Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?/References

General

References/Trivia

Appearances

Gags

Credits

Quotes

	Season 3 Episode References
← 058 "Bart's Friend Falls in Love"	059 "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?"	"Kamp Krusty" 060 →

Cultural references

• The episode title is a pun on the song "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" from the Great Depression.
• The sequence where Homer reminisces about the old couch contains references to the following:
  • The prime-time soap opera TV series Dallas (specifically, the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode).
  • Hands Across America.
  • The fall of the Berlin Wall (which Homer considered to be boring, so he changed the channel).
  • Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (much more to Homer's liking).
• Among the band of bums making hobo stew with Herb are Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp eating a shoe (referencing the silent movie The Gold Rush) and Emmett Kelly's Weary Willie.
• New Coke - When Herb commiserates with his fellow bums about losing his car company because of the car that Homer designed, he says, "Forbes called it the blunder of the century. A bit overblown, don't you think? What about New Coke?" At this, one of the bums protests and says he was the inventor of New Coke.
• When Joe Frazier announces that Homer is the winner of "The First Annual Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence," the orchestra plays The Simpsons theme.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey - When Homer has the furniture store salesperson demonstrate the Spinemelter 2000 vibrating chair on full power, the light show he experiences and his face being under different colors of light are exactly like the movie's penultimate scene.
• When Homer accepts that the family will not be purchasing the Spinemelter 2000, he turns the chair to full power and says "Now excuse me while I kiss the sky." This is a line from the Jimi Hendrix song "Purple Haze".
• When Herb rings the doorbell at the Flanders home, the music that plays is the hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God".
• The collection 'Great Books of Western Civilization' includes Paradise Regained by John Milton, Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens, Omoo and Typee by Herman Melville, Beowulf, Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis and Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.
• The Wizard of Oz - When Herb gives gifts to the rest of the family, Homer (whose fondest wish was to have the Spinemelter 2000) dejectedly comments, "I don't think there's a vibrating chair in that bag for me." Near the end of The Wizard of Oz, after the Wizard of Oz gives gifts to the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man (a diploma, a medal, and a testimonial, respectively), Dorothy—who wants only to go home—sadly says, "I don't think there's anything in that black bag for me."

Trivia

• The Spinemelter 2000 vibrating chair can be seen in the attic in later episodes.
• Surprisingly for such a revolutionary device, the baby translator is never seen again.
• Originally, Barney Gumble was going to win in his fight against Joe Frazier, but Joe Frazier's son objected to that idea (as Frazier was a world champion at the time of the show's airing), so they changed it to Frazier winning.
• George Foreman was originally supposed to be in the episode instead of Joe Frazier, but Foreman was unavailable.
• The waiver that Mr. Burns has Homer sign became a law school discussion topic. In real life, if Homer had later discovered he became sterile due to his employment at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, he would have still been able to sue. Burns did not specifically state that Homer was sterilized or that the $2,000 was compensation for his having been sterilized. Instead, he called Homer "you big virile son-of-a-gun" and referred to the $2,000 as an award. That would be considered deception, so Burns would still be vulnerable to being sued—both for Homer's sterlization and for withholding that information from him.

Continuity

• The drinking bird, which Herb cites as an example of a little idea being a big moneymaker, is seen again in the seventh-season episode "King-Size Homer". It is later seen in the ninth-season episode "Das Bus" where it is broken by one of Bill Gates' goons after Gates "buys out" Homer's company, Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net.

← Season 2 Season 3 References Season 4 →

Stark Raving Dad • Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington • When Flanders Failed • Bart the Murderer • Homer Defined • Like Father, Like Clown • Treehouse of Horror II • Lisa's Pony • Saturdays of Thunder • Flaming Moe's • Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk • I Married Marge • Radio Bart • Lisa the Greek • Homer Alone • Bart the Lover • Homer at the Bat • Separate Vocations • Dog of Death • Colonel Homer • Black Widower • The Otto Show • Bart's Friend Falls in Love • Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?