22 Short Films About Springfield/References

General	References/Trivia	Gags	Appearances	Gallery	Quotes	Credits

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"22 Short Films About Springfield"

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Trivia

• This the first episode to have Homer appear after a commercial break and have no real role in the episode.
• This episode, alongside the later episodes "Simpsons Bible Stories", "Four Great Women and a Manicure" and "The Fight Before Christmas" are (as of this writing) the only anthology episodes that contain more than three stories and aren't part of the Treehouse of Horror episodes.
• This episode has the highest number of writers (11) and is the first episode since season three's "Colonel Homer" to have Matt Groening credited as a writer.
• This episode was originally the pilot for a spinoff series that focused on the ancillary characters from The Simpsons and would have had stories about Homer as a teenager as well. It was scrapped because the writers felt it would have been too much work, though most later episodes, such as "Moe Goes from Rags to Riches," "Waiting for Duffman," "Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington," "The Old Man and the Key," "Eight Misbehavin'," "Monty Can't Buy Me Love," and "You Kent Always Say What You Want" (among other examples) do focus more on the ancillary characters than the actual Simpsons family.

Cultural References

• Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould: episode title
• Slacker: 1990s comedy about the disconnected and interconnected lives of a group of random people.
• Pulp Fiction:
  • another 1990s movie about how people's actions are interconnected with others
  • Herman capturing Snake and Chief Wiggum in his military antique store and about to sexually assault/torture them.
  • Milhouse rescuing them by hitting Herman with a flail is similar to Bruce Willis' character, Butch, attacking the two rapists with a katana.
  • The conversation about Krusty Burger's menu item names vs. the Shelbyville McDonalds' item names is a take on the American McDonalds item names vs. the French McDonalds item names (Quarter Pounder with Cheese is a "Royale" because France uses the metric system).
• "1999" (Prince song and album): Apu's line "I'm going to party like it's on sale for $19.99" is a spoof of "Tonight, we're going to party like it's 1999".
• "Freak-A-Zoid" by Midnight Star: Apu dances to this song during his rush through Sanjay's party.
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High: Apu making out with a woman in a pool house.
• "Sing, Sing, Sing": The big-band version of The Simpsons theme that plays on the radio as part of Swing Serenade sounds like this tune.
• Animaniacs (the original 1993 version that aired on FOX before moving to The WB, not the 2020 Hulu version): Milhouse desperately needing to use the bathroom and stopping by a store that only allows paying customers to use the restroom was from the episode "Potty Emergency" (the only difference is Wakko was turned away for not having money. Milhouse had money, but it was only 75 cents and Comic Book Guy let Milhouse go after Kirk yelled at him for lying about needing to use the bathroom).
• Robert Wadlow: The Very Tall Man bears a remarkable resemblance to the tallest man who ever lived (at the time of this episode's premiere) according to the Guiness Book of World Records, though the writers and staff later claimed that the Very Tall Man was said to be a caricature of show writer Ian Maxtone-Graham (and is even named Ian), who actually is 6'8" tall.

Previous Episode References

• The "Skinner and the Superintendent" intro includes clips from "Whacking Day", "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song", "The PTA Disbands", "'Round Springfield", and "Team Homer".
• The "Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel" intro includes clips from "Bart Gets an Elephant" (Cletus pointing Lisa out after Lisa comments about being stared and pointed at by slack-jawed yokels), "Itchy & Scratchy Land" (Cletus getting a picture of the Itchy & Scratchy Land robots before being told that flash photography on the robots isn't allowed), "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily" (Cletus scratching his head at his desk and Homer strangling Cletus during the court-ordered proper parenting class), and "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield" (Cletus holding up a shirt that says, "Classy Lassy").
• Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Otto Show, Homer the Heretic, and Last Exit to Springfield: A male character desperately has to go to the bathroom (Homer on all four occasions/Milhouse in this episode).
• Stark Raving Dad, Lisa the Beauty Queen, and Homer the Vigilante: The Kwik-E-Mart is closed, despite being open 24 hours a day.
  • Lisa the Beauty Queen only: Lisa gets a new hairstyle.
• Homer's Triple Bypass: Dr. Nick proves himself to be a competent, if unorthodox, doctor by operating on a Simpson male (Homer/Grampa).
• Bart's Inner Child: Bart spits off the overpass.
• Deep Space Homer: Barney is associated with NASA (trains with Homer to be the first average man in space/Moe personally called NASA to calculate Barney's bar tab).
• Bart the Fink: Superintendent Chalmers visits Principal Skinner's house.
• The Front and Itchy & Scratchy & Marge: A real-world Simpsons writer is caricatured as a Springfield resident (the writers for I&S Studios [both on The Front and Itchy & Scratchy & Marge/the Very Tall Man is based on Ian Maxtone-Graham and some of the people in the crowd who laugh at Nelson).
• Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk: Mr. Burns and Smithers deal with bees (or, a bee, in this case), with Smithers uncomfortable around them/it.
• Who Shot Mr. Burns? (part one): Smithers and Mr. Burns are on a tandem bike.
• Homer the Heretic: Springfield has a volunteer fire department and they've been called to rescue someone from a burning building (Homer/Principal Skinner's mom).
• Radio Bart:
  • The last time Jake the Barber was shown (not counting the Tracy Ullman Show episodes).
  • Radio Bart, Marge vs. the Monorail, $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling), and A Star is Burns: Everyone in town proposes a solution to a crisis (rescuing Timmy O'Toole in the well/what to do with the $3 million that Mr. Burns paid as a fine/reviving Springfield's slumping economy/how to fix Springfield's reputation for being anti-intellectual/getting gum out of Lisa's hair).
• Bart the Fink: Handsome Pete (the Krusty the Clown-looking man who dances for nickels) appears.
• The Telltale Head, Bart Gets Hit By a Car, and The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular: Episodes that have the titles shown onscreen.
• Brother from the Same Planet and Bart's Comet: A chihuahua is shown (Bart and Tom watch Ren and Stimpy [Ren is an asthma-hound chihuahua]/a chihuahua appears when the comet breaks up and proves that Homer was right that the comet would be no bigger than a chihuahua's head/Pedro the Bumblebee Man has a chihuahua as a pet).
• Lisa's First Word: Lisa is bald (when toddler Bart cuts her hair/on Jake the Barber's first attempt at fixing Lisa's hair).
• Radioactive Man:
  • Nelson learns the hard way that laughing at other people's pain is unacceptable (laughs at himself in the mirror after botching his audition for the Radioactive Man movie, then realizes that it's hurtful and the reason why no one came to his birthday party/gets lectured for it by The Very Tall Man)
  • Reference to Prince (Prince is one of the members of alt.nerd.obsessive trying to find information about the new Radioactive Man movie/Apu's line about partying like it's on sale for $19.99).

Goofs

• The front of the Kwik-E-Mart has traditional swinging doors instead of its usual automatic sliding doors.
• Smithers suffers severe allergic reactions to the bee sting in this episode, yet in "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk" he was stung by several bees but suffered no problems at all.
• When Chalmers says "Despite the fact they are obviously grilled", the bite mark on his burger disappears.