Difference between revisions of "A Milhouse Divided/References"

Revision as of 22:29, October 16, 2020

References

• The casino behind the wedding chapel is named "Plato's Republic," a reference to Plato's Republic.
• The sign outside the Cracker Factory reads: "Southern Cracker: The dryyyyyyyy cracker." Aside from seeming to be a straightforward product name, "cracker" is a pejorative term for a poor southern white person.
• Marge says she will make "butterscotch chicken" for Bart. This is a parody of a delicious dish called "buttermilk chicken."

Trivia

• The producers had contacted Sheryl Crow and asked her to record Kirk's song "Can I Borrow A Feeling" to play over the closing credits. Crow declined.
• The first scene where the family is eating dinner in front of the television with TV trays is the actual test for background artists to be hired for the show.
• The premise of this episode was inspired by a scene in a previous episode "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming" where Milhouse, while playing with the cockpit of an F-15, pretends to launch missiles at his mom, dad, and Sally Wexler out of anger that they had to send him to a psychiatrist.
• This is the only episode written entirely by Steve Tompkins, although he had been a part of the writing staff for several years.^[1]
• The writers wanted to break a typical sitcom convention by having the Van Houten's divorce, and remained divorced at the end.^[1]
• The episode original featured a subplot involving Bart getting jealous of the attention Milhouse was getting and wanting Homer and Marge to divorce.^[1]
• The Simpsons have a dinner party similar to the one in "The War of the Simpsons".^[1]
• Kirk loses his job at Southern Cracker. It was previously established that he worked there in "Homie the Clown" and "Bart on the Road"; in the former, Milhouse states Kirk is "a pretty big wheel down at the cracker factory".
• Kirk's song is titled "Can I Borrow a Feeling?"
• The cake that Marge and Homer have at their wedding reads "To a Whale of a Wife", with the cake being in the shape of a whale.
• Milhouse's toy car is designed to look like a S-class Mercedes.
• "El Barto" is written outside of the Springfield Marriage Bureau building.
• This episode establishes Kirk and Luanne's characters, alongside the status quo for said characters for the rest of the series. Kirk would be rendered a perpetual loser and lose his job at the Cracker Factory, while Luanne became more free spirited, as evident in her new permanent character design first appearing in this episode. This episode also was the first to give them their first names of Kirk and Luanne.

Goofs

• At the beginning of the episode, Homer is seen licking his plate clean. A few seconds later, Homer has a full plate of food.
• In the beginning, the family is eating in front of the T.V. When Marge is complaining about getting the food all over the floor, she drops her meatball on the floor, and it leaves a trail of sauce on the rug. In the bird's eye view of the room, the sauce has disappeared until the shot changes: then it reappears.
• Marge said to Bart she would make butterscotch chicken for him, but in the Season 2 episode "Blood Feud", Marge says Bart's allergic to butterscotch.