Gnaws/References

General

References/Trivia

Appearances

Gags

Credits

Quotes

Cultural references

Jaws

• The film is punned in the title and parodied throughout the story.
• Various Springfieldians are cast in the roles of characters from the movie, including:
  • Edna Krabappel as Chrissie Watkins (the girl who is attacked in the film's opening scene)
  • Chief Wiggum as Police Chief Martin Brody
  • Seymour Skinner as Alex Kintner (the boy who is attacked while floating on his inflatable raft), and Agnes Skinner as Alex's mother
  • Captain Horatio McCallister as Quint
  • Mayor Quimby as Mayor Vaughan, and Martha Quimby as the mayor's wife
  • Professor Frink as Matt Hooper
  • Blinky as the shark
• When Wiggum shoots at the gas grill in the shark's mouth, he says "Smile, you son of a bitch!" echoing Brody's line at the end of the movie.

Miscellaneous

• Star Wars:
  • Professor Frink cuts open the "suspect" shark with a lightsaber, as Han Solo does to a Tauntaun in The Empire Strikes Back.
  • Just before he makes the cut, Frink says, "I guess we're about to find out if they smell worse on the inside", referencing Han's line "And I thought they smelled bad on the outside!" after he cuts open the Tauntaun.
• After Blinky attacks Otto, the song playing in Otto's headphones as his severed head sinks to the ocean floor is "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", originally recorded in 1975 by Ian Hunter. The song was later covered by the American hard rock group Great White.
• The Sea Captain's boat, the Orca II, has "die harder" under the name, a reference to Die Hard 2, which is sometimes subtitled "Die Harder".
• As Wiggum boards the Orca II, a dockhand tells him he "packed like a fancy lady crossing the ocean", which could refer to either Mrs. Howell from Gilligan's Island or Rose in the 1997 Titanic movie.
• MythBusters: Professor Frink suggests putting something explosive into the fish's mouth and then shooting it with a gun, but then immediately dismisses the idea by saying that it won't work, "but it will look really cool". In the "Jaws Special" episode (airdate July 17, 2005), MythBusters tested several Jaws-related myths, including whether a scuba tank would explode when shot, as depicted in the movie. They concluded that it wouldn't, and added that they had learned that director Steven Spielberg had been aware of that fact, but wrote the scene that way anyway to make a more dramatic ending to the film.
• When Blinky bites the Sea Captain on the leg, the captain laughs and says that his legs are "as wooden as Matthew McConaughey's acting".