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Homer Price

 Homer Price
type
TVTItem
 Homer Price
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Homer Price
 Homer Price
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HomerPrice
 Homer Price
comment
Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Homer Price is a series of stories written by Robert McCloskey.Homer Price is a smart, friendly, and diligent boy from Centerburg, Ohio. He likes to fix radios in his free time, and does odd jobs for his relatives and neighbors on the side (e.g., raking leaves, sweeping down the barbershop, looking after his uncle's lunchroom, and helping his dad run the motel where they live). All too often, outrageously bizarre things happen in Centerburg, and Homer, usually accompanied by his pal Freddy, must use his wits to find a way to stop the madness.The first collection of stories, simply titled Homer Price, was published in 1943 and contained the first six stories, followed by Centerburg Tales in 1951 with the remaining four. Centerburg Tales was also reissued as Centerburg Tales: More Adventures of Homer Price and as More Homer Price, both of which left out the "Grandpa Hercules" chapter.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Three stories were adapted into live-action short films and a TV special in 1963 ("The Doughnuts"), 1976 ("The Case of the Cosmic Comic"), and 1977 ("Homer and the Wacky Doughnut Machine").
 Homer Price
fetched
2022-07-29T04:40:48Z
 Homer Price
parsed
2022-07-29T04:40:49Z
 Homer Price
isPartOf
DBTropes
 Homer Price / int_20a14df0
type
Wrong Genre Savvy
 Homer Price / int_20a14df0
comment
Wrong Genre Savvy: In "Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)", an old man who spent twenty years alone in the mountains inventing a humane musical mousetrap comes to town. The Centerburg residents are impressed with his similarity to a storybook character, and once the librarians determine the most fitting one, refer to him patronizingly as Rip Van Winkle. It isn't until all the kids in Centerburg start following his musical mousetrap out of town that they realize he's a lot more like The Pied Piper. (And even then, he's not purposely luring them like the Piper did — the kids just think it'll be quite a sight when the mice get freed and want to be there to watch.)
 Homer Price / int_20a14df0
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_20a14df0
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Homer Price / int_20a14df0
 Homer Price / int_21846c77
type
Pest Controller
 Homer Price / int_21846c77
comment
Pest Controller: In "Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)", the town hires Michael Murphy, a pied piper type who uses a mechanical contraption to play the music in order to lead mice out of town. Homer and his friends decide to follow along and see what happens, but since Homer has all the kids stuff cotton in their ears so they won't hear the music. Despite this, since none of the kids thought to tell the adults what they had planned, the adults fear the worst when see the piper with a gaggle of kids following behind.
 Homer Price / int_21846c77
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_21846c77
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Homer Price / int_21846c77
 Homer Price / int_33576bdb
type
The Sheriff
 Homer Price / int_33576bdb
comment
The Sheriff: Centerburg's chief law officer is only known as The Sheriff; he's also prone to Spoonerisms and is really a nice guy who does the best he can.
 Homer Price / int_33576bdb
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_33576bdb
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Homer Price / int_33576bdb
 Homer Price / int_35b429f3
type
Weird Trade Union
 Homer Price / int_35b429f3
comment
Weird Trade Union: In "Wheels of Progress", Dulcey Dooner claims to be Secretary-Treasurer of the Sign Putter Uppers Union. It's pretty obvious from context that he invented it on the spot to get paid more for putting up street signs.
 Homer Price / int_35b429f3
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1.0
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Homer Price / int_35b429f3
 Homer Price / int_45d7a6e0
type
Actor/Role Confusion
 Homer Price / int_45d7a6e0
comment
Actor/Role Confusion: In "The Case of the Cosmic Comic", the actor who plays the "Super-Duper" in movie serials makes an appearance at the Centerburg theater and Freddy asks if he could do some horseshoe bending or flying for them. Disillusionment sets in later when the actor's car ends up in a ditch and needs to be towed to Homer's father's filling station.
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1.0
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Homer Price / int_45d7a6e0
 Homer Price / int_4da296fc
type
All Cloth Unravels
 Homer Price / int_4da296fc
comment
All Cloth Unravels: In "Mystery Yarn", Miss Terwilliger mysteriously beats Uncle Telly and the sheriff to become World's Greatest String Saver, even though her ball of string was smaller. The story doesn't explain, but astute readers will notice that when she starts unrolling it, she's wearing a "robin's egg-blue dress with the pink trim at the bottom", which is later described as a "robin's-egg-blue blouse with the pink skirt" and finally a "dress with the robin's-egg-blue trim at the neck."
 Homer Price / int_4da296fc
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_4da296fc
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Homer Price / int_4da296fc
 Homer Price / int_5036c7d4
type
Time-Passage Beard
 Homer Price / int_5036c7d4
comment
Time-Passage Beard: "Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)" has Michael Murphy sporting a very lengthy beard (and hair in general) to indicate that he's been away from civilization for thirty years.
