Whacking Day/References

Episode	References	Gags	Appearances	Gallery	Quotes	Credits

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Whacking Day

Marge in Chains ►

Trivia/Goofs

• The Springfield Christian School sign reads, "We Put the Fun in Fundamentalist Dogma."
• Bob Woodward is the author of The Truth About Whacking Day. One piece of information he reveals that Richard Nixon once participated in Whacking Day. Woodward and his partner Carl Bernstein were the investigative reporters responsible for breaking the story on the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to Nixon's resignation from the Presidency.
• This episode marks the first appearance of Superintendent Chalmers.
• Matt Groening once said that the scene of Reverend Lovejoy making up a Bible verse to convince Lisa that Whacking Day is accepted by God was the point where he felt the series was going too far in being outrageous.
• Running Gag: Homer driving his car into the garage, nearly running over Bart and Marge who are in the garage and stopping the car inches away from Bart.
• In this episode, Lunchlady Doris says that she was hired as the school nurse because "I get two paychecks this way." In the season six episode "Round Springfield," Lunchlady Doris working double duty as the school nurse was because of school budget cuts.
• Grampa's story about how he had to pose as a German cabaret singer after he got separated from his platoon during a raid in Dusseldorf is impossible, not just because of how out there the flashback was, but because the German cabaret was outlawed in 1935, with many involved either fleeing the country or getting put in concentration camps due to their anti-Nazi views (and some of the performers possibly being on Hitler's list of races he thought weren't Aryan). The Dusseldorf air raid that Grampa was said to be a part of happened in 1942. However, Grandpa was probably being his senile self, as he mentioned that the only thing true about the story was that he cross-dressed in the 1940s and that the dresses back then had excellent designers.

• The book Marge wanted Bart to read was "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Forbes. The novel was written in 1943 and it won the Newbery Medal for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."
• Miss Springfield's voice sounds slightly different in this episode, sounding sultry yet otherwise decent, when in future appearances, she sounded shrill (though, since Miss Springfield is a beauty contest title that goes to a different woman every year, it can be assumed that the Miss Springfield in this episode is not the same one in later episodes).
• This is the first episode where Bart is expelled. He would later end up being expelled again in "The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star", although he was threatened with expulsion in both "Brother's Little Helper" and "Dark Knight Court".
  • This episode had Bart being punished for a crime he did commit. The latter instances in two episodes (The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star and Dark Knight Court), he was falsely accused of pranking an event (ironically by Groundskeeper Willie, the owner of the tractor that Bart hijacked and took for a joyride in this episode).