|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||||
|
Lisa the Iconoclast |
|
Trivia[]
- During the episode’s DVD commentary track Bill Oakley noted they were inspired by Clara Rising who convinced the relatives of Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States who died in office on July 9, 1850 from cholera, to have him exhumed on June 17, 1991 for poisoning testing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Bill Oakley seemed skeptical saying, "You can't go exhuming presidents just because some old lady has an unpublished manuscript," and the episode was just “that story retold, but Lisa was the old lady."
- Jebidiah Springfield wears a Davy Crockett-like coonskin cap. Disney's 1955 Davy Crockett miniseries was known for creating a more widely acknowledged legend about Crockett. This is turn lead to other American legend creations as well, with one example being the 1956 book Profiles in Courage, which glorified some U.S. Senators.
- The flag in Miss Hoover's classroom has 25 stars and 15 stripes. If she wanted to pay homage to the 1796 American flag, there should have only been 15 stars.
- Diphtheria is a respiratory condition which is spread by saliva and causes inflammation of the nose.
- The narrator for Young Jebediah Springfield noted the pioneers' original destination was "New Sodom" after misinterpreting a passage in the Bible. This passage might be Ezekiel 16:49, "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy." Others have theorized the founding might be based on mid-19th century Mormon pioneers who believed the Garden of Eden was somewhere in Missouri.
- The words "cromulent" and "embiggen" were both coined by the writers of this episode. Although completely made up, these words have since taken on a life of their own via the Internet and other media. "Cromulent" has also appeared in the Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English.
- Coincidentally, Donald Sutherland played a character named Homer Simpson in the 1975 film The Day of the Locust.
- This episode establishes that Kearney is older than any elementary school child should be. Not only does he shave, but Principal Skinner names him as the only person who is old enough to remember the 1976 Bicentennial (and, according to Kearney himself, the Watergate Scandal).
- "Hollis" and "Hurlbut", the first and last names of the curator, are freshman dormitories at Harvard.
- While the extra designs Betsy Ross could not included in the first flag (red hearts, yellow moons or green clovers) are the marshmallow pieces in Lucky Charms breakfast cereal, the legend does go that it was Betsy Ross who convinced George Washington to redesign the flag to have a simpler five-pointed stars instead of six-pointed stars.
- Apu refers to himself as a "semi-legal immigrant," which would later be explored in "Much Apu About Nothing."
- A headline in the Springfield Shopper reads "Parade To Distract Joyless Citizenry".
- The portrait of George Washington Lisa keeps staring at is similar to framed lithographs that were sent to the schools around the country in 1932 by the Washington Bicentennial Commission to celebrate the 200th birthday of George Washington. It might another sign of how outdated Springfield Elementary is.
- This is the first time in the series that Lisa was arrested. However, she's not handcuffed, implying she was given a warning.
- Hollis Hurlbut's line "You had arthritis? " and Lisa's reply, "Um... no." was ad-libbed by Donald Sutherland and Yeardley Smith during their voice recording session together.
- Donald Sutherland starred in Heaven Help Us. Yeardley Smith and Nancy Cartwright also appear in that film.
- The painting of Jebediah Springfield on the wall Lisa walks passed when she first enters the Springfield Historical Society is a recreation of Freedom of Speech by Norman Rockwell.
- Paintings on the walls of the Historical Society include a silhouette with the same bouffant hairdo as Marge, an Otto-look-alike driving a cart full of children and Professor Frink-look-alike recreating the famous experiment of Benjamin Franklin flying a kite in a lightening storm.
- Lisa's "Wanted For Treason" flyers are referencing similar flyers which circulated in Dallas, Texas in the days before November 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated there.
"Wanted for Treason" referencing the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Censorship[]
- Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in 2024, the UK banned this episode due to a similar scene where Lisa is almost taken out by a sniper when she tries to tell the town the truth about Jebediah Springfield, but decides against it when she sees how it's brought out everyone's town pride and patriotism. It's currently unknown if American TV has done the same.
Goofs[]
Lisa with a yellow pearl on her necklace
The flag without stars
- When Lisa reads the diphtheria line in Jebediah's confession, she is wearing Jebediah's cap. However, upon returning from the commercial break, she is no longer wearing the cap.
- When Lisa realizes that Jebediah is a fraud, there are a few frames where the leftmost pearl on her necklace is colored yellow.
- The flag Apu is holding during Lisa's speech has no stars. The same goes with all the flags following the Town Crier.
- Sylvia Winfield appears in the background of patrons at the parade even though she and her husband left Springfield in the Season 4 episode "New Kid on the Block". She may have just been visiting Springfield for the bicentennial celebration.
- Its confirmed Jebediah had a silver tongue, but in the flashback when he was writing his confession and he was laughing, you can see the tongue in his mouth is real, not silver.
Production Notes[]
- The final draft for this episode was published on July 27, 1995.[1]
Citations[]