It doesn’t usually take all that much to turn The Simpsons’ fandom into a deluge of hot takes, whether they be positive, negative, or a heaping mixture of both. Such was the case in the days following the airing of Season 35’s “McMansion & Wife,” an episode in which Homer joked about “strangling the boy” in front of a new neighbor, only to sweep the act under the rug by saying he doesn’t do that anymore. The supposed shift in parenting sparked myriad opinions from all sides, but all the moral commentary was for naught, with co-creator James L. Brooks firmly putting his foot down (presumably not on Bart’s crotch) in clarifying the situation.
Three weeks after the episode in question first aired, the TV legend that helped bring The Simpsons to life spoke with People and confirmed beyond a shadow (knight) of a doubt that Homer did not suddenly fall backwards into better parenting skills, and there are no plans to formally cease that element of this father-son relationship. According to Brooks:
