Difference between revisions of "Homer and Apu"

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"Uh ... Apu friend me good."

―Homer

"Homer and Apu"

Episode Information Showrunner: [[{{{showrunner}}}]] DVD features

"Homer and Apu" is the thirteenth episode of season 5. It originally aired on February 10, 1994. The episode was written by Greg Daniels and directed by Mark Kirkland. James Woods guest starred as himself.

Synopsis

"Apu loses his job at the Kwik-E-Mart after he sells Homer tainted meat. Homer feels bad and lets Apu live at the Simpson's home while he is unemployed. In an attempt to get his job back, Apu and Homer travel to India to talk with the head of the Kwik-E-Mart corporation. Meanwhile, James Woods fills in Apu's position."

Plot

Homer buys some spoiled meat from Apu in the Kwik-E-Mart, eats it and gets extremely sick. After getting better, Homer angrily goes to Kwik-E-Mart to complain about the spoiled meat, for which Apu gives Homer spoiled shrimp. Once again Homer eats the shrimp and becomes terribly sick. This time however, Kent Brockman (who fronts the investigative news program Bite Back with Kent Brockman) gives Homer a giant novelty hat containing a spy camera to expose Apu for selling spoiled food. Caught in the act, Apu is immediately fired from Kwik-E-Mart. He protests that he did not violate company policy, the company executives agree but explain that its also company policy to make a scapegoat in these situations. Apu's replacement is actor James Woods who is researching for his next movie.

After being fired, Apu does chores for Homer because he thinks that he is in debt to Homer for selling him spoiled food, and helping him would pay off his debt of karma. As time goes by, the family begins to love Apu and his traditions. However Apu begins to miss his job at Kwik-E-Mart so Homer decides to help him by traveling together to the Kwik-E-Mart head office in India. The world's first convenience store happens to be inconveniently located on top of the Himalayas. Once they arrive they meet up with the head of Kwik-E-Mart, a man in a white building drinking a Squishee labeled as "The Master Knows All (except combination to safe)." Unfortunately, due to Homer's incompetence and disbelief in the man being President, the head of Kwik-E-Mart does not help Apu with his problems and Apu and Homer are forced to return home disappointed.

Later on, Apu manages to save James Woods from being shot by a Robber by taking the bullet himself. The grateful Woods then sees to it that Apu gets his job back at the Kwik-E-Mart, while he goes off to battle aliens on a distant planet. The episode ends with the Simpson family hugging Apu as he recovers in the hospital from his gunshot wound.

Production

Al Jean and Mike Reiss came up with the idea for the episode and handed it over to David Mirkin. Mirkin then handed it over to Greg Daniels to write. When Mirkin took over the show as showrunner, he listed James Woods as one of the actors he would most like to guest star on the show. Originally, Michael Caine was to have Woods' role in the episode but when he rejected it, Woods was approached. Mirkin said about Woods that he was "so funny, right at the top of his head". He also said that Woods was so excited to provide his voice as he was a fan of the show.^[1] David Silverman said that Woods would ad-lib his parts and he would also hesitate whilst speaking, which was good for animation.^[2]

Reception

The song "Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart?" was nominated for an Emmy in the "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics" category, but it lost out.^[3] As of April 2018, the episode has an 8.3 rating on IMDb^[4] and a 9.0 rating on TV.com.^[5]

References

Wikisimpsons has a collection of images related to "Homer and Apu".