The Simpsons’ Duffman Made His First Appearance In A Banned Episode – SlashFilm

In the “The Simpsons” episode “The Metropolis of New York vs. Homer Simpson” (September 21, 1997), Homer (Dan Castellaneta) is consuming at his native dive bar along with his buddies. Everyone seems to be having a great time aside from Barney (additionally Castellaneta), an alcoholic who has, for the evening, been chosen as his group’s designated driver. Barney is already on edge, screaming that he wants beer quickly when the dulcet strains of Yello’s “Oh Yeah” interrupt his ideas. Exterior, the Duff Beer Partymobile pulls up, and Duff-branded company mascots file into Moe’s Tavern. The occasion is about to start, clearly as a company gimmick. In the center of the fray is Duffman (Hank Azaria), a beer-themed superhero, who enters the room and asks if everybody is able to “GET DUFFED!” He proceeds to distribute free beers to everybody. He provides Barney a free barrel of Duff Additional Chilly. Barney has to refuse. He’s in Hell. 

When driving his drunken buddies residence, Barney lastly snaps. He drops everybody off, then goes joyriding in Homer’s automotive. The subsequent morning, Homer will get a name from the New York Police Division, a number of states over. It appears his automotive is illegally parked, with a boot … within the coronary heart of Downtown Manhattan. Homer has to fly to New York to get his automotive again. Homer finds that his automotive was deposited proper in between the World Commerce Middle buildings. As one may think, his efforts to extricate the automobile go away him exhausted, filthy, and crammed to the brim with crab juice and Khlav Kalash. 

It is definitely not the most effective episode in accordance with followers on IMDb, but it surely’s probably as a result of lots of them have not seen it. As a result of a big portion of “The Metropolis of New York vs. Homer Simpson” is about proper in between the World Commerce Middle towers, the episode was tastefully pulled from syndication after the occasions of September 11, 2001. This was confirmed by “Simpsons” author/producer Invoice Oakley on the “New York” DVD commentary observe.

Which means Duffman’s debut was made unavailable.

Duffman, it must be famous, turned a daily character on “The Simpsons,” utilized at any time when the writers wanted an over-the-high mascot to offer exclamatory punctuation to a scene, or when jokes about company shill-hood had been required. Up to now, the character has appeared in 24 episodes. 

On the DVD commentary for “The Metropolis of New York,” Invoice Oakley famous that the episode, whereas hilarious, needed to be pulled from rotation after the 9/11 assaults. Audiences merely weren’t able to see a comedy sequence whereby the towers had been nonetheless standing and made the objects of jokes. Certainly, there’s a scene in “New York” whereby an workplace employee in Tower #2 leans out the window and yells at a employee in Tower #1. He says that he desires to “stick it to the jerks in Tower One.” This joke was humorous in 1997 however turned much less humorous in 2001. Invoice Oakley stated that the episode started to work its approach again into reruns after about 5 years, returning to some markets as early as 2006. 

For just a few years, although, newer “Simpsons” followers maybe puzzled the place Duffman got here from. After all, his look in “New York” would not actually clarify loads; his existence as a company mascot is fairly clear. 

An extra, and really bizarre, coincidence. In one second within the episode, Bart (Nancy Cartwright) factors to a brochure that provides $9 cab excursions of town. The “$9” is positioned proper subsequent to a show of the World Commerce Towers, making it appear to be “9-11.” This, nonetheless, was simply an eerie coincidence. 

This, in fact, wasn’t the final time “The Simpsons” had issues about its content material ageing poorly. In 2011, producer Al Jean was interviewed by EW to speak concerning the present’s outstanding location of a nuclear energy plant (the place Homer works) in a world broken by the meltdown at Fukushima, Japan. Jean famous that the “Simpsons” writers could be that includes Homer’s office rather less for just a few years.