28 years ago today, The Simpsons sparked some surprising controversy with a Season 9 episode that ended up being banned in some places due to its take on guns and the gun control debate. The Simpsons has been running for such a long time that it has taken on pretty much every single significant cultural event and debate through the course of its episodes so far. It’s not going to slow down any time soon, but there are a few cultural touchstones that the series really only has done a single time depending on just how intense the conversations around them can get.
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28 years ago today, on November 2, 1997, The Simpsons Season 9 episode, “The Cartridge Family” made its debut with FOX. The episode sees Homer buying a gun in order to protect the safety of his family, and sends him down a path through the rest of the episode coming across others who love their guns, those who are scared of them, and ultimately the episode was banned from the air in Britain on some particular channels. It’s got a legacy that’s still notable even after all this time.
The Simpsons Tackled Guns in Controversial Episode
“The Cartridge Family” is the first and only real episode of The Simpsons that addresses the use of guns, and Homer is the catalyst for the story. Following the danger of soccer riots taking over the town, Homer buys a gun that Marge immediately wants him to get rid of. But Homer cites the second amendment (and the fact it can keep the King of England at bay) as a reason to keep it, and even takes Marge to a National Rifle Association meeting in order to get her to see his side of things.
It at first seems like the NRA includes a bunch of “gun nuts” as Marge states, but it turns out Homer is the most dangerous of them all as he continues to wield his gun irresponsibly to open beer cans and such. It’s not long before he’s forced out of the NRA when they find out, and Marge and the family leave the house when Bart almost causes a deadly accident with it. It all comes full circle when Homer tries to use the gun to stop a robbery later, but realizes that this is what Marge was trying to avoid the entire time. It was just too dangerous.
What Happened to This Classic Simpsons Episode?
“The Cartridge Family” itself seemed to want to tell an unbiased take on gun ownership as it not only highlighting the dangers of using them irresponsibly, but also noted how loose gun control was at the time. It ultimately doesn’t make a call about either as the episode ends with Marge taking possession of the gun herself as she refuses to throw it away. This topic in general along with some of its imagery (like Homer pointing it right in Marge’s face) received quite a bit of criticism from organizations like the real NRA.
The episode wasn’t even aired initially on the United Kingdom channel Sky1 (but did air on another network in a later time slot), but when it did make it to air the episode itself was edited to remove some of that imagery like Marge refusing to throw away the gun at the end. It’s an episode that sparked quite a bit of discussion from the audience despite it truly leaning towards either side of the debate, but it’s far from the last time The Simpsons would spark controversy like this in the decades to come.
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