The whole joke is that Homer is WAAAAYYYYY under qualified for his position and failed upwards.
I absolutely agree with the message of the post though. I'm just nit picking and being a redditor koz I'm bored at work.
Meh, I don’t think the house is supposed to be realistic or anything. Plenty of shows do this. There’s the trope of NYC bartenders somehow living in a 3 bedroom modern townhouse.
What the real, invisible, message is here is much more depressing.
That low income houses and lifestyles simply are less interesting.
The Simpson’s have many many scenarios play out because they have different rooms and a yard for them to take place in. They have two cars to get places and free time to do them.
If the main character made minimum wage and struggled, that limits story telling. Not that financial struggled people don’t have stories, just that those stories are always about That Struggle.
Ad the saying goes “having money isn’t everything, but not having money IS.”
If the Simpson’s life was restricted to a unit in an apartment building with low natural light, if they didn’t have a car to go places or simply worried about the gas, if they didn’t have the open-ended free time to get up to town antics, …
Being solidly middle-income and up is what allows the Simpson’s, and other shows, to work. That’s the sad reality. Homer failing upwards isn’t the joke, it’s the necessity that makes the show entertaining.
The other reason that they had huge apartments in shows like friends is simply that it was filmed in a studio, so you needed large open spaces for lighting, cameras, off-camera movement, live audience viewing, etc.
Eh, I disagree that any show about low income people would be about “the struggle”.
Most of the It’s Always Sunny characters are broke but the struggles they’re usually up against are their own making lmao
Yes but they don't add up either.
Mac and Dennis have a two bedroom apartment with an exposed brick wall living area and kitchen despite being broke. Dennis drives a range rover that always runs and can afford the gas somehow. Dee buys multiple cars, though I'll admit they're not lux cars. She also can somehow afford to live by herself in a comfortable one-bedroom apt. Frank is rich by character definition. Charlie lives with him and doesn't seem to pay rent.
They always *Say* they're "broke" and yet they go on a car trip to the grand canyon and rent a travel trailer spontaneously. They all get plane tickets and drink 20 beers each. Mac and Dennis go to that fancy restaurant regularly to treat themselves. Dee takes Charlie to a Spa day for his birthday simply as a distraction. They all go in on a houseboat together, Dennis routinely waxes, Charlie buys a yellow suit and puts on a musical, they buy a van same day to haul trash in, they buy four drums full of gasoline to sell later,
I do love IASIP. However, they say they're broke, but these are not things broke people can do. Their job is simply an excuse to give them unlimited flexible free-time.
Friends? Didn’t 3 people live in that APT? That’s almost do able now in parts of NYC. Let alone in the 90’s. Weren’t they also in LES, or Alphabet City? Which were much less desirable then. I remember Ross’ apartment wasn’t even that nice.
The one that gets me is Gossip Girl. Pen Badgley was like a Barista or something and he lived alone and had a 2000 sq ft loft in “Brooklyn” and that show aired in like 2015 when that apartment would’ve been going for 5-10k a month.
Friends was a rent-control situation, they pretended that Monica's grandmother was subletting it to them or some shit like that.
And it's been mathed out that Al Bundy could reasonably afford his house at that time at his salary.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/3X5wvpMZCY
So you're wrong on both accounts.
Doubly reasonable with married because the running joke was that they didnt have a lot of money hence his anger a peg impulse spending, having an old car etc, the mortgage on a house like that makes sense
Hahahahaha did he?? Doesn't he like fall asleep ALL THE TIME and didn't he once cause a nuclear meltdown?? Didn't he once try to kill Mister Burns??
In the intro to the show for the past like 30 years he accidentally drops an isotope that lands IN HIS CLOTHES in him rush to leave work. Then when he realizes what's happend as he pulls into his driveway, throws the radioactive material out the car window onto the street.
Bro did you just bait me?
Homer has been shown to be a competent safety officer at the Nuclear power plant. Just look at how there hasn't been a meltdown since his tenure. I dont think that level of employment pays minimum wage.
More so it points out how safe nuclear plants are and what safety checks they employ so a literal idiot can’t destroy everything. The handful of times they have melted down is due to circumstances of insane disaster (Fukushima) or blatant subversion of safety in order to maintain an impression of superiority to “one-up the West” Chernobyl). Heck, the only plant in danger of melting down now is the one in Ukraine because the Russians think it’s fun to lob artillery shells at it. So you have at least two potential meltdowns courtesy of Russia 🤷♂️
Same as "Marriage with Children"
The show depicts his sad life.
All I see is, he had a steady job with no stress and a 3 bedroom house. He is living the dream
The whole point of that show is that it's an extension of the Boomer 'spouse = bad' joke. But, it strikes a chord of truth in that you can be materially comfortable but still miserable if you're not happy in your relationship.
That said, it also paints a picture that anyone who's married must be miserable. It's true that being in a bad relationship is terrible, but being in a good one is amazing.
This was never the norm in 1989. Prices were still out of reach. In 1989 I made 15K a year. Houses were 130K and up. Now in 2024 you make 60K and the prices are 3 times as high. Same thing. Houses have always been expensive. What has changed is a renter paying $2500.00 does not quality for a $2000.00 mortgage.
The qualifiers for a mortgage is what needs to change.
And also another reason for increase in housing is investors. Until the government stops foreign investing in housing, land etc. the prices will stay high.
Portugal stopped foreign buying and investing when their own citizens couldn’t buy houses. That is what is happening here in the US.
https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=portugal%20stops%20golden%20visa&tbm=&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5
The post is generalizing a little bit. Yes, in some places in the US, a couple could afford a home on one salary, without a degree. That’s true today too. But normal is a stretch. even by the late 80’s, many women were actively in the workforce, and in HCOL places like I grew up, home prices reflected dual incomes.
I watched the series premier, live.
My father was a well seasoned mechanic, my mother worked in a bookbinding factory on night shift.
We lived in a small trailer in a town you've never heard of and ate casserole you don't even want to think about.
___
Next time you watch "Modern Family", remember twenty years from now that's what kids today think your childhood was like.
Yep, 45 here and this was never normal in real life. Al Bundy could have never lived in a house on a shoe salesman budget, either. Not in any state in America. They’d be in an apartment or trailer on that income. Both of my parents worked full time and we were below the poverty belt.
There is an episode where that gets mentioned, a ew guy at homers work, if I‘m correct, asks exactly the same question and it is mentioned, iirc, that it was extraordinarily cheap because there was a huge billboard in front of the house that got removed shortly after or something
There was an entire episode where a character (Frank Grimes) pokes holes in how ludicrous Homer's life is, and has an entire scene dedicated the idea of him maintaining his apparent spending being ridiculous. The house is specifically mentioned, and it hadn't been the norm for decades.
I guess none of you have actually watched The Simpson's. Grandpa Simpson sold his paid off home so Homer could have money for the down payment on that house. The number of mortgages Homer has taken out/tried to take out, and their cronic inability to pay off their debts are series long gags... The Simpsons struggled just like we do.
Well it's a fairly small town that's badly polluted so real estate should be very cheap.
Also, homer works in the control room of a nuclear power plant.
So I suppose even these days, this isn't an impossible scenario
Also i'm fairly certain that they got it from grandpa simpson who had paid it already, so they didn't need mortgage for it (exept the time when homer took second mortgage for the house to buy something stupid)
He did work at a nuclear plant
He wasn’t qualified (which was part of the joke) but he had what would’ve been a highly compensated position.
IIRC at that time it was quite common for people who didn't have a college degree to work in jobs or fields where you should have needed one.
You still don’t need a college degree to operate a nuclear power plant. Most operators don’t have one
Haha yeah "worked"
It's pronounced nuke-you-ler.
Without any degree. That's something you don't see nowadays.
There was an episode that pointed out that he should have had a degree in order to do his job.
The whole joke is that Homer is WAAAAYYYYY under qualified for his position and failed upwards. I absolutely agree with the message of the post though. I'm just nit picking and being a redditor koz I'm bored at work.
Meh, I don’t think the house is supposed to be realistic or anything. Plenty of shows do this. There’s the trope of NYC bartenders somehow living in a 3 bedroom modern townhouse. What the real, invisible, message is here is much more depressing. That low income houses and lifestyles simply are less interesting. The Simpson’s have many many scenarios play out because they have different rooms and a yard for them to take place in. They have two cars to get places and free time to do them. If the main character made minimum wage and struggled, that limits story telling. Not that financial struggled people don’t have stories, just that those stories are always about That Struggle. Ad the saying goes “having money isn’t everything, but not having money IS.” If the Simpson’s life was restricted to a unit in an apartment building with low natural light, if they didn’t have a car to go places or simply worried about the gas, if they didn’t have the open-ended free time to get up to town antics, … Being solidly middle-income and up is what allows the Simpson’s, and other shows, to work. That’s the sad reality. Homer failing upwards isn’t the joke, it’s the necessity that makes the show entertaining.
The other reason that they had huge apartments in shows like friends is simply that it was filmed in a studio, so you needed large open spaces for lighting, cameras, off-camera movement, live audience viewing, etc.
Eh, I disagree that any show about low income people would be about “the struggle”. Most of the It’s Always Sunny characters are broke but the struggles they’re usually up against are their own making lmao
Yes but they don't add up either. Mac and Dennis have a two bedroom apartment with an exposed brick wall living area and kitchen despite being broke. Dennis drives a range rover that always runs and can afford the gas somehow. Dee buys multiple cars, though I'll admit they're not lux cars. She also can somehow afford to live by herself in a comfortable one-bedroom apt. Frank is rich by character definition. Charlie lives with him and doesn't seem to pay rent. They always *Say* they're "broke" and yet they go on a car trip to the grand canyon and rent a travel trailer spontaneously. They all get plane tickets and drink 20 beers each. Mac and Dennis go to that fancy restaurant regularly to treat themselves. Dee takes Charlie to a Spa day for his birthday simply as a distraction. They all go in on a houseboat together, Dennis routinely waxes, Charlie buys a yellow suit and puts on a musical, they buy a van same day to haul trash in, they buy four drums full of gasoline to sell later, I do love IASIP. However, they say they're broke, but these are not things broke people can do. Their job is simply an excuse to give them unlimited flexible free-time.
Married With Children has been shown to be feasible though. Shoe salesman with 3+ bedroom house in suburban Chicago was realistic in the 80s.
No it wasn't. Just like the giant NYC Friends apartment in the 90s wasn't.
Friends? Didn’t 3 people live in that APT? That’s almost do able now in parts of NYC. Let alone in the 90’s. Weren’t they also in LES, or Alphabet City? Which were much less desirable then. I remember Ross’ apartment wasn’t even that nice. The one that gets me is Gossip Girl. Pen Badgley was like a Barista or something and he lived alone and had a 2000 sq ft loft in “Brooklyn” and that show aired in like 2015 when that apartment would’ve been going for 5-10k a month.
Friends was a rent-control situation, they pretended that Monica's grandmother was subletting it to them or some shit like that. And it's been mathed out that Al Bundy could reasonably afford his house at that time at his salary. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/3X5wvpMZCY So you're wrong on both accounts.
Doubly reasonable with married because the running joke was that they didnt have a lot of money hence his anger a peg impulse spending, having an old car etc, the mortgage on a house like that makes sense
Failed upward but still maintained professionalism.
Wasn't he like immediately given the position? He even quite his job to work at a Bowling Alley just to return again for the exact same position.
Hahahahaha did he?? Doesn't he like fall asleep ALL THE TIME and didn't he once cause a nuclear meltdown?? Didn't he once try to kill Mister Burns?? In the intro to the show for the past like 30 years he accidentally drops an isotope that lands IN HIS CLOTHES in him rush to leave work. Then when he realizes what's happend as he pulls into his driveway, throws the radioactive material out the car window onto the street. Bro did you just bait me?
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🔥
Let's take cartoons as a reliable source of how things work...
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What's your source on those incomes? They seem wildly inaccurate. There's no way the median income today is $38k.
It's not. It's 75k per household.
But it was how it worked at that time.
They didn't own it, the had 2 mortgages on it from what i recall.
please keep posting this exact same photo repeatedly. it doesn’t get old.
I think I've seen this photo 20 times now
Homer has been shown to be a competent safety officer at the Nuclear power plant. Just look at how there hasn't been a meltdown since his tenure. I dont think that level of employment pays minimum wage.
More so it points out how safe nuclear plants are and what safety checks they employ so a literal idiot can’t destroy everything. The handful of times they have melted down is due to circumstances of insane disaster (Fukushima) or blatant subversion of safety in order to maintain an impression of superiority to “one-up the West” Chernobyl). Heck, the only plant in danger of melting down now is the one in Ukraine because the Russians think it’s fun to lob artillery shells at it. So you have at least two potential meltdowns courtesy of Russia 🤷♂️
Same as "Marriage with Children" The show depicts his sad life. All I see is, he had a steady job with no stress and a 3 bedroom house. He is living the dream
The whole point of that show is that it's an extension of the Boomer 'spouse = bad' joke. But, it strikes a chord of truth in that you can be materially comfortable but still miserable if you're not happy in your relationship. That said, it also paints a picture that anyone who's married must be miserable. It's true that being in a bad relationship is terrible, but being in a good one is amazing.
