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He has a dream about talking to God , and is then quite happy and moved by it. That's not what it's like in "Family guy" where there are characters who openly admit to being a complete athiest and are proud of it, and there have been comments in that show that seem to encourage viewers not to believe. It's because more people in real life are atheists today than than in the 1990s.
At Sunday school, Lisa and Bart learn of the unimaginable horrors of Hell. Bart seems pretty jazzed about the whole proposition, especially the part that involves pirates. He seems awfully jazzed about having free reign to say “hell” as well. Lisa disapproves when Homer has cable television installed illegally into their home.
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In addition to McClure, Hartman also provided the voice of the cable guy. The character Drederick Tatum, one of the boxers in the boxing match Homer and his friends watch, also makes his first appearance on the show in this episode. His physical appearance was based on the American boxer Mike Tyson, and he was named after a real boxer Simpsons writer George Meyer had seen. Homer invites his co-workers and bar buddies to watch Drederick Tatum fight for the World Heavyweight Championship during a cable-TV boxing match. Unfortunately for Homer Mr Burns also finds out and decides to attend the gathering to watch the match. When Lisa announces she will boycott the screening, Homer banishes her to the lawn, where she is joined by Marge and Maggie.
The episode was written by freelance writer Steve Pepoon and directed by Rich Moore. It is based on the Eighth Commandment ("Thou shalt not steal"). The episode marks the debut of Troy McClure, who was voiced by Phil Hartman and based on the typical "washed up" Hollywood actor. "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment"The Simpsons episodeLisa hallucinates what Hell is like because she fears her family is violating the Eighth Commandment ("thou shalt not steal") by watching stolen cable television. "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" was written by freelance writer Steve Pepoon and directed by Rich Moore.
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Following his conscious, Homer snips the ill-gotten cable, but not before he cuts the wrong wires, plunging his neighborhood into total darkness. A really funny episode from the 2nd series, with some nice deeper messages too, as Lisa/Homer centred episodes tend to. This is an honorable mention for favorite episodes of Season 2. It's true there not much to it, this episode is what you would call one of the shows Christian/Preachy episodes but the execution of it is good as it has subtlety, let alone it's always good seeing Simpsons showing and exercising a moralistic side to them. Free cable proves “even more wonderful” than Homer had dared to hope, but it comes with a heavy moral penalty.
The films that are watched by the family on the new cable are Jaws, Die Hard, and Wall Street. One of the X-rated films Bart and his friends watch on cable is called Broadcast Nudes. The title parodies Broadcast News, which was written by Simpsons executive producer James L. Brooks. Towards the end of the episode, Bart mentions Atlanta Braves Baseball in reference to their frequent appearances on TBS in the 1980s. In its original broadcast, "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" finished 25th in ratings for the week of February 4–10, 1991 with a Nielsen rating of 15.2, and was viewed in approximately 14 million homes. It did better than the show's season average rank of 32nd, and was the highest rated program on Fox that week.
Homer vs Lisa and the 8th Commandment Helped Solidify The Shows identity #shorts
Homer sits the match out and when it is over, he hesitantly cuts his cable hookup, despite Bart's objection. He accidentally cuts the electricity to all of Springfield in his random wire-cutting, before finally cutting the cable wire, abruptly ending the episode with static showing onscreen. The first scene is Homer dreaming on the hammock that he is a Hebrew in the time of Moses, breaking one of the Ten Commandments by stealing.
I will say that it feels like this and a few others that would come later on, that it felt like it was playing up agenda and need to scare people into religion. There has always been this very naïve and straw man esque belief that people who are religious aren't in anyway morally sound or have any kind of ethics. That is very naive and far fetch thinking, since there are plenty of people who are indeed very religious, but they aren't ethical, kind, or morally sound, instead it becomes all about being egoistical, manipulative, selfish, and criminal. Point is, you can still be morally sound and have ethics, and concepts of right and wrong, without being religious, otherwise we still be living in that flashback sequence we saw at mount Sinai. But this episode feels like a very preachy, and strawman-based argument with really no nuance or the like.
It shows that there are some consequences when it comes to stealing cable. In this episode, "Homer vs. Lisa and the Eighth Commandment," Lisa is shocked that Homer stole cable and in order to protest, she refuses to watch the cable and even protests a big boxing match that Homer and all his friends were going to watch. In its original broadcast, "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" received a Nielsen rating of 15.2, finishing 25th the week it aired.
However, after the cable man offers to sell him a stolen car stereo and attempts to break into Ned's house, Homer barricades his windows in fear. Bart one evening discovers a porn channel called "Top Hat Entertainment" and despite fear of punishment from Homer who unfortunately spots him watching it, Homer lets Bart off with a warning telling him not to watch the channel again. Bart pretends to agree to this and behind Homer's back charges the neighborhood children 50 cents to watch the cable porn channel, but just as it begins Homer catches him and sends him to his room as punishment.
It was originally going to be named "Homer vs. the 8th Commandment", but the writers decided to include Lisa in the title because they wanted the cast to feel as if all their characters were equally represented on the show. The episode is based on the Eighth Commandment ("thou shall not steal"), which is one of the Ten Commandments. The episode marks the debut of Troy McClure who was voiced by Phil Hartman and based on the typical "washed up" Hollywood actor. What I also like about the Simpsons is their values about needing faith and believing in God and attending church sometimes. Homer may've had some moments where he didn't want to get all into church (such as episode "Homer the heretic"), but he wasn't trying to completely go athiest. Even in "Homer the heretic", he doesn't stop believing in God, he just doesn't want to go to church.
Despite the satire, I found this episode to be pretty comical and surely I was laughing a lot. This episode provides the perfect opportunity for The Simpsons to satirize cable programming. This episode also helped establish the moral code existing within the show for years to come. This episode makes us question our every day actions and how we justify them. As its title suggests, “Homer Vs. Lisa And The 8th Commandment” is a morality play and not a particularly subtle one. In a dynamic that would play out countless times over the course of the show’s endless run, Homer does the wrong thing, Lisa calls him on it, and Homer ultimately decides to do the right thing even at his own detriment.
Marge pleads with Homer to either cut the cable or pay for it, but he refuses to do either, saying that the cable will stay as long as he desires. Meanwhile, Bart sets up posters on the back door for his showing of an adult channel for 50 cents, but he is caught a few seconds later by Homer, who then forbids him from doing it. I found “Homer and Lisa Versus The Eighth Commandment” a little on the preachy side and methodically paced in a way that reminded me of the first season. Then again, it is an episode with one of the 10 Commandments in its title, so perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called the episode a "skilful demonstration of a moral dilemma that must have plagued millions since the inception of cable TV".
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