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The Simpsons episode
"Mother Simpson"
Episode no.	136
Prod. code	3F06
Orig. Airdate	November 19, 1995
Show Runner(s)	Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein
Written by	Richard Appel
Directed by	David Silverman
Couch gag	Like in a bowling alley Snowball II is swept from the room by the pin sweep and the Simpson family are placed on the lounge like pins.
Guest star	Glenn Close as Mona Simpson Harry Morgan as Bill Gannon
SNPP capsule
Season 7 September 17, 1995 – May 19, 1996
Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two) Radioactive Man Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily Bart Sells His Soul Lisa the Vegetarian Treehouse of Horror VI King-Size Homer Mother Simpson Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular Marge Be Not Proud Team Homer Two Bad Neighbors Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield Bart the Fink Lisa the Iconoclast Homer the Smithers The Day the Violence Died A Fish Called Selma Bart on the Road 22 Short Films About Springfield Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish" Much Apu About Nothing Homerpalooza Summer of 4 Ft. 2
List of all Simpsons episodes...

"Mother Simpson" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons’ seventh season. It reveals information about Homer’s mother’s mysterious past.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Trivia 3 Cultural references 4 External links

On a beautiful Saturday, Mr. Burns has got all his workers to clean up a highway maintained by his company. His workers are understandably ticked off about this, especially since Mr. Burns grabs a photo opportunity by posing as a cleanup volunteer then immediately leaving, showing his failure to lead by example. Homer seems to be missing, but he shows up on top of a nearby cliff. On his way down (to work), he slips and falls and “dies,” much to the shock of his co-workers. In reality, Homer pushed a dummy in his likeness off the cliff so that he can spend the Saturday having fun with his family.

The next day, news of Homer’s “death” spreads and soon Marge starts getting condolences from prominent Springfieldians. So Homer goes to the Springfield Hall of Records to get the whole “misunderstanding” sorted out. There, after his problem is taken care of, he sees in the record that his mother is still alive. Incredulous, he goes to his mother’s grave (or so he thinks it is) and discovers that it is Walt Whitman’s. Nearby, he sees his own grave and falls into it. His mother (Mona Simpson) arrives suddenly at the gravesite, and they have a rather emotional reunion after 27 years apart.

He takes her home to meet the family, which causes quite a stir. She bonds with Lisa, being on the same intellectual level. Suddenly, a police car drives by and Mona runs inside the house, making Lisa a little suspicious. She shares her suspicions with Bart, who had raided Mona’s purse and found several driver’s licenses with different names and Mona’s photo. Lisa wonders whether Grandma is a con artist. Meanwhile, Homer and Marge are wondering why his mom left him for 27 years (Homer thinking he must've been a lousy son who no mother could love), and decide to find out. In the next scene, they go downstairs to Mona, and at the same time, Bart and Lisa come up from the basement to her. The whole family then decides to interrogate Mona about her shady past. She decides to tell them the truth after the family threaten to tell Grampa Simpson.

The story switches to the 1960s, when she was still with Homer and Grampa. Obviously, she and Grampa do not share the same interests. After being radicalized by Joe Namath's hair during the telecast of Super Bowl III, she joins a group of hippies who protest Mr. Burns’ germ warfare lab. They detonate an “antibiotic bomb” inside the lab, killing all the germs and curing lab security guard Clancy Wiggum's asthma. Burns, angry about the destruction of his “precious germs,” manages to identify Mona as one of the perpetrators of the deed after she stopped to help Burns up after being trampled by the group. Mona then went into hiding. Upon hearing about these events, Homer wonders why Mona never sent any care packages. Mona, insisting that she did send such packages, heads to the post office to claim the undelivered packages. ("That's what happens when you don't tip your letter carrier at Christmas," the postal worker explains.)

At the post office, Burns recognizes her and calls the FBI and gets sent Bill Gannon (voiced by Harry Morgan) and Joe Friday (of Dragnet fame). At the Simpson home, Grampa gets the shock of his life when he visits and meets Mona. After a tense exchange (see below), Abe begs for sex. Meanwhile, the FBI and Burns track her down, through a cab driver, a gravedigger and Patty and Selma.

Homer and Mona escape, thanks to Wiggum, who is grateful to Mona for curing his ailment. She has to go underground again. One final tidbit proves that Mona is indeed Homer’s mother: as she whacks her head while getting into the hippies' van, she cries out “D'oh!”

The episode ends with Mona driving away while Homer sits on his car and looks up to the stars as the credits roll.

