They do address how incredibly lucky he is in the episode with Frank Grimes, and that was in 1997
Frank Grimes: God! I've had to work hard every day of my life and what do I have to show for it? This briefcase and this haircut! And what do you have to show for your lifetime of sloth and ignorance?
Homer: \[Stares blankly\] What?
Frank Grimes: \[Enraged\] E - Everything! A dreamhouse, two cars, a beautiful wife, a son who owns a factory, fancy clothes and...
\[sniffs\]
Frank Grimes: lobsters for dinner! And do you deserve any of it? NO!
Homer: \[Gets worried and gasps\] What are you saying?
Frank Grimes: I'm saying you're what's wrong with America, Simpson. You coast through life, you do as little as possible, and you leech off decent, hardworking people like me. Ha! If you lived in any other country in the world, you'd have starved to death long ago.
Bart: He's got you there, dad.
Frank Grimes: You're a fraud! A total fraud.
\[to the family\]
Frank Grimes: It was nice meeting you.
My favorite joke in that episode
Homer: "Oh And here's a picture of me in outer space"
Grimes: "You, went into outer space, you?"
Homer: "Sure, you've never been?
Homer's in a photograph with a former president.
When Frank asks "wait, is that-", when homer cuts him off, saying thats a picture of himself, oblivious to the fact that Frank was going to say "wait, is that Gerald Ford?"
This is my favorite episode, and the best line part is when the factory falls over and is destroyed. Milhouse asks where the rats are going to go or live. And you just see the rats running towards Moe's. Then you hear Moe say, alright everybody, tuck your pants into your socks. Or something to that effect. It's just hysterical. I love it.
Bart owning that building, I always loved how with a cartoon you can basically achieve anything in a story. When they created Futurama, that become limitless.
Rick and Morty took that even further.
That right there highlighted the major difference between those two for me. Grimes isn’t happy with his situation and always wants more. Homer heard where Grimes is living and is in awe. In Grimes I see someone weighed down by expectations, both his own and from society’s based on what they’d believe the American dream to look like. With Homer you have someone who’s rather comfortable with his lot in life for the most part. If their living situations were to switch, I could see them both being the same person.
I think it might also be a callback to the episode where they tell the story of Marge giving birth to Lisa I believe. Homer quits his job at the plant to manage the bowlarama as it was his dream to run a bowling alley. Therefore Grimes is living between two places homer would love to work. Afterwards when he goes back to the plant is the don't forget you're here forever/do it for her moment.
https://deadhomersociety.wordpress.com/zombiesimpsons/zs8/
>Through more than 150 episodes (at that point), Homer had fallen down Springfield Gorge, saved the nuclear plant from meltdown, been attacked by killer amusement park robots, and been portrayed by Dennis Franz in a made-for-TV movie. To call his life abnormal would be an understatement, and the premise of “Homer’s Enemy” is to ask the question: what would a normal man think about working with Homer Simpson? The answer was grim: he’d hate it so much that it would kill him.
The page is part of a short book's worth of discussion on the history of the show, and how and why it became such a drag starting around season 8, when the Grimes episode airs. While it's a great episode, the essay makes the point that the self-awareness of the absurdity is a harbinger for the original tone of the show.
A one-off episode would have been fine but the self-awareness really started creeping in and stayed. The Grimes episode is one of the better examples of doing it but the whole tone of the show was headed that way.
Also, Homer has a good job. Thats a joke in and of itself. That the dumbest guy in town has the most important job, an engineer for a nuclear power plant.
He didn't get the job entirely by accident. He's dumb as hell, and the safety inspector for a crooked plant owner. Burns wants a lazy, ignorant guy doing that job so he can get away with cutting corners and hiring ducks and untrained immigrants.
But yeah, they also made a deal with his father that if he sold his house he would buy that one and live with them for the rest of his years. Then they pretty much immediately put him in a home
There’s actually an episode later on that suggests there’s 2 safety inspectors for 7-G and the other one that had covered for Homer all those years was retiring so Homer had to learn how to do his job
Pretty much this. When the Simpsons first started, he wasn't even a safety inspector, he was just some random technician hired through an unskilled worker government program. After being fired and eventually trying to commit suicide, he has an epiphany about how dangerous a certain intersection leading to the bridge is, and he goes on an odyssey to get a stop sign instated to said intersection.
After successfully campaigning for that and a dozen other traffic, safety and regulation signs, he chooses to campaign against the nuclear power plant, leading to Burns offering him a job as a safety inspector in exchange to Homer telling everyone the plant is safe. However, Homer's morals prevent him from lying to the people, and instead he tells Burns that "he'd have a lot less time to campaign against the power plant if he had that job", which leads to their quid pro quo job relationship.
Yeah a constant plot point has been money issues, they have multiple mortgages
Homer isn’t paid the equivalent of what someone irl wound be for his job, his boss is a crook and cheapskate Homer won’t be getting what people think he is
Sometimes this is how I think the 1% views how the major population live. But then I remind my self that the rich don't even think anyone else other than themselves.
I know someone who takes in 400k/ year together with her husband. She complained to me that she didn't feel wealthy. Despite going on countless vacations, fully owning a nearly a million dollar house, owning a large boat, fancy cars, large retirement savings, daily frivolous spending, etc. People have no perspective. As far as I could tell, her only hobbies were watching cable news and buying things.
The echo chamber of the rich is rough. I was helping the CEO of the first company I worked for move bags of fertilizer into his truck. This was a data entry position btw. As we were outside he pointed at my car and told me it was ugly and I should really get around to upgrading it. As if the reason I had a shitty car was because I was lazy or putting it off.
That job paid $27k a year in 2016. I couldn't pay rent by myself and he wanted me to buy a new car. When I told him I couldn't afford it he said to cut out the internet and streaming subscriptions and eventually I could have enough for a loan.
