Separate Vocations - Cultural References

Cultural References

The music school that Lisa visits has a sign out front with a picture of a diapered baby Ludwig van Beethoven on it. When Principal Skinner is questioning Lisa about her newfound sense of irresponsibility, he asks "What are you rebelling against?" She responds "Whaddaya got?", like Marlon Brando's character Johnny Strabler did in the film The Wild One. She also has a toothpick in her mouth, like Johnny had in the film. The fifth graders that Lisa talks to in the school washroom are smoking Laramie cigarettes.

The car chase scene with Snake is a reference to the car chase scene in the 1968 film Bullitt. Music similar to the soundtrack of the television series The Streets of San Francisco is heard in the scene. Alf Clausen, a composer on The Simpsons who had previously worked on several police shows, wrote the music for the scene. In another reference to The Streets of San Francisco and other Quinn Martin productions, a voice-over and caption proclaims the name of act two of the episode, "Act II - Death Drives a Stick", after the episode's first act break in the middle of the Snake car chase. In the sequence where Bart imagines himself testifying in court, his face is obscured with a blue dot; this is a references to the television coverage of the rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, in which the woman who accused Smith of raping her was obscured with a blue dot over her face. The way the scene changes from Bart and Skinner talking in Skinner's office to them searching through the lockers is a reference to the same style of scene change used in the 1960s Batman television series, in which a close-up of Batman's face with dramatic music in the background is shown for a brief moment before the scene changes. The song heard when Bart and Skinner search through the lockers for the Teachers' Editions is a variation of Harold Faltermeyer’s "Axel F" from the film Beverly Hills Cop.