Homer is one of the most unpredictable and lovable husbands and fathers in animation.But
he’s made more than his fair share of mistakes and bad calls. Though Homer learnsfrom a lot
of his faults and mistakes, there’s also a lot he seems determined not to learn
from. Homer is compassionate and loving, but also selfish and lazy... He’s a characterwho routinely
shows off his good and bad sides.Today we’ll be looking the best and worst of his actions...
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge and this is Homer Simpson’s Best Deeds andWorst Deeds.
First is ​Helping Lurleen​.Homer, for all of his faults, does care for his family. But it’s clear
the more the showprogresses, the more selfish and careless he becomes.Towards the beginning
of the series, we see a nice mix of heartwarming and callousmoments caused by Homer, but one that
stood out and is well remembered among fansis his relationship with Lurleen Lumpkin.After
he and Marge get into an argument, Homer decides to go for a drive to cool offand ends up in a
bar past county lines. It’s there that he first hears the singing of a downon her luck waitress.
Homer compliments her voice and ends up going back when hesays he can’t get her song out of his head,
claiming he hadn’t felt that way about a songsince ​Funky Town. ​He takes Lurleen to record the song
which gets the attention of aman who knows someone in the radio industry.After that,
Lurleen’s popularity skyrockets and she makes Homer her manager. Shebegins to flirt with Homer,
even with Marge present, but the man is clueless, brushingoff his wife’s concern
as paranoia.The moment that made him shine was towards the end of the episode when Lurleenwas
bold enough to make a move on Homer, insisting on being with him. Homer refusesher advances,
telling her he only wished to share her voice with the world, and that hehad done that. He hands over
Lurleen’s contract with him to another manager andleaves her to pursue her career without him.
This isn’t the only time Homer has chosen his wife over another woman, but it was themost impacting,
even leading to Lurleen coming back for another episode in a laterseason where Homer once again
offers to help her.Up next is ​Giving up Success for Family.After Mr Smithers rejects
an odd job offer from a woman in a limo, the GlobexCorporation decides to go to the next
person on their list: Homer Simpson.Homer is quick to leap at the opportunity and he moves his family
to Cypress Creek,working under Hank Scorpio. Oddly enough, Homer is praised at his job though
he doesvery little. Hank is charmed by Homer and praises his ideas, encouraging Homer tomake the
men that work under him happy and productive. But though Homer is finallysuccessful and making
great money in a great community, his family struggles with thenew setup. Lisa begins to have
allergies concerning almost every animal and piece ofplant life, Bart is deemed to be a special needs
student, and Marge is bored with beingunable to fill her days with what she enjoys doing
for her family.Homer winds up having to make a tough choice, discussing the issue with his
new bossand telling Hank what was bothering his wife and children. Hank is supportive of theidea,
telling Homer “it’s the little things that make up life” and that Homer should do whathe thought was
best for his family.We could rank this lower on our list or even place it as one of Homer’s darker
rankingssince Hank was clearly a supervillain of sorts, but we felt that Homer’s sensitivity for
hisfamily and their concerns make it redeemable and heartwarming. Homer was unhappymaking the
choice to leave Globex. He knew that it meant having to return to Mr Burnsand the power plant
and having to make far less money in a job that didn’t bother tonotice him. But he made the call
to make his family happier, knowing that all he did, hedid for them.Ranking next is ​Saving
the Sub.After Homer is fired for trying to make a giant donut, he decides to join the NavalReserve.
By the time he graduates with a few of his friends that also joined,
it’s time forthe annual war games.Homer gains the attention and approval of Captain Tenille purely
by accident, with theman mistaking Homer’s genuine confusion and desperation
for peas for jokes or actualcommentary on the use of war. Captain Tenille makes the choice to
put Homer in charge should anything happen to him, and it ends up being good timing.
Shortly after,the Captain is shot like a torpedo at the enemy and Homer is left in charge.Actually,
we’ve noticed that Matt Groening really seems to have a thing for shootingpeople out of
torpedo launchers. This is something he’d do again to Bender inFuturama.Not surprisingly,
Homer is not good at making a call under pressure. He orders the subto retreat,
but ends up leading them to Russian waters. With a US Sub present in Sovietwaters,
the threat of nuclear war becomes all too real and the US decides to drop depthcharges to get
the sub to retreat back to safety or surface.The explosion causes a leak, and as the submarine
slowly fills with water, endangeringeveryone on board, Homer gets the idea to stop the pinhole
leak by blocking the holewith the earring he confiscated from Bart before leaving.Following
that is ​Saving the Plant from Exploding.Now that we know how Homer arrived at his position in the
plant, it’s fitting for us todiscuss the two times Homer kept the plant from exploding and
causing the towndamage.The first time was in an early season, where the plant was in lock down
and the wholetown held its breath expecting the impending explosion. Even Mr Burns was sitting
inhis hazmat suit awaiting the worse.Homer was the one to save the town, but it was exposed to
be completely by accident.As he didn’t recall what button to press to stop it, Homer covered his eyes
and guessed.He becomes so ashamed of resorting to a game of chance to solve the problem,
Homerfinds that he can’t bask in the glory that he’s showered with afterwards. He tries to hidethe
achievement from his family and becomes annoyed with himself when Lisa beginsfollowing him around
as much as possible, stating openly that she saw him as a hero.Eventually, Homer is exposed.
