Flaming Moe’s: ‘The Simpsons’ episode linked to a personal feud
Any long-running series requires a sprawling team of writers to bring it to life, with countless top-tier scribes responsible for the golden years of The Simpsons.
During its peak, the animated classic’s best run is comparable to any other episodic show in history in terms of its sheer consistent quality, but that doesn’t mean everything was rosy behind the scenes. In fact, one episode is widely believed to have drawn its inspiration from simmering discontent in the writers’ room.
The tenth episode of the third season – ‘Flaming Moe’s’ – finds Homer regaling the titular bartender with the story of how he made a delicious cocktail by combining several alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages together to create a bespoke drink dubbed the ‘Flaming Homer’.
Taken with the idea, Moe steals it from his loyal patron, rebrands it as the ‘Flaming Moe’, and watches the popularity and profits of his bar skyrocket. Moe’s Tavern becomes so popular that it even plays host to Aerosmith, who became the first band to ever have their full line-up guest star in an episode of The Simpsons.
Sam Simon was a key influence on The Simpsons from the very beginning, but the longer he was part of the creative team, the less satisfied he was with his position. He grew increasingly frustrated with Matt Groening in particular, who he believed was taking the lion’s share of the credit for the show’s popularity despite the collaborative nature of its scripting process.
For his part, Groening described Simon as “brilliantly funny and one of the smartest writers I’ve ever worked with, although unpleasant and mentally unbalanced”. From his perspective, Simon believed he wasn’t being compensated enough for his work but ended up experiencing the exact opposite effect when he departed the series following its fourth season.
Prior to his exit, he negotiated a deal that would see him receive a share of the profits generated by The Simpsons on an annual basis, which by his own estimation worked out at “tens of millions a year”, although he did at least appreciate the irony. “When I was there I thought I was underpaid. I thought I wasn’t getting enough credit for it,” he told CBS News. “Now, I think it’s completely the opposite. I get too much credit for it. And the money is ridiculous.”
As a result, a theory began to emerge that the entire plotline of ‘Flaming Moe’s’ was based on the feud between Simon and Groening, with the latter using Moe as the surrogate to profit off the ideas being generated by Homer, who was filling in for the former.
When asked directly in a 2013 interview, Simon refused to offer a definitive answer, but he did acknowledge how “that may be true”. He more than likely knows precisely where the truth lies, but it didn’t exactly bother him when he was still earning so much money from a series he’d departed a decade previously.