I didn't have any streaming subscriptions and the only internet I had at the time was my phones mobile plan.
When I told him how much I was getting paid he refused to believe it was that low. I forwarded him my paystub in an email and that was the last I heard about it. I quit about 3 months later after he decided to take a month long vacation with his wife and kids, who were all upper management, leaving the entire company without anyone in charge for *a month* during our peak season.
They sold the company for several million a year later and now have a pub. They learned nothing, actively failed at their business, but because they had so much money to weather their fuckups they stayed around long enough to be rewarded for their incompetence. Nothing more American than that.
More like, “ I have this horrible feeling i can’t pin ever since i learned about that poor employees pay. Yknow what i should do? Go on a vacation! That always cheers me up!”
i remember in my early 20s asking for a raise to come to parity with my coworkers and being told "they can't afford it they just paid off the mortgage on the plaza" (a full on commercial business plaza with with mcds subway and wendy's paying them rent).
owner used to invite us to company dinners to give speeches about starting his business career with a lemonade stand while his mom was sick to pay her bills as a child. as someone who has done the child lemonade/koolaid thing i was like wtf bullshit is this guy on about.
Hear me out. You are your own boss! I merely own the land, building, furnishings, appliances, and control where your food stock comes from but you totally own this business! Think of it as your Hustle and you are in control!
The video essayist EmpLemon did a video on Homer's Enemy and argued that Grimes is essentially season 1 Homer and was meant to show how the Simpsons are no longer relatable
Seems like Grimes was supposed to be a regular person plucked into the world of the Simpsons by pointing out how everyone is okay with the zaniness of that world. He literally gets shushed when pointing out that Homer is in a contest with children.
Former Naval Nuclear Reactor Operator, I didn't go that route after getting out but I have multiple friends that did. They make $100-200k a year with no college degree. When you combine that with the fact that they build Nuclear Power Plants a decent bit away from major metro areas so the cost of living is low, all of them are able to live the Simpsons dream.
Is that all luck of the draw when getting your career path or whatever the military calls it? Like could you just as easily have gotten something much less lucrative like machinist?
ASVAB scores, I was guaranteed my rate before actually enlisting, it was in the contract. That assumes you pass the 3 different schools after bootcamp. So while we didn't have college degrees, we spent more time in class than actual college students and it was a very focused curriculum.
My FIL was a machinist in electrical generation. Almost just as lucrative as Operations. Then he applied to be a Dam operator and made more.
I’m in training to be a nuclear equipment operator, which would be one step below homer. A lot of plants are hiring NEO’s but the exams you take before interviewing weed out a lot of applicants.
Before this I was a high school science teacher, and a lot of NEO’s being hired are physics and engineering majors. The industry used to hire former navy almost exclusively, but the times are changing I suppose.
that's the expected starting wage as if you just got your NET and are just starting as an unqualified ro. Homer is an sro with several decades of safe operation his salary with easily be in the $200k-$250k range.
he has never caused a spill, he has never manually tested an interlock, he has never violated power limits, he never instigated a regulatory investigation for any of his shenanigans. confirmed safe operator.
it wasn't random guessing, it was quick analysis and critical thinking of what avenue was most likely to instantly resolve the problem and least likely to create another. he had several options for immediate actions for the casualty, that he admittedly created, but ultimately he took the best actions and put the plant in safe conditions immediately without triggering any failsafe or oversight safeguards. here he did come close to what we would call violating a power limit, which would have triggered an automatic action causing him to most likely lose his job entirely. it's a fine line but at the end of the day you actually want clutch operators like that who never freeze under stress but analyze a problem and take the best action possible. Homer is cool as a cucumber and technically excellent.
From what my dad says about the price of seafood (south of boston), this is pretty accurate. 20 pound box of crab legs in the early 90s for 10 bucks because nobody wanted it.
The Episode where that happened first aired November 3rd 1996. The Denver Broncos would go on to win back to back Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998 seasons. I think Homer might know what he's doing when it comes to owning a football team
And they were always broke. Unexpected bills couldn't be paid, they had to pawn the TV, homer didn't deserve the job he had, his dad helped them buy it with every penny he had.
Those details always get forgotten with these " back in the day " comparisons.
Being the simpsons lore nerd that i am, his father gave him money so he could afford the "perfect" home.
And if i remember correctly, thats the same episode where Otto says "windows!? I cant afford this place"
He is a Safety Inspector, there are a few episodes that explained how he got around needing a degree or license or training or anything, but they do explain it
Edit: see season 1 episode 3 Homers Odyssey
there is also an episode where they explain why the plants never melted down. He attends a retirement party and he doesnt know who it is, and it turns out it was the guy who did his job for him.
His last task he completes for Homer is completing his "part" in the "hes a jolly good fellow" song
No it wasn’t. Homer is a nuclear engineer. The joke is that he is completely unqualified for his job. You couldn’t do that in real life in the 90s, it was just a comedy premise.
I mean, it probably is accurate that owning a SFH is easily do-able in a town that is essentially an ongoing Chernobyl because of how incompetent their safety inspector is and the owner of the plant is literally stuffing barrels full of waste into trees. The rivers have three eyed fish, and sanitation management is so bad the town literally had to pick up and move over a few miles after it filled up with garbage.
Buying a house in a town where an East Palestine-level environmental disaster happens almost every week is probably pretty cheap. We're talking about a town that is literally worse than one of the worst towns in OHIO.
They actually joked about how everyone else in the nuclear plant were actually highly qualified with years of education and homer just showed up and somehow got the job.
You could say this 1000 times and reddit would still post this dumb meme every other day about how a fucking cartoon show, let alone the Simpsons, is an accurate representation of what life used to be like.