 Homer Price / int_5036c7d4
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_5036c7d4
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Homer Price / int_5036c7d4
 Homer Price / int_5266f5bd
type
Involuntary Dance
 Homer Price / int_5266f5bd
comment
Involuntary Dance: In "Pie and Punch and You-Know-Whats", when all of Centerburg gets the song from the jukebox's new record stuck in their heads, they can't stop singing it, and even start to dance to it. Homer realizes that the only cure is another song — one by Mark Twain ("Punch Brothers, Punch!"), which one forgets as soon as one tells it to someone else.
 Homer Price / int_5266f5bd
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1.0
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Homer Price / int_5266f5bd
 Homer Price / int_52d1f46e
type
Not What It Looks Like
 Homer Price / int_52d1f46e
comment
Not What It Looks Like: "Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)" has the children of the town following after Michael Murphy and his musical mouse trap on the day he uses it to lure the mice out of the town. The adults see this and mistakenly assume he's luring the children away too, when they actually just want to watch and see what it'll look like when he releases all the mice.
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1.0
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Homer Price / int_52d1f46e
 Homer Price / int_53968093
type
Wet Blanket Wife
 Homer Price / int_53968093
comment
Wet Blanket Wife: Homer's aunt Agnes, wife of Uncle Ulysses, is something of one. Ulysses is always on the lookout for the newest labor-saving device, but his wife never approves, always throwing up her hands and sighing and sometimes becoming unkindly disposed towards him for days, because "She was of the opinion that Uncle Ulysses just frittered away his spare time over at the barbershop with the sheriff and the boys, so what was the good of a labor-saving device that gave you more time to fritter?"
 Homer Price / int_53968093
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_53968093
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Homer Price / int_53968093
 Homer Price / int_5db59a03
type
Brown Note
 Homer Price / int_5db59a03
comment
Brown Note: "Pie and Punch and You-Know-Whats" has someone puts a horrible song on the jukebox in the lunch counter. Anyone who hears the song — whether the original jukebox tune or someone else's rendition — can't get it out of their head. Ultimately the main character gets it out of his head by using Punch, Brothers, then gives it to the rest of the town. Now he's cleared but they have it. So, he tells them to sing it to the one person who hadn't been in town. Now everyone is cleared except that person, who now has to be smuggled out of town to keep from reinfecting the whole town. note The flip side of the same record causes the listener to get hiccups at the thought of the words "pie" or "Mississippi".
 Homer Price / int_5db59a03
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_5db59a03
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Homer Price / int_5db59a03
 Homer Price / int_5f930b19
type
Named After Somebody Famous
 Homer Price / int_5f930b19
comment
Named After Somebody Famous: Homer, who's named after Homer, a historical figure and famous poet from ancient Greece.
 Homer Price / int_5f930b19
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_5f930b19
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1.0
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Homer Price / int_5f930b19
 Homer Price / int_81241767
type
Smelly Skunk
 Homer Price / int_81241767
comment
Smelly Skunk: In the very first story, "The Case of the Sensational Scent", Homer takes in a skunk, whom he names Aroma. Aroma plays a key part in helping to apprehend the robbers when he and Homer come across four men who stole a suitcase containing two thousand dollars and a dozen bottles of shaving lotion. Aroma, who likes to take naps in Homer's suitcase, climbs into the suitcase with the money and one of the robbers gets the bright idea of throwing a rock at him, which results in six fewer bottles of lotion and a stinky suitcase. This particular scent combination enables Homer to identify the robbers when they stop at one of his parents' tourist cabins for the night and pay with a five-dollar bill from the suitcase.
 Homer Price / int_81241767
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_81241767
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_81241767
 Homer Price / int_8a07e085
type
Denser and Wackier
 Homer Price / int_8a07e085
comment
Denser and Wackier: The early ones, most famously "The Doughnuts", are gentle comic tales of small-town Middle American life... but from there on out, the stories keep getting steadily more outlandish, to the point where the final four stories teeter on the brink of surrealism.
 Homer Price / int_8a07e085
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Homer Price / int_8a07e085
 Homer Price / int_8e92e125
type
Lawyer-Friendly Cameo
 Homer Price / int_8e92e125
comment
Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: The kids' biggest fictional heroes are the Lonely Ranger and the Super-Duper.
 Homer Price / int_8e92e125
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_8e92e125
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Homer Price / int_8e92e125
 Homer Price / int_a7d31bf0
type
Auto-Kitchen
 Homer Price / int_a7d31bf0
comment
Auto-Kitchen: "The Doughnuts" is about an automated doughnut machine that Homer's uncle acquires for his diner, which, once turned on, is unable to stop until it exhausts its seemingly-limitless supply of dough (it's implied that Uncle Ulysses simply didn't assemble it quite right, which is why it's acting up).
