Two Bad Neighbors
From Simpsons Wiki
"Two Bad Neighbors" is the 13th episode of The Simpsons' seventh season. This episode was inspired by the animosity towards the show by the Bushes from earlier in the series' run.
In September 1990, Barbara Bush said in an interview for People magazine that The Simpsons was the dumbest thing she had ever seen. Six years later, an episode had George and Barbara Bush move to Springfield and leave after George gets involved in a feud with the Simpson family (in a style reminiscent of Dennis the Menace and Mr. Wilson; Barbara Bush acts just like Mrs. Wilson, even using her catchphrase "Oh, George..."). The Simpsons Complete Fourth Season DVD set includes a special feature that presents an exchange of letters between the First Lady and show staff. In another address, Bush said that America needed to be more like The Waltons than The Simpsons, causing Bart to say they were a lot like the Waltons, since they were both praying for an end to the Depression.
This episode also sees the first appearance of Disco Stu.
Contents |
Plot
Evergreen Terrace holds a garage sale. As Homer dances on the tables selling his junk, there is a diversion: the empty house across from Homer's is being moved into. It is occupied by Former President George Bush with his wife Barbara. Bart decides to visit, and Barbara takes a liking to him. However Bart's habit of calling adults by their first names and his overall annoying attitude does not do much for George. Eventually, after Bart accidentally shreds George's newly typed memoirs, the former President takes Bart across his knee and spanks him. Homer is outraged and confronts George. Both men vow to make trouble for each other.
Homer sends bottle-rockets at George's window. George puts up a banner saying "Two Bad Neighbors", which he meant to be in reference to Bart and Homer, but Ned Flanders and Dr. Hibbert believe it was in reference to George and Barbara, so it is taken down. Homer then glues a rainbow wig on his opponent's head just before he is to give an important speech to a local club. George retaliates by chewing up the Simpsons' lawn with his car. Despite Barbara urging her husband to apologize, the confrontation continues. Homer and Bart are just making their way through the sewers to release locusts in George’s house, but he spots them and climbs down to fight, during which Homer finally learns about the destroyed memoirs, but refuses to make his son apologize. Finally, after pressure from his wife, George apologises, but sells the house as the neighbourhood clearly brought out the worst in him. The vacated house is immediately bought by Gerald Ford, who invites Homer to watch a football game with him, and to enjoy some beer and nachos at his house.
Cultural References/Trivia
- The episode featured the appearance of two former U.S. presidents. Despite the hype over the appearance of George and Barbara Bush in this episode, they were actually voiced by regular cast members Harry Shearer and Tress MacNeille. Dan Castellaneta voiced Gerald Ford.
- Stayin' Alive by The Bee Gees is parodied when Homer sings about "Table 5."
- Both presidents have made more than one appearance in the Simpsons series. George Bush also appeared in the episodes "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" (while he was President), "Mr. Plow," when Homer met him in a daydream, and "Rosebud", not being allowed into Mr. Burns' birthday party because he was a "one-termer". This scene, however, was cut in syndication. Gerald Ford also made an appearance in the episode Simpsoncalifragilisticexpialad'ohcious as a guest on the Krusty the Clown show. This is also the second appearance for Barbara Bush, although in the earlier cameo in "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington", she was voiced by Maggie Roswell and showed off the Presidential bathroom.
- The episode draws many references to American politics, citing various facts about George Bush's presidency and the diplomatic state at that time. A small number of references to Gerald Ford also appear at the end of the episode when he moved in.
- The popular "Ayatollah Assa-hola" shirt being sold is shown twice with the second 'S' purposely being censored as to prevent an actual swear for showing. Marge's finger covers it the first time, the camera angle and a fold in the shirt covers in the next. Homer attempts to persuade Marge not to sell his "Ayatollah Assa-hola" (Ayatollah Khomeni) t-shirt, claiming it works for any Ayatollah.
- Lisa mentions that a possible motive for the Bushes moving there is that Springfield is located in one of the nine states that Bush has claimed residency in. This would narrow down Springfield's location to either California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, or possibly Washington D.C..
- When Bart is questioning George the first time they meet, Bart asks "How many times were YOU president, George?" This may be a reference to his loss to Bill Clinton when running for a second term.
