Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus/References

Episode	References	Gags	Appearances	Gallery	Quotes	Credits

◄ Orange is the New Yellow

Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus

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Cultural References

• The name of the episode is a reference to Monty Python's Flying Circus.
• On the title screen, Kodos flies across with a banner reading "Vote Kodos / Make the Universe Great Again", a reference to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
• Bart's chalkboard gag says that his arm needs Tommy John surgery. Tommy John surgery is a surgical procedure, where a patient has a torn or broken muscle from his body removed and replaced with a healthy arm muscle. At this point, Bart has been doing these chalkboard gags for 27 years.
• The couch gag not only parodies Adventure Time, but it has lots of references to previous episodes, such as:
  • The Multi-eyed squirrel from The Simpsons Movie.
  • "H.J.S. + M.B." initials written inside a heart carved in a tree from "The Way We Weren't".
  • The Springfield Lemon Tree from "Lemon of Troy".
  • Bobo from "Rosebud".
  • Barney driving the Plow King from "Mr. Plow".
  • Moe Szyslak as a Yeti from "Moe Goes from Rags to Riches".
  • Homer trying to jump the Springfield Gorge with a skate and failing from "Bart the Daredevil".
  • Lisa is playing her saxophone near a cave full of fireworks and with Linguo besides her from "Trilogy of Error".
  • Olmec head from various episodes.
  • The Angel Fossil from "Lisa the Skeptic".
  • An image of Stampy on Bart's treehouse from "Bart Gets an Elephant".
  • Among the things on the junkyard, there's a picture of nude Mr. Burns from "Brush with Greatness"; a Funzo skeleton from "Grift of the Magi"; Chief Knock-A-Homer from "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot"; The Homer from "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?"; The Bear Buster 5000 from The Fat and the Furriest; a wagon from the Springfield Monorail from "Marge vs. the Monorail"; Mr. Sparkle boxes from "In Marge We Trust" and The Smoker from "Cue Detective".
• Chief Wiggum references the statue The Thinker by Auguste Rodin.
• The Channel 6 headlines for the riot was "Quiet Riot". Quiet Riot is the name of a heavy metal band.
• The song Because I Got High by Afroman plays during one of the power Plant's "parties".
• When Mr. Burns was talking about how he wanted to stage to be the same way it was when he was a child, Skinner and Chalmers dressed as The Blues Brothers were seen dancing behind him.
• Among the spectators laughing at young Mr. Burns is Itchy as seen in Steamboat Itchy.
• Rod and Todd sing Michael Row the Boat Ashore as their performance in the play.
• Ralph Wiggum coming out of the melting donut hole at the end of the episode and saying "That's all folks!" is a reference to the endings for the Looney Tunes episodes.

Trivia

• Poltergiests of two characters, Maude Flanders and Edna Krabappel, appears between Ned Flanders in the stage seats.
• The broken Springfield sign spells the word "Singed".
• One of the jokes made reference to the Arnold Palmer drink, that uses lemonade and ice tea. Ironically, Arnold Palmer, the golfer who invented the drink died a few hours before this episode was aired.
• Mr. Burns was a child in 1913. This would make him around 110 years old in 2016.
• This is the second time the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant had its core rupture due to it being contaminated by food, after "Simpson Tide" (which dealt with Homer placing a contaminated donut into the reactor in order to enlarge it).

Goofs

• Maggie is swivel-eyed on the promotional image released for this episode.
• Apu is seen with the octuplets in baby carriers in the start of the episode, but a few seconds later, he appears with Manjula when the town of Springfield are looking up at the sky without wearing the octuplets in the baby carriers.
• At the first audition at the bowl, Lisa's headset changes sides between scenes.
• There was no year 0 BC., as the years went from 1 BC. to 1 AD. However, Homer's ancestor probably doesn't understand that.
• Manjula changes clothes between two scenes.
• When Mrs. Burns was licking Burns at the pageant, a line appears through her face for a frame.
• Krusty the Clown's makeup turns yellow for a few frames.