Difference between revisions of "The Great Money Caper/References"

Revision as of 16:24, July 29, 2024

Cultural references

• The title of the episode is a parody of the 1981 musical The Great Muppet Caper featuring the Muppets.
• At the Magic Palace, the name of the show The Great Linguini is a parody of The Great Houdini.
• Questo, the waitress and mentalist, gives Marge a Long Island iced tea.

The poster Harry Houdini, king of cards (1895) and Sorcerer's Hats from Fantasia can be seen at the Magic Palace gift shop

• Items at the Magic Palace's gift shop include:
  • Three Sorcerer's Hats. These were worn by Mickey Mouse in the iconic 1940 segment Fantasia.
  • The fortune teller machine Zoltar from the 1988 film Big
  • The poster Harry Houdini, king of cards created in 1895 in Chicago.
  • A Magic Kit, which features a character similar to the Genie from Aladdin. The kit was approved by the "Royal Magic College" of Hyderabad, the large city in India.
• An sturgeon falls from a Russian space station onto the Simpsons' car. These animals are found in the Eurasian coastline, with the Russian sturgeon being one of the species.
• American singer Michael Jackson is at Springfield Squidport.
• Bart plays in the Little League Baseball.
• The book title, A Child's Garden of Cons, is a parody of A Child's Garden of Verses. The "classic cons" explained in the book include:
  • "The pigeon drop", in wich the victim ("pigeon") is persuaded to give up a sum of money in order to secure the rights to a larger sum of money, or more valuable object.
  • "The Brillstein grab", with the name "Brillstein" being a nod to talent agent Bernie Brillstein. This fictional scam alludes to the way talent agencies "grab" or sign talented individuals, portraying it as a scam.
  • "The Albany Ham Scam", referring to the city of Albany, New York.
• Homer calls Bart "kemosabe", which was the "Native American" name used by sidekick Tonto to refer to the masked Lone Ranger in the 1949 TV series The Lone Ranger.
• When Homer tries to sell a Bible to Flanders, Flanders mentions the movie Paper Moon a black and white 1973 American motion picture comedy with a plot-line similar to that of this episode.
• Abe says that the scam he is organizing for the guests of the retirement home is taken from the movie The Sting II and therefore nobody knows it, making irony that the film was a flop at the box office. Abe also mentions Jackie Gleason, who portrayed con man Fargo Gondorff.
• When Homer wants Bart to see a jail cell, he tells Chief Wiggum "I would like to scare my son straight". This a reference to the 1978 documentary Scared Straight!, where a group of juvenile delinquents have a three-hour session with actual convicts.
  • According to Wiggum, the "Rick James suite" is "super-freaky". This is a reference to Rick James' famous 1981 hit "Super Freak". James's career was hampered by his drug addiction and he was embroiled in legal issues, serving several months at Folsom State Prison, California.
• Devon Bradley did not work for the FBI but for the CCP, the "Colgate Cavity Patrol", a reference to the toothpaste brand Colgate.
• Patty and Selma give Maggie a Manwich.
• During his trial, Willie declared he lived in a "Unabomber-style shack". Willie is referencing Ted Kaczynski, aka Unabomber, a terrorist who pursued a primitive lifestyle.
• Homer uses Mountain Dew instead of morphine to trying to get asleep.
• Wiggum was planning to take Wille to the Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison campus in New York.
• When Ralph is splashed with fake blood, he says "I look like cable TV", likely a reference to the practice of sliming on Nickelodeon shows.
• According to Marge, Devon Bradley was doing Dreamcoat at the dinner theater, a reference to the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
• The final scene of the episode with everyone surfing is a tribute to the song "Pipeline", an instrumental surf rock song by The Ventures which was recorded in 1962.

Goofs

• Several scenes involving the Russian space station Mir were inaccurate: For one thing, the sturgeon that was implied to be their dinner would have burned in the atmosphere by the time it entered reentry, and even if some part of it managed to survive re-entry, the damage to the car would have been much more than just landing on the hood. Also, the cosmonauts had their helmets off when it was discovered that they accidentally left the hatch open, which would have actually resulted in their deaths due to decompressation. Lastly, by the time this episode aired, Mir was not only already decommissioned for about four years, but in fact was also deorbited and burned in the atmosphere a few months prior.
• Louie has Legs' colors a few times in the courtroom scene.
• When the Simpsons are driving back home, Marge asks the kids to be quiet because of her hangover. She is not wearing any lipstick in this clip. The picture then pans out and Marge can be seen wearing lipstick once again without having time to reapply it.