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The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular
Marge Be Not Proud
Team Homer

Censorship[]

  • The original FOX broadcast cut Dan Brodka's line, "If I wanted smoke blown up my ass, I'd stay at home with a pack of cigarettes and a short length of hose." Unusually, the original US broadcast was the only time this line was edited, as the line is uncut on free-TV syndication, cable reruns, the season seven DVD set, and streaming on FX, FXX, FXNow, and Disney+. Over in the UK, this line is cut on the UK's Sky One/Sky Showcase channel.

Cultural References[]

  • The video game Bonestorm is based on the Mortal Kombat series; the characters resemble Goro, as does the excess of blood. The name resembles Bloodstorm, a clone of Mortal Kombat.
  • Video game characters that appear to Bart include Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Lee Carvallo, and Sonic the Hedgehog. Lee Carvallo is the only one that tried to talk Bart out of shoplifting. Sonic speaks in a similar voice to Krusty. Mario and Luigi sounded like Charles Martinet who will voice Mario a year later. Also, Mario and Luigi's shirts are pink instead of blue and their overalls are red and green respectively (a slight or unintentional reference to the "classic" outfits of Mario and Luigi as seen in earlier games as well as in the three cartoon adaptations and as costumes/variants in two more recent games 2017's Super Mario Odyssey (Mario only) and 2019's Mario Kart Tour in a 2020 update) and their body shapes are reversed. In addition, Donkey Kong lacks a tie, referencing his original appearance from his debut in Donkey Kong and it's two sequels, Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 3.
  • The episode features Allan Sherman's song, Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, played on the answering machine in lieu of Don Brodka's message about catching Bart shoplifting.
  • The episode also mentions rapper and actor Tupac Shakur, who died in September 1996 (only nine months after this episode first aired).

Trivia[]

  • A similar plot was used in the short "Shoplifting", where Bart shoplifts candy from the Grocery Store and gets caught.
  • The voice of the juvenile hall Santa in Bart's fantasy (who looks like Larry the Lush from Moe's Tavern) is provided by then-co-showrunner Josh Weinstein, because none of the voice actors could replicate the sound of someone being partially cut off by a low-quality speaker.
  • Bart steals a video game on December 21, according to the surveillance video.
  • The episode premise was based on an incident in episode writer Mike Scully's childhood, in which he stole from a store and later returned the item.
  • This is the last episode to air in 1995.
  • This is the second episode where Harry Shearer doesn't voice any of his regular characters (as none of them appear). The first was "Treehouse of Horror" (excluding Kang), and the third will be in "The Simpsons Guy" (due to Harry Shearer protesting against the crossover).
  • This episode was broadcast exactly six years after the very first full length episode of The Simpsons, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" (despite "Some Enchanted Evening" being produced as the first episode of the show).
  • Running Gag: Millhouse lies to his mom by tattling on Bart saying that he is "swearing" and "smoking" whenever Bart gets into a fight with him over toys.
  • Josh Weinstein, co-showrunner at the time, called Lawrence Tierney's appearance "...the craziest guest star experience we ever had". In addition to yelling at and intimidating employees of the show, Tierney made unreasonable requests such as abandoning his distinctive voice to do the part in an American Southern accent and refusing to perform lines if he did not "get the jokes" (for example, he refused to do the answering machine gag as written since he didn't understand why Brodka would keep talking despite no one being on the line, so Weinstein had to stand in the recording booth and adlib some responses from Marge and later edit them out).

Goofs[]

  • Maggie appears in every Christmas photo even though she is just one year old. They could have been taken on other occasions however.
  • When Marge is lifting Bart up to kiss him, Bart's head and eyes are bigger than Marge's. Even though they're roughly supposed to have the same sized heads.
  • When Luann Van Houten is escorting Bart out of her house they are shown walking down a flight of stairs even though her house was shown earlier as being only a single story. 
  • The second time Marge goes to tuck Bart in at night it's shown that Bart has a framed picture of Krusty next to his bed. In the next shot it changes to a Krusty telephone.


Season 6 Season 7 References/Trivia Season 8
Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)Radioactive ManHome Sweet Homediddly-Dum-DoodilyBart Sells His SoulLisa the VegetarianTreehouse of Horror VIKing-Size HomerMother SimpsonSideshow Bob's Last GleamingThe Simpsons 138th Episode SpectacularMarge Be Not ProudTeam HomerTwo Bad NeighborsScenes from the Class Struggle in SpringfieldBart the FinkLisa the IconoclastHomer the SmithersThe Day the Violence DiedA Fish Called SelmaBart on the Road22 Short Films About SpringfieldRaging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"Much Apu About NothingHomerpaloozaSummer of 4 Ft. 2
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