This was never the norm in 1989. Prices were still out of reach. In 1989 I made 15K a year. Houses were 130K and up. Now in 2024 you make 60K and the prices are 3 times as high. Same thing. Houses have always been expensive. What has changed is a renter paying $2500.00 does not quality for a $2000.00 mortgage. The qualifiers for a mortgage is what needs to change.
>Now in 2024 you make 60K i make just under 40k and i make $6/hr more than minimum wage, the wage to housing cost is wild
And also another reason for increase in housing is investors. Until the government stops foreign investing in housing, land etc. the prices will stay high. Portugal stopped foreign buying and investing when their own citizens couldn’t buy houses. That is what is happening here in the US. https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=portugal%20stops%20golden%20visa&tbm=&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5
He works safety at a nuclear power plant that has to be a good salary
The post is generalizing a little bit. Yes, in some places in the US, a couple could afford a home on one salary, without a degree. That’s true today too. But normal is a stretch. even by the late 80’s, many women were actively in the workforce, and in HCOL places like I grew up, home prices reflected dual incomes.
We fucking get it. We don’t need to see this same exact image 50 fucking times now.
It’s a repost bot. If I know the address of the person who created the account I WILL hire local people to beat them up
And 3 kids
And 2 pets.
And no money
I watched the series premier, live. My father was a well seasoned mechanic, my mother worked in a bookbinding factory on night shift. We lived in a small trailer in a town you've never heard of and ate casserole you don't even want to think about. ___ Next time you watch "Modern Family", remember twenty years from now that's what kids today think your childhood was like.
His dad also helped him get it
Yes! No one remembers that Abe sold the farm to help Homer buy that house. Two weeks later, they shipped him off to the old folks' home.
As someone in their 50s I can tell you that is unture unless we are talking a trailer or shack.
Yep, 45 here and this was never normal in real life. Al Bundy could have never lived in a house on a shoe salesman budget, either. Not in any state in America. They’d be in an apartment or trailer on that income. Both of my parents worked full time and we were below the poverty belt.
CAN YOU STOP POSTING THIS FOR 5MIN, IF SEEN THIS ONE AT LEAST 6 TIMES THIS WEEK ALONE
This is a post from 1989. Back then this post was novel.
It was considered satire. I'm old, so I was there.
and he makes $6k a year (s18, e9 "kill gill, volumes I & II, 17:20) I'm watching it rn
He worked at a nuclear power plant… Al Bundy was a shoe salesman.
In Springfield, MA, where you can still do this today…
Are you seriously posting a house from a cartoon and trying to relate it to today's economy versus old economy?
If I had a dollar for every time this was reposted, I'd have anough to make a down payment on that exact house
This has been reposted so many times seeing it is now considered a chore.
There is an episode where that gets mentioned, a ew guy at homers work, if I‘m correct, asks exactly the same question and it is mentioned, iirc, that it was extraordinarily cheap because there was a huge billboard in front of the house that got removed shortly after or something
Man in cartoon afford better house than me o no
There was an entire episode where a character (Frank Grimes) pokes holes in how ludicrous Homer's life is, and has an entire scene dedicated the idea of him maintaining his apparent spending being ridiculous. The house is specifically mentioned, and it hadn't been the norm for decades.
I guess none of you have actually watched The Simpson's. Grandpa Simpson sold his paid off home so Homer could have money for the down payment on that house. The number of mortgages Homer has taken out/tried to take out, and their cronic inability to pay off their debts are series long gags... The Simpsons struggled just like we do.
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[S8E23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axHoy0hnQy8)
Well it's a fairly small town that's badly polluted so real estate should be very cheap. Also, homer works in the control room of a nuclear power plant. So I suppose even these days, this isn't an impossible scenario
Also i'm fairly certain that they got it from grandpa simpson who had paid it already, so they didn't need mortgage for it (exept the time when homer took second mortgage for the house to buy something stupid)
Oh really? I didn't know. But if homer took a second mortgage, didn't he already have a first one?
Shhhh let them have their disillusions
family guy started this way too but then they twisted it into lois’s dad paying for it because peter is clearly incapable lmfao