 Homer Price / int_a7d31bf0
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 Homer Price / int_a7d31bf0
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Homer Price / int_a7d31bf0
 Homer Price / int_ae6adc36
type
Religious and Mythological Theme Naming
 Homer Price / int_ae6adc36
comment
Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Homer's Uncle Ulysses, Grandpa Hercules and Uncle Telemachus are all named after figures in Greek mythology (though the first two use the Roman forms of their namesakes' names).
 Homer Price / int_ae6adc36
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Homer Price / int_ae6adc36
 Homer Price / int_b747dbd8
type
Tall Tale
 Homer Price / int_b747dbd8
comment
Tall Tale: Homer's Grandpa Hercules is famous for these, usually about himself or his alleged ancestors.
 Homer Price / int_b747dbd8
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_b747dbd8
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Homer Price / int_b747dbd8
 Homer Price / int_bad6069c
type
Imposed Handicap Training
 Homer Price / int_bad6069c
comment
Imposed Handicap Training: Grandpa Hercules trained to make a big leap while wearing additional weights on his clothes. If the muscles are used to moving with the added weight, they'll let him jump large distances once the weight is gone. It works.
 Homer Price / int_bad6069c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_bad6069c
featureConfidence
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_bad6069c
 Homer Price / int_bb18c92d
type
Mouse Trap
 Homer Price / int_bb18c92d
comment
Mouse Trap: The old man in "Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)" spent 30 years developing a humane, musical mousetrap, which he comes to Centerburg to demonstrate. It works a little too well...
 Homer Price / int_bb18c92d
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_bb18c92d
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_bb18c92d
 Homer Price / int_bcb452a9
type
Weirdness Magnet
 Homer Price / int_bcb452a9
comment
Weirdness Magnet: If you were a first-time visitor to Centerburg In-Universe, you wouldn't believe all the mishegaas that goes on there. The locals, by contrast, appear to be used to it.
 Homer Price / int_bcb452a9
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_bcb452a9
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1.0
 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_bcb452a9
 Homer Price / int_be009bbc
type
Alliterative Name
 Homer Price / int_be009bbc
comment
Alliterative Name: Ne'er-do-well Dulcy Dooner, plus his late uncle, Dupree Dooner.
 Homer Price / int_be009bbc
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_be009bbc
featureConfidence
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_be009bbc
 Homer Price / int_bf239986
type
Mind Virus
 Homer Price / int_bf239986
comment
Mind Virus: In "Pie and Punch and You-Know-Whats", a mysterious stranger comes to town and puts a record in the lunchroom's jukebox, telling Homer and Freddy not to play it. Of course they do, and they can't stop singing the song. They teach the song to others, who can't stop, and so on. Homer finally cures himself and the town by learning a different song (from a Mark Twain story), which makes them forget the first song, and once you pass that song on you forget it in turn. They send the one person infected with the new song out of town (she was going on vacation anyway) where they hope she'll teach it to someone else.
 Homer Price / int_bf239986
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_bf239986
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_bf239986
 Homer Price / int_c368c3ea
type
Spoonerism
 Homer Price / int_c368c3ea
comment
Spoonerism: The sheriff has a tendency to make these: "Wold the hire, I mean, hold the wire." ("The Doughnuts") "That's nighty mice music." ("Pie and Punch and You-Know-Whats") "[Uncle Telly and Miss Terwilliger]'ll make a very cappy houple, I mean, happy couple [...]" ("Mystery Yarn")
 Homer Price / int_c368c3ea
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1.0
 Homer Price / int_c368c3ea
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Homer Price / int_c368c3ea
 Homer Price / int_ca87e3ec
type
No Name Given
 Homer Price / int_ca87e3ec
comment
No Name Given: The town sheriff and judge are only ever referred to as "the sheriff" and "the judge", despite the former appearing as a supporting character in roughly half-a-dozen stories.
 Homer Price / int_ca87e3ec
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_ca87e3ec
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_ca87e3ec
 Homer Price / int_cc82b744
type
It Won't Turn Off
 Homer Price / int_cc82b744
comment
It Won't Turn Off: In "The Doughnuts", Uncle Ulysses' new doughnut machine is incorrectly assembled and won't turn off until it's used up all the batter in it. Too bad they made an extra-large batter recipe and now have hundreds of doughnuts they can't sell (until they come up with a marketing gimmick).
 Homer Price / int_cc82b744
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_cc82b744
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_cc82b744
 Homer Price / int_ce27dc3f
type
Protagonist Title
 Homer Price / int_ce27dc3f
comment
Protagonist Title: The first collection of stories is simply titled Homer Price.
