Hungry, Hungry Homer (S12, E15-263)

"Dancing away my hunger pains, movin' my feet so my stomach won't hurt.
I'm kinda like Jesus, but not in a sacrilegious way."

Plot Summary
After helping Lisa acquire a missing piece to her Lego Blocko Eiffel Tower set, Homer comes to the conclusion that helping out 'the little guy' feels pretty good.  Homer spends the next day helping Bart and Marge with their problems.  As Homer discusses his new quirk for the week at the bar, Lenny storms in furious.  The baseball team, the Springfield Isotopes, have been terrible, but Lenny was unable to get a refund for his season tickets.  Homer decides to help Lenny out.

Homer learns that the team was bought by Duff Beer a year ago, and so decides to talk to the team's new owner: Howard K. Duff the eighth.  Homer attempts to speak on Lenny's behalf, but fails to accomplish anything.  On his way out, Homer accidentally stumbles into a private room full of gear and merchandise for the "Albuquerque Isotopes", and realizes that Duff is trying to move the team.  Duff along with his goon Duffman knock Homer unconscious and attempt to erase him memory of what he saw, but Homer remembers anyway.  He attempts to alert the media of the plot, but the room containing the revealing evidence has been cleaned up and Homer is made to look a fool.

Angry that he's being called a liar even though he's telling the truth for once, Homer takes a suggestion from Lisa to go on a hunger strike outside the stadium, not eating again until Howard Duff tells the truth about moving the team.  With nobody usually attending the baseball games, Duff sees Homer waste away outside the stadium on his hunger strike, and sees the people crowded around him, and puts two and two together.  While Homer's sleeping, a pair of guys move Homer and the pole he chained himself to over the center field wall to become a new attraction: Hungry Hungry Homer.  With people now back in the stadium and Homer's yells for the truth too weak to reach anyone's ears, Homer is stuck to waste away for several days.

Growing weaker, skinnier and of course hungrier, Homer begins to hallucinate.  Duff decides enough is enough and has Homer unchained from his pole.  Having Homer come down, he offers Homer a brand new Isotope dog to recover from his 12 day long hunger strike.  Homer, too weak to remember what he was doing in the first place, is about to eat the dog when he realizes that the hot dog's toppings have the bold, southwestern flavors one would find in Albuquerque, and uses the opportunity to finally inform everyone in the stadium about the plan to move.  As the crowd comes to realize the truth, Homer also convinces Duffman to turn against his employer, and Homer effectively saves the team from moving.  However, the mayor of Albuquerque is undeterred, he'll try and get the Dallas Cowboys to come down and play baseball instead.

Quick Review
This was a fine episode, with a few good moments.  Duffman features in the episode's highlights, and though there wasn't anything particularly bad about the episode, the quantity of jokes was just a bit lacking which prompts the score it received.

Final Score: 7.8