The Color Yellow/References
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Cultural references
- The episode title is a reference to the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
- The title screen gag is a reference to The Wizard of Oz. The music that plays over it is the "Miss Gulch" theme from the 1939 film, composed by Herbert Stothart.
- Principal Skinner has a Kia car, which gets crushed by the stump.
- Lisa says that she will find the one good ancestor of the Simpson family, even if she has to go back to Adam and Eve.
- Grampa says that Adam and Eve Simpson were also known as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were spies for the Soviet Union.
- The Simpsons have a picture of former president Abraham Lincoln in their house. Lincoln was also revealed to be the man who helped Virgil and Mabel Simpson escape to Canada.
- A poster of the album artwork of the Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon is seen in the attic. This is the same poster that teenage Homer had in his bedroom.
- Lisa finds a bicentennial issue of Reader's Digest in the attic.
- Among the stories in the Reader's Digest issue are:
- The advertisement for Buzz Cola that Lisa finds promotes the fact that it has cocaine in it. When Coca-Cola was first launched, cocaine was one of its main ingredients.
- Eliza Simpson has what appears to be a Raggedy Ann doll. However, the Raggedy Ann doll wasn't created until 1915.
- Eliza Simpson was part of the Underground Railroad.
- Marge says that she and Homer left the movie Carrie right after the titular character, Carrie White, was crowned prom queen.
- The waltz played at the ball in the flashback to 1860 is "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II, which was not written until 1867.
- Virgil Simpson sings "My Old Kentucky Home" by Stephen Foster.
- "Battle Hymn of the Republic" by Julia Ward Howe plays at the start of the Black History Month presentations and at the end of Lisa's presentation.
- In Ralph's Black History Month presentation, he says that Martin Luther King had a dream, referencing King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
- Also in Ralph's presentation, he says that dreams are where Elmo (from Sesame Street) and Buzz Lightyear (from Toy Story) had a party, and he went there. He then shows the picture of this party.
- Milford Van Houten reads The Inventions of Thomas Jefferson by Thomas Jefferson.
- Willie escorts Lisa offstage, saying that they still have three Jackie Robinsons, a Tuskegee Airmen, and so many Obamas to go.
- When Homer makes things uncomfortable for Grampa by turning the temperature down on the thermostat, Grampa starts spilling information about the Normandy landings.
- "O Canada", the national anthem of Canada, plays when Virgil and Mabel get to Canada.
Trivia
- Letters in the vent include a final notice from the IRS and urgent M.R.I. scan results addressed to Homer.
Goofs
- According to the episode "Much Apu About Nothing", the Simpsons didn't arrive in America until the early 1900s when Abe was a child.
- When the kids gasp at Milhouse calling Lisa's story a fairy tale, Lewis is in his normal attire with his usual haircut. Then, after Milhouse tells the story of Milford Van Houten, Lewis is wearing an Obama suit with a matching haircut.
- The girl with a ponytail's hair is black instead of its usual white.
- The "V" in Milford Van Houten's name on The Journal of Milford van Houten is lowercase instead of a capital as it should be.
- Mabel and Virgil could not cross the "Canadian border" in 1860, as Canada did not become a country until 1867. When they left the United States, they entered an area that was still a British colony at the time.
- The Canadian flag that appears in the episode was not the official flag of Canada until 1965.
Continuity
