Cultural References
The episode contains several references to the film Animal House, including the song "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen which plays throughout the film. The couch gag with the huge pink foot squashing the Simpsons is a reference to The Foot of Cupid of the television series Monty Python's Flying Circus. The film Monty Python and The Holy Grail is also referenced when Benjamin, Doug and Gary imitate the Knights Who Say Ni. They play Dungeons & Dragons, hold arguments over Star Trek and their room number is 222, a reference to the television series Room 222. Homer has posters of Albert Einstein and W. C. Fields. The episode contains the first reference to the Internet on The Simpsons, as "Computer Signals" being sent between the Nerds and MIT.
Mr. Burns asks Homer to "find the jade monkey" in a reference to the film The Maltese Falcon. He also offers the nuclear inspectors a washer and dryer or the contents of a mysterious box, which parodies the gameshow Let's Make a Deal. Mr. Burns' escape pod resembles the one used by R2-D2 and C-3PO in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Mr. Burns tries to get Homer into college by using violence and hitting one of the members of the admissions committee with a baseball bat, a reference to the film The Untouchables. The scene of Homer studying for the final exam contains a reference to the Ludovico technique from the movie A Clockwork Orange.
Read more about this topic: Homer Goes To College
Famous quotes containing the word cultural:
“The men who are messing up their lives, their families, and their world in their quest to feel man enough are not exercising true masculinity, but a grotesque exaggeration of what they think a man is. When we see men overdoing their masculinity, we can assume that they haven’t been raised by men, that they have taken cultural stereotypes literally, and that they are scared they aren’t being manly enough.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)