Bart Hits Homer With a Chair is a meme taken from "A Milhouse Divided", the sixth episode of the eighth season of The Simpsons. In the episode, Milhouse's parents Kirk and Luann get a divorce, causing Homer to examine his own marriage. It was directed by Steven Dean Moore and is the only episode for which Steve Tompkins has sole writing credit.
History[]
Production[]
"A Milhouse Divided" is the only episode for which Steve Tompkins has sole writing credit, although he had been a part of the writing staff for several years. The writers wanted to do an episode that involved a couple getting divorced. They had wanted to break the sitcom convention that characters who look like they will divorce get back together and have two characters remain divorced even after the episode. The Van Houtens were chosen because the writers felt that they were the most developed couple next to Marge and Homer and the Lovejoys. The scene in the episode "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming" where Milhouse is in a jet pretending to fire missiles at his parents is where they got the idea to have his parents' marriage be in trouble.
Reception[]
In its original broadcast, "A Milhouse Divided" finished tied for 50th in the weekly ratings for the week of November 25 – December 1, 1996, with a Nielsen rating of 8.3 and was viewed in 8 million homes. It was the fourth-highest-rated show on the Fox Network that week.
Virality[]
A segment of the episode which involves Homer getting hit by Bart with a chair while taking a bath became a meme in May 2018. The meme is known as "Bart Hits Homer With a Chair". Many YouTube user submitted edits of the meme.
Current days[]
At this time, the meme is still popular, though the amount edits submitted to YouTube per day has lowered down slightly.