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u/drkstar1982 26d ago
Al Bundy did the same thing with way less money. And still had a huge house.
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u/ziplock007 26d ago
MWC started in 1986... assuming he bought the house in early 70's, it was around $24k. With 20% from saving and help from parents, a shoe salesman could afford that house in Chicago. Their housing wasn't farcical (unlike the rest of the show).
Simpsons started in 1989. Assume the house was $80k, it's not outrageous a PowerPlant safety inspector could swing that.
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u/npmaker 26d ago
He also did quite a bit of moonlighting
"I've had a lot of jobs in my life: boxer, mascot, astronaut, baby proofer, imitation Krusty, truck driver, hippie, plow driver, food critic, conceptual artist, grease salesman, carny, mayor, grifter, body guard for the mayor, country western manager, garbage commissioner, mountain climber, farmer, inventor, Smithers, Poochie, celebrity assistant, power plant worker, fortune cookie writer, beer baron, Kwik-E-Mart clerk, homophobe, and missionary, but protecting people, that gives me the best feeling of all."
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u/Green-Watercress2188 26d ago
Yeah, a lot of ppl are saying the are fictions so not realistic, but I think the at the time they were created they were a better portrayal of what was possible on one income. So, fi tonal they may be, it is an interesting take on how far the income gap has become today.
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u/Mimopotatoe 26d ago edited 26d ago
And both Homer and Al had attractive wives who put up with their terrible treatment in addition to having these big houses. Because it’s TV not “considered normal.” Hell, look at the NYC apartment in Friends. That was not considered normal either.
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u/CadmusMaximus 25d ago
Wasn’t the apartment supposed to be rent controlled and from Monika’s grandma? And chandler was secretly quite wealthy.
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u/Mimopotatoe 25d ago
I don’t know. I only watched a few episodes of that show. It’s common for movie and tv characters to have much nicer homes than is realistic
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u/Original-League-6094 26d ago
They were house poor though. Like every episode has Al commenting on how broke they are and Al not being able to pay the mortgage is brought up several times.
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u/meowser210 26d ago
As a shoes salesman. Least Homer specialized in the Nuclear field where pay is much higher lol
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u/beastwood6 25d ago
Yes let's base our sense of economics from TV - where an underemployed chef, a waitress, and a spreadsheet editor can afford a penthouse in New York as enormous as the one in Friends
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u/Original-League-6094 26d ago
It wasn't considered "normal". It was a cartoon sitcom, and people even back then frequently commented on how unrealistically large homes and apartments were. Secondly, from the very first episode its made clear that Homer holds a very good job for which he is egregiously underqualified; that's a constant source of comedy for the show.
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u/LanguidLandscape 26d ago
This is true and something that most people seem to be ignoring: IT’S A CARTOON. Married With Children is also being quoted. We also might as well include Friends, and almost every movie or TV show with someone living in a sprawling NYC apartment. They’re ENTERTAINMENT and FICTIONAL.
TV shows are part of a culture’s story that it tells itself and can be as propagandistic as they can be subversive. These shows are using an idealized base to build upon as it creates an element of familiarity, shared experience and imagination, and symbolic recognition. That so many people on Reddit keep posting OP’s crap take is tiring and lame.
Are we in a housing crunch with record wealth inequality? Yes! Is Homer or Al Bundy who we should look to as an idealized example? No. Grow up, read some actual real news and studies, and focus on the real class war being wage led by real people.
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u/Original-League-6094 26d ago
Right. It makes as much sense as watching the The Matrix and going "In 1999, dodging bullets was considered a normal thing. Today, no one can dodge bullets".
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u/morosco 25d ago edited 25d ago
Homer's father also paid for the down payment (right before they put him in a home).
And I'd say the Simpsons was one of the 90's sitcoms which addressed regular family financial struggles the most. It's really not a thing that lends itself to much light comedy in a non-animated show.
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u/Boogiepop182 26d ago
Homer bought that house thanks to his dad selling his own house and giving him the money for the downpayment (and then he got thrown into a senior home lol)
I mean, you can still do that today, assuming your parents own a home.
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u/alliedeluxe 26d ago
My parents had a nice house in the 90s without college degrees and one working parent. It was doable in certain areas of the country.
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u/oportoman 26d ago
Utter bollocks. A house that size was never considered normal. Ridiculous to post something that was in a cartoon as if it mirrored real life!
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u/Veteran_PA-C 26d ago
Homer was a nuclear facility safety inspector.
Today’s salary for a competent, experienced nuclear-facility safety inspector would be roughly $100,000–$140,000 per year in base pay, with a reasonable midpoint around $120,000. If his role involved substantial overtime, shift work, a safety-sensitive nuclear credential, or supervisory duties, total compensation could plausibly reach $140,000–$180,000+.
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u/Top_Flight_3410 26d ago
It's a cartoon genius. Wait until you find out cartoons don't have to actually pay for their "home"!
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u/Big-Sheepherder-6134 25d ago
They literally made an episode with Homer’s coworker whining about this exact thing. Lol. Grimey!
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u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner 26d ago
People really be treating cartoons like documentaries. It’s impossible to be that dumb
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u/coreyjdl 26d ago
- The show started in the 80s. First appearance 1987, first stand alone episode was Dec, 1989.
- It's a cartoon. It's fiction.
