When stating he wish he knew more about astrophysics and wished he read more by that "wheelchair guy," a clear to renowned paraplegic astrophysics scientist Stephen Hawking and his perhaps one of two popular astrophysics books he wrote by the time the episode aired, A Brief History of Time and Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays. Hawking would later became one of the more frequent Simpsons guest stars
The computer animated sequence was animated by Pacific Data Images, which would later be renamed PDI/DreamWorks (as a result of a merger with DreamWorks Animation), and be responsible for such hits as the How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and Madagascar movies.
When Homer is exploring the 3D world, he passes the library from the computer game "MYST", while being accompanied by music from the game.
In "Homer3" there are several background mathematics jokes, such as "P = NP" and "178212 + 184112 = 192212", which although false, appears true if evaluated to ten significant digits or less (such as on a typical pocket calculator); if true, it would disprove Fermat's last theorem, which had recently been proved. The writer for this segment, David S. Cohen, admitted that he put the formula in by writing a computer program to find the solution. For a fuller list and explanation, see the Wikipedia version of this page.
Another interesting thing to note is that this episode came out only a month before Pixar's Toy Story, which is considered the first entirely computer-animated film.
This episode also came out a year after ReBoot premiered (and a year before Transformers: Beast Wars premiered). Ironically, they were animated by a Canadian animation studio named Mainframe.
On the other hand, this was the last time a spooky font was used in the credits. Starting with "Treehouse of Horror VII", the credits show up normally, though they remain green.
In the Homer3 segment, there is a hex code in the 3rd dimension that says "46 72 69 6E 6B 20 72 75 6C 65 73 21". After decoding this, the code reads "Frink rules!"
Cultural References[]
Krusty appearing as the Headless Horseman, throwing his head at the camera, come from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
In "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores", which is a parody of the film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, there is a comical twist of the typical scenario of a tempter portrayed as a "devil on your shoulder": The devil statue destroys Springfield Elementary School, being tempted by Bart on its shoulder. It also references Pep Boys, with bobbleheads that have to be taken out of town in shopping carts due to their big heads.
In "Homer³", which is a parody of The Twilight Zone episode, "Little Girl Lost" and when Homer first sees the portal he says "It's like something from that Twilighty Show about that Zone". When Homer is trying to explain the 3D world he is stranded in, he says, "Uh... it's like... did anyone see the movie Tron?"
In "Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace," Groundskeeper Willie sinks into a sandbox, and as he does so, goes through numerous transformations as he sinks. This is a parody of the T-1000's death scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which the villain reverts to his previous transformations as he dies in a smelting pit.
How the mascots come to life in "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores" is reminiscent of the movie adaptation of the pulp fiction novel story Killdozer, in where lightning literally brings a bulldozer to life and starts killing people.
Goofs[]
No circle on Wiggum's badge
When Kent Brockman gets grabbed by his giant monster self, it sounds like he is killed, however right at the end, he is seen alive and unharmed. He may have escaped from his hand and survived.
When Chief Wiggum claims the high school basketball captain was turning into a monster, the circle on the badge of Wiggum's hat disappears.
The impression given to the ground by a monster's foot is written normally. If the copyright information was carved into its foot in a legible way, it should create a backwards imprint.
When the kids gather in the schoolyard talking about being attacked by Willie in their dreams, Ralph has a white arm cast with a blue cover. However, in the next shot, it changes to yellow with a white cover.
Milhouse is the only child in this gathering without any apparent injuries.
When Bart decides he must engage in a showdown with Willie, a coffee mug randomly appears in the bottom left corner of the screen for a few frames.
When Chief Wiggum fires his gun into the third dimension, the six bullets which fly towards Homer are unfired cartridges complete with casings, rather than fired bullets.
