Cultural References
The episode title is a play on Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities. When Homer stands up in the press conference it is a references to the painting Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms with this specific painting being Freedom of Speech. When Homer and Marge take a picture is an in-joke to "Trash of the Titans" when the voice director told Bono to smile. The episode also features several references to The Who, including "Magic Bus" and Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy. Moe's comment "That fat, dumb, and bald guy sure plays a mean hardball" is a reference to a Who song, "Pinball Wizard". The wall itself is a reference to the Berlin Wall, with "New Springfield" representing East Berlin.
Read more about this topic: A Tale Of Two Springfields
Famous quotes containing the word cultural:
“They’re semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own, like those Jules Verne airships that those old Kansas farmers were always seeing.... Semiotic ghosts. Fragments of the Mass Dream, whirling past in the wind of my passage.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)