The Great Wife Hope/References
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Cultural references[edit]
- The episode's title is a reference to the 1970 film The Great White Hope.
- The song "Monster Mash" by Bobby Pickett is heard at an empty Moe's.
- The Ultimate Punch, Kick & Choke Championship held at the Springfield Sports Arena is a parody of Punt, Pass, and Kick, a football skills competition held annually by the NFL for youths of ages six through fifteen.
- Unhappy with the performance of the fighters, Sideshow Mel asks whether the event was Prime Minister's Question Time. This British TV program consists of a topical debate in which UK government representatives, including Prime Ministers, participate in.
- Homer mentions Joe Biden who, at the time this episode aired, served as the vice-president of the United States.
- Marge convinced Homer that Ultimate Punching was a bad thing by preparing him a Black Forest cake. While crying, Homer compares the cream of the cake to the "snow on the eaves of a Bavarian castle", referencing the disputed German origin of the Black Forest cake.
- Hufflesnuffs on Ice are a parody of H.R. Pufnstuf, a children TV series from the late 1960s.
- Marge references the 1982 biographical film Gandhi when she says that Mahatma Gandhi could go without eating for a whole three-hour movie.
- The painting Among the Sierra Nevada, California by Albert Bierstadt is seen at Drederick Tatum's house. This painting is located in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
- Drederick Tatum's tattoos include:
- When wrestling at Yale University, Mr. Burns was in the "ether weight" category. Burns is referring to the now obsolete concept of ether, which was considered to be the material that fills the region of the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere.
- The music that Mr. Burns fights to and that is heard in the end credits is "Boola Boola" by The Sing-A-Long Gang. It is the football song of Yale University.
- At the PTA meeting, Skinner says that due to the budget cuts, presidents that will no longer be taught about will be James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. With the exception of George H. W. Bush, these presidents are historically ranked as some of the worst presidents in the United States History.
- Marge reads Eat, Pray, Love, a real book about spiritually and romance by American author Elizabeth Gilbert.
- There is an ad on a billboard that says "When a Man Gloves a Woman". This is an allusion to the 1966 song by Percy Sledge called "When a Man Loves a Woman" and also a 1994 film of the same name.
- The giant picture of Chett Englebrick next to The Septagon parodies the giant pictures of Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) and Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) seen next to the ring in the 1976 sports drama Rocky.
- Marge's nickname is the "Mom I'd Like To Fight", a pun on the acronym MILF.
- Lenny thinks women spend all day eating bonbons and watching General Hospital, the soap opera considered to be the longest-running American soap opera in production.
- Bart and Lisa's fight that freezes when the two are about to make contact is a parody of the final scene of Rocky III, when Rocky and Apollo perform a friendly fight and the film freezes and ends without showing the result.
- Barney Gumble is seen at the wrestling stadium, screaming "We've been here for hours!", but then, just seconds later, he's back at Moe's.
