Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?/References

Episode	References	Gags	Appearances	Gallery	Quotes	Credits

◄ Principal Charming

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Bart's Dog Gets an F ►

Trivia/Cultural References

• The ending of McBain resembles the ending of James Bond movies, which have historically had bad guys getting killed, quips, make-out scenes and "James Bond will return in ......" tag lines.
• A sequel to this episode, called Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?, was made and aired for Season 3's finale later on on August 27th, 1992.
  • According to the crew behind The Simpsons, the reason why that episode was made was because the ending that this episode contained was deemed too sad for fans to watch. And because of that, they tried to make an episode with a much better ending than this one where Herb regains his wealth and makes up with Homer.
• In the McBain movie, three of the board room villains are the Spin Doctor, Makeup Man, and Mudslinger from the episode, "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish".
• This episode marks the first appearance of Homer's mother in a flashback.
• Pope John Paul II attends the unveiling of The Homer.
• When Herb asks if all of Homer's kids were born in wedlock, Homer says yes except Bart "was a close call" which was also inferred in the flashback prompted by Lisa asking how Homer "proposed" to Marge with them sitting in Dr. Hibbert's office being told by him, "Well, uh Miss Bouvier, I think we've found the reason why you've been throwing up in the morning. Congratulations." in "The Way We Was" which had just aired 3 episodes before this one.
• The car that Homer designs (aptly named "The Homer") is featured in the games The Simpsons Road Rage and The Simpsons: Hit and Run.
• The failure of The Homer is based on the failure of the Ford Edsel built by the Ford Motor Company from 1958 to 1960. The vehicle was built to compete with both General Motors and Chrysler but was considered as a failure for Ford due to poor design features and poor sale figures. The Edsel was also named after one of Henry Ford's sons.
• In the boardroom, Herb mentioned vehicles with "vicious animal names", including the Mustang and Cheetah. Known as the Bill Thompson Cheetah, the Cheetah was an American sports car built from 1963 to 1966. Built by Chevrolet performance turner, William Thompson (known for creating performance engines for Chevrolet's well-known vehicles, including the Bel Air, Biscayne, Corvette, and Corvair), the Cheetah was built as both as a race car and as a competitor to Carroll Shelby's Cobra.
• The couple who adopted Herb are named as Mr. Edward Powell and Mrs. Mililani Powell, née Osler in The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album.

Goofs

• As Homer is trying to apologize to Herb, Herb is grinning, even though he is actually cross with Homer where it should be showing Herb's mouth frowning. But when the scene changes to Herb's full face after Homer said, "off without me", now we see how Herb's expression is supposed to look.