Every Time Homer Loses Money
When it comes to money, Homer has had some questionable moments. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be looking at all the times Homer from "The Simpsons" lost money.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello Vegas, give me a hundred bucks on red.
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're taking a closer look at every time
00:07Homer Simpson lost big money.
00:09Homer, you knuckle beak, I told you a hundred times,
00:11you gotta sell your pumpkin futures before Halloween, before!
00:14All right, let's not panic. I'll make the money back by selling one of my livers.
00:18I can get by with one.
00:20Some things in life are set in stone. The earth rotates around the sun,
00:24the tides ebb and flow, and the Simpsons will always be on TV somewhere.
00:29And at the heart of it all, there is but one man.
00:32And you didn't think I'd make any money.
00:34I found a dollar while I was waiting for the bus.
00:37While you were out earning that dollar, you lost $40 by not going to work.
00:41A role model for his kids, husband of the year, employee of the month, not exactly.
00:47Homer's heart is usually in the right place, but his brain,
00:51and that means when it comes to money, he's had some questionable moments.
00:55So, just how much has he lost or missed out on over the years? Let's find out.
01:25Huh? Sure, okay.
01:28Starting as he clearly meant to go on,
01:30Homer's first brush with financial ruin actually comes in the show's first episode.
01:34Christmas is almost derailed when A, Homer's holiday bonus gets cancelled,
01:38B, Marge spends the family's emergency fund paying to remove a tattoo from Bart,
01:43and C, in desperation, Homer loses the $13 he makes as a shopping mall Santa by betting on
01:49a 99-to-1 huge outsider at the dog track.
01:59That losing bet does soon become the ever-loyal family pet Santa's little helper,
02:03but in the meantime, Homer's trend for losing money is up and running,
02:07including the unspecified missed bonus.
02:10He's already down thousands,
02:12but we'll start slow and only mark the loss of his Saint Nick paycheck,
02:15just to get the ball rolling.
02:19Less social security,
02:20less unemployment insurance,
02:21less Santa training,
02:22less costume purchase,
02:23less weird rental,
02:24less Christmas club.
02:25See you next year.
02:28Into season two, and the stakes are suddenly a lot higher.
02:31The setup? Bart's skating through town when he's hit by none other than
02:34Springfield's richest man, Mr. Burns.
02:36I think the boy's hurt.
02:37Oh, for crying out loud.
02:39Just give him a nickel and let's get going.
02:42I think we should call an ambulance, sir.
02:44Initially, Burns offers up $100 on the quiet at work,
02:47but the situation escalates until he and Homer end up in front of a judge.
02:51Burns then tries to settle out of court,
02:54and here's where Homer loses big.
02:56With the Simpsons initially seeking $1 million,
02:59Burns offers half at $500,000.
03:01Five hundred thousand dollars.
03:06Goodness!
03:06Homer rejects.
03:07Burns learns of some creative case-building in the process,
03:11Phony doctors, hello.
03:13and our man ends up with nothing.
03:15The tension is even enough to threaten Homer and Marge's marriage at one stage,
03:19but they pull through, even if their bank balance doesn't.
03:23You know what would have really been cool?
03:25If we got that million bucks.
03:26Bart, please.
03:28What? We could have bought tons of great stuff, Mom.
03:31Maids, a pool, fancy sweaters.
03:33Stop me if I'm wrong.
03:34Marge, dear, would it be all right if I went over to Moe's for a drink?
03:38Onward to season three, and Homer manages to bizarrely miss out on the same astronomical amount again.
03:44In the episode, Flaming Moe's, it's the bartender who's initially down on his luck.
03:49What's the matter, Moe?
03:50Ah, business is slow.
03:52People today are healthier and drinking less.
03:54But then Homer cuts him into a secret recipe for a flaming drink that quickly saves the bar.
03:59The only problem is Moe takes all the credit, and he and Homer fall out.
04:03A situation that eventually plunges Homer into some low-level insanity.
04:07I'm the magical man from Happyland in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane.
04:14Eventually, Moe's persuaded to sell the recipe and split the million dollar price with Homer.
04:19And it could have been oh so lucrative.
04:21It's just that right then is when Homer snaps and reveals all for free.
04:26The secret ingredient is...
04:27Homer, no!
04:30Cough syrup.
04:31Nothing but plain, ordinary, over-the-counter children's cough syrup.
04:35And like that, we're into seven figures.
04:38Next comes another so close yet so far moment.
04:42And while Marge is really at the heart of it,
04:44the herd of lost money is by no means lost on Homer.
