High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "Homer Loves Flanders" is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons` fifth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 17, 1994. In the episode, Ned Flanders helps Homer Simpson get tickets to a football game. The two initially become good friends, but Homer eventually takes the friendship too far with his stupid antics, oblivious to the fact that Flanders is beginning to hate him.