History Recap / TheSimpsonsS7E7KingSizeHomer

-->'''Homer:''' Whoo-hoo!

** Earlier Homer, in an appetite to get injured, slides on an oil slick into Mr. Burns' office. While Burns seems mildly annoyed by the intrusion, he obliges Homer's request for a nudge in the other direction.

* BigEater: Homer. Even more than usual because he was under a BackAlleyDoctor's orders (read: Dr. Nick's orders) to overeat so he can reach his weight goal. However, after finally gaining all the weight he wanted to, Homer isn't seen eating again until he hijacks an ice cream truck to get to the nuclear plant. WordOfGod deliberately avoided showing Homer eating after becoming extremely obese, to avoid making him unsympathetic if he was still shown eating so much. Case in point, Homer is insulted when a movie theater manager tries get him to leave by promising him a garbage bag full of popcorn.
* {{Bowdlerise}}: As noticed by SNPP.com (now simpsonsarchive.com), the Closed-Captioning in the original airing for this episode showed that the farmer originally had a different line when the gas destroyed the corn--instead of "Paul Newman's going to break my legs" it was "Jolly Time's going to break my legs" this was changed presumably out of concern that Jolly Time might potentially threaten them with a lawsuit (the Pier-One incident in "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily" likely played a part in the line change).

* TheCakeIsALie: Lisa tells Homer Marge baked him a cake to get him to go in the kitchen so Marge could discuss all the flaws with his plan. After the discussion ends, Homer [[ComicallyMissingThePoint asks for the cake]].

** Ralph tells Lisa he's heard that [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E8NewKidOnTheBlock that Homer once went into a restaurant and ate everything in the restaurant and they had to close the restaurant.]]

* DudeNotFunny: Ralph's jokes about Homer get this response from Lisa, who insists that Homer's not a gluttonous monster because he's obese. Cue Homer driving past in an ice cream van.

** While trying to lose weight at the end of the episode, Homer, despite his and Mr. Burns' best efforts, fails to do even a single sit-up. Burns eventually gives up and decides to just pay for liposuction.

** Downplayed. Hibbert is disgusted by Homer's intentions and refuses to be a part of it, but he will recommend a doctor who will.

* SearchingTheStalls: The episode opens with Smithers and some goons looking for Homer this way.

* TakeThat: The film Homer tried to see at the theater is a film called ''Honk If You're Horny!'' starring Creator/FayeDunaway and Creator/PaulyShore. This was apparently a jab at Dunaway, who had previously refused a guest role on the show, so in revenge, the writers stuck her in a goofy film that would be considered underneath her caliber of work.

* ChairReveal: {{Parodied|Trope}} when after Bart tells Homer he'll help him gain weight, a pillow that was sitting by the fireplace turns around à la a swivel chair, revealing that Lisa was eavesdropping on their conversation.

-->'''Homer:''' Marge, this is everything I've ever dreamed of right here, and nobody's gonna take it away from me. You never had faith in me before, but let me tell you [[ThatManIsDead the slim lazy Homer you knew is dead]]. Now I'm a big fat dynamo!

* ForInconveniencePressOne: Homer's fingers have become too fat to use the buttons on his phone properly. "To order a special dialling wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now."

* InstantlyProvenWrong: On the bus, Ralph tells Lisa he heard that Homer went into a restaurant and ate so much that the restaurant had to close. Lisa insists that Homer may've gained weight but isn't some food-crazed maniac. Cue Homer driving by in the ice cream truck, stuffing his face with the inventory.

--->'''Homer:''' ''(nervously)'' Marge... Lisa... Flanders?

* LazyBum: Homer hides in the bathroom from Smithers and puts on a dangerous amount of weight just to get out of five minutes of calisthenics. Even when he gets a job where all he has to do is push ''one'' key on the keyboard, he still is so lazy he lets a toy bird do that job for him.

* QuackDoctor: Dr. Nick Riviera is the doctor to go to if you are OK with having an unskilled practitioner in exchange for nominally lower costs. In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E7KingSizeHomer King Size Homer]]", Doctor Hibbert (who is competent most of the time) recommends him to Homer, on the grounds that he will help [[ItMakesSenseInContext someone become morbidly obese]] while Hibbert can't in good conscience do it.

** After reaching 315 pounds (gaining 71 pounds from his original weight), Homer starts sweating mad, keeps the air conditioner on non-stop, has difficulty finding clothes that match him and is denied access to the movie theater. Tasks that used to be simple, like dialing the phone and driving the car, have become difficult or impossible. Homer and Marge's marriage hit the rocks as Marge is uncomfortable having such an obese husband. Members of the community openly ridicule him, when all he wanted was to watch a movie and live his life in peace. He finds walking short distances at his newfound weight to be just as hard as doing the active exercise program at his original weight.

* SevenDeadlySins: Homer's scheme is prompted by ''sloth'', not wanting to take part in morning exercises, as well as ''envy'' over Charlie getting to work from home. He then indulges in ''gluttony'' to achieve disability, shows ''greed'' by exploiting a government program intended to help people with more serious needs (plus overloading his grocery cart), and expresses ''pride'' in gaining the necessary weight and being able to work at home. He starts to experience regret when Marge says that she no longer finds him attractive, thus denying him ''lust'', and he briefly feels ''wrath'' at the drinking bird for falling down while he was away and causing a potential catastrophe.

* ShutUpKirk: When Homer calls everyone out for laughing at him when he just wants to watch a movie, the manager tells him to "calm down" and offers him a garbage bag full of popcorn.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Charlie, some random Springfield Nuclear Plant employee that got disabled time off at home because he suffered an accident. Homer noticing that he's not amongst the rest of the employees doing (on in Homer's case, suffering) calisthenics is what starts the whole plot.

== Plot Summary ==

Mr. Burns decides to help get the workers at the Power Plant in shape by implementing a mandatory ten-minute morning calisthenics program. Homer, the most obese and physically unfit worker on the plant, detests the thought of daily exercise, notices that fellow employee Charlie gets to work from home following an injury, and immediately begins [[ZanyScheme scheming]] to gain this "perk" for himself. A bit of research reveals that anyone who weighs three hundred pounds or more qualifies as disabled, and he quickly realizes that he can use one of his greatest loves--[[BigEater eating]]--to achieve his dream of working from home (which he [[ImagineSpot imagines]] will consist of using his usual terminal while Marge flatters him and Flanders suffers from the rat race). [[BackAlleyDoctor Dr. Nick]] advises Homer to eat from the "neglected food groups"--including "whipped, congealed, and choco-tastic"--to reach his goal weight.