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"'Deep Space Homer'" is the fifteenth episode of ''The Simpsons''' fifth season. It is also the source of the Overlord meme. The episode was written by David Mirkin, who was an experienced producer of the show, with "Deep Space Homer" being his freshman writing credit for the series.

Contents

Plot

Trivia

Cultural references

External links

Plot

At work, Homer and all his fellow employees are ordered to participate in the Worker of the Week award festivities. Everyone who participates (except Homer) already has a medal, but Mr. Burns gives the next Worker of the Week award to an Inanimate Carbon Rod. Homer is infuriated that the rod wins the award, and feels dejected that no one likes him. He turns to the TV for solace and ends up on a channel that is broadcasting a live space shuttle launch, which he finds extremely boring. The batteries fall out of the remote and he is too lazy to get up and change the channel on the TV itself. Bart helps him out by diving towards the cable and unplugging it.
NASA learns that its Nielsen ratings have declined, even being beaten by "A Connie Chung Christmas". Concerned about declining popularity, they decide to send an "average shmoe" into space. Their rationale is that the public is tired of seeing "clean-cut, athletic go-getters". They turn on the TV and come across two of many blue collar comedy programs. Homer telephones NASA to complain about their "boring space launches". By the end of the conversation, the NASA researchers determine that they have found their man. But when they arrive at Moe's, Homer thinks he is in trouble and blames Barney for making the prank call. When Homer realizes what NASA's proposal entails, he steps in and takes credit for the call. A NASA scientist then knocks them out with a blackjack.

NASA takes both Homer and Barney to Cape Canaveral to train them into astronauts. They pit the two in competition against one another as they can only take one to space. Under NASAs' alcohol ban, Barney quickly develops superior skills, even doing acrobatics while singing Gilbert and Sullivan's "Major General's Song. Barney is selected to fly with Buzz Aldrin and fictional astronaut Race Banyon (whose name parodies Race Bannon). However, when Barney toasts his victory with champagne he goes berserk, steals a jet pack, crashes into roof of a pillow factory, falls into the road, and is run over by a marshmallow truck. The scientists are perplexed, noting the champagne was non-alcoholic. Homer wins by default ("the two sweetest words in the English language!") and is selected for space flight.
In spite of Homer being chosen to go into space, he is very nervous about going. He runs from the space shuttle and talks with Marge on the phone, and she says that Homer ought to take advantage of going into space. He agrees and gets into the Corvair space shuttle, with its name a reference to the car that was widely considered to be unsafe. The launch is also a Nielsen ratings smash. When on the shuttle, Homer smuggles potato chips ("Careful! They're ruffled!") on board. He opens the bag, but is unaware that they will clog the instruments. His appetite seems to save the day as he floats after the chips in zero-G to the tune of The Blue Danube, but he flies into an ant farm, destroying it, sowing panic across the world as the ants are set free thanks to Kent Brockman's rather premature assessment of the situation.

Although James Taylor comes in to make a modified adaptation of "You've Got a Friend", the disaster continues on board, with Kent Brockman reporting that the space shuttle has been taken over by giant space ants. The ants destroy the navigation system but, luckily, James Taylor suggests that they blow the bugs out the front hatch. The astronauts do, but Homer fails to put on his "shuttle belt" and is sucked out of the hatch. Buzz pulls him inside but due to the vacuums' sheer force, Homer breaks the handle. He inadvertently uses the carbon rod to seal the door shut. They return to Earth, landing at a journalist convention.
Although Buzz Aldrin declares Homer the hero, the press see the rod as being the bigger hero. The rod is then featured on magazine covers with the words "In Rod We Trust" printed below its photos. It is even given its own ticker-tape parade. Back at home, Homer is disappointed that he did not get as much respect as he had hoped, but the family still honors him for his achievement, reassuring him that he is only one of a handful of people who get the opportunity to go into space.

Trivia

★ This episode was featured in the film ''Romy and Michele's High School Reunion'', directed by David Mirkin, who also wrote this episode.

★ According to the DVD commentary, NASA loved the episode, and astronaut Edward Lu asked for a copy of it to be sent on a supply ship to the International Space Station. The DVD remains there for astronauts to view.

★ The NASA "Worm Logo" is used in different scenes of the episode instead of using the traditional (and current) "MeatBall" logo.

★ Matt Groening was not a fan of the idea of Homer going into space, thinking it was too big a story to recover from. Therefore, to make the story believable, the writers went to an unusual amount of trouble to make the selection and training process which led to Homer's inclusion in the program was at least plausible by the show's normal standard. There are references to the absurdness of the concept in the reporters constantly asking "Is this a joke?" during the press conference. They also tried to tie in the opinions of the family and Homer's fear to make the emotional journey behind an outlandish plot realistic.

★ The Inanimate Carbon Rod is featured as a piece of salvage, a collectible item, in the MMORPGs City of Heroes and City of Villains. The item's description reads "In Rod We Trust".

★ The Corvair, along with its launch vehicle, bear a striking resemblance to the Hermes.

Cultural references

★ The two blue collar TV shows the people at NASA watch are ''Home Improvement'' and ''Married... with Children''. When Tim Taylor says "well it's back to jail for me" is a reference to Tim Allen's drug trafficking problems in the late 1970s.

★ In the scene where the family arrives at Cape Canaveral, the car is a parody of ''The Beverly Hillbillies'', with Marge sitting in Granny's position.

★ Homer and Barney's duel (cut in syndication) is a reference to the classic '' episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion", complete with one of ''Star Trek's fight themes (originally from the episode "Amok Time") and the NASA administrators betting on the combatants in "quatloos".

★ The episode of ''Itchy & Scratchy'' featured is titled "Scar Trek: The Next Laceration", a reference to ''. The music at the start of the scene parodies the theme from the original series.

★ In the ''Itchy & Scratchy'' episode, Itchy bursts out of Scratchy's stomach in a parody of the Alien from the film series of the same name.

★ There are several references in this episode to Stanley Kubrick´s film '':

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★ In the ''Itchy & Scratchy'' cartoon, Itchy comes out to torture Scratchy in an EVA pod much like those aboard the ''Discovery''. The scene itself also parodies David Bowman attempting to retrieve Frank Poole's corpse.

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★ The scene when Homer eats the free-floating potato chips echoes the opening space scene, with both the music (''The Blue Danube'') and Homer and spinning chip resembling docking spacecraft.

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★ At the end of the episode, Bart throws a marker into the air; in slow motion it rotates in mid-air, before a jump cut replaces it with a cylindrical satellite. This parodies a similar transition scene between "The Dawn of Man" and the future sequence in the film, including the use of the famous Richard Strauss piece ''Also sprach Zarathustra''.

★ Homer hopes that his crew will not be sent to "that terrible ''Planet of the Apes''", only to suddenly figure out the film's ending; he then performs Charlton Heston's final scene in the film ("You maniacs, you blew it up!").

★ As the shuttle hurtles towards earth, Homer sings the Golden Grahams tune, while Buzz Aldrin and Race Banyon hum "Battle Hymn of the Republic".

★ The title of the episode is a reference to the series .

External links

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★ "Deep Space Homer" in One Minute