Two Bad Neighbors
Encyclopedia
"Two Bad Neighbors" is the 13th episode of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

' seventh season
The Simpsons (season 7)
The Simpsons seventh season originally aired on the Fox network between September 17, 1995 and May 19, 1996. The show runners for the seventh production season were Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein who would executive produce 21 episodes this season. David Mirkin executive produced the remaining...

. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 14, 1996. In the episode,
the Simpson family
Simpson family
The Simpson family is a family of fictional characters featured in the animated television series The Simpsons. The Simpsons are a nuclear family consisting of the married couple Homer and Marge and their three children Bart, Lisa and Maggie. They live at 742 Evergreen Terrace in the fictional town...

 is having a garage sale. Right when the sale gets moving, George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

, the 41st President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

, upstages Homer
Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

 by moving in across the street, and Homer starts holding a grudge against George. After George gives Bart
Bart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

 a spanking
Spanking
Spanking refers to the act of striking the buttocks of another person to cause temporary pain without producing physical injury. It generally involves one person striking the buttocks of another person with an open hand. When an open hand is used, spanking is referred to in some countries as...

, Homer starts a prank war, which escalates into a one-on-one confrontation that results in the Bushes leaving Springfield
Springfield (The Simpsons)
Springfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...

.

The episode was written by Ken Keeler
Ken Keeler
Kenneth "Ken" Keeler is an American television producer and writer. He has written for numerous television series, most notably The Simpsons and Futurama. According to an interview with David X. Cohen, he proved a theorem which appears in the Futurama episode "The Prisoner of Benda".-Career:After...

 and directed by Wesley Archer. It was inspired by the animosity towards the show by the Bushes from earlier in the series' run. It features cultural references to the 1959 TV Series Dennis the Menace, and Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...

's 1979 song "Dream Police
Dream Police (song)
"Dream Police" is the title of a song written by Rick Nielsen and originally released in 1979 by the American rock band Cheap Trick. It was the opening track of Cheap Trick's album Dream Police. The single peaked #26 on the US single chart...

". Since airing, the episode has received positive reviews from fans and television critics, and Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...

named it the fifth best episode of the show. It acquired a Nielsen rating of 9.9, and was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network the week it aired.

Plot

The Simpson family is holding a rummage sale in Springfield
Springfield (The Simpsons)
Springfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...

. As Homer dances on the tables selling his scrap, there is a diversion: the empty house across the street is being moved into. It is occupied by former President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

 and his wife Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush
Barbara Pierce Bush is the wife of the 41st President of the United States George H. W. Bush, and served as First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993. She is the mother of the 43rd President George W. Bush and of the 43rd Governor of Florida Jeb Bush...

. Bart decides to visit, and Barbara takes a liking to him. However, Bart's habit of calling adults by their first names and his overall annoying attitude irritates George. Eventually, after Bart accidentally shreds George's newly typed memoirs, the former President takes Bart across his knee and spanks
Spanking
Spanking refers to the act of striking the buttocks of another person to cause temporary pain without producing physical injury. It generally involves one person striking the buttocks of another person with an open hand. When an open hand is used, spanking is referred to in some countries as...

 him. Homer is outraged and confronts George. Both men vow to make trouble for each other.

First, Homer sends bottle rocket
Bottle rocket
A bottle rocket is a very small skyrocket. A typical bottle rocket consists of a rocket engine attached to a stabilizing stick. The user can place the stick in an empty bottle , and ignite the rocket engine; the mouth of the bottle guides the stick, stabilizing the rocket in its first moments of...

s at George's window, and George puts up a banner on his house saying "Two Bad Neighbors", in reference to Bart and Homer. Homer then glues a rainbow-colored wig on his opponent's head just before he is to give an important speech to a local club. George retaliates by destroying the Simpsons' lawn with his car. Despite Barbara urging her husband to apologize, the confrontation continues. Homer and Bart are just making their way through the sewers to release locusts in George's house when George spots them and climbs down. Homer and George begin fighting, so Bart releases the locusts which attack George. At the same time, former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...

 arrives at the mansion, to bring a house warming present for the Bush family. Finally, after pressure from his wife, George apologizes, to his dislike in front of Gorbachev, and he and his wife sell the house to Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...

, another former President. Ford invites Homer to watch a football game with him, and to enjoy some beer and nachos
Nachos
Nachos are a popular food based on nixtamalized corn, of Mexican origin associated with Tex-Mex cuisine that can be either made quickly to serve as a snack or prepared with more ingredients to make a full meal. In their simplest form, nachos are tortilla chips or totopos covered in melted cheese...

 at his house. The two quickly get off to a good start, sharing common ground.

