Yes, the unexpurgated “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson” is included, and the commentary addresses the World Trade Center issues.
Had that episode ever been purgated? I see it in reruns every now and then, untouched but for a few minor and annoying syndication cuts.
I think they just took it out of the syndication rotation for a while after 9/11. I’ve seen it plenty of times in recent years, unedited.
Yes; I can’t find the thread (and it might have been something I read on another board), but it was pulled from syndication for at least a few year, some stations apparently still won’t show it, and others cut every scene with the WTC in it, which doesn’t leave a lot of material. Sorry, no cite–this was posters’ reports (though the commentary states that the episode was pulled from syndication).
I’ve only got a chance to look at the packaging- nice, with a blues/200th episode party theme. (This is the standard version, not the Lisa-head). Postcards with album-cover parodies are an interesting touch, and the first DVD has a animatic with a scene from the upcoming movie (with a typically Homerish intro from…who else?) Please stay on the line for more from Office Steve…GRABOWSKI.
Just what does the episode with all the WTC scenes cut out look like 
? Does Homer just disappear once they got to NYC?
That’s a good question. I presume you could cut out “Your car is illegally parked outside 1 World Trade Plaza,” the talking to the men in the tower, and the exterior WTC scene…and edit it so that Homer discovers the boot on his own, goes to the bathroom and waits outside a nondescript building. The episode would still probably make sense.
What, and lose the joke when he finds the Tower 1 bathroom out of order and must ride the elevator all the way down to street level, run across to Tower 2, ride up to the observation level and gratefully relieve himself in that bathroom?
Sacrilege.
Incidentally, didn’t the Towers have bathrooms in or around their ground floors?
I haven’t seen this episode in post-September 11th syndication - what do they cut? I thought it was just the “they stick all the jerks in tower one” line.
Oh, yes- I also like the fact that the episodes on each disc are listed on the discs themselves (the DVDs are made up to look like records, each with a phoney Springfieldian record company and “track listing” to go with the music theme). Helpful in wanting to find a certain episode.
The elusive John Swartzwelder is credited as being on at least one commentary- I listened to the start of one, but he didn’t appear. Where’s at least one section of a commentary where I can hear him? Does he actually have something to say, or do they just do the gag they’ve always planned on doing? (“Would you like to participate in this commentary?” “No.”)
The choices of running syndicated episodes is left to the individual stations. Ours definitely was running it soon after 9/11. It also aired (quite a bit) the L.T. Smash one where the Mad Magazine building is destroyed. It also didn’t alter the “Maybe it was the anthrax in air.” episode when the anthrax scare hit. (Some stations silenced that bit.)
Homer: What do you have to drink?"
Swarthy push-cart vendor: Mountain Dew and crab juice."
Homer: “Ewwwww! Give me the crab juice.”
Gets me every time.
From another message board, I can answer my own question about Swartzwelder: they call him up and ask him a few questions.
Season Nine was, perhaps, one of the last fully-good seasons of The Simpsons. I can’t think of an episode that was bad- even the oft-ridiculed “The Principal and the Pauper” is an enjoyable episode, despite its bizarre (but believable) plot. “Up yours, children!”
(ftg, condolences on your location.)
Perhaps it was pulled from the line up or edited by some stations, but not across the board. When this was discussed on the forum several months after the 9/11 attack, a number of posters had already seen the episode re-run.
Hey Santos, I once received a credit card in your name!
Small world. I once saw you in the freezer of the Kwik-E-Mart.
“Moon Pie … what a time to be alive.”
Me too. And then, after chugging it and expressing his disgust, he ASKS FOR ANOTHER! 
Zing!