'Round Springfield #10: Homer's Night Out

By the time I write this review, It's already the middle of January in 2018. And in the three weeks alone we've seen a prominent Youtuber make an ass of himself in Japan acting like a clown around a man who committed suicide, a seemingly daily revolving door of celebrities being outed for sexual misconduct, and a maniac in the most powerful position in the world do everything from call Africa a bunch of "shithole countries", make a "fake news awards" to satiate his fractured ego, and even boast the possibility of committing acts of nuclear terrorism in between his normal tweets about "Fake News". What I'm trying to get is, in this era of looming nuclear war and kids eating packets of bleach, we live in a world where there's always something shocking to talk about. But back in 1990, Homer Simpson dancing with a belly dancer was the talk of the town. Let's see if it's warranted with Homer's Night Out which aired March 25th, 1990.

Chalkboard Gag: "I will not call the teacher "Hot Cakes"."
Couch Gag: Reused couch explosion gag from "Homer's Odyssey"

We open the episode with a fun little time lapse joke. First learning from Homer about the office birthday party where his assistant Eugene Fisk got drunk due to spiked punch and putting the hots on a woman from valve maintenance. This also gives us our second plot setup as Bart finds an ad for a genuine spy camera and proceeds to buy it. We cut to six months later as Homer now tells us that Eugene Fisk and the woman are getting married (also he's Homer's supervisor now). Homer's also going to Eugene's bachelor party. Meanwhile, Bart gets his spy camera, and, as expected, becomes a nuisance to everyone with it.

While Homer goes to the stag party, the rest of the family head to the Rusty Barnacle for dinner. And conveniently the stag party is also being held at the Rusty Barnacle. The men are entertained by a belly dancer by the name of Princess Kashmir, and Homer gets on stage and dances with her. Too bad for him he didn't factor in Bart using his spy camera to take a photograph. Bart then takes said photograph and develops it. When the kids at school see the photo, they want copies, which they give to their parents, who also make copies. Somehow in the span of a day, the photo of Homer and Princess Kashmir becomes the talk of the town. Even Mr. Burns finds interest in this "self-styled Valentino".

Eventually Marge sees the photo and is in a rage. She confronts Homer when he gets home, and then kicks him out of the house. With nowhere else to go for the night, he shacks up with Barney. When he finally gets Marge to talk to him, she tells him that her anger isn't due to anything that happened in the picture (which considering the last episode where she was ready to leave her family for her romantic tryst with Jacques is a good way to not make her seem hypocritical), but that she fears that Bart seeing this will make him go down the path of seeing women as objects. So in order for him to be forgiven, he takes Bart to find Princess Kashmir.

They eventually find Princess Kashmir at the Sapphire Lounge getting ready for a performance. He gets to learn about who she is outside of being a performer. However, he also ends up being caught in the middle of the act. Instead of being thrown out, his newfound reputation as being the party man of Springfield allows him to dance with even more women. Until he realizes that he's lost sight of why he came here, and gives a pretty solid speech about not objectifying women, as we end with Homer and Marge back together.

Line of the Episode:

"I have something to say to all the sons out there. To all the boys, to all the men, to all of us. It's about women, and how they are not mere objects with curves that make us crazy. No, there are our wives, they are our daughters, our sisters, our grandmas, our aunts, our nieces and nephews. Well, not our nephews. they are our mothers. And you something, folks? As ridiculous this sounds, I would rather feel the sweet breath of my beautiful wife on the back of my neck as I sleep than to stuff dollar bills into some stranger's g-sting. Am I wrong? Or am I right?"- Homer Simpson

So going back to my earlier tangent, about how what constitutes as controversial or talkative subjects. In a post-internet society we see things nowadays that are far more shocking and discussion worthy than a fat guy dancing with a belly dancer. It's why I think this episode, more so than others in season one, is extremely dated. We live in an era where controversy and shocking events one-up themselves on a near-daily basis. Honestly, if Homer's Night Out didn't wisely shift the focus on how this behavior can lead to sexist mindsets, I'd say this episode was the most skippable one of them all. They at least give us a few seconds to see Princess Kashmir beyond the belly, and Homer gives a rousing (for Homer at least) speech on why we should respect women. I remember thinking this episode was one of the weakest of the season, and I stand by that despite the much needed message. It's an episode that hasn't aged perfectly, but has a few decent gags and lines to keep it from being a slog of 22 minutes. It's worth a rewatch, but for this season, there's far better ones out here.

FIRST APPEARANCES:

CARL CARLSON

PRINCESS KASHMIR

NEXT TIME ON "'ROUND SPRINGFIELD"...

THE CREPES OF WRATH