04:48I have a feeling that we may win the lottery!
04:53In season three's Dog of Death, Santa's little helper falls ill,
04:57and his treatment forces the Simpsons to cut back.
05:00Which, for Marge, means no more weekly lottery ticket.
05:03Homer's already depressed enough after not winning the previous jackpot.
05:07But it gets worse when Marge's one skipped draw
05:09turns out to be the one time she would have won.
05:12Oh no, those are my numbers!
05:14If it wasn't for that dog, I would have won!
05:16Consider that it's in this story that we also get to see exactly
05:19how Homer would spend if he were ever rich.
05:22And you gotta really feel for him.
05:29In and around this early 90s era for the Simpsons,
05:32and we have plenty more notable money fails.
05:37First, there's when Homer sold his shares in the power plant just too early.
05:45He pockets $25 to spend on beer, yes,
05:48but he could have bagged $5,200 if only he had waited it out.
05:53Marge had a savings account planned, but c'est la vie.
06:03Then there's when Homer might have sued Burns for millions
06:06on account of nuclear plant-triggered infertility.
06:08But instead, he settles for a two grand check,
06:12and an impromptu but worthless award.
06:16He then almost loses the $2,000 by investing in his brother Herb,
06:20but that's another story.
06:27There's no specified amount here,
06:29so we'll go easy and add only a single million to the count.
06:33Just a few short episodes later,
06:34and Bart chooses an elephant over $10,000 after winning a radio phone-in.
06:39Homer tries and fails to convince him to go with the cash,
06:42so it's only fair we chuck this one up too.
06:47Then he manages to lose a load more cash on said elephant.
06:50So that's going on as well.
06:52There's a brief mention of plundered thousands,
06:54but we'll stick with the less but more definite number
06:57calculated in this hilarious scene.
07:12Next, and there's a somewhat hazy moment for our purposes
07:15when in Burns' heir, Homer really does sign away his own son
07:19so that Bart can inherit Burns' untold fortune.
07:27It's hazy here because A,
07:29the inheritance that Bart eventually gives up is more his loss than Homer's,
07:33and B, Burns' fortune is never explicitly revealed in this case.
07:38Oh, and C, despite Bart eventually turning on his would-be mentor
07:42and sending him through the open trapdoor,
07:44we never actually see that contract from earlier get revoked.
07:51So you never know, perhaps Bart still is Burns' heir after all.
07:55Either way, it's another important moment
07:57in the money-losing character building of Homer J,
08:00but we'll leave it off his total this time around.
08:03Now though, and what's clearly beyond doubt,
08:05is that Homer does not know a bargain when he finds one.
08:12In terms of episode running order,
08:14this moment comes shortly before both when Bart gets an elephant
08:17and when he almost pockets the Burns' fortune.
08:19It's a side gag, but a costly one,
08:22when during a neighborhood swap meet,
08:23Homer goes rummaging in a five cents each box.
08:31So what did we have there?
08:33A seemingly first draft of the US Constitution,
08:36known to have sold for 43.2 million dollars before now.
08:40An apparently first edition of Action Comics 1,
08:43known to have sold for 3.2 million dollars before now.
08:46An entire sheet of inverted Jenny postage stamps.
08:50At even the lower estimate,
08:51they sell for upwards of 1 million per stamp,
08:54and Homer passes on 35 of them.
08:57And a Stradivarius violin,
08:59which condition and provenance dependent,
09:02values at 15 million dollars or more.
09:08So that's almost 100 million in one cardboard box,
09:12and now we're really racking it up.
09:14How about some sugar to take the edge off?
09:16Near the start of season six,
09:17and that's Homer's next great scheme at least.
09:22For the briefest of moments,
09:28his questionable expediency leads him to become a full-time sugar baron.
09:32It's the kind of business that could only make sense to Homer.
09:36And ultimately, it is an investment that comes back to haunt him,
09:39when he comes oh so close to a $2,000 payoff,
09:42only for a storm to break and his chance to disappear.
09:52Oh, wait a minute.
09:54The bees are leaving.
09:57No!
09:58My sugar is melting!
10:00Homer's hard luck with foodstuffs continues later in season six,
10:04when a mistimed buy-up of pumpkins lands him needing to do the unthinkable,
10:07and borrow money from Patty and Selma.
10:09We'll take care of you.
10:11Yes, care.
10:14In this case,
10:14the issue is eventually sidestepped without any serious or long-lasting financial hit.
10:19And Homer's rocky relationship with his wife's sisters just about remains in one piece.