When trainers ask to get Homer’s input on how to handlethe work of being in a nuclear power plant,
requesting he help train the new employees,there’s another threat of explosion at the Shelbyville
power plant. Homer is forced toonce again rely on his game of chance. Though it does work a second
time, he isexposed as a fraud and is deemed a reckless idiot for his actions. The second time
occurred when Homer purposely gained a large amount of weight toqualify as disabled and be
given the right to work from home. During this time, he is metwith ridicule for his lifestyle
and becomes upset with how people treat him, rushinghome with the determination to do his job
better than he had before. But Homer, in all ofhis laziness, had left his computer with only a simple
drinking bird toy. With the birdknocked over, the computer was left with no order to ease the
pressure building at theplant. What resulted was the message that an explosion was imminent.Homer
rushes to the plant to shut it down manually after he’s unable to input thecommand in his computer,
but winds up being a hero in an unusual way. As he’sclimbing to reach the shut off switch, the
ladder collapses under his weight and hedescends over the valve that would release the toxins,
making him a hero. It was anunintended and strange method of saving the town,
but an effective one.Taking place as the most noble act we have ​Saving the Town.Homer has
saved the town on more than one occasion. While the immediate act thatcomes to mind is him saving
Springfeild from being blown up, we also want to mentionanother time where Homer placed the
welfare of the residents of this community as hisfirst priority.In one of the earliest seasons,
after Homer is laid off from the power plant, he falls into adeep depression.
Feeling as though he was running out of options, he attempted to takehis own life so his family
could get by using his life insurance policy. When Homer’s planwas stopped,
with him rushing to save his family from being run over, he wasimmediately drawn
to how unsafe the roads in their town were.The new fixation led to Homer finding and fixing anything
deemed unsafe in the town.He became the face of safety and was praised by the community for his
care.Eventually Homer decided to take on the power plant, having become experienced withall
of the dangers of the facility due to his time there.This would lead to Mr Burns granting Homer
the title of Safety Inspector, which is thejob that Homer has for the rest of the series. Homer
gave a final speech to the town thathe was unable to be the voice that they had come to rely on,
but assured them that aslong as he was present in the plant, he would use his influence to help.It’s
a shame that Homer seems to forget this level of determination the more the showprogresses,
becoming complacent and uncaring, but it was a touching story to depicthow
he got to the position we know him in today. With Homer’s most Good deeds out of the way, we’ll be
moving into the darkterritory and counting down his WORST deeds. Starting with the least of the
evildeeds and working our way down to the absolute worst...First up is ​Leading to Maude’s Death.The
reason we rank this one the lowest is that it was unintentional on Homer’s part.While Homer
had butted heads with the Flanders family-Ned in particular-over theyears, he never flat out wished
them dead. Hardships, sure, but never death.But we had to mention it due to the fact that Homer did
cause a lot of issues that led toMaude leaving the confrontation to begin with. Homer himself
actually states in theepisode while talking to Ned that Ned should blame Homer himself if
he was going toblame anyone. Though Homer clearly doesn’t want to be blamed, cowering when hethinks
he might have earned Ned’s anger, he does clearly understand his actions hadled to Maude being
caught in the crossfire.We give Homer some points for his level of self-awareness, but the pain that
Ned andhis sons have to endure just because Homer wanted to be loud and obnoxious at thegame is not
something that can be brushed off with a simple ‘sorry.’Next we have​​Letting Ned Fail.We brought
up that Homer has wished hardships on Ned, and this was one of the worsttimes for it. After Ned
invites Homer and his family to a barbeque, Homer only showswhen he becomes hungry, not interested
in hearing about Ned’s good news.The news that Ned shares is that he was finally in a position
to leave his job in order toopen his dream shop the Leftorium, supplying all sorts of supplies
and items that helpout those that rely on their left hands.Homer is always seen as being jealous
of Ned’s good luck, optimism and success.We’ve all been in competition with someone at one point or
another, but wishing thatsomeone will fail just because you want to feel better about yourself is
low. There’s several times throughout the episode that Homer has a chance to help Ned’sbusiness,
hearing the passing complaints of residents around Springfield in need ofsomething that accommodates
their southpaw needs.Homer does eventually come around, but we place the ordeal on our list since
it tookHomer a ridiculously long time to finally reach out and help his neighbor. What finallygets
Homer to realize how far Ned had fallen was seeing all of Ned’s family andremaining possessions
in the car ready to drive off and try starting a life while living withfamily elsewhere.Fortunately
Ned was able to keep his home and his store. He arrived at the Leftoriumwith his family and found
