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Viva Ned Flanders |
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Previous Episode References[]
- Trash of the Titans: Lisa mentions the town moving away after Homer flooded it with garbage and wonders why Mr. Burns' casino (which hasn't been mentioned since $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)) was brought over as well.
- $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling): Mr. Burns' casino is mentioned.
- Duffless and Lisa the Iconoclast: A character looks older/younger than he claims to be (Hans Moleman claims to be 31 years old and looks like an old man due to severe alcoholism/Kearney is supposedly somewhere between 20 and 39 years old [at the time of the episode's premiere] and looks like a teenager/Flanders is 60 and looks roughly the same age as Homer).
- Duffless: Flanders has an alcoholic drink (drinks blackberry schnapps/orders a white wine spritzer).
- I Married Marge: Homer gets married in a quickie Vegas-style wedding chapel.
- Bart on the Road: A Simpson male (Bart/Homer) goes on a disastrous road trip.
- Homer Loves Flanders: Homer spends time with Ned Flanders.
- Hurricane Neddy: An episode centered on Ned Flanders that reveals something about Ned that shocks the town (Ned is capable of anger and has been repressing it for years/Ned is 60 years old and looks young because he's never done anything sinful or impulsive in his life).
- Grade School Confidential: Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel are dating and Skinner's mom doesn't approve of it.
- "The Principal and the Pauper": A Harry Shearer-voiced character reveals something about himself that wasn't made apparent in previous episodes (Principal Skinner really being a street punk named Armin Tamzarian/Ned Flanders being 60 years old and looks young because he's never done anything sinful or impulsive in his life).
- "Bart the Daredevil" and "Selma's Choice": Lance Murdock appears.
- "My Sister, My Sitter": A joke about Bob Saget's stand-up comedy (Chief Wiggum realizes too late that he bought a ticket to a Bob Saget stand-up performance instead of a Bob Seger concert/Ned Flanders saying he'd rather enjoy the clean comedy of Bob Saget, which is ironic, given that Saget's stand-up was filthier than the comedy he was known for on Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos).
Censorship[]
- On the original Fox airing, when thinking of a number to bet on, Homer has the line "Barney's birthday is April 20th, same as Hitler's..." The second Fox airing of this episode actually aired on April 20, which, unfortunately, was also the date of the Columbine High School massacre. As a result of this, the line was changed for the third FOX airing to "Barney's birthday is July 15th, same as Lassie's..." The replacement line was also used in the U.K. airings and is the one found on cable reruns, the season 10 DVD, and Disney+. The old American free-TV syndicated version and the version shown in Canada both use the original "April 20th" line.
Goofs[]
- The location of the Burn’s Casino had somehow changed. At the end of the episode $pringfield, Marge and Homer walked out from the casino, and it shows the casino door is actually next to the waterfront. However, the casino door in this episode is clearly nowhere next to the water before the demolition. The casino was surround by buildings, as one can see right after the implosion and before the dusts appear.
- When Homer is roasting a chicken on his chimney, the dirt on his mug repeatedly appears and disappears. The dirt on his nose disappears for a frame as well.
- Ned is said to be 60 years old. Previous episodes, most notably "Hurricane Neddy", has shown he was a child 30 years prior to the show's floating timeline with beatnik parents, which would put him in his late 30s or early 40s at the time of this episode's premiere. Also in Bottle Episode it is revealed he was born in 1959 and thus he would be 39 in this episode and would turn 40 almost five months after this episode's airdate or this episode would have to take place in 2019 and thus be filmed 20 years prior to when it takes palce to make Ned's saying about his age true.
- Comic Book Guy's car bumper is dark gray in the close-up, with only the center being light gray. However, when the camera zooms out the entire bumper becomes light gray.
- When Homer laughs at Ned after finding out he married Ginger, he and Ned were standing in the hot tub, but when Homer screams after finding out he married Amber almost a second later, they were suddenly standing out of it.
- There are several inconsistencies regarding Homer’s car antenna:
- When Lenny drives next to Homer and told Homer he should have a car wash, the antenna was not in a good shape (just like when the car first appeared, when the Simpson family got into the car in front of the dust); there are dents on the antenna. However, after Lenny drives away and before Homer pull up before the car wash, the antenna became perfectly straight without any dents.
- The antenna got dents right after the previous scene, when Homer walks into the car wash building, before Cletus shows up.
- The antenna became straight again when it is in the car wash, before the car wash breaks the antenna in front of Homer and Bart.
