"Homerpalooza" is the twenty-fourth and penultimate episode of the seventh season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 19, 1996. In the episode, Homer is shocked to find classic rock is no longer considered cool. Hoping to earn "street cred", he joins the Hullabalooza music festival as a carnival freak. The episode's title is a play on the Lollapalooza music festival. It was the last Simpsons episode written by Brent Forrester and the last one directed by Wes Archer (both Forrester and Archer left to work on King of the Hill). Peter Frampton and musical groups Sonic Youth, Cypress Hill and The Smashing Pumpkins guest star as themselves. Plot After Otto destroys the school bus, Homer is forced to carpool several students to school. He is shocked to find all the kids hate the classic rock radio station he listens to. Homer realizes that music from his high school days is no longer considered cool after a hipster at a record store derides it. Hoping to impress them, Homer takes Bart and Lisa to the Hullabalooza music festival. Homer tries to act cool by wearing a Rastafarian hat, but an angry crowd of Generation Xers confronts him after mistaking him for a narc. After being tossed out by the crowd, Homer angrily kicks a cannon, which shoots one of Peter Frampton's inflatable pigs at his stomach. The festival head is impressed by Homer's ability to absorb cannon fire and hires him for the festival's freak show (played by the Jim Rose Circus), called the pageant of the transmundane. Homer tours with the festival and parties with rap and rock stars — Sonic Youth, Cypress Hill and The Smashing Pumpkins — while earning respect among young people, including Bart. As the tour approaches a stop in Springfield, Homer's stomach aches and he is sent to a veterinarian. The doctor informs Homer he will die if he takes another cannonball to his gut. Homer decides to perform his act one last time, but he dodges the cannonball at the last second. After a warm sendoff from the touring bands, Homer leaves the festival and loses his kids' respect for no longer being cool, which he embraces. Production The entire story of this episode was developed by David Cohen, although it was written by Brent Forrester, who felt that