Homer the Vigilante

One night, the Simpson family's house is robbed by a cat burglar while the family sleeps; the next morning, the family finds out that several other houses in Springfield have been robbed by the same burglar. The town's residents arm themselves and install security devices to thwart the burglar. A neighborhood watch group is formed and Homer is elected as its leader. The street patrol soon devolves into a vigilante group whose members violate laws instead of catching criminals. When Homer is interviewed on news anchor Kent Brockman's Smartline, the cat burglar calls into the show and reveals he plans to steal the world's largest cubic zirconia from the Springfield museum.

Homer's posse guards the museum, refusing the help of Grampa, who is accompanied by Jasper and Molloy, two of his friends from the Springfield Retirement Castle. After Homer spots a group of teenagers drinking beer, he leaves his post to intervene, but gets drunk with them instead. When the cat burglar subsequently steals the zirconia, Homer is blamed and pelted with fruits and vegetables by the unforgiving townspeople. Later, Grampa deduces that Molloy is the cat burglar and tells his family. Homer captures Molloy at the Retirement Castle, and the surprisingly amiable cat burglar returns the objects he stole. Nevertheless, Chief Wiggum arrests and imprisons Molloy.

At the police station, Molloy asks if Homer and the police officers would like to know where he's hidden all the money he's stolen over the years. When Molloy tells them the stash is hidden under a giant "T" somewhere in Springfield, they rush from the station hoping to find the buried treasure. After checking several possible sites, the crowd returns to get more information from Molloy, who directs them to a large, T-shaped palm tree on the outskirts of town. The residents excavate the site, but find only a box containing a note from Molloy; he lied about the treasure in order to buy himself enough time to escape from his cell. Several citizens continue to dig, hoping that there is a real treasure, but soon find themselves at a loss for ways to get out of the hole they have made.

Sam Neill guest starred in the episode as Molloy.

The episode was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Jim Reardon. New Zealand actor Sam Neill guest starred in the episode as Molloy, the cat burglar. Executive producer David Mirkin thought Neill, a big The Simpsons fan, was "lovely" to direct. Mirkin also said Neill was "really game" and did "a terrific job" on the episode.[1] Neill considers recording this episode to be a "high-point" of his career.[2] One scene of the episode features Kent Brockman reporting on the burglaries. Mirkin said this was a joke the staff enjoyed doing because it pointed out how negative and mean-spirited news broadcasts can be, and how they are seemingly "always trying to scare everybody" by creating panic and depression.[1][3]

"Homer the Vigilante" originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 6, 1994.[4] The episode was selected for release in a 1997 video collection of selected episodes titled: The Simpsons: Crime and Punishment.[5] Other episodes included in the collection set were "Marge in Chains", "Bart the Fink", and "You Only Move Twice".[5] It was included in The Simpsons season five DVD set, The Simpsons - The Complete Fifth Season, which was released on December 21, 2004. Creator Matt Groening, supervising director David Silverman, and Mirkin appeared in the episode's audio commentary on the season five DVD.[6] The episode was again included in the 2005 DVD release of the Crime and Punishment set.[7]

David Niven (1950)

The Molloy character is based on actor David Niven's performance as the character A. J. Raffles, a gentleman thief, in the 1939 film Raffles.[4] The music heard at the beginning of the episode during the burglaries is taken from the film The Pink Panther, in which Niven played The Phantom, a similar character.[4] Flanders tells Homer that his Shroud of Turin beach towels were stolen during one of the burglaries.[8] Homer's dream of riding a nuclear bomb into oblivion is a reference to the famous scene from the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.[4] Homer's line "take that Maynard G. Krebs" is a reference to the Beatnik character from The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis. Homer's line "So I said, look buddy, your car was upside-down when I got here. And as for your grandma, she shouldn't have mouthed off like that!" is a reference to Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find". The scene of Homer and Principal Skinner talking in front of the museum is a reference to a scene from the television series Dragnet.[4] In a reference to the plot of the 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Molloy sends the residents of Springfield on a hunt for a treasure that is buried under a big letter.[4] The ending sequence of the episode also references the film by using the same music and camera angles. In another scene that references It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Bart tricks American actor Phil Silvers into driving his car into a river, just like Silvers' character did in the film.[8]

Wikiquote has quotations related to "Homer the Vigilante".

• "Homer the Vigilante episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "Homer the Vigilante" at IMDb