A couch gag where The Simpsons are joined by a large group of ancillary characters.
A character tells Marge that she should have written a song to argue her case over something.
Homer's Barbershop Quartet: The Simpsons writers reference The Beatles (Homer's barbershop music career is basically what happened to The Beatles/the couch gag is a reference to the Sgt. Pepper album cover).
A Simpson male (Homer/Bart) gets in trouble for getting involved with adult entertainment (Homer dancing with Princess Kashmir, Bart gets a photo of it, and Marge kicks Homer out and will only take him back if he shows Bart that Princess Kashmir is not just a sex worker/Bart gets a job at the Maison Derriere, Principal Skinner sees him and tells the local moral guardians and Marge that Bart is working there).
Springfield has a red light district.
Homer apparently didn't learn his lesson in objectifying women as he drools over Princess Kashmir in front of Bart.
The Front and Homer Goes to College: An Itchy & Scratchy episode gets interrupted (Bart accidentally changes the channel/one of the nerds unplugs the TV for his rock tumbler/the V-chip in the TV turns it off and the news interrupts Itchy about to attack Scratchy with a broken bottle).
Homer Alone: Bart messes around with a bra (Aunt Patty's cone bra/a bra with handprints on the cups)
The Telltale Head: The residents of Springfield become an angry mob and either Bart or Homer tries to calm them down.
The Springfield Connection: Marge is terrible at ventriloquism (with McGruff the Crime Dog puppet/with her ventriloquist dummy)
Bart the Murderer: Bart works for an adult who has a shady business (Fat Tony and his local Mafia/Belle and the Maison Derriere)
Radio Bart: A celebrity (Sting/Rainier Wolfcastle) says that he's not doing a charitable action for publicity.
Bart's glass is incomplete
Goofs[]
Lenny with a yellow beard
When Bart picks up his plate (which was previously in front of a glass), only the segment of the glass was previously visible is on-screen. The part that was previously covered by the plate is cut off.
Sanjay with a green coat
When Belle opens the door of the Burlesque house, her sleeve is first yellow.
At the Town Hall meeting, Lenny's beard is yellow.
In another shot at the Town Hall Meeting, Sanjay is wearing a green jacket instead of his usual white one.
In the town hall meeting the tan lines that Mayor Quimby has disappear after his initial joke.
During Bart's standup act, Dr. Nick appears without his coat, despite wearing it in that same scene.
In some FXX reruns, the instrumental version of We Put The Spring in Springfield does not play when the episode transitions to credits, but it plays after commercials.
Cultural references[]
Belle could possibly be named after Belle Watling, the owner of the burlesque house in Gone with the Wind.
The oil spill depicted in this episode is most likely a reference to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Mayor Quimby and the Quimby family, throughout Simpsons history, have been made to resemble JFK and the Kennedy family. In this particular episode, Mayor Quimby's wife is seen wearing a dress similar to one of Jackie Kennedy's dresses.
A V-chip kicks in while Bart and Lisa are watching Itchy and Scratchy, prompting them to yell "Dad, V-chip, V-chip" at Homer, who then unblocks the show.
In French, "derriĆØre" means both "behind" (something that is not in front of you) and "Backside" as in the human bottom, so Belle is correct when she calls it the 'Back House'.
The musical number instigated by Homer (accompanied by Belle and her backup dancers) convincing the town not to destroy the house is a parody of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. However, unlike the episode, the "chicken ranch" is forced out of business.
Milhouse's theory about the Maison DerriĆØre being a secret lab where they place zombie brains into other zombies to create super zombies may have been a reference to the Resident Evil series, of which the first game was also released a few months before the episode aired.
"It's 11:00, do you know where your children are?" was a frequently used public service announcement by television stations prior to their local 11:00pm news program.
Production Notes[]
The final draft for this episode was published on May 24, 1996.[1]