- The establishing shot of Ned and Homer first driving, the entire antenna is on Homer's car. It was broken off at the car wash.
- Homer worries that he committed bigamy by marrying Amber, but later in "Wedding for Disaster", it's revealed that Reverend Lovejoy's license to wed couples was null and void, meaning that Homer's divorce from "A Milhouse Divided" still stood and Homer's marriage to Amber was legal (though the divorce on "A Milhouse Divided" wasn't legal, either, as Marge wasn't there to sign the divorce papers). Furthermore, since both men were clearly intoxicated and couldn't clearly consent to the marriage, the wedding officiant should not have let them get married until they were sober.
- Despite both Homer and Ned being banned from Vegas in this episode, Homer was about to somehow visit there again, along with his bar pals, like Lenny, Carl, and Barney in Season 17's We're on the Road to D'oh-where from late-January 2006. It's possible for a few reasons that:
- The ban was likely lifted.
- That episode takes place before the events of this one.
- The reason for Homer ending up in jail at the end of that episode may not be just because of the fight he had with the pit boss, but also because the police recognized him from this episode and jailed him for coming back.
Cultural References[]
- The title of the episode is a reference to the Elvis Presley film and song "Viva Las Vegas". The song would even play during the chase scene and during the end credits (originally, it was going to be the Bruce Springsteen cover of the song, but the show couldn't get the rights to it).
- "Nero's Palace." the casino where Homer and Ned are staying, and also get married, at is a spoof of prominent Las Vegas Strip casino Caesar's Palace. Guest stars The Moody Blues would play at this casino as well. It was also previously spoofed in History of the World Part I as the residence of the Roman Emperor.
- The poem recited by Graeme Edge and Justin Hayward is a parody of Edge's poem "Late Lament", which concludes The Moody Blues's seminal album Days of Future Passed.
- The chalkboard gag references Jerry Seinfeld.
- Ned references the theme tune to the sitcom "Maude" when he proclaims, "And then there's Maude!" Maude actress Bea Arthur also had a role in the Ancient Rome segment of Mel Brooks movie History of the World Part I. which also mocked Caesar's Palace.
- While driving in the desert, author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson and his lawyer pass Ned and Homer in the oncoming lane, drawn in the style of the Ralph Steadmann painting, The Savage Journey. This is a reference to the Hunter S. Thompson novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
- Comic Book Guy's bumper stickers include a series of sci-fi references, including Star Trek ("I Brake for Tribbles", "My Child is an Honor Student at Starfleet Academy" and "Keep Honking, I'm Charging My Phaser"), Star Wars ("My Other Car is the Millennium Falcon") and The X-Files ("The Truth is in Here"), as well as The Simpsons itself ("Kang Is My Co-Pilot"). His license plate reads "NCC-1701", the registry number of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek.
- When Ned says this may be Insane in the ol' Membrane it is a reference to the Cypress Hill song of the same name (minus the word ol') It is unlikely Ned listens to Cypress Hill given their music.
- On the church marquee, the text says "TODAY'S TOPIC: He knows what you did last summer." This may be a reference to the 1997 movie I Know What You Did Last Summer, which is based on the 1973 novel of the same name.
- When Homer and Ned are getting married, the preacher says "the power invested in me by the Chicago Outfit". The Chicago Outfit is a Italian-American Mafia group based in Chicago, with resources and territory in Las Vegas. Perhaps its most famous member is Alphonse "Al" "Scarface" Capone, which was its boss from the 1920s all the way up until 1932, when he was arrested for tax evasion.
- Ned claims to prefer Bob Saget as his form of "a good laugh". However, Ned, who holds strict conservative Christian popular culture values, was likely more familiar with Saget's television work, which by this point still tended to be decent and family friendly, than he was with Saget's stand-up comedy work at nightclubs, which actually stood in contrast to his more widely known wholesome TV image and tended to be adult-oriented.
- Ned is very hesitant to gamble, until he mistakes a casino manager's voice for that of God. While he quotes Deuteronomy 7 as his main reason for not gambling (even though Deuteronomy 7 doesn't mention anything about gambling), he also appears to be possibly loyal to Reverend Lovejoy's 1990 suggestion that gambling classifies as "the eighth deadly sin."
- While driving to Las Vegas, Homer sings Deep Purple's "Highway Star" with lyrics about Ned.
Production Notes[]
- The final draft for this episode was published on July 29, 1998.[1]
July 29, 1998