This post was originally published on this site
Changes seemingly won’t be coming to “The Simpsons” after co-creator and producer James L. Brooks told People Magazine Homer “will continue to get aggressive with his son,”
“Nothing’s getting tamed. Nothing, nothing, nothing,” Brooks told the publication. “He’ll continue to be strangled—[if] you want to use that awful term for it. He’ll continue to be loved by his father in a specific way.”
News of “The Simpsons” patriarch no longer strangling his son was rapidly shared on social media after the Oct. 22 episode “McMansion & Wife” premiered. During the episode, when Homer and Marge meet their new neighbor, Thayer, the new character comments on Homer’s firm handshake.
“See, Marge, strangling the boy paid off,” Homer said during the episode. “Just kidding, I don’t do that anymore. Times have changed.”
The scene caught the internet’s attention when it was posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Nov. 1.
Many users had opinions on the change.
“Hot take, but I never liked this ‘strangling Bar’” joke as a running gag. It kind of always felt kind of out of place for the show and Homer as a character,” one user wrote.
“I don’t care if people aren’t bothered, the Homer strangling Bart scenes are still funny after 33 years,” another user posted to X.
Homer has stopped strangling Bart before, as shown in the episode “Love is a Many Strangled Thing.”
During the episode, Homer attends a fathering enrichment class and a large basketball player, played by real-life former Los Angeles Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, teaches Homer what it feels like “to be young, small, and terrified” by strangling him and letting his friends do it too.
Homer temporarily reframed from strangling his son until Season 24 when the episode “Love is a Many-Splintered Thing” aired.
Despite Brooks saying change won’t come to the show, Homer hasn’t been depicted strangling Bart since Season 31, which ran between 2019 and 2020, according to The Independent.
Suggest a Correction
