Maximum Homerdrive/References

Episode	References	Gags	Appearances	Gallery	Quotes	Credits

◄ Make Room for Lisa

Maximum Homerdrive

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Trivia

• The title of this episode was originally going to be "Homer the Trucker".
• This episode premiered the same day as Futurama.
• The Truckers code list:
  • 10-33: Actual bear in air.
  • 10-34: Can't unchain wallet.
  • 10-35: Hot enough for ya?
  • 10-36: Ghost truck on highway.
  • 10-37: Ask me about my grandchildren.
  • 10-38: Outsider Blabbing about auto-drive system.
  • 10-39: I love you, gay buddy.
  • 10-40: Taxes due.

Previous Episode References

• "Sunday Cruddy Sunday":
  • An episode where the main plot has Homer and Bart go on the road while Marge and Lisa try to do something fun at home.
  • The Carpenters' "Close to You" is Marge's favorite song.
  • Dr. Hibbert lets his outside interests supersede his opinion as a medical doctor.
  • An episode focused on Homer premieres on the same day as a rival FOX animated series that would later cross over with The Simpsons (Family Guy/Futurama).
• "Lisa the Vegetarian": Homer pushes Lisa to eat meat.
• "The Canine Mutiny": A Simpson (Lisa/Homer) gets wired on pep pills.
• "Homer's Enemy": A one-shot character (Frank Grimes/Red Barclay) dies because of Homer.
• "Homer the Great": The line "Thank you sir, may I have another?" is used in association with a hazing ritual.
• "Bart Sells His Soul":
  • Dr. Hibbert goes to a restaurant with his family.
  • The Simpsons go to a gimmicky restaurant.
• "Marge Gets a Job": Jehovah's Witnesses visit the Simpsons house, but immediately leave (because of how boring Marge is/after realizing they might not be worshipping the right religion).
• "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?": A man says, "My wife is going to kill me!" after doing something bad.
• "Lisa's Pony": Homer falls asleep while driving.
• "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" and "Homer the Vigilante": Homer trades away a family necessity for something useless.
• "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken": Bart goes to a drive-in movie.
  • "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken", "Marge in Chains", and "Deep Space Homer": Reference to Married...With Children (David Faustino [the actor who played the scheming, yet dateless son, Bud Bundy] stars in Talk to the Hand/Flanders worries that God is punishing him because he laughed at an episode of Married...With Children/NASA shows a scene from Married...With Children as one of the TV shows people would rather watch than a space launch/Red Barclay sinks his hand down his pants like Al Bundy does).
• "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish": The Simpsons eat out at a restaurant to break the monotony of eating dinner at home.
• "A Fish Called Selma": Characters speak in sync with the dialogue from a movie.
• "Homer to the Max": A Simpsons episode title with the words "Homer" and "max" in it.

Cultural References

• The title is a reference to Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive.
  • Yeardley Smith, Lisa's voice actress, starred in the film adaptation.
  • The King story also deals with the concept of machines including trucks being able to work without human intervention. However, it is also the least memorable adaptation of a Stephen King book due to its poor reception and box office.
• Homer refers to the Spice Girls' smash-hit song Wannabe as the "ultimate truck driver song". This episode is one of two episodes to feature this song, the other being Fraudcast News.
  • Closed captioning reveals that "Dancing Queen" by ABBA was supposed to be played instead.
• When all the truckers tried to ram Homer and Bart off the road, Homer says to Bart that "They're hazing us to join the trucker fraternity, thank you sir may I have another?" The "thank you sir may I have another?" part is from Animal House.
• The movie Homer and Bart watch at the drive-in is a play on several horror films.
• When Homer faces off against Red at the steakhouse, Red sinks his hand down his pants like Al Bundy normally did on the sitcom Married... With Children.
• The decal on the side of Red's truck reads "Red Rascal" with an image of a wolf and a redheaded pin-up girl on the side, a reference to the 1943 Tex Avery cartoon "Red Hot Riding Hood", which did become popular with the military at the time (so much so that military pilots put drawings of Red and the Wolf on their planes and there is said to be a version of the cartoon that has more risque gags in it than what was shown to civilians, including an alternate ending where the Wolf is forced to marry the Grandma instead of returning to the nightclub and promising to kill himself if he sees another pretty woman, which inevitably happens)
• The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas is famous for its promotion offering a free meal to anyone that can eat its 72 oz steak dinner in one hour.
• The truck's built-in device said, "I'm afraid I can't let you do this, Red." This parodies a line spoken by HAL in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Homer goes to a gas station called The Gassy Knoll, a reference to the grassy knoll, which is believed by conspiracy theorists to have played an important part in the Kennedy assassination.
• The woman on the "Wish You Were Her" postcard looks similar to 1950s pin-up model Bettie Page.
• Chief Wiggum says "This time, the bells toll for thee." This references John Donne's "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions".
• The scene where the truckers block the road is similar to a scene from the movie Convoy.

Goofs

The back of the truck's cab is gray

• In one shot where Homer is talking to Marge, the back of the truck's cab is colored gray instead of its correct red.
• When one of the truckers jumped to Homer's trailer to puncture his tires with a knife, he jumped from a pink truck that was behind the trailer, but when he looks back, his truck is gone.
• Lisa says she’s protesting a “new restaurant“ yet it seems to have been in business for a while as Red Barclay and Tony Randall have finished the Sir Loin a lot steak.

  

• In one shot when Marge is telling Homer not to fill up on bread during the eating contest, Homer's mouth is completely yellow.
• When everyone was complaining about the doorbell, Marge apologizes, but Dr. Hibbert’s shirt is the same color as his skin.
• Homer was unable to eat a whole 16-pound steak, but in New Kid on the Block, he was able to eat everything at The Frying Dutchman non-stop. Seafood and fish are lighter on the stomach than beef. On top of that, Homer's stomach was affected by the repeated cannonball hits to it from Homerpalooza to the point that it shrunk and one more hit to it can kill him. Notice how there wasn't any kind of medical procedure to fix it; just the doctor telling Homer that he can't be the cannonball freak anymore.