Original air date: 12/20/1998
Production code: AABF-05
After Homer saves Mark Hamill and Mayor Quimby from a nerd riot at the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con, Mayor Quimby fires his usual bodyguards (who didn't save him because they were outside cloud-gazing) and makes Homer his new protector, but when Homer finds out that Mayor Quimby has mob ties and uncovers a plan to sell rat's milk to the public schools, Homer begins fearing for his life — and the Mayor's.
This episode contains examples of:
- Ascended Extra: Louie, Fat Tony's henchman, features prominently in the episode's climax.
- Actor IS the Title Character:Mark Hamill IS Nathan Detroit
Pepper Steak IS The Entree- Which leads to a Brick Joke as mentioned in Adam Westing.
- Adam Westing: Mark Hamill.Mark: (to Louie) Hey, pal, that's my headshot up there next to the pepper steak, and don't you forget it.
Louie: You're all talk, Hamill! You never even finished Jedi school! - And Your Little Dog, Too!: Fat Tony wants the mayor dead plus his wife and his cat and dog.Fat Tony: I want the Mayor dead. I want his wife dead. I want his cat and his dog dead.
Louie: (taking notes) Wait, wait. Who's before the cat?
Fat Tony: (frustrated sigh) Just kill the Mayor. - Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: A chocolate-flavored dessert distracts Homer while Legs is telling him about his nickname's origin.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Leavelle chews out the applicants and tells them they'd all make terrible bodyguards... then lets them know that their checks have cleared, so they automatically pass.Leavelle: You ladies are, without a doubt, the most sorrowful clique at the dance. Not one of you fit to guard a Russian rock band. However, your checks have cleared, so you all graduate!
- Batter Up!: Fat Tony manages to beat Mayor Quimby with a bat while Homer was fighting Louie.
- Big Damn Heroes: Homer rescues Mayor Quimby and Mark Hamill from the rioters at the convention, which impresses Quimby enough to fire his own bodyguards and employ Homer as a replacement.
- Big "NO!": Discussed at bodyguard school.Leavelle: Okay, listen up. My goal is to assassinate that watermelon. Your job is to take the bullet. Go! (Homer runs) Go, go, go! (imitating gun) Pow!
Homer: (monotonously) Nooo...
Leavelle: Well, your dive wasn't bad, but I just didn't believe your "Noooooo!!". You gotta sell it! Remember, your "Noooooo!!" is what gets you your next job. Now drop and give me twenty!
Homer: NOOOOOOOO!!
Leavelle: (Impressed) Better! - Big "YES!":
- Homer does one after fighting off Louie with a couple of forks, only to realise seconds later that Fat Tony is beating up Quimby with a baseball bat.
- This is also the first appearance of the "Yeeeesss!" waiter, who gives out two (and who claims that he speaks that way because of a stroke.)
- Briefcase Full of Money: Discussed when Quimby says he would rather have his bribe money in a subtle briefcase rather than a blatant Thief Bag.
- Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: When Homer rescues Mark Hamill from the nerds at the sci-fi convention, he tries to escape in a cardboard-cutout Millennium Falcon.Homer: Oh, how was I supposed to know it's not a real spaceship?
- Comically Missing the Point:
- When Homer reveals that Fat Tony is selling rat milk to Springfield Elementary:Mayor Quimby: Rats?! I'm outraged! You promised me dog or higher!
- When Homer accidentally knocks Mayor Quimby out of his office window and sees him clinging to an outside ledge:Homer: (gasps) His corpse is climbing the building!
Mayor Quimby: I'm alive, you idiot! - When Homer, at Fat Tony's request, gives Mayor Quimby the Kiss of Death:Mayor Quimby: You moron! That's the Kiss of Death!
Homer: Wait, maybe I didn't do it right! (tries to kiss Quimby again)
- When Homer reveals that Fat Tony is selling rat milk to Springfield Elementary:
- Continuity Nod: Principal Skinner is one of the mob of fanboys clamoring to meet Mark Hamill; he was shown to be a big Star Wars fan back in "Lisa's Rival".
- Corrupt Politician: When Quimby claims the mayor's office is not for sale, everyone just starts laughing at him.
- Couch Gag: The family sits, and an auto-crusher compresses them into a block.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Leavelle, complete with a designated "Berating Room".
