Cultural References
At the beginning of the episode, Homer and Bart watch Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, an annual United States parade that includes floating helium balloons modeled after famous fictional characters. When Homer and Bart talk about the balloons modeled after Bullwinkle and Underdog, The Simpsons is self-referenced as Homer tells Bart that if the parade "turned every flash-in-pan cartoon character into a balloon, it would be a farce," and a giant balloon of Bart can be seen on the television in the background. Not coincidentally, 1990 was the year that Bart was turned into a balloon for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. While watching the Thanksgiving football game, Homer says he is cheering for the Dallas Cowboys. Two of the fictional Dallas Cowboys players are named Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky after two writers on The Simpsons.
The song that plays on the radio during the break in the Thanksgiving football game is "Get Dancing" by Disco-Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes. The game is played at the Pontiac Silverdome, then home to the Detroit Lions, who also play on Thanksgiving. Lisa says the following about her centerpiece: "It's a tribute to the trailblazing women who made our country great. See, there's Georgia O'Keeffe, Susan B. Anthony, and this is Marjory Stoneman Douglas. I'm sure you haven't heard of her, but she worked her whole life to preserve the Florida Everglades." The poem Lisa is seen writing in her room after her centerpiece is destroyed is a reference to Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl". Lisa also keeps a book of Ginsberg's work on a bookshelf next to Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, and a collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe. Feeling hungry, Bart decides to steal food from the old, rich Mr. Burns, who lives on the corner of Croesus and Mammon, two mythological figures of greed. A member of Burns' security staff reads the novel Les Misérables.
Read more about this topic: Bart Vs. Thanksgiving
Famous quotes containing the word cultural:
“Hard times accounted in large part for the fact that the exposition was a financial disappointment in its first year, but Sally Rand and her fan dancers accomplished what applied science had failed to do, and the exposition closed in 1934 with a net profit, which was donated to participating cultural institutions, excluding Sally Rand.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)