Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk (Burns to Sell the Power Plant)/References

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Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk (Burns to Sell the Power Plant)

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Trivia

• The shot of Mr. Burns looking at Homer listening to the people about after when he returned is stock footage from "Homer's Odyssey".
• Horst says that Homer was safety inspector for two years. This episode first aired in 1991, two years after the debut of the full length series. If Homer were safety inspector for two years the episode in which he became SI would have to take place in 1989.
• The "Land of Chocolate" fantasy was originally supposed to have a street sign that read, "Hershey Highway," but the censors objected, being that the name refers to anal sex.
• Originally, the businessmen who wanted to buy the nuclear plant were supposed to be Japanese, but the writers thought it would be too predictable (as a lot of Japanese businessmen really were buying major American companies back in the early 1990s). Therefore the switched to German businessman.
• Mr. Burn's "hot dog" line is recycled from "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish".
• This episode carries the full version of the opening with Alf Clausen's arrangement for the first time in the USA. (It was actually first used in "Saturdays of Thunder" for foreign markets and the DVD release of the third season.
• Lenny's post plastic surgery moment marks the first time he's seen without his trademark five o'clock shadow.
• Jake the barber, who was seen in Simpson and Delilah, appears in Homer's fantasy about spending his $25 windfall.
• Bart's ideas of what to do with $5,200 are: Driving a monster truck, drink a cement truck full of frosty chocolate milkshakes and use a jetpack to write "Eat my shorts" in the sky.
• The truck could be a reference to when The Simpsons were on the Tracey Ulman Show.
• After Homer tells them the minimum price Burns will sell the plant at, Hans and Fritz say they'll still have enough to buy the Cleveland Browns. This is most likely a reference to a real life dispute between then-Browns owner Art Modell and the city of Cleveland over a new stadium, which would culminate in Modell's controversial attempt to move the team to Baltimore four years after this episode aired.
• The photo Burns gives Smithers of him and Elvis resembles the famous photo taken at the meeting between Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon. Burns mentions his inability to understand Elvis's words are a reference to his slurred speech later in his life, a result of the pill addiction that would eventually claim his life.
• Since Phil Hartman understood the German language a little bit, he helped the writers with the conversations.
• The famous Land of Chocolate sequence was absent in the original script, though the dialogue leading up to it was present.
• While Smithers is seen around bees in this episode without any ill effects, in contrast to the season seven episode "22 Short Films About Springfield" which reveals that Smithers is deathly allergic to bee stings, this is not a goof as insect allergies can develop at any age, even after a number of uneventful stings.

References

• Bart sings The Teddy Bears' Picnic for Moe. According to DVD commentary, the song Bart was supposed to sing "On The Good Ship Lollipop ," but they couldn't get the rights for it in time. The song would be later used on the "Treehouse of Horror" story, "King Homer.

Goofs

• The episode title "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk" is not grammatically correct. The gender of the word "Kraftwerk" is neuter, so it would take "das" as "das" is used for neutral nouns in German ("der" is for masculine nouns and "die" is feminine [knowledge of this creates yet another grammatical error two seasons later on the season five episode "Cape Feare" with Sideshow Bob's "Die, Bart, Die" tattoo]), and "verkaufen" is actually the infinitive form (the form that has "to" + the verb. In this case, "verkaufen" means "to sell") and not the third person singular "verkauft" (sells). The correct German title for the episode would be "Burns verkauft das Kraftwerk".
• When Homer dumps the pieces, one lands on his hand.
• Lenny's "fixed smile" surgery disappears after the first act. The smile may have just been a side effect that eventually wore off.
• It is apparent that the other power plant workers made poor decisions with their money as did Homer. They got $5,200 for selling their stock, and later show up for work in luxury cars. As of the episode's airing in 1991 prices, no luxury car could have been acquired for that price; in fact, it was very hard to find a new subcompact for that price. Most likely, the workers used their $5,200 as down payments. As the workers were not seen driving the flashy vehicles in future episodes, it is most plausible that they could not afford payments and had to have their cars repossessed.