Diatribe of a Mad Housewife/References

Cultural references

 * The title word plays off of the book and film Diary of a Mad Housewife.
 * Homer sings a song to the tune of "Cars" by Gary Numan.
 * Homer briefly works at the "Boris Car Loft", a reference to Boris Karloff.
 * The ambulance Homer buys is based on a 1959 Eureka Cadillac ambulance formerly operated by the Bogota, New Jersey Volunteer First Aid Squad, which has since been restored and is now in the Netherlands. See http://home.pacbell.net/naparish/
 * Marge denotes the similarity of the picture behind the couch to the classic novel, Moby-Dick (the picture is, in fact, called "Scene from Moby Dick"). It inspired her novel, when she thought "No one's done a book about whaling before!" Moreover, her book is about whaling and its ending has Temperance's husband dying in a similar manner to that of Ahab, from the same novel.

Continuity

 * When Homer asks Nelson what he's doing with his arm through Ned's door, he replies "stealing doormats". In Lisa's Date With Destiny, the doormat seen outside Nelson's front door is one stolen from the Kwik-E-Mart.
 * Before seeing the ambulance at the used car garage, Homer plugs in an inflatable character that rips and flies away. The wires are clearly visible going all the way to the podium. Homer laments having lost his best friend. He stands on the podium. The wires are nowhere to be seen.
 * When Marge is typing she puts that 7 of Temperance's children died meaning 3 would be in the kitchen scence. However in the kitchen only two (Bartabe and Lisakiah) are their desperate their should be three. However at the end of the book Cyrus says that Temperance is pregnat hinting that another child.
 * Marge starts her story off with Swim, swim, swim. thought the whale flopping his floppers.'' However when Homer and the Olsen twins read it as There once was a girl from Kantucket. Marge could have simply made some revisions.
 * When Lisa says that the book is harsh on Homer she takes the last page of the off and it reads that Mordecai drooled at the blowholes. However the page should have read about Mordecai's death.