12 Greatest One-Off Simpsons Characters
6. Rex Banner
"Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" follows a classic Simpsons format: public outrage in Springfield leads to an overcorrection making sweeping changes, only for it to be reset at the end of the episode. This prohibition-themed instalment might be the best of its kind, though, primarily down to Rex Banner.
An uptight cop based on various portrayals of Elliot Ness, Banner appears to have wandered into The Simpsons from a different show altogether. He slings the ever ineffective Chief Wiggum out of office and takes over Springfield’s law enforcement. He’s morally upright and unbending, but his prohibition-era slang makes him indecipherable to many of the city’s rubes and oafs.
Banner makes a great foil for Homer, the hard working, officious cop vs the happy go lucky chancer making a buck bootlegging. His hilltop argument with the beer baron is a great moment, as is Banner’s unhappy birthday at the ice cream parlour.
A plot-heavy episode, it rushes to a conclusion in order to wrap things up and get rid of Banner, but the character and the premise had real legs, and could possibly be put to further use.