Homer Ate 64 Slices of American Cheese. We Did the Math
2 min read
Homer opens the fridge in the middle of the night, takes out a box of 64 slices of American cheese, and says so: "Mmm. Sixty-four slices of American cheese."
Wear it
He sits at the kitchen table and counts down. "Sixty-four." "Sixty-three." The moon in the window turns into a sunrise. "Two." "One." The table is buried in wrappers.
Marge comes in. "Have you been up all night eating cheese?"
Homer: "I think I'm blind."
The episode
The scene is from "Rosebud" (Season 5, Episode 4), first aired 21 October 1993, written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Wes Archer. Mr. Burns wants back Bobo, the teddy bear he abandoned as a child. Bobo ends up with Maggie, and she won't give him up.
The cheese happens in the middle of that plot. Burns and Smithers have snuck into the Simpsons' kitchen dressed in black and are clinging to the ceiling. "Remember Smithers, in and out in 18 seconds." Then Homer comes down for a snack and doesn't leave, so neither can they. At some point in the night Smithers offers Burns more cocoa.
The math
Take standard processed American cheese at USDA's figures per 100 g: 366 Calories, 30.7 g fat, 1,670 mg sodium and 18.1 g protein. Assume a 21 g slice. Sixty-four of them is about 1.34 kg of cheese, which works out to:
- Energy: about 20,600 kJ (4,920 Calories)
- Fat: about 413 g
- Sodium: about 22,400 mg
- Protein: about 243 g
Australian labels base percentage daily intake on an average adult diet of 8,700 kJ. Homer's night is nearly two and a half of those days. The suggested dietary target for sodium is 2,000 mg a day, so the box is eleven days of salt.
Brands vary. Lighter slices bring the totals down a bit. None of them bring it down far enough.
Can you actually eat 64 slices?
Homer does it in one sitting, with his boss watching from the ceiling. For anyone else it's 1.3 kg of processed cheese and a week and a half of sodium before breakfast. We'd stick to the shirt.
Why this scene stuck
The number. Homer doesn't eat a lot of cheese, he eats a count, and he announces it before he starts. The countdown skips the middle of the night and lets "Two. One." do the work. Then Marge asks the most reasonable question in the house, and the answer has nothing to do with it.
The 64 Slices of American Cheese tee.
More Springfield food: What is khlav kalash? | Crab juice recipe | Steamed hams recipe
