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.