“Hungry, Hungry Homer” is the fifteenth episode of the twelfth season of The Simpsons and it aired on March 4, 2001. In the episode,Homer Simpson becomes a Good Samaritan after discovering the simple joys of helping people in need—which is put to the test when he goes on a hunger strike after the owner of the Springfield Isotopes baseball team attempts to discredit him when Homer stumbles on his plot to discreetly move the team to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
This episode inspired the name of the real-life Albuquerque Isotopes minor-league baseball team.
This episode has also been credited for popularizing the word “meh”, which later entered the Collins English Dictionary. The word is an interjection expressing boredom or indifference, and an adjective describing something boring or mediocre. The word, which has its root in Yiddish, is expressly spelled out in the episode:
Homer: Kids, how would you like to go to … Blockoland!
Bart and Lisa: Meh.
Homer: But the TV gave me the impression that –
Bart: We said, “Meh!”
Lisa: M-e-h, meh.
The word had been used on several previous occasions on the show, the first such usage being in the season six episode “Sideshow Bob Roberts” in 1994. In that episode, Lisa is given the town’s voting record for the mayoral election; in response to her question that she “thought this was a secret ballot,” the official responds “meh”. John Swartzwelder, the writer of “Hungry, Hungry Homer” has stated that he “originally heard the word from an advertising writer named Howie Krakow back in 1970 or 1971 who insisted it was the funniest word in the world.”
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