that Homer was ushering in almost the entire city of Springfieldto find all the items that
had stated they needed, with Mr Burns buying out all of the lefthanded can openers finally
getting Ned ahead.The episode is a contrast of Homer’s pettiness and his need to help someone
strugglingas much as he has. Homer understands how it is to fight for everything you own, and itwas a
relief to see that compassion win out against his need to see Ned suffer. But westill had to mention
it.Next is​​The Neglect of His Wife.Marge is one of the best wives sitcom families have,
but Homer is not the best husband.Now, Homer has made some good choices to show his love
for Marge. He refused thevarious chances he had to have an affair, he’s told the story of how
he and Marge fell inlove a number of times and he’s stated that he sees her as his queen.But
Homer is also selfish and neglectful. He forgets every important date, buys gifts forMarge that are
really for himself such as the bowling ball, tries to go fishing whenthey’re on a marriage retreat
and he gets intoxicated during various events despiteMarge pleading with him not to. And that’s
only the tip of the iceberg.Now unlike a lot of couples in adult cartoons such as Peter and Lois,
Homer has neveronce even thought of laying his hands on his wife in an act of violence, so we
can granthim some leniency for that. Homer isn’t displayed as an emotional manipulator, agaslighter
or user. He’s just a big kid with access to money that doesn’t think of otherseasily or think about
the results of his actions. We aren’t arguing that Marge doesn’tdeserve better, though.
She most certainly does. Second worst is​​The Neglect of his Children.Now while we can say
Homer has never beat or hurt his wife physically, we cannot saythe same for his kids. Of course,
we mean Bart in particular.Homer is known for his anger and lashing out. We can understand
that having a son likeBart, who displays little to no impulse control, can drive someone to
the edge. We getthat Homer is a fictional character and that nothing he does or says
is justification foranyone else to act or think as he is shown to do in the show. We are well aware
that thecreator of the show Matt Greoning is not telling people to strangle their children.But even
without discussing his countless attacks on Bart, there’s also the issue of himnot connecting with
his children. He’s known as the fun parent, but his kids haveexpressed that they don’t feel they
really connect with Homer as a role model.In one of the first episodes, when Bart was thought to
be a genius, Bart reveals that hewas reluctant to talk about how he cheated to get into the program,
stating that he wasunhappy with the idea of losing all the time he and Homer had been
spending together.There’s a good chance that the reason for Bart’s lashing out,
Lisa’s bitterness towardshumanity and Maggie’s reluctance to communicate with others is all
tied to Homer'sinability to be an influence to his kids.Ultimately we only place this as second as,
like with his neglect towards Marge, thereare also episodes dedicated to Homer making an effort.
Hiring a detective to help himlearn about Lisa, connecting Maggie by teaching her how to swim and
keeping Bartfrom jumping the gorge, almost doing it himself just to show Bart how reckless
andselfish it was.Homer is not the best dad, and that is certainly something we are going to hold
himaccountable for. But we have compiled our full list of cartoon dads in adult animationand
Homer is far from the very worst.Taking place as Homer’s worst deed we have​​Almost Having
Springfield Blown Up.For anyone who watched the Simpsons Movie, you are well aware of this event.
Thewhole ordeal began with Homer taking the easy way out and polluting, leading to himbecoming a
town pariah. Again. The town undergoes a brutal quarantine that sends the residents of Springfield
over theedge, hunting down the Simpson family and leading to them having to escape throughthe
sandbox.When they learn about the plan to blow up the town, Homer is the only one to reject theplan,
stating that they didn’t need the town and had to remain in hiding. Luckily heeventually comes
around, but the movie showed the most selfish parts of Homer’spersonality and showcased why
he can be hard to root for. We not only see him letdown his wife, showing he had no interest in
returning her kindness when she had stoodby him, but we also see him almost completely replaced as
a father by Ned Flanders.We even get stabbed in the heart when a conditioned Bart starts choking
in preparationfor being strangled and wondering why Ned wasn’t doing what Homer had donecountless
times.Now we get that these are fictional characters and that what Homer does is meant to
bea gag, but it showed a lot of awareness that the show’s creator and writers placed thisinteraction
in the long awaited film.In the end, Homer takes responsibility and is the one to toss the bomb
where it wouldn’thurt anyone in the town, using the skills he had learned while on the run and
havingBart help him save the day. If a second Simpsons movie should ever be released, wereally
hope that it’ll paint Homer in a better light.But what do you think? Who are the best and worst
moments Homer Simpson isresponsible for? Let us know in the comment section. Don't forget to hit
that notificationbell and binge our Good-to-Evil playlist. Where we break down the morality of
thecharacters in your favorite cartoons, shows and movies. But most importantly, staywicked!