‘The Simpsons’ St. Patrick’s Day Episode Is Surprisingly Educational
Unlike other holidays such as Christmas and Halloween, there aren’t too many great St. Patrick’s Day movies — with the possible exception of The Fugitive, an obscure Irish horror-comedy and one of the creepiest Disney movies ever made. But there are a number of solid St. Paddy’s Day-themed TV shows, one of the most memorable being The Simpsons’ “Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment.”
The Season Eight episode begins in mid-March, when Bart accidentally gets drunk during Springfield’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. After being urged to “think of the children,” officials soon discover that prohibition has actually been on the books for 200 years, making alcohol illegal in Springfield under “penalty of catapult.”
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As a result, Moe’s Tavern becomes a speakeasy, “Moe’s Pet Shop,” and Homer begins living a double life as a bootlegger known as the “Beer Baron.” And not even the steely lawman Rex Banner can stop him.
Oddly enough, some teachers have found that this particular episode of The Simpsons contains considerable educational value. In the article “Teaching Note: Prohibition for the Reluctant Learner,” high school teacher Adam Ingano argues that studying “Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment” can be a “fun” way to instruct students about the 1920s with a “solid academic payout.”
The proposed lesson involves studying the decade before watching the episode in class, then using that research to “explain the historical accuracy and inaccuracy of the Simpsons’ version of Prohibition. Discuss the historical representation of the people, scenes and themes contained in the episode.”
The episode is full of cultural and historical references from the early 20th century — from the booming jazz music that suddenly overtakes Moe’s, to the Eliot Ness parody that is Rex Banner, to the recreation of Edward Hopper’s iconic 1942 painting “Nighthawks.”
“Some students pointed out that before studying the 1920s they never understood this particular episode of The Simpsons,” the article claims. “These connections, making history relevant to students, are what teaching history should be about, not simply memorization of facts.”
On social media, a number of students have posted about how their teachers really have been showing this episode during American history classes to cover Prohibition.
Judging from the comments, this isn’t the only episode of The Simpsons that’s been utilized by educators either. Others chimed in to recall how English teachers similarly showed showed various Simpsons clips including the last segment of the first “Treehouse of Horror” episode, which cast Homer in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” Some students also watched the show’s parodies of literary classics like The Lord of the Flies and Hamlet.
Hopefully students were taking notes when Chief Wiggum declared that “all our founding fathers, astronauts and World Series heroes have been either drunk or on cocaine.”