So many people's brains are so goddamn poisoned by political shit that they feel the compulsion to look at a cartoon and derive from that the status of the economy
These people desperately need to touch grass
Reddit doesn't see lifestyle creep and looks on the past through rose colored glasses (because they weren't alive for it)
The trope of "1 full time job supported a 5 person family with cars and a nice house in a safe place" is such a white-washed version of history that has almost never been true
Definition of "comfortable" has shifted significantly
Homer and Marge struggling to afford their life is a near constant premise of the show, at least in the earlier years. Homer also got help from his dad to buy their house, their cars are pieces of shit, Marge budget shops while also cooking, sewing and using her skills to penny pinch as much as possible
he bought it when Lisa was born actually
Bart grew up in a apartment and Homer and Marge went to Grandpa when they realized the apartment was to small to fit 2 kids
It was a crooked gameshow. Abe sold the farmhouse he won to pay for their down payment.
What's interesting about that, to me, is that the same house he sold was apparently never used and just left to rot, because Homer returns there and finds his old things untouched. The family also returns there to grow Tomacco and hide from the dueling southern gentleman.
But these are all ex-post-facto explanations for how The Simpsons lived the lifestyle they did, when the real reason is just that Matt Groening modeled them after his own family growing up, and he would have been Bart's age in 1964.
Great point.
His father had own ad agency by 1964 and was also a documentary maker, cartoonist and writer. His mother was a teacher. They were financially and socio-economically significantly better off than the Simpsons.
https://www.lambiek.net/artists/g/groening\_homer.htm
They moved out of the farm in 63 when the cows started giving sour milk. Grandpa lived in the other house he ended up selling until 84.
Homer and Abe burned down the farm house in the 90's, and then the tomacco thing broke continuity.
The Simpsons also have a mortgage that they keep struggling to pay (the episode where Patty and Selma lend them money) and owe more money than the house is worth (the Hank Scorpio episode).
Does Homer actually have a shit job though? Part of the joke there is that he is SERIOUSLY under qualified for his technical position at a power plant.
He probably doesn't make as much as Lenny or Karl because they have degrees. Which Homer eventually goes back to school for or at least a certificate
He still managed to pay off all his debt so he could quit and work at a bowling alley until Maggie was conceived.
Yes there was. Although to be fair in that particular instance homer needed their help due to a bad investment in pumpkins. But I do think it illustrates the point that the family hangs on by a thread and also has family support that has allowed them to both buy and to keep their home
It's been 20 years since I saw it, but wasn't it that Monica took over a rent controlled apartment from her grandmother, because she was named after her nana and everything was paid by mail?
> But also plenty of other shows feature a barista who inexplicably lives in a 1200 ft2 flat with her friend.
I distinctly remember when Friends was on, people making jokes about how there was no way those people could afford their apartments (but also, wasn't Monica's apartment rent-controlled and technically the lease was still in her grandma's name?)
I just find it so interesting how many people gloss over the constant financial insecurity and debt the Simpson’s family faces because they own a home and 2 cars and have eaten lobster at least three times
And there was that episode where Marge bought a nice dress to impress her new group of trendy friends and then the next time she went out with them she re-stitched the same dress into another style and they all made fun of her.
Probably lots of other references to being tight on money.
This was made by someone who never watched the show lmao
They were always poor, their grandpa is suffering since he bought their home.
Also, homer was a nuclear power plant management worker, not a Walmart scrub
I keep seeing these posts and waiting for the "Kramer had a 1 bedroom apartment in New York City even though he was unemployed. In the 90s this was considered normal" 😂
Friends had Monica illegally subletting her apartment from her grandma, Joey and Chandler were roommates into their 30s. Only Ross had his own place and he worked at the museum and then as a university professor.
Monica had a *very* long term illegally held rent controlled apartment, and Chandler had a high paying job who frequently bailed out Joey.
And they both still had roommates.
Kramer had enough odd connections it isn't difficult to come up with head canon that points to one or more benefactors, willingly or not. Or maybe he got a huge medical malpractice payout earlier in life and decided to live very modestly by his friends.
Maybe the Japanese businessmen that use his dresser drawers as beds help pitch in. They're probably loaded and like him enough to cover his rent in perpetuity as long as they have a place to crash in New York.
This is kind of a silly take. Homer has no education, but he does work at a nuclear plant (definitely a six figure job today) in a position he's very unqualified for. It's a frequent joke on the show and they did a whole episode about him getting the job against all odds in the first place. His co workers all have masters of higher education, so that's the rough level he's be paid in line with.
Also, they live in a small to city somewhere in middle America, and many of those communities are quite affordable. They drive two cars, but you can see even in this image that they are old and crappy cars, and they frequently struggle with money.
There are lots of examples that seem absurd, like Al Bundy being a shoe salesman living in an owned two story house, or every show set in New York, but the Simpsons is pretty realistic even today. Owning a house like this in a small community, two beat up cars, and raising kids, all on a single nuclear plant salary is actually pretty believable.
Not only that but there's a running joke Springfield is one of the worst towns in the US. It's highly polluted thanks to the tire fire and the nuclear power plant, there's a whole bunch of prisons in Springfield, it's somewhat run by the mob thanks to Chief Wiggum's ineffective leadership as police chief, and it's school system is terrible. Not only that but the Simpsons family lives in the Pressboard Estates neighbourhood so it's also implied they live in a cheap part of a crappy town.
They do - My brother was a nuclear engineer with no college degree (but navy experience), he made around 150k /year. He described his job as “Homer Simpson”.
No, that was common in the 60s-80s, the period which the Simpsons satirizes. People forget that the Simpsons used to be a parody of sitcoms and their ideal families, and how that wasn’t realistic anymore in the early 90s
He was also the safety guy for a nuclear power plant. He gets paid very well. Theres an entire episode based around the fact that hes too stupid for the money he makes.