Background

The show had a feud with the Bushes that eventually led to the idea for this episode. In the October 1, 1990, edition of People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...

, Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush
Barbara Pierce Bush is the wife of the 41st President of the United States George H. W. Bush, and served as First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993. She is the mother of the 43rd President George W. Bush and of the 43rd Governor of Florida Jeb Bush...

 called The Simpsons "the dumbest thing [she] had ever seen" which had led to the writers sending a letter to Bush where they posed as Marge Simpson. Bush immediately sent a reply in which she apologized.

On January 27, 1992, then-current President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

 made a speech during his re-election campaign that reignited the feud between The Simpsons and the Bushes. At that point, family values were the cornerstone of Bush's campaign platform. So he gave the following speech at the National Religious Broadcaster's convention in Washington: "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons
The Waltons
The Waltons is an American television series created by Earl Hamner, Jr., based on his book Spencer's Mountain, and a 1963 film of the same name. The show centered on a family growing up in a rural Virginia community during the Great Depression and World War II. The series pilot was a television...

 and a lot less like the Simpsons". The next broadcast of The Simpsons was a rerun of "Stark Raving Dad
Stark Raving Dad
"Stark Raving Dad" is the first episode of the third season of American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 19, 1991...

" on January 30, 1992. It included a new opening, which was a response to Bush's speech. The scene begins in the Simpsons living room. Homer, Patty and Selma
Patty and Selma
Patty and Selma Bouvier are fictional characters in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. They are twins and are both voiced by Julie Kavner. They are Marge Simpson's older twin sisters, who both work at the Springfield Department of Motor Vehicles, and possess a strong dislike for their...

 sit on the couch. Bart and Lisa are sprawled on the carpet. They all stare at the television and watch Bush's speech. After Bush's statement, Bart replies "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression too."

Writing

Bill Oakley
Bill Oakley
Bill Oakley is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Oakley and Josh Weinstein became best friends and writing partners at high school; Oakley then attended Harvard University and was Vice President of the Harvard Lampoon...

, who was a writer on The Simpsons at the time, came up with the idea for "Two Bad Neighbors" two years prior to when the production began. Oakley got the inspiration for the episode after the feud between the Bushes and the Simpson family, and two years later when he and Josh Weinstein
Josh Weinstein
Josh Weinstein is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Weinstein and Bill Oakley became best friends and writing partners at St. Albans High School; Weinstein then attended Stanford University and was editor-in-chief of the...

 became showrunners of The Simpsons, they assigned Ken Keeler
Ken Keeler
Kenneth "Ken" Keeler is an American television producer and writer. He has written for numerous television series, most notably The Simpsons and Futurama. According to an interview with David X. Cohen, he proved a theorem which appears in the Futurama episode "The Prisoner of Benda".-Career:After...

 to write it. Oakley said that Clinton had been President of the United States for several years at the point when the episode went into production, so the feud had "faded off into oblivion". The staff therefore thought it would be funny if the two parts encountered each other again.

Weinstein said that the episode is often misunderstood. Many audiences expected a political satire, while the writers made special effort to keep the parody apolitical. Oakley stresses that "it's not a political attack, it's a personal attack!", and instead of criticizing Bush for his policies, the episode instead pokes fun at his "crotchetiness". Oakley described the episode as a companion piece to the season eight
The Simpsons (season 8)
The Simpsons eighth season originally aired between October 27, 1996 and May 18, 1997, beginning with "Treehouse of Horror VII". The show runners for the eighth production season were Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. The aired season contained two episodes which were hold-over episodes from season...

 episode "Homer's Enemy
Homer's Enemy
"Homer's Enemy" is the twenty-third episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on May 4, 1997. The episode's plot centers on the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's hiring a new employee named...

", in that a character (Frank Grimes in this case) is juxtaposed alongside Homer and does not get along with him.

In an interview with the Simpsons fan site NoHomers.net
NoHomers.net
The No Homers Club is a fan site and community devoted to the television show The Simpsons. It was launched on August 27, 2001. Although the web page contains many features typical to Simpsons fan sites, including an episode guide and images, its primary draw is its message board, which has over...

