Difference between revisions of "Love Is a Many-Strangled Thing/References"

Latest revision as of 08:41, February 25, 2022

Cultural references[edit]

• The episode title is a pun on the film "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing".

The Planet Express ship from Futurama flies by the title screen in the opening sequence

• At the start of the opening sequence, the Planet Express ship from Futurama flies by the title screen. The intro music from Futurama also plays briefly.
• In the episode's couch gag the family is designed in ASCII art.
• Mr. Burns and Smithers travel in a vintage air balloon with the style of that of Jules Verne's adventure novel Around the World in Eighty Days.
• After Homer fails his shot, one of the Nuclear Power Plant employees calls him Annie Oakley. Oakley was an American sharpshooter. Another employee tells Homer to "stick to skiing" in a reference to biathlon.
• The air balloon collides with a cathedral very similar to Notre-Dame de Paris.
• The jewelries Vulgari and Spiffany's at Springfield Atoms Stadium are parodies of Bulgari and Tiffany's respectively.
• The staff at The Pampered Fan were former All-Pro American football players. One of them mentions he shouldn't have bought so many Ferraris while another player says he hosted Saturday Night Live and mentions the band Matchbox 20.
• The song "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by C+C Music Factory is heard during the Fan Cam scene.
• Homer mentions The Joker when he is tickling Bart.
• After Bart pees himself, the big screen has the caption "got urine?", a reference to the got milk? advertising campaign.
• Kent Brockman mentions former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
• "No More Mr. Nice Guy" is played while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is strangling Homer.
  • The song is heard again during the credits.

Homer is a young Michael Jackson in the The Jackson 5 and Bart is Joe Jackson, Michael's father

• Homer has a dream in which there are three pop culture references to parental abuse in the media:
  • Homer is a young Michael Jackson in the The Jackson 5 and Bart is Joe Jackson, Michael's father. The Jackson 5 song "ABC" is also referenced.
  • A scene from The Great Santini where Bart (as "The Great Simpsini") is Wilbur Meechum and Homer is his son. Bart also mentions the American book publisher Random House and its founder's fictional son "Bennett Cerf III".
  • A parody of the 2009 movie Precious with Bart as Mary and Homer as Precious. Bart bullies Homer (as Precious) by saying that she could portray the Death Star on a hypothetical new George Lucas Star Wars film.

Trivia[edit]

• The prank call text that Bart texted with a cell phone to Moe I.M.A. Wiener is the same prank name that was previously used by Bart at Springfield Gorge in The Simpsons Movie against Russ Cargill.
• The last time Homer had a nightmare about Bart abusing him in a dream was in the Season 1 episode: "Moaning Lisa".