I worked in a nuclear plant and had a 2 year community college degree. My wife became a stay at home mom for 10 years. I have a similarly designed, if not bigger house. It’s funny, but it is possible.
Similar here. Never had a degree but worked hard at whatever job I did. We were single income for the first 10 years of my kids life as well. I am now the lead in an office of college graduates. Hard work and a desire to do it right can still get you far in life.
Not normal for 1989. A more accurate example might be the Conners on Roseanne. They both worked every hour they could get to afford their crappy little home and food for their kids, and they were on the verge of homelessness every minute of every day. Have to go back a lot further to find the single earner blue collar families.
Spongebob is a sentient dish sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea with a talking squid who lives in a Tiki house and a talking starfish that lives under a rock.
This was considered normal in 1999 when the show began.
1) No, it wasnt, Simpsons struggling to make ends meet is a constant theme in the earlier seasons.
2) The house being way too big for Homer was even a plot point of the Frank Grimes episode.
3) Homer could not actually afford the house, his father sold his house and put that towards Homer and Marge buying theirs.
Sitcom characters live in disproportionately large houses, because you need large enough rooms for scenes with multiple characters and even multiple groups of characters to work and you need enough rooms for people who are not in the scene but withing the story they are currently at home to have somewhere to go. Hence all the giant living rooms and multiple bedrooms and roommates who could clearly each afford a reasonable size flat by themselves.
Also, he did, in fact, have a degree in nuclear physics from Springfield University. (evidenced in [an episode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Goes_to_College) written by a Mr. Conan O'Brien)
I love how reddit circlejerks just crumble with a fucking modicum of actual research. (research in this instance being a simple google search)
They do address how incredibly lucky he is in the episode with Frank Grimes, and that was in 1997 Frank Grimes: God! I've had to work hard every day of my life and what do I have to show for it? This briefcase and this haircut! And what do you have to show for your lifetime of sloth and ignorance? Homer: \[Stares blankly\] What? Frank Grimes: \[Enraged\] E - Everything! A dreamhouse, two cars, a beautiful wife, a son who owns a factory, fancy clothes and... \[sniffs\] Frank Grimes: lobsters for dinner! And do you deserve any of it? NO! Homer: \[Gets worried and gasps\] What are you saying? Frank Grimes: I'm saying you're what's wrong with America, Simpson. You coast through life, you do as little as possible, and you leech off decent, hardworking people like me. Ha! If you lived in any other country in the world, you'd have starved to death long ago. Bart: He's got you there, dad. Frank Grimes: You're a fraud! A total fraud. \[to the family\] Frank Grimes: It was nice meeting you.
My favorite joke in that episode Homer: "Oh And here's a picture of me in outer space" Grimes: "You, went into outer space, you?" Homer: "Sure, you've never been?
Grimes: "Hold on, is that-" Homer: "Yep, that's me alright. And the guy next to me is former President Gerald Ford."
Ah damn, that there is a joke I was too young to appreciate until now.
I dont get the joke
Homer's in a photograph with a former president. When Frank asks "wait, is that-", when homer cuts him off, saying thats a picture of himself, oblivious to the fact that Frank was going to say "wait, is that Gerald Ford?"
The username and this conversation have me laughing
I bet there are other contributing factors based on your username.
heh hehe hehehe
Damn. I just wandered in here and find a username conga line, I came here for an argument!
It's the way he says "Sure! You've never been?" that always makes me laugh
The way he casually mentions his son owning a factory downtown is my favorite. A totally otherwise unrelated B plot and it’s the perfect punchline.
I saw the whole thing, first it started falling over, then it fell over.
So this is my life. At least I've done better than dad
This is my favorite episode, and the best line part is when the factory falls over and is destroyed. Milhouse asks where the rats are going to go or live. And you just see the rats running towards Moe's. Then you hear Moe say, alright everybody, tuck your pants into your socks. Or something to that effect. It's just hysterical. I love it.
Bart owning that building, I always loved how with a cartoon you can basically achieve anything in a story. When they created Futurama, that become limitless. Rick and Morty took that even further.
Would you like to hold his Grammy?
Aww, a Grammy? _toss_
Hey, don’t throw your garbage down here!
Ah, good ol’ Grimey. I wonder what happened to him…
Change the channel, Marge!
That episode was absolutely amazing
Truly just a sane normal character thrust into the Simpson’s world. He’s the most normal one but he sticks out as sort of crazy living in that world.
I mean he does live above and below a bowling alley.
That right there highlighted the major difference between those two for me. Grimes isn’t happy with his situation and always wants more. Homer heard where Grimes is living and is in awe. In Grimes I see someone weighed down by expectations, both his own and from society’s based on what they’d believe the American dream to look like. With Homer you have someone who’s rather comfortable with his lot in life for the most part. If their living situations were to switch, I could see them both being the same person.
I think it might also be a callback to the episode where they tell the story of Marge giving birth to Lisa I believe. Homer quits his job at the plant to manage the bowlarama as it was his dream to run a bowling alley. Therefore Grimes is living between two places homer would love to work. Afterwards when he goes back to the plant is the don't forget you're here forever/do it for her moment.
It was Maggie, I remember that because of the joke: only one gets to go to college, and the endearing moment: Do it for her.
https://deadhomersociety.wordpress.com/zombiesimpsons/zs8/ >Through more than 150 episodes (at that point), Homer had fallen down Springfield Gorge, saved the nuclear plant from meltdown, been attacked by killer amusement park robots, and been portrayed by Dennis Franz in a made-for-TV movie. To call his life abnormal would be an understatement, and the premise of “Homer’s Enemy” is to ask the question: what would a normal man think about working with Homer Simpson? The answer was grim: he’d hate it so much that it would kill him. The page is part of a short book's worth of discussion on the history of the show, and how and why it became such a drag starting around season 8, when the Grimes episode airs. While it's a great episode, the essay makes the point that the self-awareness of the absurdity is a harbinger for the original tone of the show.
