Last Exit to Springfield/References

Cultural references

 * The title of the episode is a homage to Hubert Selby Jr.'s controversial book .
 * The body of the union president is seen buried under a football field, a homage to the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of.
 * Mr. Burns' outfit is based on.
 * Homer's imagination of a life of organized crime is based on the famous San Gennaro sequence in , accepting donuts rather than a necklace and an orange.
 * Lisa has a dream that echoes the ' movie , which Al Jean says had to be changed enough so that everything was slightly different due to legal reasons. The psychedelic artwork is true to that of.
 * In that dream, George Harrison says: "Look lads, it's Lisa in the sky", and John Lennon: "No diamonds, though" while Lisa is flying over their (purple) submarine. This is a reference to the famous song of The Beatles: "Lucy in the sky with Diamonds", which also featured in the film. Another factor to the dream is that when Lisa is flying, clouds forming the word HATRED are shown (it was LOVE in the original movie).
 * The scene where Lisa acquires her monstrous braces and breaks her mirror is based on the 1989 film.
 * The last picture in the "Big Book of British Smiles" is that of.
 * The text that the monkey had written "It was the best of times it was the blurst of times" is a reference to the first sentence in the novel  by.
 * Gummy Joe has a voice exactly like that of actor, who in real life had lost a lot of teeth in an accident, and who played characters a lot like Gummy Joe in Westerns.
 * The song played by Lisa is Mason Williams' "".
 * Smartline is a parody of .
 * When Burns and Smithers slide down the poles to get to the button to switch the power off, it is a reference to the Batman TV show.
 * Before Mr. Burns shuts off the power to the town in response to the strike, he says, "from Hell's heart I stab at thee" a famous quote spoken by Captain Ahab to the white whale in Moby-Dick.
 * The workers' resistance to the power outage, and Mr. Burns' Seussian response, is a spoof of .

Trivia

 * "Last Exit to Springfield", located at www.lardlad.com, is a Simpsons fan site owned by Adam Wolf. He is also the owner of a popular website stating Simpsons news, Simpsons Channel (simpsonschannel.com).

Continuity

 * Smithers mentions to Mr. Burns the past events about Homer and his family:
 * Homer thwarted Burns' campaign for Governor ("Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish")
 * Burns ran over Bart ("Bart Gets Hit by a Car")
 * Homer saved the plant from a meltdown ("Homer Defined")
 * Marge painted Burns in the nude ("Brush with Greatness")

Goofs

 * When Dr. Wolfe is showing Ralph a book titled The Big Book of British Smiles, on the first picture one tooth turns from white to red.