10:23I'll get along with them.
10:24Then I will hug some snakes.
10:26Yes, I will hug and kiss some poisonous snakes!
10:31The total remains untouched,
10:32although Homer's dignity does take another beating.
10:36We're now well into the mid to late 90s in terms of airdate,
10:39and thankfully, Homer's money issues do seem to briefly slow down.
10:43Yes, there's that time he parts with more than $10 million worth of prized greyhound puppies for free.
10:48I'll bet whoever gave him those dogs is kicking themselves now.
10:52And true,
10:52the Simpson family as a whole missed out when Grandpa and Bart
10:55couldn't quite keep hold of the hellfish cache of lost art.
10:58Freeze!
10:59U.S. State Department.
11:00We'll take those.
11:02And then Bart and Lisa also had a brief brush with a briefcase stuffed with banknotes,
11:06all of which were eventually lost into a dam.
11:13But for the most part,
11:14Homer manages to more or less keep it together.
11:17That is, until the living nightmare that is and was Little Lisa's recycling plant.
11:22Once again, Mr. Burns is at the heart of the story,
11:25when he forms an unlikely partnership with Lisa,
11:28who believes that he is a changed man.
11:31But of course, he is not.
11:32The recycling plant is actually the opposite of what it should be,
11:35but Burns uses it to get rich anyway.
11:38Most memorably though,
11:39he sells it for $12 million and offers Lisa 10%.
11:44Lisa turns it down for the sake of her morals,
11:46causing Homer to literally almost die.
11:49And the real kicker comes right at the end.
11:51I'm sorry, Dad.
11:53It's all right.
11:54I understand.
11:56But we really could have used that $12,000.
12:00Um, Dad, 10% of $120 million isn't $12,000.
12:06It's...
12:09What's truly shocking, however,
12:11is that we haven't even arrived at Homer's two largest losses yet.
12:15They're incoming,
12:16but let's just clear up some more of the smaller stuff beforehand.
12:18For there will be no fire truck for Little Bart,
12:21no sweater for Little Lisa,
12:23no Cajun sausage for Little Homer.
12:27Let's see, there's the $15,000 of charitable donations
12:30that he goes and blows on an overpriced car
12:33just to crash it into an icy lake at Christmas.
12:35Oh, I knew this would happen!
12:37Plus the failed grease business that he and Bart try to hatch.
12:41No confirmed major losses besides again with the dignity.
12:45That's my grease!
12:46It's mine!
12:47Give it here!
12:47And not forgetting all that unspecified cash he blew
12:50when he briefly thought he was fated to die soon.
12:52No car, no money, no clean clothes,
12:55and it's all your fault.
12:57I love being married.
12:58But again, all of that is really just fluff before the main event.
13:02The second most and most that this lovable fool has ever thrown away.
13:06First, we've come to Tamako.
13:08Tamako?
13:10That's pretty clever, Dad.
13:11I mean, for a product that's evil and deadly.
13:14In an iconic piece of trademark financial foolhardiness,
13:17Homer stumbles across what could be a miracle crop.
13:20The bitter but addictive blend of tomatoes and tobacco.
13:23Tamako.
13:24The setup?
13:25He's hiding out at his family's old farm
13:27on account of him having to flee from a pistols at dawn duel.
13:30As you do.
13:31And despite all the flimsy morality of Tamako,
13:34it very clearly makes the Simpsons rich.
13:37Well, let's say a hundred and fifty million dollars.
13:41One hundred and f-
13:42May I speak to my family for a moment?
13:44That is, until greed gets the better of them,
13:47Homer demands 150 billion instead,
13:50the deal falls apart,
13:51and some dangerously addicted farmyard animals destroy the plant that started it all.
13:56Give them the plant, Homer.
13:58No, I'd rather die.
14:02There is a lesson to be learned here,
14:03but for now, all that matters is a massive climb on the counter.
14:07How did you want to pay me the 150 million?
14:10Cash will be okay.
14:11But wait, there's still an even bigger hit to come,
14:14with Homer's greatest loss of cash of all.
14:16Don't!
14:17Because in an episode that actually aired a couple of seasons
14:20before the Tamako catastrophe,
14:22The Trouble with Trillions,
14:23Homer's taxes land him in big trouble with the government.
14:26And in a bid to get off scot-free,
14:28he starts working as an informant for the FBI.
14:31One thing leads to another,
14:33and before you know it,
14:34Homer's in the know about a one-off moment in American financial history.
14:37A trillion-dollar bill.
14:41Ooh, a trillion-dollar bill.
