Bart's chalkboard gag said "Today is not Mothra's day." This is a reference to Mothra, a monster from an eponymic Japanese movie.
Rainier Wolfcastle's speech mentions his plans to tear down the YMCA gym to create a nature preserve where he hunts men, alluding to the book The Most Dangerous Game.
Homer's dream references the TV show "The Jetsons"; he gets hit by a spacecar being driven by George Jetson and yells, "Jetson!"
When Homer is watching TV, the show "Kids Say the Darnest Things" stars Bill Cosby.
Cosby asks a kid, "What do you like to play?" and he responds with, "Pokémon!"
When Ralph asks where they are going, Homer's reply is "For frosty chocolate milkshakes!", which was Homer's old saying back in the Tracy Ullman Show short days of The Simpsons.
Ned got tickets to a Chris Rock concert, thinking it was for a Christian Rock concert. He later tell Homer he never saw a preacher use the "MF" word so many times.
Originally, the third act was going to be about Homer taking his daycare charges on the set of Ron Howard's new movie, and Homer endangering the children to the point that they don't trust him anymore. Ron Howard didn't appear for any recording sessions, so the entire third act was scrapped and was replaced with Homer winning a Good Guy Award, and Bart and Lisa showing video footage of Homer being an unfit father, leading to Homer absconding with the children on a high-speed police chase.
Goofs[]
Sara without pants
When Sara is seen among the kids playing tug-of-war with Homer (who's actually using his car to pull the other end of the rope), at one point, she isn't wearing pants. Sara looks like she's wearing a dress...unless the dress was supposed to have leggings or tights underneath.
During Homer's morphine-induced hallucination, the moon says, "You go, Homer!" The closed captioning has the moon's line as "Crateriffic!"
Sanjay (leftmost in the third row from the front) with yellow skin
In the initial airing, after Milhouse says that Homer thinks Bart's jacket looks better on him, there is a brief shot of Bart drawn as if the show was done as an animatic. All reruns (including the season 12 DVD set) has this mistake corrected.
When Sanjay can be spotted in the Good Guy Awards' audience, he has yellow skin.
During the Good Guy Awards, Otto's outfit changes three times, first being a blue suit, then his normal outfit, and finally a tuxedo.
Despite Homer's line, "I'll mace you good!" as he's chasing Bart, Homer's actually wielding a flail. In fairness, though, flails often get misidentified as maces in pop culture.
"Fear of Flying": Homer tries to breed Snowball II and Santa's Little Helper out of boredom (cf. an anxiety-riddled Marge realizes that Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II need to be married so they won't live in sin).
"My Sister, My Sitter": A Simpson family member (Lisa/Homer) babysits Rod and Todd.
Chief Wiggum thinking a Bob Saget stand-up show is a Bob Seger concert is similar to Ned Flanders thinking a Chris Rock stand-up show is a Christian rock concert.
"Bart of Darkness": A Simpson male is stuck at home with an injured leg.
"'Round Springfield": A joke is made about Bill Cosby's nonsensical babbling.
"Eight Misbehavin'": Apu relies on someone else to care for his octuplets (Gary Kidkill/Homer).
"Homer Loves Flanders": Rod and Todd eat sugar, despite not being allowed to by their parents (though here, they don't have an adverse reaction to it).
"Lisa's Pony": The moon in Homer's morphine hallucination looks similar to the one from his sleep-deprived drive home from the Kwik-E-Mart.
"When You Dish Upon a Star": Homer has a dream (or hallucination, in this case) that includes a Hanna-Barbera character (Yogi Bear and Magilla Gorilla/George Jetson).
"Viva Ned Flanders": Ned Flanders thinks a raunchy comedian (Bob Saget/Chris Rock) does clean comedy.
"The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular" and "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons": An episode opens with a visual gag involving a sign (the Springfield Civic Auditorium sign stating that it's holding an alternate lifestyle prom the day after the 138th episode spectacular/the sign advertising the bachelor auction and a worker's crude retirement announcement/the Springfield YMCA having "50% Less Stank").
Production Notes[]
The original title for this episode was "The Kids Stay in the Picture."[1]
