Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife
It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 26, 2006, and was watched by around ten million people during that broadcast.
"[1] He was given the offer to write and guest star by The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, who was a fan of Gervais' British comedy series The Office.
A live-action remake of the regular animated opening sequence of The Simpsons aired at the beginning of the episode, which was taken from a promo for the show's broadcast on the British television network Sky One.
Lenny invites his friends in Springfield to a party at his apartment, where he has bought a brand new plasma screen high-definition television.
Homer immediately falls in love with its HD picture, and begins to spend all his time at Lenny's home watching HDTV.
After a few days, Homer is kicked out by Lenny, and when he returns home he no longer enjoys watching his regular CRT TV, so Marge enters the family in a contest where first-place prize is a plasma HDTV.
When the two arrive in Springfield, however, Verity has already decided to leave Charles and found a new partner, Patty Bouvier, brought together by their hatred for Homer.
That night Homer plays a guitar and expresses his undying love for his newly bought plasma HDTV and (to a lesser extent) Marge.
Many Simpsons staff members were fans of English comedian Ricky Gervais and his British comedy series The Office that he created and starred.
[3][4] During the phone call, Gervais was invited to lunch with Groening and executive producer Al Jean since they were big fans and wanted to meet him.
[8] He revealed to the press for the first time in December 2004 that he was writing an episode, commenting that "I've got the rough idea but this is the most intimidating project of my career.
[4][8] Gervais has said in interviews that he thinks he received too much credit for writing the episode, claiming he merely sent his plot ideas, along with some written scenes, to Jean through email, and it was then the staff of the show that "made it look like a Simpsons script.
[13] Gervais did make another guest appearance on the show in an episode entitled "Angry Dad: The Movie" that was broadcast in the United States on February 20, 2011.
The large number of viewers of "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife" was the result of Gervais' involvement—new episodes of the show were usually seen by approximately one million people on Sky1 at the time.
In a 2012 article, Mike Bruno of Entertainment Weekly named Gervais one of the 21 best The Simpsons guest stars,[5] and in 2007 Simon Crerar of The Times listed the performance as one of the funniest cameos in the history of the show.
[17] Larissa Dubecki of The Age gave it a negative review, commenting that "this cross-pollination of stellar US and British comedies [The Simpsons and The Office] gives rise to great expectations but there's a massive letdown in store for anyone hoping for something approaching even the middling efforts of the two comedic benchmarks.
"[3] She added that "this effort proves that The Office and The Simpsons are the comedic equivalent of oil and water, with the former's wry observational style sitting oddly with the latter's pop-culture pie-eating competition.
Simpsons cameos are normally lean, but Gervais's shtick ran rampant through the second half, turning the regulars into extras.
