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"There's No Disgrace Like Home" was the fourth non short Simpsons episode released on television. The episode deals with Simpsons family relations, anger, and comparisons to other families.

Synopsis

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Homer and his family attend a company picnic at Montgomery Burns' mansion, where Burns sees them as hostile, selfish, and unruly in comparison to other employees' families. Homer becomes discouraged and takes his family out to peek into the houses of other families in the neighborhood. At the second house, a man hears them outside and fires at them with a shotgun; they run away and return home. Homer goes to Moe's Tavern; police arrive looking for the family of Peeping Toms and leaves without finding them, though the dog growls constantly at Homer. Homer gets in a fight with Barney Gumble, loses, and sees a commercial for Dr. Marvin Monroe's family counseling from his position on the floor, promising "family bliss" or double their money back.

Homer returns home, takes the family television to a pawnbroker, and then he and his family go to counseling. When each member of the family is asked to draw the source of their aggitation in the family, they all draw Homer, except Homer himself who was distracted and drew a 747. Bart makes a wise crack at Homer's expense, who responds to by grabs a lamp to throw at the boy; Dr. Monroe takes it from him and gives them all padded sticks to hit each other with. Hitting each other with padded sticks works until Bart removes the padding and hits Dr. Monroe on the shin. Dr. Monroe then hooks the family up to electroshock machines intending to subject them to aversion therapy and cure them of their anger and antagonism: Dr. Monroe explains that they each have the ability to shock the others and so should soon learn to avoid doing so.

Instead, they shock each other repeatedly, causing the lights to dim throughout town; Dr. Monroe panics and unplugs the machine. Homer demands double his money back, in accordance with Dr. Monroe's promise on his advertisement, and takes the $500 to buy a new television.

This episode marks the introduction of Dr. Marvin Monroe, Itchy and Scratchy, and Eddie and Lou (two of Springfield's policemen). But Lou is not African-American in this episode, though he is later, and Smithers, who was drawn as an African-American in the previous episode, is drawn a yellow lighter than Burns in this one. This episode also marks the first use of Burns' "release the hounds" comment.

Trivia

This episode was the first to be broadcast by the BBC, on BBC One on 23 November 1996, making it the first episode to be seen by UK terrestrial viewers (the satellite channel Sky One had shown the programme since 1990). Moving to BBC Two from 10 March 1997, it continued on the BBC until terrestrial rights moved to Channel 4 in 2004.

Parodies

• Freaks, the Tod Browning cult horror film about sideshow "freaks," in its repetition of the line "one of us"
• Citizen Kane in its low angle hillside shot of Burns' mansion
• Batman in its reference to the "stately Burns Manor"
• The episode title is a play on the saying "There's no place like home".

Memorable Quotes

• Homer: "I'm sorry, Marge, but sometimes I think we're the worst family in town."
  Marge: "Well maybe we should move to a larger community."

• Homer: "When will I learn? The answers to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV!"

External links

• Episode capsule on "Simpsons Archive"

• Simpsons episodes