500 Keys/References

General

References/Trivia

Appearances

Gags

Credits

Quotes

Cultural References

• When Lisa finds the hidden classroom:
  • She observes that the stage is set for a production of the play Endgame by Samuel Beckett.
  • Lisa discovers that the objects in the classroom appear real, but are revealed to be fakes on closer inspection. Near the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey astroanut David Bowman finds himself in a similarly fabricated hotel room.
  • Lisa returns to the classroom with a huge crowd and school newspaper reporters in tow, only to find nothing but bookshelves, similar to the Geraldo Rivera special The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults, where after a huge media buildup the vault was anticlimactically discovered to be empty except for dirt and debris.
• When Bart gets onto the window washing platform, the music playing is an inversion of the title theme from Peter and the Wolf.
• During the blimp pursuit (Chief Wiggum and Lou in the Springfield Police Department blimp chasing Homer in the Duff Beer blimp:
  • Homer eludes Wiggum by suddenly climbing and flying over a billboard advertising a Cirque du Soleil performance titled "Zoomanity".
  • Wiggum crashes into the billboard and cries "Oh, the zoomanity!" as his blimp catches fire, referencing the Hindenburg disaster.

Trivia

• The chalkboard gag is a reference to Kristen Schaal's name being misspelled as "Kristen Schall" in the closing credits of "Homer Scissorhands".
• In the band room scene of the opening sequence, Lisa plays a violin instead of her saxophone.