Difference between revisions of "Last Exit to Springfield/References"

Revision as of 15:55, September 18, 2016

Cultural references

• The title of the episode is a homage to Hubert Selby Jr.'s controversial book Last Exit to Brooklyn.
• The body of the union president is seen buried under a football field, a homage to the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa.
• Mr. Burns' outfit is based on Buster Brown.
• Homer's imagination of a life of organized crime is based on the famous San Gennaro sequence in The Godfather Part II, accepting donuts rather than a necklace and an orange.^[1]
• Lisa has a dream that echoes the Beatles movie Yellow Submarine, 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 Peter Max.
  • 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 Batman.
• The last picture in the "Big Book of British Smiles" is that of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
• Gummy Joe has a voice exactly like that of actor Walter Brennan, 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' "Classical Gas".^[2]
• 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 How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

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 pass 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 save the plant from a meltdown ("Homer Defined")
  • Marge painted Burns in the nude ("Brush with Greatness")

Goofs

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

References