Homer's Barbershop Quartet

Plot

At the Springfield Swap Meet, Bart and Lisa Simpson notice Homer on the cover of an LP album. Homer explains that he, Principal Skinner, Barney, and Apu recorded a barbershop quartet album in 1985, which catapulted them to national fame. He then tells his family the story of how the album came to be. While performing at Moe's Tavern, an agent offered to represent the group as a band, but only on the condition that they expel Chief Wiggum, who was the band's fourth member at the time. They recruited Barney after hearing him sing in a beautiful Irish tenor voice, and then brainstormed on a name for the group, eventually settling on the Be Sharps.

In the present, Homer brags that he sold his car's spare tire at the swap meet. On the way home, one of their tires blows out. While Marge walks to a gas station to get a new tire, Homer continues his story. He tells Bart and Lisa that after Marge bought a "Baby on board" sign, Homer wrote a song inspired by the fad. The song "Baby on Board" appeared on the group's first album, Meet the Be Sharps, and the song became a hit. The Be Sharps performed the song at the Statue of Liberty's centennial in 1986, and they later won a Grammy Award for Outstanding Soul, Spoken Word, or Barbershop Album of the Year.

Back in the present, the Simpsons are at home, where Homer explains that the Be Sharps became so popular that they were featured on merchandise, including lunch boxes, mugs, and posters. The band later released their second album, Bigger than Jesus. While the Be Sharps grew in fame, creative disputes arose when Barney dated a Japanese conceptual artist (a parody of Yoko Ono), which eventually led to his leaving the group. Barney and his girlfriend recorded a song in which his girlfriend repeatedly says "Number 8" over tape loops of Barney's belches (a parody of the Beatles' "Revolution 9"). Ultimately, the group realized they were no longer popular. The latest issue of Us magazine's What's Hot and What's Not confirmed this, noting that the band was no longer "hot". The band then split up; Principal Skinner returned to the Springfield Elementary School, Apu to the Kwik-E-Mart, Barney back to Moe's Tavern, and Homer to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, where his position had temporarily been filled by a chicken. Returning to the present day, the group reunites to perform a concert on the roof of Moe's Tavern, singing their number one hit "Baby on Board". Pedestrians stop and listen to them singing their comeback concert, including George Harrison of The Beatles, who dismissively remarks, "It's been done."

Production

One of the writers for The Simpsons suggested that they should create an episode that focuses on Homer in a barbershop quartet and "a big parody of The Beatles". The episode was written by Jeff Martin, who was an "obsessive" Beatles fan, making him "a natural to write [the episode]". Mark Kirkland, a "huge" Beatles fan, directed the episode, and ensured that the Beatles references were accurate. Kirkland enjoyed directing the episode because unlike other episodes he directed, he did not experience any trouble animating "Homer's Barbershop Quartet". The animators liked creating the Beatles gags and enjoyed the barbershop music. After the animators synchronized the audio track, music, and animation, they "just fell in love" with it. They also enjoyed working on the choreography of the Be Sharps and trying to match the characters' movements with the music. They were inspired by the Beatles film Let It Be, including the shots of the band in the recording studio where they decide to break up. Kirkland did not think there was anything "spectacular" in the episode's animation, but he and his animation team "just loved" working on it.

In a scene in the episode, Lisa sees a man selling an original Malibu Stacy doll from 1958 that has big, pointed breasts. The man, nicknamed "Wiseguy" by the show's staff, tells Lisa that "they took [the doll] off the market after some kid put both his eyes out." The joke received a censor note from the Fox network's censors because they did not want such jokes on the show, but the producers ignored the note and the joke appeared in the episode when it aired.

The Be Sharps' singing voices were provided by the four members of The Dapper Dans, a barbershop quartet that performs at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Before working on the episode, Martin had seen one of the quartet's performances and enjoyed it. When the episode's production began, he contacted the quartet, and they agreed to make a guest appearance in the episode. The Dapper Dans' singing was intermixed with the normal voice actors' voices, often with a regular voice actor singing the melody and The Dapper Dans providing backup.

George Harrison guest stars in the episode as himself. He was the second Beatles member after Ringo Starr (in "Brush with Greatness") to appear on The Simpsons. When Harrison arrived at the recording studio in West Los Angeles to record his lines, the casting director told the episode's show runners, Al Jean and Mike Reiss, that Harrison was coming and that they were not allowed to tell anybody about it because it was intended to be a secret to the staff. Jean, Reiss, and the show's creator Matt Groening went to see Harrison in the studio, and when they returned to the writer's room, Groening said, "Guess who I just met? George Harrison!", not knowing that it was supposed to be a secret. Harrison arrived at the studio by himself without any entourage or bodyguards. Groening recalls that Harrison was "pretty glum", and he was unenthusiastic when the staff asked him questions about the Beatles. However, when Groening asked Harrison about the Wonderwall Music album, he suddenly "perked up" because it was one of his solo albums that he was rarely questioned on. Harrison's guest appearance was one of Groening's favorites because he was "super nice" and "very sweet" to the staff. Jean said it was a "huge thrill" to have him appear. David Crosby also makes a guest appearance in the episode as himself, and appears in the scene in which he presents a Grammy award to the Be Sharps.

"Homer's Barbershop Quartet" was a hold-over episode from the season four production line. It was chosen to air as the fifth season's premiere episode because it guest starred Harrison. The Fox network executives wanted to premiere with Conan O'Brien's episode "Homer Goes to College" because of its parody of the 1978 comedy film National Lampoon's Animal House, but the writers felt "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" would be a better choice because of Harrison's involvement. The episode originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 30, 1993. It was included in a 2002 video collection of selected musical-themed episodes titled The Simpsons: Backstage Pass. The episode was also included in The Simpsons season five DVD set, which was released on December 21, 2004.

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" finished 30th in the ratings for the week of September 27 to October 3, 1993, with a Nielsen rating of 12.7, translating to 11,963,400 households.

Since airing, the episode has received generally positive reviews. DVD Verdict gave the episode a Grade A score. DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson felt that the episode "kicks off [the season] with a terrific bang". He appreciated the episode's parodies of a mix of subjects, and its ability to bring them together into a coherent story. Noting that the episode focused on spoofing Beatlemania, Jacobson praised George Harrison's cameo as "probably the best" Beatles cameo in the series. Giving the episode a score of 5 out of 5, DVD Talk praised the "four-part harmony of hilarity [that] gets a flawless mop top modeling", complimenting the references to pop culture icons as being "right on the money". TV DVD Reviews commented on how the episode "hit all the right notes", and was pleased with Harrison's cameo. Despite the episode being a "leftover from last season", The Washington Post still applauded the episode's humor, saying, "Who cares? It's funny." The Courier-Mail found "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" an entertaining episode. Asserting that the series hit its peak with season five episodes such as "Homer's Barbershop Quartet", the Sunday Tasmanian called the episode a "first-class offering". Although it appreciated the story and use of the main characters, Current Film was not enthused about the episode, claiming that it was not consistently funny. The Age called "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" an awful episode, with a "weak, unfunny parody of The Beatles", blaming the series change of writers before the episode was written.

IGN ranked the Beatles' appearances on The Simpsons series—in episodes such as "Lisa the Vegetarian", "Brush with Greatness", and "Homer's Barbershop Quartet"—10th on their list of the Top 25 Simpsons Guest Appearances, and the Toronto Star ranked the band fifth on a list of the 11 best cameos on The Simpsons. Andrew Martin of Prefix Mag named Harrison his fourth-favorite musical guest on The Simpsons out of a list of ten.