 Homer Price / int_ce27dc3f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_ce27dc3f
featureConfidence
1.0
 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_ce27dc3f
 Homer Price / int_d7b34c31
type
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"
 Homer Price / int_d7b34c31
comment
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The sheriff is only ever referred to by his title.
 Homer Price / int_d7b34c31
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_d7b34c31
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Homer Price / int_d7b34c31
 Homer Price / int_dc335a04
type
Ear Worm
 Homer Price / int_dc335a04
comment
"Pie and Punch and You-Know-Whats": A stranger leaves a record in Uncle Ulysses' new automatic jukebox; the song it contains is so catchy that those who hear it can't stop singing it.
 Homer Price / int_dc335a04
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_dc335a04
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_dc335a04
 Homer Price / int_e502e268
type
Family Theme Naming
 Homer Price / int_e502e268
comment
Family Theme Naming: Homer has uncles named Ulysses and Telemachus and a grandfather named Hercules.
 Homer Price / int_e502e268
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_e502e268
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Homer Price / int_e502e268
 Homer Price / int_e5421161
type
Expy
 Homer Price / int_e5421161
comment
"The Case of the Cosmic Comic": Homer, Freddy, and Louis (Freddy's little brother) meet the Super-Duper (an Expy of Superman) in person at the Centerburg cinema, but they learn that he's really just an actor, and not the genuine article.
 Homer Price / int_e5421161
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_e5421161
featureConfidence
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_e5421161
 Homer Price / int_eb002293
type
Shrinking Violet
 Homer Price / int_eb002293
comment
Shrinking Violet: "Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)" has Michael Murphy, who's been away from civilization for thirty years and is very shy around people as a result.
 Homer Price / int_eb002293
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_eb002293
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_eb002293
 Homer Price / int_f32528de
type
Cut-and-Paste Suburb
 Homer Price / int_f32528de
comment
Cut-and-Paste Suburb: In "Wheels of Progress", the local millionaire decides on a whim to build a new suburb for Centerburg — 100 identical houses, with her mansion in the center. Hilarity Ensues when said mansion (which they'd been using as a landmark so the residents would know where they lived within said suburb) is moved away and a 101st house put in its place. And it turns out the guy hired to put up the road signs found a stash of alcohol buried under said mansion (probably a holdover from Prohibition) and got snockered, so he has yet to start putting up the signs, leading to some serious confusion.
 Homer Price / int_f32528de
featureApplicability
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 Homer Price / int_f32528de
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_f32528de
 Homer Price / int_f870d50
type
Consolation Prize
 Homer Price / int_f870d50
comment
Consolation Prize: In "The Doughnuts", due to an accident, a diamond bracelet gets mixed into the doughnut batter and ends up inside the machine. When they figure this out, Uncle Ulysses (acting on advice from Homer) announces a sale on doughnuts. Whomever buys the doughnut with the bracelet inside can't keep it... but they get a consolation prize of 100 dollars (not quite the value of the bracelet, but still a good prize) from the bracelet's owner.
 Homer Price / int_f870d50
featureApplicability
1.0
 Homer Price / int_f870d50
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 Homer Price
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Homer Price / int_f870d50
 Homer Price / int_f8fe0279
type
Impossibly Delicious Food
 Homer Price / int_f8fe0279
comment
Impossibly Delicious Food: In "Ever-So-Much-More-So", a peddler comes to Centerburg selling an invisible powder which makes anything moreso of what it is. It's introduced as a thing you put on food to make it better, but it also "works" on other things; for example, if an ornery person eats things with it sprinkled on, it makes that person Ever-So-Much-More ornery. (In the product's demonstration, the salesman sprinkles it into a cup of coffee and gives it to Homer, who observes that, since he doesn't like coffee in the first place, it is now Ever-So-Much-More bitter and nasty.)
 Homer Price / int_f8fe0279
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Homer Price / int_f8fe0279
 Homer Price / int_name
type
ItemName
 Homer Price / int_name
comment
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Homer Price / int_name
 Homer Price / int_name
itemName
Homer Price

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Homer Price
hasFeature
Actor/Role Confusion / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
All Cloth Unravels / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Auto-Kitchen / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Cardboard Prison / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Children's Literature / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Competition Coupon Madness / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Consolation Prize / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Cut-and-Paste Suburb / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Denser and Wackier / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Imposed Handicap Training / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Impossibly Delicious Food / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Involuntary Dance / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
It Won't Turn Off / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Lawyer-Friendly Cameo / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Mail-Order Novelty / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Mind Virus / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Mouse Trap / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Named After Somebody Famous / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Pest Controller / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Protagonist Title / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Religious and Mythological Theme Naming / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Smelly Skunk / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Spoonerism / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Tall Tale / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Time-Passage Beard / int_c5fa3363
 Homer Price
hasFeature
Wet Blanket Wife / int_c5fa3363