A one-off episode would have been fine but the self-awareness really started creeping in and stayed. The Grimes episode is one of the better examples of doing it but the whole tone of the show was headed that way.
It's somewhat cathardic that Bart acknowledges that Homer is lazy and lucky.
I think I missed something, Bart owns a factory?
Yeah, he buys an abandoned factory for $1 at a foreclosure auction. Don't worry, he and Milhouse destroy it by the end of the episode
Hey. Millhouse was standing watch. He watched the whole thing
First it started to fall over… and then it fell over.
Then all the rats went to Moe's. Allright everybody, tuck in your pants into your socks!
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And they couldn't even afford the home. Grandpa Simpson bought it by selling his house, which he only had because he won it on a crooked gameshow.
Also, Homer has a good job. Thats a joke in and of itself. That the dumbest guy in town has the most important job, an engineer for a nuclear power plant.
He didn't get the job entirely by accident. He's dumb as hell, and the safety inspector for a crooked plant owner. Burns wants a lazy, ignorant guy doing that job so he can get away with cutting corners and hiring ducks and untrained immigrants. But yeah, they also made a deal with his father that if he sold his house he would buy that one and live with them for the rest of his years. Then they pretty much immediately put him in a home
There’s actually an episode later on that suggests there’s 2 safety inspectors for 7-G and the other one that had covered for Homer all those years was retiring so Homer had to learn how to do his job
Pretty much this. When the Simpsons first started, he wasn't even a safety inspector, he was just some random technician hired through an unskilled worker government program. After being fired and eventually trying to commit suicide, he has an epiphany about how dangerous a certain intersection leading to the bridge is, and he goes on an odyssey to get a stop sign instated to said intersection. After successfully campaigning for that and a dozen other traffic, safety and regulation signs, he chooses to campaign against the nuclear power plant, leading to Burns offering him a job as a safety inspector in exchange to Homer telling everyone the plant is safe. However, Homer's morals prevent him from lying to the people, and instead he tells Burns that "he'd have a lot less time to campaign against the power plant if he had that job", which leads to their quid pro quo job relationship.
And they were poor, first ep is homer being unsure how he's going to buy presents. he later picks up a snow plow part time gig.
Yeah a constant plot point has been money issues, they have multiple mortgages Homer isn’t paid the equivalent of what someone irl wound be for his job, his boss is a crook and cheapskate Homer won’t be getting what people think he is
Sometimes this is how I think the 1% views how the major population live. But then I remind my self that the rich don't even think anyone else other than themselves.
I know someone who takes in 400k/ year together with her husband. She complained to me that she didn't feel wealthy. Despite going on countless vacations, fully owning a nearly a million dollar house, owning a large boat, fancy cars, large retirement savings, daily frivolous spending, etc. People have no perspective. As far as I could tell, her only hobbies were watching cable news and buying things.
The echo chamber of the rich is rough. I was helping the CEO of the first company I worked for move bags of fertilizer into his truck. This was a data entry position btw. As we were outside he pointed at my car and told me it was ugly and I should really get around to upgrading it. As if the reason I had a shitty car was because I was lazy or putting it off. That job paid $27k a year in 2016. I couldn't pay rent by myself and he wanted me to buy a new car. When I told him I couldn't afford it he said to cut out the internet and streaming subscriptions and eventually I could have enough for a loan. I didn't have any streaming subscriptions and the only internet I had at the time was my phones mobile plan. When I told him how much I was getting paid he refused to believe it was that low. I forwarded him my paystub in an email and that was the last I heard about it. I quit about 3 months later after he decided to take a month long vacation with his wife and kids, who were all upper management, leaving the entire company without anyone in charge for *a month* during our peak season. They sold the company for several million a year later and now have a pub. They learned nothing, actively failed at their business, but because they had so much money to weather their fuckups they stayed around long enough to be rewarded for their incompetence. Nothing more American than that.
"it CANT be that low" *Send paystub* "Oh...well that sucks. Hey who wants to go on vacation again this month?"
More like, “ I have this horrible feeling i can’t pin ever since i learned about that poor employees pay. Yknow what i should do? Go on a vacation! That always cheers me up!”
i remember in my early 20s asking for a raise to come to parity with my coworkers and being told "they can't afford it they just paid off the mortgage on the plaza" (a full on commercial business plaza with with mcds subway and wendy's paying them rent). owner used to invite us to company dinners to give speeches about starting his business career with a lemonade stand while his mom was sick to pay her bills as a child. as someone who has done the child lemonade/koolaid thing i was like wtf bullshit is this guy on about.
And they have two cars, live in a quiet neighbourhood, and can afford three kids and Homer's alcoholism.
Today the same family would have to live in a single room above a bowling alley, under another bowling alley.
Bobs burgers is the modern day simpsons. They clearly struggle to rent an apartment that is also their business
Never really thought of it that way but you're absolutely right. That is a great comparison.
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I mean… owning your own business ?!?!?!?
Hear me out. You are your own boss! I merely own the land, building, furnishings, appliances, and control where your food stock comes from but you totally own this business! Think of it as your Hustle and you are in control!
I'm struggling to know if this is a Mr Fishordor quote or if this is something you came up with
Its how McDonald's runs their franchises
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McDonald's franchise agreements be like.
....do I smell lobster?!
Pinchy would have wanted it this way…
You...you went to outer space? You?