- Dumbass Has a Point: Played for Laughs, when Mark Hamill also attempts to pitch Sprint telecommunications during the convention. The nerds demand he just cut to the Star Wars chat, but Homer protests:Homer: You stupid nerds! He's trying to save you money on long distance!
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Homer doesn't blink at Quimby accepting bribes left, right, and center, but he's horrified that Quimby allows the mob to sell rat milk to schoolchildren. He even threatens to drop Quimby to his death if he doesn't put a stop to it. And of course, earlier in the episode he was unwilling to let Quimby and Mark Hamill be mobbed by rioters, leading to his Big Damn Heroes moment.
- Downplayed with Quimby; he's not happy that Fat Tony is selling rat milk (he had been promised "dog or higher"), but doesn't bother to do anything about it until Homer threatens to let him fall to his death.
- External Combustion: When the mob had threatened to kill him, Homer tries to get Bart to "start daddy's car for him". When Marge protests, he decides to get a cab.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Homer's protector job ends in failure when he's too busy doing a monologue while Fat Tony uses a baseball bat to beat up Mayor Quimby in the background.
- Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Leavelle.
- Fingertip Drug Analysis: Parodied. When the police bust the rat milking business, Chief Wiggum samples the rat milk from a teat and declares it "pure".
- Five-Aces Cheater: During the Springfield mob's poker game, Louie declares a hand of six queens, only to be beaten when Fat Tony declares seven queens.
- Follow the White Rabbit: Homer follows the white rat that stole his tidbit and is shocked to find himself in a room where they milk rats.
- Fork Fencing: Leading to a hilariously bad pun.
- Go On Without Me: Mark Hamill tells Homer and Bart to do this when he claims to have a twisted ankle.
- Hidden Depths:
- Lenny, Carl, Professor Frink and Groundskeeper Willie are all Star Wars fans.
- Louie manages a half-decent tap dance routine when pressed to pretend he's All Part of the Show.
- High-Altitude Interrogation: How Homer gets the mayor to end the rat milking affair.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: At the bodyguard school graduation, Leavelle sings them off with the theme from The Bodyguard ("I Will Always Love You"). Everyone leaves before Leavelle even finishes the chorus.
- I Am Not Spock: In-Universe. Much to Mark Hamill's dismay, the role of Nathan Detroit is altered so he wears Jedi robes, carries a lightsaber, and sings a song about the Jedi.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: In his limo, Mayor Quimby tells Homer he must always behave professionally as a bodyguard, right before telling him to honk at a woman so Quimby can whistle at her.
- Implausible Deniability: After being caught beating Mayor Quimby with a baseball bat, Fat Tony drops the bat and says "What? What did I do?".
- Improvised Weapon: As Homer fights Fat Tony's gangsters.
- It's All About Me: Mark Hamill apparently asked the doctor who treated Mayor Quimby for an opinion on his performance in Guys & Dolls, then asks Homer the same thing.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: At the sci-fi convention brawl, Mark Hamill tells Homer to move on without him because he twisted his ankle. Homer responds with a No One Gets Left Behind and carries Hamill out. And then, Homer sees that Hamill didn't twist his ankle, after all.
- Kiss of Death: From Fat Tony to the mayor... via Homer.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After using a nerve pinch to knock his family unconscious, Homer uses it on himself (to kill time before dinner) and ends up banging his head on a chair as he collapses.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Parodied. Fat Tony says on television that the mayor has to look out. "Because accidents happen all the time. Like the killing of you. By us."
- May the Farce Be with You: Star Wars gets its fair share of spoofing in this episode.
- The Men in Black: Homer becomes one.
- New Job Episode: Homer as the mayor's bodyguard.
- Noodle Incident:
- According to the Mayor's previous bodyguards, part of the job includes having their genitals hooked up to a car battery.
- Homer is no longer welcome at Moe's as a customer until he pays his tab or at least cleans up the mess he made in the bathroom. We never learn when it happened because Moe dropped the matter upon seeing the Mayor.
- How Legs got his nickname. It apparently had something to do with Joseph Kennedy.
