Radio Bart - Cultural References

Cultural References

"Radio Bart" features several pop culture references. At the beginning of the episode, Homer watches the show Soul Train and its host Don Cornelius on television. The Wall E. Weasel pizza restaurant that Bart celebrates his birthday at is a parody of the family pizza restaurant franchise Chuck E. Cheese's. The episode also parodies charity singles. The song "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" is a spoof of "We Are the World", and the idea of celebrities singing it is based on USA for Africa, the name under which forty-five famous artists recorded "We Are the World". Funky-See, Funky-Do with their hit "I Do Believe We're Naked" resembles the music style of Milli Vanilli.

This episode is similar to an incident involving Jessica McClure, who fell into a well and received support from citizens and celebrities. One citizen suggests using chocolate attached to a fish-hook to save Timmy, a reference to a character from the 1975 film Jaws. Kay McFadden of The Seattle Times used "Radio Bart" as an example of the Simpsons writers ability to predict the future. He said "Radio Bart" aired more than five years before Princess Diana's death that "provoked the exact same celebrity posturing and media panic" as seen in the episode. Timmy's story is eventually bumped off the front page when the media discovers a squirrel who resembles Abraham Lincoln. Kay said Princess Diana's death was "bumped by a fund-raising imbroglio involving Vice President Al Gore, a political figure who resembles oatmeal, which squirrels sometimes eat."