Brother's Little Helper/References

==Trivia==
*Six years after this episode premiered, a real ADD drug with a very similar brand name to the fictional Focusyn, "Focalin", was approved by the FDA.
*This is the very 1st episode to feature any of Maggie Roswell's characters being filled in by Marcia Mitzman Gaven. These roles were filled in & recasted due to Maggie Roswell leaving the show back in mid-1999 due to a pay dispute between her & FOX.
*For example: Maude Flanders is now voiced by Marcia Mitzman Gaven in this episode, replacing Maggie Roswell. She will be voiced by Marcia until her death in Alone Again, Natura-Diddily due to the producers deciding on opening new storylines.
==Continuity==
*"Krusty Gets Busted": Krusty nearly dies during a live broadcast of his show (has a heart attack/gets strangled by his spinning bowtie)
*"Lisa's Substitute": Bart has ADHD (Homer's line, "I always knew you had personality; the doctor said it was hyperactivity, but I knew better!" in the former episode).
*"Bart the Genius": Bart gets in trouble for vandalism (spray painting "I Am a Weiner"/flooding the school gym), and his behavior is written off as a symptom of an underlying problem (in the former episode, it was being bored with school due to allegedly high intellect/having attention-deficit disorder).
*"The Secret War of Lisa Simpson": Marge objects to putting Bart on behavior-modifying drugs.
*"Whacking Day": Bart gets (or, in this case, is threatened to be) expelled from Springfield Elementary.
*"Selma's Choice": Homer and Marge watch a campy, erotic movie (The Erotic Adventures of Hercules/Showgirls)
*"Bart on the Road": Nelson goes to an R-/NC-17-rated movie (Naked Lunch/Showgirls)
*"Homer the Heretic": Springfield has a volunteer fire department and Apu is the chief.
*"Brush with Greatness": Homer mentions a ten-year ban from the water park, which may or may not be a reference to when he got stuck in the H2-WHOA! and the ride had to be shut down and dismantled to get him out.
*"This Little Wiggy": Ralph has pyromaniacal tendencies (thinks he sees a leprechaun that tells him to burn things/refers to fires as "uh-ohs")
*"Bart After Dark": reference to a spinning bowtie (Mel Zets' tuxedo has one/Krusty wears one that nearly chokes him).
*"The Springfield Files": A Simpson male is put on a treadmill for no reason.
==Cultural References==
*The title of this episode is a reference to The Rolling Stones' 1966 single "Mother's Little Helper", which addresses pill abuse, and also to Santa's Little Helper.
*The part where Bart steals the tank is a reference to the Shawn Nelson incident in San Diego, California on May 17, 1995, where Nelson broke into a US National Guard Armory and stole a tank, which led to a rampage where he destroyed cars, RVs, fire hydrants, traffic lights, and utility poles, as well as attempting to destroy a pedestrian bridge before getting stuck on a concrete divider on California Highway 163. The incident ended when an officer shot Nelson before Nelson could break the tank free from the concrete divider.
*Marge standing in front of the tank is a reference to Tank Man.
*The Fire Safety Day slogan, "Learn, Baby, Learn", is a reference to 'Burn, Baby, Burn', the catchphrase of R&B disc jockey , which became associated with the of 1965. Montague himself subsequently changed the phrase to "Learn, Baby, Learn". It could also be a reference to the song "Disco Inferno", whose lyrics include the words, "Burn, baby, burn".
*When trying to introduce the schoolchildren to the Fire Safety skit, Principal Skinner briefly mentioned that one of the helpful things that fire can do is, "raining down on Charlie" which is referring to the frequent dropping napalm on the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.
*When in the tank, Bart sings "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac.
*Bart expresses a preference for the allergy decongestant Claritin D over regular Claritin.
*Bart's classmate Sherri reads aloud the poem "The Daffodils" by William Wordsworth.
*The book that Bart gives to Homer, "Chicken Soup for the Loser", refers to the book "Chicken Soup for the Soul."
* Bart is reading a book "The seven habits of highly effective pre-teens.", a reference to the well-known book "The seven habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey.
*On their date, Marge and Homer see the movie "Showgirls" at the Aztec Theater. The scene of the man telling Nomi (Elizabeth Berkeley's character) that she's throwing away her talent being a showgirl was not in the movie, but could be a jab at how Berkeley's acting career was ruined due to the critical and commercial failure of that film.
*The T-shirt in the army barracks, which reads "I went to the Persian Gulf and all I got was this lousy syndrome", is a reference to Gulf War Syndrome.
*Bart's Ritalin song at the end is a parody of the theme song sung at the conclusion of the Popeye animated shorts.
*Nelson's reaction when he thinks about violence or a girl while wearing the shock collar may be a reference to "A Clockwork Orange".
* Mr. Burns makes a reference to the 1898 Spanish-American War by saying, 'Leave it to the Democrats to let the Spaniards in the pantry again.'
*Clancy makes a reference to Looney Tunes and one of its many characters, Bugs Bunny, by calling Bart "Drugs Bunny".
*Lou draws Dennis G. Mitchell from Dennis the Menace, and Clancy refers to Dennis as the "kid who roughed up the Wilson widow". 
==Goofs==
*When the family gets in Bart's room to find him wrapped in tin foil and with a garbage can lid on his head, a door slam is heard after Bart says to close it. When the camera angle changes, though, the door is clearly open.
*Despite what the chalkboard punishment for this episode says, "pork" actually is a verb in American English. It's a vulgar slang term (mostly used by males) for having sex with a woman.
*In the couch gag, the animators forget to outline the eyes of Marge and Homer. Considering all the ink and paint people in that gag are Korean, that may have been a joke about the mediocre quality of outsourced animation.
*For one scene at the site where the crowd gathers to see the fallen satellite, Bernice Hibbert can be seen with yellow skin briefly.
*The car that Krusty and the other clowns are inside is decorated with orange stars and pink spots during most shots. However, in the shot when Krusty is shown from behind, the stars are purple and there do not appear to be any spots.
*The Springfield Elementary School gym was never in a separate building prior to this episode. A separate gym building could have been constructed since then, though, given how underfunded Springfield Elementary is said to be, that seems unlikely.
thumb|Road lines are missing in front of the tank
*While the police car chases Bart in the tank, the road lines are missing. 
*During Homer and Marge's date night watching Showgirls, one of the people who tells off the couple for loudly talking and disrupting the film is Nelson Muntz, who's underage and shouldn't be in the audience of an NC-17/18-rated movie. He might have sneaked in, since he is a bully and a petty thug, like Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney.
fr:La Pilule qui rend sage/Références
Category:Trivia
Category:Goofs
Category:Cultural references
Category:Episode references