- No One Gets Left Behind: When Homer rescues Mayor Quimby and Mark Hamill, Mark Hamill says he's twisted his ankle and tells Homer to leave without him. Homer refuses to do so and carries him out.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Parodied in the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con commercial; whereas the one "alien" speaks in a stereotypical extraterrestrial voice, the other one speaks like your run-of-the-mill DJ.
- Off with His Head!: During the big brawl at the sci-fi convention, C-3PO (who was advertised as being in a Curb-Stomp Battle with the robots from Battlestar Galactica) has his head flying through the crowd as he cries out "Oh, dear! Oh, my!"
- Oh, Crap!:
- "His corpse is climbing the building!"
- "Yes!!! Nobody messes with the mayor when Homer Simpson's on...." (looks over to see Fat Tony beating Mayor Quimby with a baseball bat) "Oh crap."
- Powder Keg Crowd: Lampshaded when the convention riot starts.Quimby: Oh, God! Can't this town go one day without a riot!?
- Pressure Point: Homer learns this technique and uses it on his family and himself.
- Production Foreshadowing: At Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con, Uter is shown wearing a Futurama T-shirt three months before Futurama actually premiered.
- Pushed in Front of the Audience: Happens to Louie during Guys and Dolls. He is backstage preparing to throw his knife at Quimby when the manager appears and pushes him onstage. He gets out of it by tap-dancing with the knife between his teeth.
- Saved by the Platform Below: Homer accidentally causes the mayor to fall out of the window and assumes him dead. But a look out of the window reveals that the mayor is still hanging from a ledge below the window and Homer is able to pull him back in.
- Screaming at Squick: "CRAP ON A CRUTCH! THEY'RE MILKING RATS! MILKING RAAAATS!"note
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Bodyguard instructor Leavelle told his students they're not suited to be bodyguards but they pass because their checks have been cashed in.
- Shout-Out:
- To Star Wars. See Improvised Weapon above.
- One of the signs at the convention is for Roswell of Bongo Comics.
- When Homer thinks he's killed Quimby, his first instinct is to "stage an elaborate farce, a la Weekend at Bernie's."
- We hear Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" from The Bodyguard twice (the first time sung by Leavelle at the bodyguard training center, the second time sung by Houston herself as Homer is carrying Mark Hamill to safety at the end of the episode).
- Fat Tony telling Louie how "I want the mayor dead, I want his wife dead..." parodies The Untouchables.
- Comic Book Guy's encounter with a geek girl parodies Jaws meeting Dolly in Moonraker, but (to go with the sci-fi convention aesthetic of the scene) uses "Vita's Theme" from the unaired Star Trek: The Original Series pilot episode "The Cage" instead of the overture of Romeo And Juliet.
- Homer uses The Vulcan nerve pinch five times in the episode.
- When Homer starts beating his way through the convention riot, he yells "NEEEEEEEEEEEEERDS!!!" like Ogre in Revenge of the Nerds.
- Skewed Priorities: Mark Hamill won't use his lightsaber to defend himself from the angry mob because George Lucas would make him pay if the saber broke.
- Song Parody:
- "Luke, Be a Jedi Tonight", a parody of "Luck Be a Lady" from Guys and Dolls.
- The "Guys and Dolls" song Hamill sings lifts its melody from "Hooray For Hollywood" (from the film Hollywood Hotel and well-known for its use at Academy Award ceremonies).
- Spy Speak: Bodyguard Homer when Marge enters the kitchen: "The pig is in the poke."
- Stock Money Bag: Fat Tony hands a sack labeled with a dollar sign to Mayor Quimby. The latter notes that he prefers a less obvious case for his bribe money.
- Take That!: One of the "enemy" cardboard cutouts is of Wonder Woman.
- Taking the Bullet: Homer is trained for this at the bodyguard camp.
- Tranquil Fury:Fat Tony: I'm not so much disappointed as I am blinded with rage.
- Truth in Television: Hamill says of the lightsabers, "Y'know, George Lucas makes me pay for these." On the
DVD Commentary, he claims there's some truth to that. - Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The riot starts when Mark Hamill asks for a volunteer to play Obi-Wan.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When claiming not to be in fear of a reprisal from the mob, he then asks Bart to start his car for him. When an angry Marge calls him out on this, he decides to take a cab instead.
- Your Costume Needs Work: Louie shows up to a production of "Guys and Dolls" and is pushed on stage.
