- Accidental Aesop:
- While it's good to have a little ambition and pride in your work, listen to the experts who warn you if your ideas are practical. Herb may have meant well, but giving Homer, someone with no automotive experience, control over designing a car and ignoring his engineers was a reckless move.
- Don't live beyond your means. While it's pretty clear that Herb's company is in serious jeopardy of going under (which it does), this apparently doesn't stop him from living in a huge, luxurious mansion with all sorts of creature comforts. Also, Herb blows away even more money by spoiling Bart, Lisa, and Maggie with extravagant gifts and activities. As bad as things were with his company, Herb drove himself even further into ruin with his financially over-the-top lifestyle and spending.
- Executive Meddling is not a bad thing, and can often rein a designer in to more realistic or affordable goals. Herb's company is too out-of-touch and stubborn to make cars that appeal to their market, Herb deprives his engineers of any control over making the new car. Notably, after the engineers are forced to obey Homer, his ideas do start off halfway decent, though slowly devolve into an overpriced "monstrosity" that only Homer would find appealing, and a more consumer and budget-friendly revision was aggressively shot down. Essentially, good ideas and marketing does come from actually listening to consumers and test audiences, but you still need to have moderated professional assessments of what ideas do and don't work in a product.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- At the time, the title was a reference to the Film Within a Film in Sullivan's Travels. It now brings to mind the much more famous Coen Brothers movie which was named after the same thing.
- Some of the design suggestions for the car, such as a larger cupholder and the one designer's idea of a video game system to keep kids distracted on long trips, have actually been incorporated in some form in cars designed since the episode aired.
- During the board meeting at Powell Motors, Herb angrily shoots down his executives' idea to name their new car the "Persephone", after the Greek goddess. ("People don't want cars named after hungry old Greek broads!") Herb's voice actor would later play a supporting role in Hercules, a film about Greek mythology.
- Also, a later episode would feature a character named Persephone.
- Informed Wrongness:
- As the commentary notes, Homer is vilified for destroying Herb's company, when Herb himself actually shares a good deal of the blame for letting someone with no experience take over his new car's design, giving him no supervision, and even ignoring his board's attempts to tell him what a disaster Homer is making. Homer was in fact cooperative (and borderline subordinated) to the team's more conventional plans until Herb convinced him to take a stand.
- The pompousness of the board themselves only exacerbated the matter. They quickly lost patience with Homer's ineptness with the process (which, despite being interpreted to make him an unbearable idiot, seems pretty expectant from someone with no experience of the industry) and shooed him away, leading Herb to stand up for him and make them do the job they were told. Even before the project goes completely haywire, the leader is quick to make a complaint, heavily implied to be loaded with gratuitous personal insults that likely only further led to Herb not taking them seriously. Even worse, before Homer arrived, the board was manufacturing cars that didn't cover the entirety of the market; the plot started because Herb was offering Homer a free car, only for Homer to be told "Americans don't want X" every time he requested something. Homer screwed up, but only after being corrupted by the unprofessional conflict between the company and their boss.
- There is also the fact that it's mentioned pretty early on, that the company is already on the ropes, probably due to the above mentioned poor leadership, and the fact that even Herb mentions most of the cars are generally pretty shoddy with only "forty bucks of steel" probably contributing to its downfall. While "The Homer" might have been the final massive nail in the coffin, from the sound of things, the company was already about to go under whether Homer was involved or not. It also really didn't help that Herb spent even more money spoiling Bart, Lisa, and Maggie with extravagant gifts and favors (like boat/pony rides and trips to the zoo; which Marge even points out) that likely drove him and his company even further into the hole.
- This is even supported in a later episode, where it is implied Herb actually makes Running Gag out of losing his fortune, with or without Homer.
- Jerkass Woobie: Due to his irritability with his production team and his inability to accept responsibility for his downfall, Herb clearly isn't the nicest person. However, some viewers nevertheless sympathize with him. Herb is, by his own admission, a very lonely man; despite living a life full of opportunities, he remains tied to his company, whose profits are presently on the decline. Thus, until their falling out, his elation upon discovering and getting to know Homer and his family was genuine. He goes above and beyond trying to make the Simpsons feel welcome, and it's ultimately these acts of love and generosity that drive his company into ruin.
- Memetic Mutation:
- Pictures and gifs of "The Homer" have become a stock internet comparison for any ugly or bizarre-looking new car design.
- Star Wars fans also compare the Mandalorian's N-1 Starfighter to the Homer, due to Grogu having to sit in a glass-domed area separate from Mando's cockpit.
- Homer tearing apart the engineers' design of the car and instructing them to follow his own, much inferior design is often used to illustrate executives nixing down a potentially good idea or concept for the sake of a much worse one.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The show squarely blames Homer for the downfall of Herb's company, but two other parties had a hand in it as well. Depending on who you ask, either one or both should be held more accountable than Homer:
- Herb holds some blame for being the one to appoint Homer, and he worsens his case by rudely dismissing any of his employee's warnings. He also had ample opportunity to review Homer's project and potentially intervene before it was completed, but he opted to hang out with the other Simpsons instead. Herb's shocked reaction to the final car implies he approved Homer's ideas sight unseen, which makes his refusal to accept responsibility all the more galling.
- Herb's employees are depicted as long-suffering under his and Homer's incompetence, but their poor marketing decisions are what led to the company's failings and Herb's appointment of Homer in the first place. The lead engineer's condescending attitude towards Homer doesn't help, either, with him attempting to dismiss Homer from the project and complaining to Herb about his directions in a tirade of petty insults.
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