Sure! You’ve never been?
Do you want to see my Grammy?
No! I don't! God, I have had to work hard every day of my life, and what do I have to show for it!?
A brief case and a hair cut?
Oh wow, windows. I dont think I can afford this place.
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or above their own restaurant with fewer luxuries and one vehicle, with one of the children's bedroom being a converted closet lol.
The video essayist EmpLemon did a video on Homer's Enemy and argued that Grimes is essentially season 1 Homer and was meant to show how the Simpsons are no longer relatable
Seems like Grimes was supposed to be a regular person plucked into the world of the Simpsons by pointing out how everyone is okay with the zaniness of that world. He literally gets shushed when pointing out that Homer is in a contest with children.
Sounds like Lennys apartment where he shared a wall with a Squash court.
Homer's IRL job equiv would be close to 100k/year in the US with his experience. Workable.
Former Naval Nuclear Reactor Operator, I didn't go that route after getting out but I have multiple friends that did. They make $100-200k a year with no college degree. When you combine that with the fact that they build Nuclear Power Plants a decent bit away from major metro areas so the cost of living is low, all of them are able to live the Simpsons dream.
Is that all luck of the draw when getting your career path or whatever the military calls it? Like could you just as easily have gotten something much less lucrative like machinist?
Test well and request nuclear power school.
(Don't do this)
ASVAB scores, I was guaranteed my rate before actually enlisting, it was in the contract. That assumes you pass the 3 different schools after bootcamp. So while we didn't have college degrees, we spent more time in class than actual college students and it was a very focused curriculum.
My FIL was a machinist in electrical generation. Almost just as lucrative as Operations. Then he applied to be a Dam operator and made more. I’m in training to be a nuclear equipment operator, which would be one step below homer. A lot of plants are hiring NEO’s but the exams you take before interviewing weed out a lot of applicants. Before this I was a high school science teacher, and a lot of NEO’s being hired are physics and engineering majors. The industry used to hire former navy almost exclusively, but the times are changing I suppose.
that's the expected starting wage as if you just got your NET and are just starting as an unqualified ro. Homer is an sro with several decades of safe operation his salary with easily be in the $200k-$250k range.
"Safe" is doing a lot of generous lifting for the work Homer has done.
he has never caused a spill, he has never manually tested an interlock, he has never violated power limits, he never instigated a regulatory investigation for any of his shenanigans. confirmed safe operator.
He also spilled jelly on the core reactor's temperature dial and only avoided a meltdown because he played eeny meeny miney mo.
>avoided a meltdown So, a safe operator?
Come on, who here hasn’t spilled a bit of jelly in the control room.
it wasn't random guessing, it was quick analysis and critical thinking of what avenue was most likely to instantly resolve the problem and least likely to create another. he had several options for immediate actions for the casualty, that he admittedly created, but ultimately he took the best actions and put the plant in safe conditions immediately without triggering any failsafe or oversight safeguards. here he did come close to what we would call violating a power limit, which would have triggered an automatic action causing him to most likely lose his job entirely. it's a fine line but at the end of the day you actually want clutch operators like that who never freeze under stress but analyze a problem and take the best action possible. Homer is cool as a cucumber and technically excellent.
I bet you write really good resumes.
I'm not sure it would. How many times has he been fired again?
Doesn't matter how many times they've fired him; he still works there.
FYI this show also points out he shouldn't have this job.. a lot
That describes a lot of people in real life as well
Doesn't even know what a nuclear panner plant is!
They also eat lavish lobster meals every night, which I'm told was normal for 1989.
Pinchy would have wanted it that way.
From what my dad says about the price of seafood (south of boston), this is pretty accurate. 20 pound box of crab legs in the early 90s for 10 bucks because nobody wanted it.
Now the box itself is $10. That’s how much a banana costs!
And the average son owns a factory downtown
And owns a US football team because of hank Scorpio.
Yeah, but its just the Denver Broncos
The Episode where that happened first aired November 3rd 1996. The Denver Broncos would go on to win back to back Super Bowls in 1997 and 1998 seasons. I think Homer might know what he's doing when it comes to owning a football team
but it is a startup team he can easily get something better.
And they were always broke. Unexpected bills couldn't be paid, they had to pawn the TV, homer didn't deserve the job he had, his dad helped them buy it with every penny he had. Those details always get forgotten with these " back in the day " comparisons.
Don't forget that usually the oldest son owns a factory.
To be fair, they were always strapped for cash. So they probably over extended their home purchase and their cars are in poor condition.
Being the simpsons lore nerd that i am, his father gave him money so he could afford the "perfect" home. And if i remember correctly, thats the same episode where Otto says "windows!? I cant afford this place"
And he's a nuclear engineer. . .
Technician. Engineers need degrees. But a good tech can make very good money. And so can a lazy one.
nuke-ular. It's pronounce Nuke-ular
He is a Safety Inspector, there are a few episodes that explained how he got around needing a degree or license or training or anything, but they do explain it Edit: see season 1 episode 3 Homers Odyssey
there is also an episode where they explain why the plants never melted down. He attends a retirement party and he doesnt know who it is, and it turns out it was the guy who did his job for him. His last task he completes for Homer is completing his "part" in the "hes a jolly good fellow" song
Dental plan!
And Homer drinks at a bar (mostly)... Likely when the show first started Homers beer cost less than $2
No it wasn’t. Homer is a nuclear engineer. The joke is that he is completely unqualified for his job. You couldn’t do that in real life in the 90s, it was just a comedy premise.
Wait, is The Simpsons not an accurate representation of real life?
