Finally, after 5 1/2 years, the Simpsons NYC ep

Cafe Society
1

I knew it hadn’t been pulled from syndication because whenever the ep is mentioned in a thread, someone claims it has been and someone else reports having seen it recently. But for whatever reason I haven’t seen it since 9/11. Dunno if my local station pulled it for some length of time, if I just happened to miss it when it was on or what, but finally earlier tonight I caught it. From what I remember it seemed to be intact although I’m sure there must have been some syndication cuts to accomodate extra commercials. The “all the jerks are in Tower One” line was there, a line that many speculate wouldn’t survive the attacks. The only thing that caught my eye/ear was the line when Homer was reading the notice of where his car was that it looked like the mouth movements didn’t match up to the line, suggesting an overdub. The line I heard was “One World Trade Plaza.” Anyone know if that was the original line?

Despite the unavoidable melancholy associated with the ep, it’s a great one. Barney getting stuck as designated driver, Duff Man’s appearance, the rehab musical, “eeew, I’ll take a crab juice!” etc. If it didn’t have the WTC baggage, and maybe even despite that, a strong contender for one of the top ten best episodes.

2

I checked the SNPP, but they don’t seem to make a note of it. It doens’t sound like anything was changed, though.

3

I had totally forgotten about that episode…having lived in NYC, I remember making a special point to watch it (when it first aired?) and thought it was great. Never dawned on me that it would be pulled/edited after 9/11…but I guess there could be some dialog that could be kind of creepy in retrospect. Still, it is a cartoon and it was made before 9/11. We can’t exactly go back and erase every mention of the Twin Towers in every film and book…can we? Should we? Memories…

4

I’ve seen it once or twice since 9/11. It may be pulled from some local stations, or you may have just missed it.

I think the WTC part is funny. I don’t find anything offensive in that scene at all. It’s nice to see the towers immortalized in Simpsons form.

5

It was the original line.

6

It’s not on often, but I remember seeing this one within the last six months in the 10:00pm time slot here on the Chicago Fox affiliate.

7

I remember seeing this episode when it was first aired, and it contains the Simpsons gag at which I’ve laughed the hardest. For some reason, the idea of Homer deciding to drive his car with the boot attached to the left front tire had me laughing for hours.

Now whenever I see a car with a boot attached to it, I just start laughing.

I was surprised, but pleasantly so, to see this episode again. It’d be unfortunate if pop culture started removing references to the World Trade Center made prior to 9/11 – a form of shortsighted revisionist history.

8

Ditto, I remember seeing it this winter on one of the 6PM showings.

9

They often dub lines in postproduction, when a scene isn’t working but it’s too late to reanimate, so it’s not uncommon that a character’s line doesn’t match up to the mouth movements. You can see it a lot especially in the early seasons.

10

Sometimes, if they animation is kinda sorta almost close enough, they’ll just re-use a scene, re-doing only the audio. Kinda weird when you recognize the video from its orignal scene.

11

Me too.

12

FWIW, when this was discussed several months after the 9/11 attack, a number of posters had already seen the episode re-run. So it definitely hasn’t just now become “un-banned”.