Homer Badman

"Homer Badman" is the ninth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on November 27, 1994. In the episode, Homer is falsely accused of sexual harassment and must clear his name. Dennis Franz guest stars as himself portraying Homer in a TV movie.

The episode was written by Greg Daniels and directed by Jeffrey Lynch.

Plot
Homer gets tickets for a candy convention and decides to take Marge with him. Marge hires Ashley Grant, a graduate student, to babysit Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Homer outfits Marge with an oversized trench coat, hoping to smuggle out as much candy as possible. At the candy convention, Homer attempts to steal a rare gummy shaped like the Venus de Milo. When he is caught stealing the gummy, Homer makes a makeshift bomb with Pop Rocks and soda to provide cover while he and Marge escape.

That night, Homer frantically searches for the lost gummy Venus until Marge reminds him to drive Ashley home. As she exits Homer's car, he sees the gummy Venus stuck to the seat of her pants. Mesmerized, Homer grabs the gummy, and Ashley turns around to see him drooling at it. Mistaking this for a sexual advance, Ashley runs off screaming.

The next morning, an angry mob of college students marches onto the Simpsons' lawn, believing Homer sexually harassed Ashley. Homer explains he was only trying to take the gummy Venus from Ashley's pants, but the students do not believe him. The tabloid news show Rock Bottom airs an interview with Homer that is selectively (and poorly) edited and presented out of context to make him look like a pervert. The resulting media circus monitors the Simpsons' home and movements around the clock. Homer's reputation is tarnished further after Dennis Franz portrays him as an unrepentant sexual predator in the television film Homer S: Portrait of an Ass-Grabber.

Lisa and Marge suggest that Homer videotape his side of the story for a public-access cable TV channel, but since it airs during a graveyard timeslot, few viewers see it and it only succeeds in angering a penny-farthing enthusiast. Groundskeeper Willie, who enjoys shooting and watching amateur videos, sees Homer's tape. He shows the Simpsons his videotape of what really happened the night Homer drove Ashley home. After watching it, Ashley apologizes for causing the media circus, and the media agrees to stop portraying Homer as a pervert. Homer lambasts Willie, whose videotaping exploits make him the target of the next media frenzy. Marge asks Homer "hasn't this experience taught you that you can't believe everything you hear?" Homer responds "Marge, my dear, I haven't learned a thing."

Production
Greg Daniels, the writer of the episode, originally pitched this episode as being more centered on Lisa's and Homer's opposing ideas on feminism. Eventually, the episode became more of a satire of tabloid media, such as Hard Copy. David Mirkin, the show runner at the time, felt very strongly about the "tabloidization of the media" and has said that the episode was as current in 2005 as it was when it first aired and things have since gotten worse. Several gags in the episode are based on what real life shows like Hard Copy would do, such as making people look to be guilty without a trial as well as creating a complete invasion of privacy by setting up camp outside people's homes. The talk show "Ben", which is hosted by a bear named "Gentle Ben" wearing a microphone on its head, reflects the writers' feeling that anyone could host a talk show because all they need is a microphone and an audience.

Dennis Franz was the writers' second choice for the actor who plays Homer in the television dramatization. According to the DVD commentary, the original actor was more "barrel-chested".

Cultural references
During the convention, a voice over an intercom says the front desk is “Looking for Mr. Goodbar”. The action sequence at the candy convention is "based on every Bruce Willis movie ever made". Bart asks Homer if "the dog in the Coppertone commercial" was sexual harassment. Homer's imagination of living underwater is a parody of the song "Under the Sea" from the Disney film The Little Mermaid. The episode also includes parodies of Hard Copy, Sally Jessy Raphael, the Late Show with David Letterman, and media coverage of the O. J. Simpson standoff. At the end of the episode, the Rock Bottom announcer refers to Groundskeeper Willie as "Rowdy Roddy Peeper," a reference to professional wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper. Like Willie, Piper's gimmick was that of a stereotypical Scot.

Reception
In its original broadcast, "Homer Badman" finished 50th in ratings for the week of November 21–27, 1994, with a Nielsen rating of 9.5, equivalent to approximately 9.1 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, beating Married... with Children.

According to David Mirkin, the episode is very highly ranked among Simpsons fans.

In Entertainment Weekly's top 25 The Simpsons episodes list, compiled in 2003, "Homer Badman" was placed eighteenth. The Daily Telegraph characterized the episode as one of "The 10 Best Simpsons TV Episodes".

In 2003, during the first meeting between Ricky Gervais, co-creator and star of The Office, and episode writer Greg Daniels, Gervais revealed that this was his favorite episode of The Simpsons. Daniels would go on to adapt The Office for American television.