This episode has long been notorious amongst connoisseurs of the decline and fall of The Simpsons for the scene where Homer is raped by a panda. Why is Homer in a position to get raped by a panda? Because Mr. Burns is paying him to humiliate himself. Why is Mr. Burns doing that? Because this show is completely out of ideas. Because this episode is based off of a novel where a psychotic rich man pays people to humiliate themselves. But the panda rape? That’s pure Zombie Simpsons: it’s not that funny to begin with, it takes forever to actually happen, it’s played strictly for shock/horror and it has almost nothing to do with the actual “story”.
Surprisingly enough, years of fans bitching about this one may have had a small effect as even the commentators seem at least slightly embarrassed in parts.
Only seven people on this one, including Groening and a token female.
1:00 – The source material for this half-aborted mistake is a novel called “The Magic Christian” about a crazy billionaire who believes that everyone has their price. Fine. “It’s really about trying to plumb the depths of Homer’s dignity . . . and given that by the middle of the episode we have Homer on the floor of a bathroom in a diaper I think we plumbed pretty hard.” Ugh.
2:45 – Still discussing “Magic Christian” and other stuff far removed from what’s actually going on in the pained setup here.
5:00 – One of them watched this one the night before the commentary and can’t remember if there’s a B story or not (there is). Maybe he has to drink as much as I do to get through these?
5:30 – Long, long silence.
7:00 – Story about the table read and how when they got to the third act people were “just horrified” and it “shut down all laughter”. Hmmmm. “But we made some fixes”. Yeah, that sounds like the kind of thing that could use just a little tweak.
8:30 – The original ending was Homer as Santa Claus splattering pig’s blood on people instead of Burns as Santa Claus throwing fish guts. Big change there.
10:30 – Talking about how, like the episode about “The Prisoner”, most people hated it, then laughter. It’s one thing to throw a joke over the heads of most of your audience from time to time, it’s quite another to base whole episodes off things that most of your audience won’t get. This show used to know the difference; now they’re laughing at the fact that nobody likes what they’re doing.
12:20 – “There was a time when Hibbert was actually a pretty good doctor.” Where have I heard that before? “Not much difference between him and Nick Riviera right now.” Gee, maybe that’s a bad thing? Nah. Hibbert to the EXTREME!
13:20 – Discussing the panda rape and how there was no way it should’ve gotten through the editing process, everybody laughs. Also, much giggling at the prolonged cattle prodding.
14:15 – They’re laughing at how bad it is, not how funny it is. They almost sound uncomfortable, that’s a first.
16:15 – Long silence after discussing other things that bombed at the table read.
18:15 – Mostly silence with not much discussion, once again I think they’re about as bored with this as I am.
20:15 – Still awfully quiet. They did briefly discuss how hard it is on the animators when they have to do a crowd, but that’s it.
21:00 – Still fixating on it not being pig’s blood and how that’s such an improvement.
21:50 – Talking about how the ending was essentially unsalvageable. We know, oh, we know.
Dead Homer Society 
7 responses to ““Homer vs. Dignity” Makes Baby Jesus Cry”
““There was a time when Hibbert was actually a pretty good doctor.” Where have I heard that before? “Not much difference between him and Nick Riviera right now.” Gee, maybe that’s a bad thing? Nah. Hibbert to the EXTREME!”
I wonder if the main reason Dr. Nick Riviera appeared less and less after the classic years of the show is because he became superfluous, with Zombie Simpsons (unwisely) turning Dr Hibbert into a shoddy GP.
I never noticed before, but there does at least *seem* to be a lot less of Dr. Nick in the dark parade that is Zombie Simpsons. I’d bet against it being a conscious decision (tough to imagine someone in Authority saying, “No more Dr. Nick, goddamn it!), but if the absurdity is taken and the need isn’t there . . .
I can’t help think back to the time of “A Star is Burns” when Groening was so outraged with the whole Critic crossover plot that he actually insisted his name be removed from the title credits. Apparently “panda rape” just doesn’t invoke the same righteous indignation.
I always thought that was a weird move on Groening’s part, especially for a show that happily whores itself out to just about anything. I read somewhere that Brooks pretty much pulled rank on him, so I can see how that would rankle, but still. Also, “The Critic” rules.
I could kind of see Groening’s objections to the crossover. “A Star is Burns” is one of my favorite episodes but nearly all the best material has nothing to do with Jay Sherman. It’s all Simpsons. With a touch of reworking, the crossover could’ve been eliminated completely and the episode would’ve lost nothing.
That’s no knock against “The Critic” itself – I just think the whole crossover ploy was unnecessary and intrusive.
That said I think Groening was overreacting by insisting his name be removed regardless of the politics behind the scenes. He made his objections known very publicly. At that point it was really bordering on childish to pull a stunt like that.
We did get “McBain: Let’s Get Silly” out of Sherman’s cameo. You’ve got to give Groening one thing though, Simpsons didn’t do squat when Futurama came out. A crossover would’ve been pretty strained, but still, points for consistency if nothing else.
I feel bad knowing that the same episode that gave us the all-important word “retirony” is the same one where Homer gets raped by a panda.