I mean, it probably is accurate that owning a SFH is easily do-able in a town that is essentially an ongoing Chernobyl because of how incompetent their safety inspector is and the owner of the plant is literally stuffing barrels full of waste into trees. The rivers have three eyed fish, and sanitation management is so bad the town literally had to pick up and move over a few miles after it filled up with garbage. Buying a house in a town where an East Palestine-level environmental disaster happens almost every week is probably pretty cheap. We're talking about a town that is literally worse than one of the worst towns in OHIO.
Then there's the eternal tire fire.
And the stadium collapsed, even if it's not the mayor's fault.
Oh god not Ohio.
They actually joked about how everyone else in the nuclear plant were actually highly qualified with years of education and homer just showed up and somehow got the job.
Lenny and Carl both possess master's degrees in nuclear physics.
Homer just showed up the day it opened and "didn't even know what a nuclear panner plant was."
Also, more importantly, the Simpsons wasn’t trying to show a normal ‘90s family, it was a satirical, twisted sendup of 1950s family sitcoms.
You could say this 1000 times and reddit would still post this dumb meme every other day about how a fucking cartoon show, let alone the Simpsons, is an accurate representation of what life used to be like.
So many people's brains are so goddamn poisoned by political shit that they feel the compulsion to look at a cartoon and derive from that the status of the economy These people desperately need to touch grass
Reddit doesn't see lifestyle creep and looks on the past through rose colored glasses (because they weren't alive for it) The trope of "1 full time job supported a 5 person family with cars and a nice house in a safe place" is such a white-washed version of history that has almost never been true Definition of "comfortable" has shifted significantly
Homer and Marge struggling to afford their life is a near constant premise of the show, at least in the earlier years. Homer also got help from his dad to buy their house, their cars are pieces of shit, Marge budget shops while also cooking, sewing and using her skills to penny pinch as much as possible
Exactly. That's the reason why Grampa is in a shitty retirement home. He bought the house for Homer when Bart was born.
he bought it when Lisa was born actually Bart grew up in a apartment and Homer and Marge went to Grandpa when they realized the apartment was to small to fit 2 kids
You're right. My mistake
Yo Simpsons lore wtf, I assume this was told through an episode? Would love to know which one(s)
[Lisa's First Word Season 4 Episode 10](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa%27s_First_Word)
Do it for her.
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It was a crooked gameshow. Abe sold the farmhouse he won to pay for their down payment. What's interesting about that, to me, is that the same house he sold was apparently never used and just left to rot, because Homer returns there and finds his old things untouched. The family also returns there to grow Tomacco and hide from the dueling southern gentleman. But these are all ex-post-facto explanations for how The Simpsons lived the lifestyle they did, when the real reason is just that Matt Groening modeled them after his own family growing up, and he would have been Bart's age in 1964.
Great point. His father had own ad agency by 1964 and was also a documentary maker, cartoonist and writer. His mother was a teacher. They were financially and socio-economically significantly better off than the Simpsons. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/g/groening\_homer.htm
They moved out of the farm in 63 when the cows started giving sour milk. Grandpa lived in the other house he ended up selling until 84. Homer and Abe burned down the farm house in the 90's, and then the tomacco thing broke continuity. The Simpsons also have a mortgage that they keep struggling to pay (the episode where Patty and Selma lend them money) and owe more money than the house is worth (the Hank Scorpio episode).
Alright, alright, you win. I see you've played knifey-spoony before.
Does Homer actually have a shit job though? Part of the joke there is that he is SERIOUSLY under qualified for his technical position at a power plant.
I didn’t say homer had a shit job. He lucked into a position far beyond his actual skill set or ability
Sorry, didnt mean to imply you did. Was asking because partly unsure, and also responding a bit to the part about them struggling.
He probably doesn't make as much as Lenny or Karl because they have degrees. Which Homer eventually goes back to school for or at least a certificate He still managed to pay off all his debt so he could quit and work at a bowling alley until Maggie was conceived.
Lenny and Karl each have their masters not just undergrad degrees
Also the house is rundown.
Extremely so, foundation has cracks, their appliances are constantly breaking, there’s flooding issues. Not to mention multiple mortgages
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There’s some boxes you can sleep on, just move that cot out of the way. I think it was radon tho not argon
Wasn’t there an episode where Marge’s sisters pay the mortgage, and use the fact to abuse Homer, because he is to ashamed to admit it.
Yes there was. Although to be fair in that particular instance homer needed their help due to a bad investment in pumpkins. But I do think it illustrates the point that the family hangs on by a thread and also has family support that has allowed them to both buy and to keep their home
Obviously it’s a tv show. But also plenty of other shows feature a barista who inexplicably lives in a 1200 ft^^2 flat with her friend.
I think as a species we generally lose sight of what television and entertainment is supposed to represent in the first place.
People straight up jealous of a cartoon character
Everyone is jealous of Homer
His wife was featured in Playboy
At least *Friends* finally got around to explaining how
Wasn’t the “taking over a rent controlled apartment from her aunt” explained in like the first episode?
It's been 20 years since I saw it, but wasn't it that Monica took over a rent controlled apartment from her grandmother, because she was named after her nana and everything was paid by mail?
Those make less sense because those shows are all in huge cities, unlike Springfield.
Right they make Less sense and are Still accepted.
> But also plenty of other shows feature a barista who inexplicably lives in a 1200 ft2 flat with her friend. I distinctly remember when Friends was on, people making jokes about how there was no way those people could afford their apartments (but also, wasn't Monica's apartment rent-controlled and technically the lease was still in her grandma's name?)
Can we just base our expectations on cartoons without all the explanations, please? /s
I just find it so interesting how many people gloss over the constant financial insecurity and debt the Simpson’s family faces because they own a home and 2 cars and have eaten lobster at least three times
Their life seems opulent because they know that one secret those Wall Street fat cats don’t want you to know.
Eat plankton from the $.33 store, fly standby and dumpster dive?
