"Homer Loves Flanders" is the sixteenth episode of the fifth season of The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 17, 1994. In the episode, Ned Flanders invites Homer to a football game and the two become good friends. However, in a reversal of their usual roles, Ned soon grows weary of Homer's overbearing friendship and stupid antics, and actually begins to hate him. The episode was written by David Richardson and directed by Wes Archer. It was the last episode to be pitched by writer Conan O'Brien before he left The Simpsons. It is the only episode of The Simpsons that Richardson wrote. It references films such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Deadly Tower, Vertigo and The Ten Commandments, and songs such as "Two Tickets to Paradise", "Macho Man", and "Helter Skelter". Since airing, the episode has received positive reviews from television critics. It acquired a Nielsen rating of 10.9, and was the third highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired.
Plot Homer unsuccessfully tries to get tickets for a football game, the "Pigskin Classic" between the Springfield Atoms and the Shelbyville Sharks. He misses eight days of work to camp outside the Shelbyville Stadium but the entire allocation of tickets is bought by a scalper, from whom, ironically, Homer can now not afford the tickets due to the eight days of work which he missed. He then misses out on winning a pair of tickets in a radio contest. Ned Flanders wins the tickets and invites Homer as his guest. Although he dislikes Ned, Homer grudgingly accepts, after Marge catches him attempting to steal the tickets by hitting Ned on the head with a water pipe. The Atoms win the game with a last play touchdown and Ned persuades the winning quarterback to give the game ball to Homer. Overwhelmed by Ned's generosity, Homer befriends Ned and his family. Homer begins acting overly grateful and annoys Ned and his family to no end by interrupting their family time together. After Ned invites Homer to join him in volunteering at a local homeless shelter, Homer's impatient distribution of food is mistaken for enthusiasm by a Springfield Shopper reporter, leading him to being falsely celebrated as a local hero. The Flanders family and the Simpson family go on a camping trip together but do not get along, with Homer wrecking the Flanders' car and boat in the process. Ned awakens from a nightmare and tells Maude that he has grown to hate Homer. Homer remains oblivious to Ned's animosity. He arrives at the Flanders' house expecting to play golf, but Ned and his family get in their car and race off. Pulled over by Chief Wiggum for speeding, Ned takes a sobriety test as disapproving townspeople watch and conclude that he is on "goofballs". At church, people whisper about Ned's imagined indiscretions. As the entire congregation bow their heads in prayer (before a sermon calling out Ned specifically), Homer inhales very loudly through his nose, causing Ned to yell at him. This alarms the congregants, who become even more upset with Ned, but Homer sticks up for Ned, telling the parishioners "If everyone here were more like Ned Flanders, there'd be no need for Heaven, we would already be there." The next week, everything returns to normal as Homer is again annoyed by Ned. Homer announces he recently inherited his great Uncle Boris's house, allegedly haunted. The Simpsons spend the night there. After turning out the lights, they see something that causes them to scream.
Production "Homer Loves Flanders" was the last episode to be pitched by Conan O'Brien before he left The Simpsons. David Richardson was assigned to write it, and Wes Archer to direct it. Richardson wrote the episode at a Motel 6 in Hemet, California while he was dating an actress who was shooting a film there. In this season, the staff wanted to take a deeper look at the relationships of the characters. One thing in particular they wanted to explore was what Homer and Flanders have in common and how they could become friends. Former showrunner David Mirkin enjoyed making Homer and Flanders get along because they normally do not. This was the only episode of the series that Richardson wrote. The episode begins with the Simpson family watching a news broadcast in which the news anchor Kent Brockman calls the United States Army a "kill-bot factory". Mirkin said this was a joke the staff "particularly loved to do" because it pointed out how negative and mean-spirited news broadcasts can be, and how they are seemingly "always trying to scare everybody" by creating panic and depression. In one scene in the episode, Marge begins hallucinating after drinking from Springfield's water supply, which has been spiked with LSD by Springfield's rival town, Shelbyville. The Fox network's censors wanted the scene to be cut from the episode because they did not like the idea of Marge "getting high" on LSD. Mirkin defended the scene, and argued Marge was not "doing it on purpose", so the censors ultimately allowed the scene to remain in the episode. The censors also hated Ned's response to his wife telling him to drive his car faster ("I can't! It's a Geo!") fearing they could lose the car company's sponsorship, but Mirkin kept the line in. In another scene, Homer becomes frustrated at God for not getting the tickets to the game, and yells at a waffle stuck to the ceiling that he believes is God. Marge points out that it is just a waffle that Bart threw up there. Homer calls the waffle "Sacrilicious." This scene, inspired by some melted caramel stuck to the ceiling of the Simpsons writers' room, is one of Mirkin's and Richardson's "all time favorite" jokes.
Cultural references
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