Homer's Enemy

Kent Brockman in the People of Kent program tells the story of Frank Grimes, the man who achieved everything himself. His parents abandoned when he was only 4 years old. He never had the opportunity to go to school. As a child, he began working as a courier for delivering toys to more successful children. On his 18th birthday, he blew up the granary, although it is not clear for what reason and what he did there (the episode shows a short video clip in which he runs to the silo tower and runs up to it at the moment of the explosion). After that, he had to learn to hear and feel pain again. He was trained by mail and received a degree in nuclear physics "with the only four" - in physical education.

After Mr. Burns saw the story of Frank on TV, he was so moved that he invited him to work at Springfield NPP as vice president. Grimes was hired, but on the same day, Mr. Burns saw on TV a heroic shepherd that saved the boy's life, and put it as vice-president, and Frank Grimes translated into sector 7G for Lenny, Karl and Homer.

Homer began to annoy Grimes from the first minutes of their acquaintance, the latter was amazed that Homer was working at the nuclear power plant even without a diploma, but was also responsible for their safety. Once, Homer almost drank acid, and Grimes saved him, but the flask with acid broke against the wall and burned it, Frank was almost fired for it.

Meanwhile, Bart , accidentally hitting the sale of confiscated goods, buys for 1 dollar an abandoned factory, where Milhouse hires to work. The next day, the factory collapsed, and the rats that lived in it ran to Mo.

Homer wants to make peace with Grimes, and under the pretext of an important conversation, invites him to dinner. Grimes was shocked by what he saw, he cannot understand why Homer, without doing anything, got all the benefits from life that he did not get, despite all his efforts - a beautiful wife, three wonderful children, a house, two cars, all Frank had made was “a suitcase and a hairstyle,” and he had to live in a small room between two bowling halls.

By chance, he sees an announcement about a children's competition for the best future nuclear power plant model. Trying to make fun of Homer, he made him take part in this contest, in the hope that everyone would understand what an idiot Homer would be and laugh at him. Instead, the whole plant applauded Homer, and Mr. Burns handed him the first prize for the best work of art. Unable to withstand this, Grimes went insane and began to behave like Homer, imitating his immediacy, which resulted in tragedy - clutching his bare wires without rubber gloves with his hands, Frank Grimes departed into another world from an electric shock. His last words were: "I did not wear rubber gloves, because I am Homer Simp ...".

At his funeral, Homer Simpson fell asleep under the priest's boring speech, and through a dream Marge told her to "switch to another channel." In the end, everyone laughs and Lenny says: “And that's the whole of Homer.”

Frank Grimes was a tool for screenwriters to show how absurd the life of the series’s heroes really is. For Homer's Enemy, the authors decided to create a realistic character who was supposed to work on a par with Homer, setting off his laziness, annoyance and disorder. Initially, the idea (which occurred to Bill Oakley) did not determine whether Grimes would hate Homer, or, on the contrary, would love him wholeheartedly, but decided that the character who hates Simpson would be more appropriate and realistic. In one of the interviews, Josh Weinstein said that the creators wanted to show what will happen, if it is quite realistic, unlike other residents of Springfield, a person who will deal with such as Homer.

The result was Frank Grimes - a man who had to work hard and fight for life, and who cannot believe that Homer achieved so much thanks to his laziness: a meeting with the president, a flight into space, a tour with rock bands and a Grammy win. This made Frank try to prove how insignificant the homer is. However, the other residents of Springfield, being themselves completely unrealistic characters, ignored him, and in the end Frank, the representative of the real world, died.

Both the appearance and death of Frank Grimes, as well as his appearance, are very reminiscent of William Foster, the character of Michael Douglas from the film The Wreck . Initially, Frank Grimes was conceived as a “healthy former paratrooper with a military haircut,” but in the end they decided to make him look like Foster and one of Jim Reardon’s neighbors at the hostel.

Later, Josh Weinstein deplored Grimes's murder, describing his character as "very amazing."

Hank Azaria voiced Frank Grimes, although initially it was planned that William Macy would take care of it. Nevertheless, the producers decided that it was better to give this role to a permanent member of the voice acting team, and Azaria voiced Frank, while borrowing many manners from Macy's.

Character Frank Grimes is the subject of much controversy among fans of the show. His death is one of the darkest and most cruel moments of the Simpsons. This episode was initially subjected to sharp criticism by the audience, but nevertheless, the episode has many fans, including among the creators of the show, for example, Matt Greining calls the episode one of his favorite.

In 2006, IGN.com released a list of the “25 most popular minor characters of the Simpsons,” in which Grimes took 17th place, and became the only character on the list that appeared on the show only once. The site noted: "Grimes does not lose its popularity, despite the fact that it appeared only once, it shows that the Simpsons know how to take all the best from the characters."

• Frank Grimes

• "Homer's Enemy." Bbc
• "Homer's Enemy" The Simpsons.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-13.
• Richmond, Ray; Antonia Coffman (1997). en: The Simpsons: Harper Collins Publishers, p. 236. ISBN 0-00-638898-1 .
• "Homer's Enemy" at The Simpsons.com
• Homer's Enemy at the Internet Movie Database
• "Homer's Enemy" at TV.com