Difference between revisions of "The Town That Time Forgot/References"

Revision as of 16:38, March 13, 2020

Cultural references

• The story's title is a wordplay on the 1975 film The Land That Time Forgot.
• Transformers: When Homer is late to work, he tells his co-workers a story about being stuck in traffic and his car transforming into a giant robot ("Transformacar") and then walking to the power plant.
• Mr. Burns and Smithers are revealed to be spying on employees by standing behind motivational posters. Burns says, "I wanted one of those old paintings with the eyes missing, but Smithers thought it was too Scooby Doo!"
• Ned Flanders is seen reading a Bible titled The Good Book, which is a common nickname for the Bible.
• James Bond: Professor Frink complains about having to reset all his timepieces for daylight saving time, including "[his] digital watches with the glowing red numbers like in Live and Let Die".
• When Homer leads an angry mob into Mayor Quimby's office to protest daylight saving time, Quimby quickly agrees to give in to their demands so he can "get home in time to enjoy some desperate housewives", referring to the TV show of that title.
• The next morning, Homer tells his family about leading the mob to get daylight savings time abolished, finishing by saying, "And that, kids, is how laws are made!" Bart sardonically observes, "Schoolhouse Rock got it totally wrong!", referring to the program's "I'm Just a Bill" segment.
• Lisa reads about the new daylight savings law in the newspaper, and chuckles when she realizes that the way it's worded, anyone could set their clock any way they wanted to. Marge hears her chuckling and asks if she's reading Dilbert.
• When Comic Book Guy reads about the new daylight savings law and makes the same observation as Lisa, he says, "Like Dr. Who, time is no longer my master!"
  • On the wall behind CBG is a poster for Infinite Christmas Crisis, a reference to the Crisis on Infinite Earths story arc published by DC Comics in the mid-1980s.
• The Sunday after the new daylight savings law goes into effect, the Flanders family take advantage of the new law to make Rev. Lovejoy continue preaching even after he has already given his sermon. When Lovejoy runs out of Bible stories, he reads from The Da Vinci Code and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. When the Flanderses insist on more, Lovejoy begins reading from the Judy Blume young adult novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Trivia

• Fittingly, Lisa and Comic Book Guy, both members of the Springfield chapter of Mensa, are the first to notice the implications of the wording of the new daylight savings law.
• Mayor Quimby implies that he was once the mayor of Seattle and caused a calamity (not further detailed) while he was in office there.