• This episode marks the second appearance of Homer's mother. She first appeared in the season two episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" wherein she was voiced by Maggie Roswell.
• When Mother Simpson hits her head on the van at the end of the episode, the "D'oh!" she yells is not actually her voice. Glenn Close couldn’t get it to sound right, and so Pamela Hayden was dubbed in her place.
• This episode is the only time we see Marge get angry at her sister's contempt and disrespect for Homer. When Selma and Patty bring Homer's tombstone to the house, Marge yells, "Get out of here, you ghouls!".
• Homer's care packages are withheld by the post office due to the fact he did not tip his carrier at Christmas. In actuality, postal regulations prohibit letter carriers from accepting tips from customers.
• All broadcast versions include a dedication to Jackie Banks, a former animation director for the show who died sometime previous to the airing of this episode. However, this dedication is not on the Season 7 DVD boxset.

• The FBI agent's comment about Vietnam after leaving Burns' office was cut in syndication.

• The radical group Mother Simpson becomes involved with is loosely based on the Weather Underground. Specifically, the story of group leader and former fugitive Bernardine Dohrn served as the inspiration for Mother Simpson’s life on the run.
• The antibiotic bomb that goes off in the Burns lab is triggered by a Spiro Agnew alarm clock, which can be seen here.
• The two FBI agents are Joe Friday and Bill Gannon from Dragnet. Bill Gannon is voiced by Harry Morgan, the man who played Gannon in the original series. This is one of several examples of characters from other TV shows appearing with their original voices. In "Fear of Flying", a number of Cheers actors appeared as their various characters. In "The Springfield Files", David Duchovny appeared as Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson appeared as Dana Scully; Mike Judge appeared as Hank Hill in "Bart Star"; Werner Klemperer appeared as Colonel Klink in "The Last Temptation of Homer", and William Daniels appeared as K.I.T.T. in "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace".
• Three popular songs from the 1960s appear in this episode: "Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream (released in 1967), "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan (released in 1963, but in this case performed by Mother Simpson and Lisa) and "All Along the Watchtower", by Jimi Hendrix (released in 1967).
• Mr. Burns driving a tank towards the Simpson house while wearing oversized headgear is a reference to a similar public relations stunt by Michael Dukakis in 1988; a similar scene occurred in the episode "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish", when Burns was running for governor.
• The use of “Walkürenritt” during a siege is a reference to Apocalypse Now.
• When Maggie is shown dancing in her diaper and covered in slogans, it is a parody of the filler scenes of Goldie Hawn (and other female castmembers like Ruth Buzzi and Jo Anne Worley) dancing in a bikini with slogans and drawings painted on their bodies shown on Laugh-In.
• This episode is loosely based on Running on Empty.
• The song originally intended to be taped over Mr. Burns’s cassette of "Walkürenritt" was WHAM's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", but was unclearable (too expensive), and ABBA’s "Waterloo" was selected instead (although the closed-captioning of the original broadcasting lists the last song as "Don't You Want Me" by Human League).
• Before the family confronted Mona about her past, she was reading Steal this Book.
• Mr. Burns, at the post office, asks the postal clerk, "I'd like to send this letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4:30 autogyro?" Prussia was once a powerful European empire that covered what is now Germany and parts of Poland, Siam was a country now known as Thailand, and the autogyro was an aircraft that later paved the way for the invention of the helicopter. The joke being that the clerk commenting that the hand book must be out of date because he cant find them, shows that the book is closer to being up to date then otherwise.
• In one scene, Abe is seen watching Super Bowl III, and makes an ironic comment that "if people don't watch it, it might not make it". The scene has a few inaccuracies. While Joe Namath is shown as the starting quarterback for the New York Jets, Johnny Unitas was the backup to Earl Morrall for the Baltimore Colts in that game. Also, Howard Cosell never broadcasted a Super Bowl - Super Bowl III was broadcasted by Curt Gowdy, Al DeRogatis and Kyle Rote on NBC.
• Martha Stewart is one of Mona’s fake I.Ds.
• The hippie driving the van is wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt.
• Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, and Tom Hayden; all 1960s liberal radicals are mentioned by Mona Simpson. Simpson obtained employment from these figures while on the run. Many will note the irony—“Marketing Jerry Rubin’s line of diet shakes, proofreading Bobby Seale’s cookbook, and running credit checks at Tom Hayden’s Porsche dealership.” As it turns out, Jerry Rubin did indeed have a line of diet shakes, and Bobby Seale did indeed write some cookbooks. Most of the irony lies with Tom Hayden owning a Porsche dealership, as he was well known as the figurehead of anti-establishment.
• In Burns' germ lab, he has petri dishes containing "Rocking Pneumonia" and "Boogie Woogie Influenza." This is a reference to the Johnny Rivers song "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu."

• "Mother Simpson" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive