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I Married Marge
Radio Bart
Lisa the Greek

Trivia[]

  • The episode debuted Larry the Looter three months before the notorious Rodney King verdict riots which saw widespread looting and arson across Los Angeles following the acquittal at the state level for the officers who were videotaped assaulting King the previous year. Two of the four officers involved in the assault would be convicted on federal civil rights charges. When Bart played the game, he spouted "stick it to the man" and Larry would also be killed by a shopkeeper a la Latasha Harlins. At the time the episode aired, Soon Ja Du, the shopkeeper who shot Harlins, was appealing her guilty verdict.
    • Larry the Looter was eventually made into its own flash game by GumpyFunction, with similar graphics and the entire beginning recreated, with the only difference being that it is now possible to actually evade the shopkeeper's shotgun round, as well as kill him (ironically, the shopkeeper's death animation was taken directly from Larry's death animation from being shot by the shopkeeper). The music for the first part of the game was taken from the first level of Contra, while the second was an 8-bit rendition of Monster Mash (referencing the events of "I Love Lisa") while adding in a poison gas cloud that Larry has to evade (referencing "'Round Springfield"), along numerous other references to The Simpsons.
  • This is the first episode in which Sideshow Mel speaks.
  • When Bart pretends to be an alien using the Superstar Celebrity Microphone, he calls himself "Bartron". An early short called "Space Patrol" that aired on "The Tracey Ullman Show" shows Bart, Lisa and Maggie playing a make-believe game of "Space-Patrol". Lisa puts a vase over Bart's head, calling him, "Bartron, an evil robot from Mars gone berserk."
  • Two of the names on the Krusty the Clown birthday list are the names of people who would later become part of the Simpsons staff: Ken Keeler and Patric Verrone (though Patric Verrone only wrote one episode of The Simpsons -- season 17's "Milhouse of Sand and Fog" — and quit writing for The Simpsons in favor of working on Futurama)
  • Originally, after Homer panics over Bart's phony alien invasion message, he is seen mixing a punch bowl filled with Kool-Aid and rat poison in the kitchen. The censors objected to the suicide reference (and thought that more impressionable viewers would be drawn to imitating what Homer did), so the writers changed it to Homer getting a shotgun and running upstairs to confront the aliens (only to realize that it's Bart).
  • The three things Bart mentions he won't be able to do now that he's stuck in the well is smoke a cigarette, use a fake ID (which he would do in Season 7's "Bart on the Road"), and shave a swear word in my hair (which is what Milhouse did during the Squishee bender on "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood").
    • Bart already smoked a cigarette in the episode "Bart the Murderer", although it was forced by Homer.
    • Also in the Czech translation, Bart mentions that he would want to taste beer. He would do that in "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" (albeit accidentally).
  • This is the first episode to air in 1992.
  • This is the first episode to reveal Groundskeeper Willie's muscular physique.
  • In September 2017, more than two decades after the episode first aired, an earthquake devastated Mexico City, Mexico. During the news coverage of the devastation, Televisa reported that a girl named Frida Sofia was trapped within the debris of a fallen school. However, it was soon revealed that she had never existed. Outraged with the fake news in times of crisis, rival network TV Azteca's decided to air that same day the Simpsons episode "Radio Bart" (informally known in Mexico as "the Timmy O'Toole episode"). This choice was praised by their viewers and international news media alike, leading to Timmy O'Toole to become a trending topic in social media, with the Mexican people explaining their support through Internet memes.

Cultural References[]

  • This episode parodies various charity singles. The song "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" is a spoof of several 1980s charity songs, including "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and "We Are the World".
  • The song that plays as Bart descends the well to retrieve the radio is based on the theme song Axel F from the film trilogy Beverly Hills Cop.
    • The same theme was used in a number of episodes after Radio Bart.
  • Bart says to Homer on the radio that "Resistance is useless". The phrase is also the Vogons' battle cry in the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  • The Itchy & Scratchy cartoon "Cat Splat Fever" parodies Ted Nugent's album/song title "Cat Scratch Fever".
  • The media circus and carnival that results after news breaks about Timmy being trapped in the well mirrors that of the 1951 movie Ace in the Hole. The movie in turn was based on the real incident and media circus that resulted when cave explorer Floyd Collins was trapped and died in a cave in Kentucky in 1925.
  • The Superstar Celebrity Microphone is based on the late-1970s era toy Mr. Microphone by Ronco. The television commercial pitching the microphone is also similar.
  • In the late 1980s, Sony had a children's electronics product line called "My First Sony". Bart's microphone and amplifier strongly resembles one of the products.
  • Upon hearing Bart cry about being trapped in the well, Homer decides to dig Bart out himself, declaring "That's all I can stands, and I can't stands no more!" echoing a catchphrase from the TV series Popeye the Sailor.
  • The TV dance show "Soul Mass Transit System" is a parody of the television program Soul Train.
  • "I Do Believe We're Naked" is a parody of the song "I Think We're Alone Now".
  • One of the names on Krusty's list of birthday children is "J.P. Patches". J.P. is a clown character famous in the Pacific Northwest, where Simpsons creator Matt Groening was born, raised, and went to college.
  • Homer stating that Sting is a good digger refers to the fact that Sting worked as a ditch digger as one of several other professions before he became a full-time musician.
  • The prank is based upon the popular joke from the Lassie films, in which when one cannot understand the messenger, usually a dog, the receiver will reply "What's that boy? Timmy's stuck down a well?!"
  • Funky-See Funky-Do is based on popular duos of the era such as Kid 'n Play (the light-skinned black guy with the very tall high-top fade) and Milli Vanilli (the black guy with the dreadlocks and the host of the dance show says that Funky See, Funky Doo will be back to lip-sync another one of their hits)
  • Wall E. Weasel's, the family entertainment center where Bart has his birthday party, is a parody of the restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese's.
  • The music session to record "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" parodies the recording session for the song "We Are the World". Krusty's vocalizations during parts of the song parodies how Bruce Springsteen sang during the "We Are the World" recording session.
  • Homer serenades Marge by singing "Convoy". Originally the song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot was to be used. However, Lightfoot told the Simpsons producers that he did not own the rights to the song, as he divided all royalties with the surviving families of the 29 men who perished aboard the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. Any use of the song would require permission from all of the surviving families. Rather than go along with that, the writers picked "Convoy" instead. "Convoy" would later be used on the Simpsons episode "Maximum Homerdrive" and the Futurama episode "Parasites Lost".
  • News report of Bart changing to a wolf-like state is a reference to the horror novel The Werewolf of Paris, where the first wolf spirit enters a victim abandoned in a well.

Goofs[]

Darkomicbook

Comic Book Guy's darker skin

  • If one freeze-frames and looks to the right side of the screen as Nelson cheats at the skee-ball game in the first panning shot of the interior of Wall E. Weasel's, a frame of Bart, who had already exited a frame after, could be seen after he had left.
    • This is due to the shot repeating the frame, which happened to catch the previous frame with Bart, who at that point had not fully exited the frame.
  • At the carnival, Comic Book Guy has dark skin from the night scene being drawn too dark.
  • Otto Mann is drawn with Moe Szyslak's eyes and nose during the special report about Timmy O'Toole allegedly turning feral.
  • Maggie normally sleeps with her pacifier.
  • During "Cat Splat Fever", while Scratchy's angel rises from the well, one of Itchy's gloves is missing; it reappears when he finishes bringing up his gun.
  • In the scene where Bart is labeling everything in the kitchen, his ears are missing.
  • As in a previous commentary track, Mike Reiss[in the earlier track I think it was Matt Groening] says" Scratchy has the word 'cat' in it", which it does not.

Krusty's Birthday Buddies[]

  • June Goodwin
  • Reagan Gray
  • Paul Grenville
  • Jim Greigor
  • Harriet Hartman
  • Mike Himes
  • Julie Hirsh
  • Janet Hopkins
  • Cara Hunter
  • Gracie Jenson
  • Loretta Kangas
  • Marylin Katz
  • Ken Keeler
  • John Lanzetta
  • Lorna Le Fever
  • Marle Lichterman
  • Iris Lowe
  • Kim Madrigal
  • Cammie McGovern
  • Bill McLain
  • David Moulton
  • Mary Myron
  • Nigel Nelson
  • J.P. Patches
  • Ted Phillips
  • Randy Plut
  • Brady Reed
  • Kevin Reilly
  • Pete St. George
  • Casey Sanders
  • Matthew Schneider
  • Patrick Semple
  • Emma Shannon
  • Bart Simpson
  • Larry Stone
  • Beth Summerlin
  • Kale Suuberg
  • Dale Thomas
  • John Travis
  • Eric Van Buerden
  • Patric Verrone
  • Lee Wallace
  • Jay Weinstein
  • Chris White
  • Jay Wiviott
  • Henry Yeomans


Season 2 Season 3 References/Trivia Season 4
Stark Raving DadMr. Lisa Goes to WashingtonWhen Flanders FailedBart the MurdererHomer DefinedLike Father, Like ClownTreehouse of Horror IILisa's PonySaturdays of ThunderFlaming Moe'sBurns Verkaufen der KraftwerkI Married MargeRadio BartLisa the GreekHomer AloneBart the LoverHomer at the BatSeparate VocationsDog of DeathColonel HomerBlack WidowerThe Otto ShowBart's Friend Falls in LoveBrother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?
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