There were a couple of violations in that episode that I remember instinctively grasping when I originally watched it as a new episode when it first aired. I h

There were a couple of violations in that episode that I remember instinctively grasping when I originally watched it as a new episode when it first aired. I had been eagerly anticipating the episode, based on station promo spots that had teasers about the episode, and I really thought it was going to be a really good episode. It was obvious that some extra effort was put into the animation, I had anticipated solid writing to match. It looked like it was going to be on par with a good Treehouse of Horror episode. Instead, it turned out to be fluff. Only the trippy animation got attention, and the entire episode is built around the trippy shots. The episode lines up what might be considered the first “jerk ass” Homer incident, such that Homer eats this MacGuffin chili pepper, apropos of nothing, and why? There is no reason. It doesn’t build his character. It doesn’t reveal or change anything about Homer. And he’s the centerpiece of the whole episode, the other characters don’t figure into the plot very much, other than as sentimental plush toys. He just does it. Why is he at the chili cook off? No real reason. So the answer is: because they (the staff) wanted to do a trippy vision quest desert sequence. And that’s it. No other alignment with the Simpsons universe. It’s just Homer trips out in the desert. Everything else is window dressing. Any tugs on the heartstrings, and appearances by the rest of the cast. The spirit animal becomes nothing, and is never seen again, in any other episode that mattered. And so, then we have the principal violation of Homer doing drugs, and the ancillary violation of Homer “doing drugs” without actually doing drugs. The pepper is a stand-in for hallucinogenic drugs, obviously. And here we have homer trying the pepper, but for dishonest reasons. He didn’t set out to trip balls in the desert, and his character is unaware of this outcome a priori, conserving a moralistic aspect of Homer, the family man, even though, we, beyond the fourth wall, know better. So they do this episode once, and without any explanation, or impact on continuity, and the jokes aren’t even that great. The episode isn’t very quotable, and has nothing else going for it, aside from the animation, which everyone does remember. So, at the time, everyone said they loved this episode, but really the episode sucked, and rewatchng it decades later, it still sucks. But people remember the animation, and The Simpsons is animated, so surely this must be a “good” Simpsons episode. But it’s not. At the time, I remember a subliminal inkling that if this episode passed muster, then more bad episodes were on the way, and I was right. The Poochie episode aired soon after, and I remember watching it at the time, and thinking to myself: “message received, this show isn’t going to be good anymore, don’t expect much else going forward... “ and it seems that was interpretted correctly.