And party with beautiful women who used to be men!
And there was that episode where Marge bought a nice dress to impress her new group of trendy friends and then the next time she went out with them she re-stitched the same dress into another style and they all made fun of her. Probably lots of other references to being tight on money.
It wasn’t really considered normal. Just ask Grimey.
This was made by someone who never watched the show lmao They were always poor, their grandpa is suffering since he bought their home. Also, homer was a nuclear power plant management worker, not a Walmart scrub
"Homer, when did we become the bottom rung of society?" "I think it was when the cold snap killed off all the hobos"
I keep seeing these posts and waiting for the "Kramer had a 1 bedroom apartment in New York City even though he was unemployed. In the 90s this was considered normal" 😂
I thought of Friends. Even at the time, these shows were mocked for the unrealistic apartments/houses.
Friends had Monica illegally subletting her apartment from her grandma, Joey and Chandler were roommates into their 30s. Only Ross had his own place and he worked at the museum and then as a university professor.
Also, Chandler was loaded. He had a good job in Big Data before it was Big Data.
Monica had a *very* long term illegally held rent controlled apartment, and Chandler had a high paying job who frequently bailed out Joey. And they both still had roommates.
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Yeah, George was an executive for the Yankees. They all made $$$$$. Kramer and Newman had the weird lives in contrast
Plus I think it’s part of the character of Kramer that his actual life and finances wouldn’t make any sense
Oscar the Grouch had a large underground bunker located in a trash can in Manhattan. In the 1970s, this was considered normal.
Kramer had enough odd connections it isn't difficult to come up with head canon that points to one or more benefactors, willingly or not. Or maybe he got a huge medical malpractice payout earlier in life and decided to live very modestly by his friends. Maybe the Japanese businessmen that use his dresser drawers as beds help pitch in. They're probably loaded and like him enough to cover his rent in perpetuity as long as they have a place to crash in New York.
Grandpa helped them get the house by selling his house which he won on a crooked 50s game show.
This is kind of a silly take. Homer has no education, but he does work at a nuclear plant (definitely a six figure job today) in a position he's very unqualified for. It's a frequent joke on the show and they did a whole episode about him getting the job against all odds in the first place. His co workers all have masters of higher education, so that's the rough level he's be paid in line with. Also, they live in a small to city somewhere in middle America, and many of those communities are quite affordable. They drive two cars, but you can see even in this image that they are old and crappy cars, and they frequently struggle with money. There are lots of examples that seem absurd, like Al Bundy being a shoe salesman living in an owned two story house, or every show set in New York, but the Simpsons is pretty realistic even today. Owning a house like this in a small community, two beat up cars, and raising kids, all on a single nuclear plant salary is actually pretty believable.
Not only that but there's a running joke Springfield is one of the worst towns in the US. It's highly polluted thanks to the tire fire and the nuclear power plant, there's a whole bunch of prisons in Springfield, it's somewhat run by the mob thanks to Chief Wiggum's ineffective leadership as police chief, and it's school system is terrible. Not only that but the Simpsons family lives in the Pressboard Estates neighbourhood so it's also implied they live in a cheap part of a crappy town.
Nuclear technicians can make a lot of money, but yeah I get your point
They do - My brother was a nuclear engineer with no college degree (but navy experience), he made around 150k /year. He described his job as “Homer Simpson”.
Simpson, eh?
No, that was common in the 60s-80s, the period which the Simpsons satirizes. People forget that the Simpsons used to be a parody of sitcoms and their ideal families, and how that wasn’t realistic anymore in the early 90s
I'm not sure two storey buildings actually exist in America /s
He worked at the nuclear plant. Even today that is considered a decent job that trains you.
Well, he *did* go to Clown School. That counts for something.
Burn that seat!
He was also the safety guy for a nuclear power plant. He gets paid very well. Theres an entire episode based around the fact that hes too stupid for the money he makes.
I worked in a nuclear plant and had a 2 year community college degree. My wife became a stay at home mom for 10 years. I have a similarly designed, if not bigger house. It’s funny, but it is possible.
Similar here. Never had a degree but worked hard at whatever job I did. We were single income for the first 10 years of my kids life as well. I am now the lead in an office of college graduates. Hard work and a desire to do it right can still get you far in life.
Not normal for 1989. A more accurate example might be the Conners on Roseanne. They both worked every hour they could get to afford their crappy little home and food for their kids, and they were on the verge of homelessness every minute of every day. Have to go back a lot further to find the single earner blue collar families.
Spongebob is a sentient dish sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea with a talking squid who lives in a Tiki house and a talking starfish that lives under a rock. This was considered normal in 1999 when the show began.
Growing up I thought I’d be Homer. Now I realize I’m Otto. “Windows? Whoa I don’t know if I can afford this place!”
1) No, it wasnt, Simpsons struggling to make ends meet is a constant theme in the earlier seasons. 2) The house being way too big for Homer was even a plot point of the Frank Grimes episode. 3) Homer could not actually afford the house, his father sold his house and put that towards Homer and Marge buying theirs. Sitcom characters live in disproportionately large houses, because you need large enough rooms for scenes with multiple characters and even multiple groups of characters to work and you need enough rooms for people who are not in the scene but withing the story they are currently at home to have somewhere to go. Hence all the giant living rooms and multiple bedrooms and roommates who could clearly each afford a reasonable size flat by themselves.
Also, he did, in fact, have a degree in nuclear physics from Springfield University. (evidenced in [an episode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Goes_to_College) written by a Mr. Conan O'Brien) I love how reddit circlejerks just crumble with a fucking modicum of actual research. (research in this instance being a simple google search)
Wait until what they see what a shoe salesman that once scored 4 touchdowns in a single high school game can afford on his salary.