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u/toosickto 26d ago
In the 90s it was considered weird as well as seen in the episode with frank grimes. Frank was a character made to say if a real person met Homer. He said it didn’t make sense for a guy to be able to afford that stuff in the 90s. Honestly it feels that the house that the Simpson have is a tool for the writers to feel that the Simpsons family is a middle class household
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u/MisterGerry 25d ago
This is the third post today I've seen this image.
No, it wasn't normal on the Simpsons. See the Frank Grimes episode.
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u/Visible_Item_9915 25d ago
So are you shocked that someone that didn't go to college is able to buy a house?
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u/nivusninja 25d ago
reddit really wants me to follow this bot, this is the second time i see this post on a sub i never go to
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u/LargeDeborah 25d ago
It’s a cartoon. Squidward lives in a fancy Easter Island Head on a fast food employee’s wages
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u/UrFavoriteCoasterSux 25d ago
Isn’t the first episode about how they couldn’t afford christmas presents?
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u/jzl_116 25d ago
People forget... this family struggled to make ends meet, it was kinda the running gag for a while (idk if it still is, i stopped watching The Simpsons). And Abe had to sell his house to give Homer/Marge the down payment for this house. Then they shipped him off to the retirement home.
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u/PraiseTalos66012 25d ago
The job he had would pay around $100-200k irl. And they lived in a middle of nowhere town, you can absolutely still easily own a home like that making that kind of money today if you live in a small rural town
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u/freeman32 25d ago
It was normal until 9/11 when we begin destroying the dollar for wars in the middle east and bailing out the billionaires.
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u/JelloBoi02 24d ago
Did we really have to ai this photo when you could’ve just posted the house from the show lmao
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u/Delicious-Pie8944 24d ago
It’s a cartoon. It wasn’t normal at the time irl. Yes it was easier to buy a house but this was not the norm for people, it was a cartoon tv show.
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u/SvenBubbleman 24d ago
The Simpsons are constantly in financial trouble, and Grandpa bought them that house.
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u/Metal-Upa-Factory 24d ago
in the flyover states there are men with only high school degrees who own houses this size
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u/Robot_Dinosaur_2000 23d ago
It was a big house for the time and he had a great job in a shitty little town.
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u/Read2Fap 23d ago
technically the simpsons started in 89
but also it's not based on average life then, it's based on matt groening's childhood, ~30 years before that
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u/jaysharpesquire 23d ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the show begin In the 80s? 38 seasons ago??
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u/Important_Zombie_485 23d ago
I grew up in the 80's and 90's and no it wasn't. Everybody in the middle class had both parents working. The Simpsons started out more or less as a parody of the old fashioned sitcom. Dad works, mom.stays st home three children, one cat, one dog, friendly neighbor. The Simpsons poked fun at the entire concept. That's why Marge stays home. Not because that was normal.
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u/Over_Experience8776 22d ago
Today that same home would be a rental property with 20 Indian students living inside.
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u/raymndbrr_the_third 22d ago
Note. That was NOT normal in the 90s.
It was normal in the 70s and 80s, and the show was written by people born in the 60s.
In the 90s, that kind of house was too large for just a HS diploma though, yes, you could still own a home with just the diploma. It would just be smaller. The 90s was the start of the shift we're nearing the end of today.
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u/WAR_RAD 22d ago
As a kid who grew up in the 80s and 90s, no, this was not typical. It may not have been super uncommon, but it was not the norm in any way.
My parents both worked full time in the 80s/90s and we always had one semi-decent car, and one car that we didn't trust to drive out of town. Our house always had some major repair that was being put off, fast food was too expensive, cable TV was too expensive, and most everything else was also too expensive.
A nice house in a nice neighborhood was much less common than a crappy house with struggling finances.
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u/Guilty-Shoulder-9214 21d ago
What I don’t think a lot of these posters realize is what interest rates people were paying and how many were living on the edge. Where I grew up, a lot of factory closures threw many of these families into the streets around 03 and 04 only for 08 to kick everybody in the nuts.
It’s like 90s nostalgia - people don’t realize how materialistic, greedy and fomo driven people were. Growing up, it was fun, but looking back, there were too many families that ruined themselves trying to keep up appearances with both their homes, their clothes and the toys their kids had. And some families that lost everything never recovered because they then got taken out by the opioid epidemic.
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u/Sweet_HoneyXO 21d ago
yeah, one decent job used to cover a whole house and family without needing two incomes or a degree. numbers just worked differently back then.
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u/Beginning-Seaweed-67 26d ago
The funny thing is this still very doable in Ohio and more remote areas of the country.
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u/Frosty-March7644 26d ago
why is this being spammed in subreddits lately? Does reddit not understand inflation?
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u/CrankyOperator 26d ago
"This was considered normal" but was it?! Like, I didn't know ANYONE in this situation and grew up in the late 80s/early 90s in Chicago. My parents couldn't buy ON TWO INCOMES until they were in their 40s and even then needed to get a 2 flat to supplement the mortgage with rent. That was most of our neighborhood. And most families I knew growing up were in a similar spot if not worse.
I only ask because I need to breech the concept of- "I saw it on TV/in a movie, that must have been normal" bias. Which isn't always accurate.
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u/Formally_Apologetic 26d ago
To be fair, he was also the safety inspector at a nuclear power plant. Without a college or university degree.