Cultural References
The scene with Grampa and Bea eating their pills seductively is a reference to the 1963 film Tom Jones. Two of the people waiting in line to ask for Grampa's money are Darth Vader and the Joker. Darth Vader is the antagonist in the first three Star Wars films, and the Joker is an enemy of Batman in the Batman comic books. When the family is suggesting places they could go, Homer suggests the Springfield Mystery Spot, a reference to the Mystery Spot in California — although Lisa says that the Springfield Spot is simply a puddle of mud. They eventually decide to go the Discount Lion Safari, however. The Diz-Nee-Land amusement park that Grampa visits with Bea's money has a sign that reads "Diz-Nee-Land – Not affiliated with Disneyland, Disney World, or anything else from the Walt Disney Company". The shot of Grampa sitting at a diner resembles the 1942 American painting Nighthawks. Before Grampa attempts to bet all of his money on Roulette he quotes Rudyard Kipling. The climax scenes, where Grampa uses the money to fix up the Springfield Retirement Castle, is a reference to the ending of the 1932 film If I Had a Million.
Read more about this topic: Old Money (The Simpsons)
Famous quotes containing the word cultural:
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)