Here’s Why Homer’s Smackdown of George H.W. Bush on ‘The Simpsons’ Was Personal
Over The Simpsons’ 35 seasons and counting, the show has made numerous political jabs and jokes about the rich and powerful, but not during the Season Seven masterpiece episode “Two Bad Neighbors” — those punches were personal.
In a vacuum, you can understand why a current or former U.S. president belonging to the Republican party probably wouldn’t count The Simpsons among his favorite shows. Though Simpsons writers aren’t all bleeding-heart liberals — all-time great John Swartzwelder was famously much more of a Dale Gribble than a Lisa Simpson — The Simpsons has made no secret of their disdain for the kind of social conservatism that characters like Ned Flanders consistently embody (especially in recent seasons), and the series has a long tradition of mocking the Oval Office and the curmudgeonly conservatives who occasionally inhabit it.
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However, the feud between The Simpsons and the late president George H.W. Bush wasn’t actually started by The Simpsons. In fact, both Bush and his wife Barbara were some of the earliest haters the show ever had, and they both publicly denounced the series before The Simpsons ever considered airing their grievances with H.W. on TV, let alone in front of Mikhail Gorbachev.
In “Two Bad Neighbors,” a recently unseated Bush and his former First Lady decide to retire from politics and move to a town with the lowest voter turnout in the country in hopes of living a peaceful life. As it turns out, the Bush family’s move to Springfield lands them right on the Simpsons’ block, where the rebellious antics of Bart Simpson quickly wear thin the patience of the conservative former CIA head who enacts some unsanctioned corporal punishment on Bart’s behind after the boy accidentally shreds the only copy of Bush’s memoirs. Homer takes offense to a grown man other than himself physically punishing Bart, and a prank war ensues that culminates in the famous fistfight embedded above.
While the feud between the Bushs and The Simpsons only came to blows in the 1996 episode, the acrimony began all the way back during H.W.’s time in office when Barbara called the then-young comedy series “the dumbest thing I had ever seen” during a 1990 interview with People. The Simpsons writers decided to take the high road despite the public attacks, and they wrote a letter to Barbara in the voice of Marge Simpson pleading for civility. Barbara replied with an apology.
However, the cease-fire didn’t last long, as, once again, the Bush family launched an unprompted act of aggression that wouldn’t stand — while on the campaign trail in 1992, H.W. said of his “family values” platform, “We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons,” referencing the 1970s historical drama TV show The Waltons, which centered around a traditional Christian family living in rural Virginia during the Great Depression.
In the opening of the very next episode of The Simpsons, the since-scrubbed “Stark Raving Dad,” the whole Simpsons clan crowded around the TV to watch H.W. side-eye their family, with Bart remarking, “Hey, we’re just like the Waltons. We’re praying for an end to the Depression too,” in a jab at H.W.’s handling of the recession at the time.
Then, in 1996, The Simpsons landed a knockout blow in the form of “Two Bad Neighbors,” an episode first conceived by Bill Oakley and written by Ken Keeler. The writers were unsatisfied with how the feud had simply trailed off after H.W. lost his re-election effort, and they wished to hand H.W. an even bigger defeat than the one he suffered at the grabby hands of Bill Clinton. However, Oakley has since emphasized of the episode’s treatment toward H.W., “it’s not a political attack, it’s a personal attack,” noting how The Simpsons only went after H.W.’s personality and “crotchetiness” rather than any of his presidential policies.
After all, how could The Simpsons trash H.W.’s political career any worse than the voters already had?