14:44That's a spicy meatball.
14:46And then, he winds up turning against the suits,
14:49landing in cahoots with Mr. Burns,
14:51and on the run from law and order,
14:53all the way to Cuba.
14:54Now, in a fateful meeting with Castro,
14:56Homer plays a pivotal part in instantly losing his share of some truly enormous wealth.
15:01Mr. Burns, I think we can trust the president of Cuba.
15:07Now, give it back.
15:13Give what back?
15:14Adding one-third of a trillion dollars onto our number just like that.
15:19In truth, the losses are never bigger than they were in Cuba.
15:22Woo, that's a relief.
15:24But still, there are plenty more moments easily huge enough for this video.
15:28Such as in season 14, episode 5,
15:31when injured Homer settles for hockey tickets.
15:33If he's smart, he'll hold out for millions.
15:35Woo-hoo!
15:36I got Skybox tickets!
15:38And with only 20% loss of my brain function.
15:42And in season 14, episode 11,
15:44when Homer confesses to having spent all of Bart's earnings
15:46from the time he was a child actor
15:48in order to hush up some incriminating photographs.
15:51I know this looks bad, but if you reverse it,
15:54Daddy's a hero.
15:56See?
15:57What?
15:58I saved you!
16:00You stole my money!
16:01There's also when he sunk five grand on poker in Moe's basement.
16:05I lost everything.
16:07When a freshly zen Homer cut the power to lose Bart's share of 500 grand
16:11at a gaming tournament.
16:12So beautiful.
16:14Must destroy.
16:16There were these dubious purchases,
16:18which were enough to inspire a bout of money saving by Marge.
16:21$5,000 on donuts.
16:23$2,000 on scalp massages.
16:26$500 on body glitter.
16:28And not forgetting the time when Homer's $10,000 inheritance
16:31disappeared after Grandpa got scammed.
16:34I had an inheritance and you gave it away?
16:36I'm so mad I could kill you, but now I get nothing.
16:41Or in the same episode when he fell for a pyramid scheme.
16:44Of course, there are countless smaller losses too.
16:47Like that 20 bucks he lost by slipping on a peanut.
16:49The unknown amount sunk into the North American Sumo League.
16:53The fistful he lost when the carnies saw him coming.
16:59How about you, Lucky?
17:02Who, me?
17:02The list could go on and on.
17:04And so if there's one thing that this little deep dive should teach us,
17:08it's don't watch The Simpsons if you ever need financial advice.
17:11Lisa, if you don't like your job, you don't strike.
17:15You just go in every day and do it really half-assed.
17:20That's the American way.
17:21Don't bet all you have on the Greyhounds at Christmas.
17:24Try not to invest in an elephant, skip the lottery,
17:28overstock on sugar, or negotiate with Cuba.
17:31Do everything that Homer doesn't and you might just be okay.
17:34How much money do we have put aside in case something happens to you?
17:42None.
17:42To recap, here's the final tally.
17:44It's a big number.
17:46And remember, some of the unspecified losses have actually been left off.
17:50So many of the most chaotic career moves don't even directly contribute.
17:55Homer Simpson, how do you do it?
17:57You know, I've had a lot of jobs.
17:59Boxer, mascot, astronaut, imitation Krusty, baby proofer,
18:03trucker, hippie, plow driver, food critic, conceptual artist,
18:06grease salesman, carny, mayor, grifter, bodyguard for the mayor,
18:09country western manager, garbage commissioner, mountain climber,
18:12farmer, inventor, smithers, poochie, celebrity assistant, power plant worker,
18:16fortune cookie writer, beer baron, quickie mark clerk, homophobe, and missionary.
18:19But protecting Springfield, that gives me the best feeling of all.
18:23Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get
18:27notified about our latest videos.
18:29You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
18:33If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
18:39Over and above everything else, though, the fact remains that rich or not,
18:43Homer is one of the single greatest TV characters of all time.
18:47What he lacks in money smarts, he makes up for, well, in this kind of thing.
18:51He's not some kind of food crazed maniac.
18:55Oh, the trash berry.
18:58And this.
18:58Ooh, boogie, boogie, boogie, boogie, boogie.
19:00And this.
19:01Homer, there's a family of possums in here.
19:04I call the big one bitey.
19:06The never-ending quest to line his wallet is just one of the reasons
19:09why the entire world loves this guy.
19:11Just because we're not rich doesn't mean that we don't have...
19:17I can't even finish.
19:20I want to be rich.
19:23Check out these other clips from WatchMojo,
19:25and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.