, Weinstein was asked if there had been any stories that he had come up with that did not make it into the show, to which he replied: "The great thing about The Simpsons is that we pretty much were able to get away with everything, so there weren't any episodes we really wanted to do that we couldn't do. Even the crazy high-concept ones like 'Two Bad Neighbors' and 'Homer's Enemy' we managed to put on the air because honestly there were no network execs there to stop us."

At the end of the episode, Gerald Ford moves into the house across the street after Bush leaves. Bob Dole
Bob Dole
Robert Joseph "Bob" Dole is an American attorney and politician. Dole represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996, was Gerald Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1976 presidential election, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1985 to 1987 and in 1995 and 1996...

 was originally going to move in instead, but the writers decided it would be funnier if it were Ford since they believed he was the politician who best represented Homer.

Merchandise

"Two Bad Neighbors" originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 14, 1996. The episode was selected for release in a 2000 video collection of selected political episodes of the show, titled: The Simpsons Political Party. The episode appeared on the second volume of the collection, together with the episode "Duffless
Duffless
"Duffless" is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons fourth season and originally aired on the Fox network on February 18, 1993. After getting arrested for drunk driving, Homer tries to remain sober, at Marge's request. Meanwhile, Lisa attempts to prove that Bart is dumber than a hamster after he...

" from season four. The episode was included in The Simpsons season 7 DVD set, which was released on December 13, 2005. Keeler, Oakley and Weinstein participated in the DVD's audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...

, alongside Matt Groening
Matt Groening
Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....

 and the director of the episode, Wes Archer
Wes Archer
Wesley Meyer Archer is a television animation director. He was one of the original three animators on The Simpsons' Tracey Ullman shorts and subsequently directed a number of The Simpsons episodes before becoming supervising director at King of the Hill. A...

.

Cultural references

The relationship between Bart and George is a homage to the United States television series Dennis the Menace from 1959, with the Bushes standing in for Dennis's elderly neighbors, the Wilsons. In response to George spanking Bart, Grampa says: "Big deal! When I was a pup, we got spanked by Presidents till the cows came home. Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...

 spanked me on two non-consecutive occasions," referring to Grover Cleveland, the only president to have served two non-consecutive terms in office. When Homer and Bart hand out fliers for the upcoming garage sale, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is a character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Hank Azaria and first appeared in the episode "The Telltale Head". Apu is the proprietor of the Kwik-E-Mart, a popular convenience store in Springfield, and a friend of Homer Simpson. He is also...

 is seen washing his car while singing Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...

's 1979 song "Dream Police
Dream Police (song)
"Dream Police" is the title of a song written by Rick Nielsen and originally released in 1979 by the American rock band Cheap Trick. It was the opening track of Cheap Trick's album Dream Police. The single peaked #26 on the US single chart...

".

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "Two Bad Neighbors" finished 52nd in the ratings for the week of January 7 to January 14, 1996, with a Nielsen rating
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

 of 9.9. The episode was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following the Post Game NFC Championship
NFC Championship Game
The National Football Conference Championship Game is one of the two semi-final playoff matches of the National Football League, the largest professional American football league in the United States. The game is played on the penultimate Sunday in January and determines the champion of the...

.

Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from fans and television critics. It was named by Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...

's John Ortved as the show's fifth best episode. Ortved said, "While the Simpsons people have always claimed evenhandedness in their satire, the show is, after all, hardly right-leaning, and it is hard to miss how gleefully the former President is mocked here." The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote: "Very strange, this episode takes The Simpsons into a whole new dimension of political satire. The lampooning of a single public figure is a startling move. Works much better for Americans, we're told".

Dave Foster of DVD Times said: "Once again showing the mischievous relationship Bart and Homer share their pranks and the inevitable confrontations with George Bush Senior are as hilarious as they are implausible and frequent, but there is much to love about this episode in which the writers think out loud and paint The Simpsons and its characters as Bush once did." DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson enjoyed the episode and said that it "offers the kind of episode that only The Simpsons could pull off well. The idea of bringing a president to live in Springfield is high-concept to say the least, and it could – and probably should – have bombed. However, the silliness works well and turns this into a great show." John Thorpe of Central Michigan Life
Central Michigan Life
Central Michigan Life is Central Michigan University's student newspaper. It is almost entirely independent from the university. Only the salaries of the adviser and executive secretary are paid through CMU; all other expenses are covered by CM Life's own advertising revenue.The paper is published...

named it the second best episode of the show, and Rich Weir of AskMen.com
AskMen.com
AskMen.com is a free online men’s web portal, with international versions in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia.-History:...

named it the ninth best episode.

External links

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