @FirsttoLastpod and let me know what is the best episode, and keep a lookout for it on this regular column.

Homer’s Barbershop Quartet

Season 5/Episode 82 overall

First aired: 30 September 1993

Written by Jeff Martin

“Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby”

Right, first off I should apologise for taking so long between these articles. I’m back now and back to business. And secondly, I should apologise for how much the ‘Baby on Board’ song is going to get stuck in your head when you think back to this episode.

Much like ‘The Way We Was’, this is another flashback episode to the earlier days of the lives of The Simpsons, and like that other episode it works as the diminishing returns of later flashback episodes haven’t kicked in yet. However, this episode does foreshadow the way The Simpsons will eventually turn into something where each episode is almost stand-alone and by the end, the whole story is reset so it simply begins with the same premise a family living in a small town having adventures. After all, Homer being revealed to have had a summer of Beatles-level stardom should have an effect on the entire show, but next week it’s completely forgotten. Which is fine. I doubt I’m in a minority when I say that I don’t watch The Simpsons for its rigid continuity.

“Baby On Board”

Jeff Martin’s high-concept script begins at a garage sale where Bart and Lisa find a record with Homer’s face on it leading him to tell the story of how once upon a time he was in a barbershop quartet that won a Grammy, toured the world, and eventually self-destructed. All within a period of around five a half weeks.

This is an episode that shouldn’t really work and any other show having one its main characters reveal a secret past in which they were part of a band that basically went through the life cycle of The Beatles would face a few accusations of having jumped the shark. You’ve got to give The Simpsons credit but they don’t linger on the ridiculousness of the plot and instead, they barrel forward with the accelerator down and it’s up to you to get on board.

Of course, just the very idea is so absurd that The Simpsons creative team is showing us they’re in on how silly the whole thing is. Having the group that blows up be a barbershop quartet in 1985 makes the thing fun weird instead of stupid weird e.g. an episode from the nineteenth season in which Homer invents grunge.

“Number 8 (Belch)”

As a big Beatles fan, the episode’s attention to detail really pushes it over the top for me. The album covers, press conferences, and “Let It Be” period band break up are all crafted with care and attention and manage to be very funny as well as great references. The two standouts are Barney’s Japanese conceptual artist girlfriend and Chief Wiggum getting the Pete Best treatment and being ousted from the band.

The Wiggum side plot in which he keeps trying to get back into the band after being replaced by Barney is outstanding, culminating in his having to see himself mocked on TV by Johnny Carson and Joan Rivers before eventually ordering the Be Sharps’ impromptu rooftop concert to be teargassed.

In conclusion, ‘Homer’s Barbershop Quartet’ doesn’t get the love and affection it deserves as it falls into the weirder end of The Simpsons episode spectrum. When it came out at the beginning of the fifth season the show was still relatively grounded in a kind of reality with some exceptions but this episode shows that the show can get a bit wild with differing results as we’ll see through the years.

All in all, I’m a big fan of this episode and even though it’s silly and a broad parody, it does manage to pull together a very sweet ending with a Be Sharps reunion atop the roof of Moe’s Tavern (formerly Moe’s Cavern).

Overall Score: 5 single plums floating in perfume and served in a man’s hat out of 5