The Angry Dad cartoon animations were done by an actual kid because none of the animators' styles looked childlike.
Whereas most of this episode uses cel animation like the rest of the season, the Angry Dad scenes are colored with digital ink and paint to better resemble online Flash-animated cartoons.
The car Homer almost runs into on the freeway has a license plate reading "DABF13", which is this episode's production code.
In this episode we learn that Dolph Starbeam (also known as Dolph Shapiro) has two dads - and they both have anger issues. It's unknown if Dolph means that his mom married a man (Dolph's biological father) and divorced him, only to marry another man (Dolph's stepfather) with anger issues; or if Dolph is the adopted child of a male same-sex couple who have anger issues.
This episode marks the television debut of Homer's When Bongos Collide! alter-ego, The Ingestible Bulk. However, he did not receive that name here; rather, he was simply referred to as The Incredible Hulk.
Previous Episode References[]
"Homer's Night Out", "Colonel Homer", "Deep Space Homer," and "A Star is Burns": Bart humiliates Homer through art (photographs Homer with Princess Kashmir/draws on the back of his head [on both "Colonel Homer" and "Deep Space Homer"]/created an arthouse film trilogy about Homer in private situations [Homer in the Shower, Homer on the Toilet, and The Eternal Struggle]/creates the comic/Web series Angry Dad).
"Bart the Genius": A Simpson male (Bart/Homer) turns green from an accident (Bart mixing acids with bases, which, in real life, wouldn't cause a slime explosion/Homer getting painted green thanks to Bart's trap).
"Worst Episode Ever": A celebrity guest star (Tom Savini/Stan Lee) harasses The Comic Book Guy.
"So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show," "Another Simpsons Clip Show," "All Singing, All Dancing", and "Gump Roast": Fourth wall-breaking joke about the writing crew's and audience's hatred of clip show episodes (the title of the first one/the fact that the second one recycled almost all of their scenes, as well as the scene of Lisa telling Marge that clip show episodes are just new episodes patchworked from previous episodes to trick naive viewers and that Ren and Stimpy do it all the time, with Marge asking when was the last time anyone talked about Ren and Stimpy/the end song about how it blows when an established sitcom does a cheesy clip show/the singer for "They'll Never Stop the Simpsons" apologizes for airing the episode as a clip show/Bart urges Homer to get angry and threatens him with, "Don't make me do a clip show!").
Homer is humiliated in public thanks to how he's depicted on a fictional series (Police Cops after the pilot episode/Bart's Angry Dad web series).
"Homer to the Max," "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", "and "The Mansion Family": A meta joke about how voice actors aren't paid what they're worth (Homer's line about how network TV likes animation because they don't pay their actors squat [and Ned Flanders (briefly voiced by Karl Wiedergott instead of Harry Shearer) adding that voice actors can easily be replaced]/June Bellamy's story about how she was never paid double for the "Meep!" she did for The Road Runner when it got doubled on the track/Homer pointing out that the voice actors aren't as rich as they should be during the end credits/the VA for Angry Dad being told that he's not going to get paid until 2012)
"The Front" and "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show": A caricature of a real-world Simpsons crew member is shown working in animation in The Simpsons world (all the writers who work at I&S Studios [both on "The Front" and "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"]/the VA for Angry Dad looks like Dan Castellaneta [the VA for Homer, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Mel, Charlie, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, all of Homer's idiot male relatives as seen on "Lisa the Simpson", and Hans Moleman, among others]).
"Bart Gets an Elephant": Homer's line, "I've been there, man" as he's watching a stegosaurus sink into a tarpit may be a reference to when that happened to him at the animal reserve when Bart tried to run away from home with Stampy and the rest of the family was looking for him.
"Weekend at Burnsie's": A Donovan song is used to establish Homer's change in personality (Donovan's "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" plays during the montage of a stoned Homer getting ready for work/Homer sings "Mellow Yellow" to control his anger).
"Bart the Lover": A guest speaker at school (the yo-yo team/the creator of Danger Dog) inspires kids to do fun things at school the next day (play with yo-yos/create their own cartoon series).
In "Danger Dog", Danger Dog says he has a date with "Sarah Jessica Barker" referring to Sarah Jessica Parker.
The show Homer is watching, "When Dinosaurs Get Drunk", is replaced with another called "The Boring World of Niels Bohr". The opening image is of the scientist himself, and an expanded version of the Bohr model of the atom.
The anthropomorphic animals in "Danger Dog" are reminiscent of those created by Scott Shaw, whose work has also appeared in the official Simpsons Comics from Bongo Comics.
Marge suggests that Bart's comic could be a rip-off of Little Dot.
When Homer “changes” into the Hulk, Bart says “Thank God his pants stayed on.” This refers to how the Hulk’s pants never rip off like the rest of his clothes, despite the increase in muscle mas.
When Better than TV goes into bankruptcy, Milhouse says, "Looks like the bubble burst", referring to the rise and fall of the dot.com industry.
One of BetterThanTV.com's cartoons is the series "Lou Rawls, Secret Agent", which features an animated Rawls in a trenchcoat trying to escape from a trap, singing "you'll never find... that microfilm of mine..."
Goofs[]
Maggie with a red bow
In Springfield Hospital, Maggie's ribbon is red for a second.
When Homer gets out of the cacti on the 'Trap' scene, he has 2 boils on his neck but just before he approaches the dirty diapers, they disappear.
At one stage, Bart and Milhouse are watching Angry Dad together when Homer runs in and starts choking Bart, and Milhouse jumps off the chair. But soon Milhouse is nowhere to be found in the rest of that scene.
When Homer points the ice cream sandwich at the TV and it gets on the screen, the TV is turned off.
When Homer leaves the power plant after seeing the Angry Dad cartoon, the tires on his car don't get flat when he drives on the spikes at the exit.
Homer gets out of his car in Downtown Springfield then Moe drives it, crashes it into a streetlight and it catches on fire, but in the next scene his car is seen on the Simpsons‘ driveway undamaged.
Marge claims that Bart's prank caused $10 million in damages, but unless she was also talking about the closure of BetterThanTV.com, Homer didn't cause any sort of major property damage.