- When Bart and Bush are looking through a photo album, Bart says that Bob Mosbacher is "a stupid name."
- Bart also references blowback from the "wig offensive," a reference to Bush's role as CIA chief.
- During the shot in which the shredded memoir is falling, a torn piece of paper briefly falls past the screen, with the only non-shredded words reading "V.P. Quayle" and "embarrassment."
- Also, the destruction of his memoirs after a lot of hard work may be meant as a comical reason to explain why, in real life, he does not plan to write them.
- Grampa saying he was spanked by Grover Cleveland on two non-consecutive occasions, is making a reference to Grover Cleveland serving two non-consecutive terms.
- Homer is against spanking in this episode, yet in Two Dozen and One Greyhounds, he says he has "a hankerin' for some spankerin'". Probably he is simply against someone else deciding when his son needs to be spanked.
- In the episode, Homer asks Bush to "apologize for the tax hike", a reference to Bush creating a 31% income tax as part of the 1990 Budget Reconciliation Act, despite his 1988 campaign promise of creating no new taxes.
- Homer tricks Bush into coming to the door so he can glue a rainbow wig to his head by placing cardboard cutouts of Bush's sons in front of the door leading Bush to believe they're real. The sons represented are current President George W. Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. George later appears in Homer's photo album in Regarding Margie.
- When Homer and Bart shoot bottle rockets at the Bush house, it parodies a scene similar to the "Desert Storm" operation of the 1991 Gulf War, which occurred when Bush was in office.
- When Bush is paid a visit by Mikhail Gorbachev, Homer calls him a "Commie friend" to Bush, referencing Gorbachev's role as the last leader of the Soviet Union before the fall of Communism and the thaw in relations between the two countries during Bush's term in office.
- When Homer calls Bush a "wimp", it refers to the Wimp Factor, a criticism of Bush during the 1988 Election claiming that Bush looked "too weak" to be a president.
- Bush says that he'll ruin Homer "like a Japanese banquet", a reference to an incident that happened on January 8, 1992. During a state dinner, then-president Bush vomited on the lap of the Prime Minister of Japan, Kiichi Miyazawa.
- Bush uses a trick he "learned in CIA", referring to his time as the director of the CIA from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977., the lack of a "the" in front of CIA, is a speech habit used by CIA agents.
- Barbara Bush says George and Homer got off on the wrong foot, claiming their relationship is "just like the Noriega thing - now he and George are the best of friends." This reference to the former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is actually the opposite of the real situation: as CIA director, Bush had arranged for annual payments to General Noriega, but years later Bush launched Operation Just Cause to depose him.
- When Gerald Ford moves in at the end of the episode, the license plates for his two cars are MRDUH ("Mr. Duh") and LUV2SKI. The latter celebrates the former President's passion for skiing since he owned a house in Vail, Colorado in real life.
- Homer and Ford simultaneously fall over the sidewalk incline when the show ends. This is a parody of Gerald Ford's perceived clumsiness and trick knee (most notably when he fell down the stairs of Air Force One several times) while in office. Highlighting how much Homer and his new neighbor have in common, Ford even shouts "D'oh!" at the same time Homer does.
- In the DVD commentary for this episode, the writers claim that they were not even vaguely aware that George Bush had a younger son also named George (at that time, he was Governor of Texas, later being elected President in 2000), and Homer's reference to one of the cardboard cut-out sons as "George Bush Jr." was simply meant to be a joke about the stupidity of Homer and Bart's plan.
- Wes Archer, the episode's director, attempted to TP George H. W. Bush's house during his childhood.
Reception
"Two Bad Neighbors" was named by Vanity Fair as the show's fifth best episode in 2007. John Orvted said, "Conservatives ended up loving The Simpsons, because the show extolled the importance of family, church attendance, and distrust of institutions. But George H. W. Bush and his family-values cronies were originally against the show. Barbara Bush once called it "the dumbest thing I've ever seen." While the Simpsons people have always claimed evenhandedness in their satire, the show is, after all, hardly right-leaning, and it's hard to miss how gleefully the former president is mocked here."[1]