"Homer Goes to College" is the third episode of the fifth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 14, 1993. The concept of the episode was that Homer attends college, but bases his entire understanding of what college is on "bad Animal House rip-off movies".
During the episode, Homer lights his framed high school diploma on fire, unintentionally setting fire to his living room, while distractedly singing "I am so smart! S-M-R-T... I mean S-M-A-R-T!" This blunder was unscripted; during the recording session, Dan Castellaneta was singing the song and accidentally misspelled "smart". The writers decided it was much funnier that way, because it seemed like something Homer would do, so they left the apparent blooper in. The song has since become a fan favorite.
Jim Reardon directed the episode and has noted he remembers the episode for several scenes in which the action is viewed through windows, such as when Homer prank calls the dean. The animators were short on time, so for the design of Gary they took an earlier drawing of director Rich Moore and made him African-American. Mr. Burns tries to get Homer into college by using violence and hitting one of the members of the admissions committee with a baseball bat, a reference to the film The Untouchables.
Reception
In its original broadcast, "Homer Goes to College" finished 44th in ratings for the week of October 11 to October 17, 1993, with a Nielsen rating of 11.3, and was viewed in 10.5 million households. It was tied with Beverly Hills, 90210 as the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week.
The episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Gary Russell and Gareth Roberts, wrote: "Homer at his most excruciatingly stupid in another superb episode—his attitude to the college's 'stuffy old dean' (who was, in fact, bassist for The Pretenders) is a joy." In 2019, Consequence ranked it the top episode on its list of top 30 Simpsons episodes.
DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson commented that it did not "quite live up to its two predecessors "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" and "Cape Feare" this year, but it remains a strong show nonetheless. Actually, it starts a little slowly but builds steam along the way. It includes some classic moments of a Homer idiocy—hard to beat him chasing squirrels with a stick—and one of the better visual gags via Burns' chair. Who can dislike a show in which Richard Nixon threatens Homer due to a drunken pig?" The episode's reference to The Untouchables was named the 13th greatest film reference in the history of the show by Total Film<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Nathan Ditum.
Nathan Rabin writes of how the episode toys with expectations: "When it comes out that Homer still needs to pass the big test (he had conveniently forgotten that detail amidst all the pranks and stunts) he cycles his way through the kind of cramming montage that invariably ends with a proud graduate clutching an 'A' paper. However, Homer is denser than most, so even after all that cramming, he still ends up with an 'F.' In a glorious closing scene, Homer crows that at least everyone learned important lessons before his family corrects him and points out that nobody has learned any lessons at all, which is the perfect ending to a classic episode that subverts and lampoons every college movie cliché in existence."
References
;Bibliography