Theoretically speaking, serious Simpsons fans should hate this episode. It's one of the wilder ones to appear in the first eight seasons, featuring Homer becoming a anti-authoritarian bootlegger after a St Patrick's day mishap leads to Springfield embracing prohibition. In the course of the twenty five minute running time, he gets in a car chase that careers through a grave yard, blows up the basement and comes worryingly close to being catapulted out of the town at high velocity by a medieval siege weapon. Its certainly a long way away from the satirical, character-orientated comedy that made the Simpsons so beloved in the first place and by all rights, should be absolutely loathed for arguably, being the episode that proved to the writers that they could get away with the sort of 'wacky adventures' that blighted later series. There's just one problem...it's impossible to hate this episode because it's brilliant.
The reason for this is down to two things; the script and Dave Thomas's guest role as Captain Rex Banner, the police chief drafted into the city to solve the alcohol problem after Chief Wiggum proves...well, proves to be completely useless. The one-liners come thick and fast and the voice acting as ever is spot on, with the writers hitting a peak early on and running with it until the closing credits. It's sharp, magnificently crafted and absolutely hilarious, with the "no you won't" exchange on a hill between Homer and Banner being a memorable classic moment. Banner of course is the star here, a straight laced, humourless police man who has walked straight out of a 1930s book of stereotypes. He's without a shadow of a doubt one of the most memorable guest characters they ever featured, a million miles from the "Hi, I'm *obligatory celebrity*, bye" cameos we would later get. And I defy you not to crack up at the sight of him looking stern and deep in thought with a 'banana kaboom' sat in front of him.
In some respects, you could blame the success of this one for the wealth of ludicrous scenarios that would follow and it'd be very easy to suggest that Homer would never have been able to somersault an articulated lorry through the air (Maximum Homerdrive), wield a motorbike like a fencing sword (Take My Wife, Sleaze) or visit Jockey Land (I've forgotten which episode this was in but it was rubbish) were it not for this episode's paving the way. However, it's just not possible to dislike it, it's too funny, too well written and just...just too damn good.