|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||||
|
Brother's Little Helper |
|
Trivia[]
- Six years after this episode premiered, a real ADD drug with a very similar brand name to the fictional Focusyn, "Focalin", was approved by the FDA.
- This is the first episode to have Marcia Mitzman Gaven replace Maggie Roswell as the voice of her characters (in this case, Maude Flanders until her death in "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily").
Previous Episode References[]
- "Krusty Gets Busted": Krusty nearly dies during a live broadcast of his show (has a heart attack/gets strangled by his spinning bowtie)
- "Lisa's Substitute": Bart has ADHD (Homer's line, "I always knew you had personality; the doctor said it was hyperactivity, but I knew better!" in the former episode/the latter episode has it as the episode's main problem).
- "Homer Goes to College" and "The Joy of Sect": Homer may have ADD (missed out on college because he got distracted by a dog outside of school/thought the Movementarian recruitment movie was an action thriller about police officers being set up by Internal Affairs, then told the Movementarian recruiters that he has a short attention span and goes distracted by a bird outside the cabin/plays around with the Cone of Ignorance when Principal Skinner is discussing Bart's ADD).
- "Bart the Genius": Bart gets in trouble for vandalism (spray painting "I Am a Weiner"/flooding the school gym), and his behavior is written off as a symptom of an underlying problem ( being bored with school due to allegedly high intellect/having attention-deficit disorder).
- "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson": Marge objects to putting Bart on behavior-modifying drugs.
- "Whacking Day": Bart gets (or, in this case, is threatened to be) expelled from Springfield Elementary for playing a destructive prank (running over Superintendent Chalmers/flooding the school gym).
- "Principal Charming": Springfield Elementary has a building that only appears for one episode (the school bell tower/the gym that's separate from the school).
- "Selma's Choice": Homer and Marge watch a campy, erotic movie (The Erotic Adventures of Hercules/Showgirls)
- "Bart on the Road": Nelson goes to an R-/NC-17-rated movie (Naked Lunch/Showgirls)
- "Homer the Heretic": Springfield has a volunteer fire department and Apu is the chief.
- "Brush with Greatness": Homer mentions a ten-year ban from the water park, which may or may not be a reference to when he got stuck in the H2-WHOA! and the ride had to be shut down and dismantled to get him out.
- "This Little Wiggy": Ralph has pyromaniacal tendencies (thinks he sees a leprechaun that tells him to burn things/refers to fires as "uh-ohs")
- "Bart After Dark": reference to a spinning bowtie (Mel Zets' tuxedo has one/Krusty wears one that nearly chokes him).
- "The Springfield Files": A Simpson male is put on a treadmill for no reason.
- "Homer to the Max": Marge is ignorant of movie characters (thinks Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now was "comic relief"/likes the relationship between "Showgirl" [Nomi] and "that seamstress" [Molly]).
- "Homer's Phobia": The prospect of Bart being gay (Homer worries that Bart will be gay because of John the antique store owner/Homer jokes that Bart is "...coming out of the pep closet").
- "Separate Vocations": Bart becomes a model student.
Cultural References[]
- The title of this episode is a reference to The Rolling Stones' 1966 single "Mother's Little Helper", which addresses pill abuse, and also to Santa's Little Helper.
- The part where Bart steals the tank is a reference to the Shawn Nelson incident in San Diego, California on May 17, 1995, where Nelson broke into a US National Guard Armory and stole a tank, which led to a rampage where he destroyed cars, RVs, fire hydrants, traffic lights, and utility poles, as well as attempting to destroy a pedestrian bridge before getting stuck on a concrete divider on California Highway 163. The incident ended when an officer shot Nelson before Nelson could break the tank free from the concrete divider.
- Marge standing in front of the tank is a reference to Tank Man.
- The Fire Safety Day slogan, "Learn, Baby, Learn", is a reference to 'Burn, Baby, Burn', the catchphrase of R&B disc jockey Nathaniel 'Magnificent' Montague, which became associated with the Watts riots of 1965. Montague himself subsequently changed the phrase to "Learn, Baby, Learn". It could also be a reference to the song "Disco Inferno", whose lyrics include the words, "Burn, baby, burn".
- When trying to introduce the schoolchildren to the Fire Safety skit, Principal Skinner briefly mentioned that one of the helpful things that fire can do is, "raining down on Charlie" which is referring to the frequent dropping napalm on the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.
- When in the tank, Bart sings "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac.
- Bart expresses a preference for the allergy decongestant Claritin D over regular Claritin.
- Bart's classmate Sherri reads aloud the poem "The Daffodils" by William Wordsworth.
- The book that Bart gives to Homer, "Chicken Soup for the Loser", refers to the book "Chicken Soup for the Soul."
- Bart is reading a book "The seven habits of highly effective pre-teens.", a reference to the well-known book "The seven habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey.
- On their date, Marge and Homer see the movie "Showgirls" at the Aztec Theater. The scene of Marty (the redheaded man) telling Nomi (Elizabeth Berkeley's character) that she's throwing away her talent being a showgirl was not in the movie (though the scene of Zach confronting Nomi about her past crimes and her true identity is the closest scene to what The Simpsons showed), but could be a jab at how Berkeley's acting career was ruined due Paul Verhoeven blaming her for the critical and commercial failure of that film (though the film did somewhat rebound when it became a camp cult hit thanks to midnight movie screenings, drag show adaptations, and being released on home media, Verhoven himself accepted the Razzie Awards that the movie won, and Berkeley herself has stated that she loved doing the movie because it eventually found fans despite its commercial and critical failure).
- The T-shirt in the army barracks, which reads "I went to the Persian Gulf and all I got was this lousy syndrome", is a reference to Gulf War Syndrome.
- Bart's Ritalin song at the end is a parody of the theme song sung at the conclusion of the Popeye animated shorts.
Goofs[]
Homer and Marge's eyes lack outlines
- When the family gets in Bart's room to find him wrapped in tin foil and with a garbage can lid on his head, a door slam is heard after Bart says to close it. When the camera angle changes, though, the door is clearly open.
- Despite what the chalkboard punishment for this episode says, "pork" actually is a verb in American English. It's a vulgar slang term (mostly used by males) for having sex with a woman.
Bernice Hibbert with yellow skin
- In the couch gag, the animators forget to outline the eyes of Marge and Homer. Considering all the ink and paint people in that gag are Korean, that may have been a joke about the mediocre quality of outsourced animation.
- For one scene at the site where the crowd gathers to see the fallen satellite, Bernice Hibbert can be seen with yellow skin briefly.
- The car that Krusty and the other clowns are inside is decorated with orange stars and pink spots during most shots. However, in the shot when Krusty is shown from behind, the stars are purple and there do not appear to be any spots.
- The Springfield Elementary School gym was never in a separate building prior to this episode. A separate gym building could have been constructed since then (since this episode came after "Lisa Gets an A", which showed that the school received an emergency grant), though, given how underfunded Springfield Elementary is said to be (mostly due to budget cuts), it does seem odd that an already-underfunded public school would have a new addition.
Road lines are missing in front of the tank
- While the police car chases Bart in the tank, the road lines are missing.
- During Homer and Marge's date night watching Showgirls, one of the people who tells off the couple for loudly talking and disrupting the film is Nelson Muntz, who's underage and shouldn't be in the audience of an NC-17/18-rated movie. He might have sneaked in, since he is a bully and a petty thug, like Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney.