Missionary: Impossible/References

==Cultural References==
* The episode title is a pun on Mission: Impossible.
* "Do Shut Up" could be a parody of The Young Ones or Bottom, two similarly chaotic British sitcoms that ran on English TV in the early 1980s and early 1990s respectively. They were known for their lowbrow characters who shared a similarly dismal house, and spent much of the show bashing each other over the head with household items.
* The song playing throughout "Do Shut Up" is No Feelings by the Sex Pistols.
* Micro-asia is most likely modeled after Micronesia.
* The scene where Homer is licking bullfrogs on an island refers to the first verse of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb song from The Wall album. Marge calling "Hello, is there anybody in there?" over the radio even intones the melody.
* The telethon scene at the end features various FOX characters as phone operators, including Bender from Futurama, Hank Hill from King of the Hill, Thurgood from The PJs, Dylan McKay from Beverly Hills, 90210 and Mulder and Scully from The X-Files (who previously appeared in a crossover with The Simpsons).
* Betty White refers to Family Guy as crude, lowbrow TV and turns off a television that has the show's logo on it. At the time of the episode, Family Guy was only temporarily canceled, then brought back for a third season. It wouldn't be until the end of the third season that Family Guy would be canceled, only to be brought back in 2005 due to excellent DVD sales, popular demand from fans, and successful ratings in reruns on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim line-up.
* PBS characters who chase Homer through the streets include Mister Rogers (who uses the phrase, "It's a beautiful day!"), Yo-Yo Ma (who uses his violin bow to get Homer), The Teletubbies (who fire lasers from their antennas), Big Bird (who comes flying down, squawking angrily like a real bird), Oscar the Grouch (who is in his trash can), and Elmo (who is sharing Oscar's trash can). The DVD commentary reveals that in order to evade copyright, two of the characters were renamed "Oskar the Grump" and "Elmaux", even though the former's name wasn't mentioned on-screen. "Elmo" is spelled correctly in the Closed Captions, but the scripts on the now-defunct Simpsons World site use the copyright evasion names, except Elmo is now "Ellmaux".
==Censorship==
* On Channel 4 and Sky Showcase, the beginning where Homer and Bart watch Do Shut Up was edited to remove the rude language, like Homer's use of the word "wanker" and the son's use of the word "sodding" in "Jolly sodding Xmas, Major". Despite this, Homer referring to them as "a loving family of soccer hooligans" wasn't cut, nor was the violence (the son breaking a bottle over his father's head, the father bashing his son with a tire iron, the mother scalding the two with hot tea kettle water, and the father and son threatening to beat the mother with cricket bats).
==Goofs==
* When Homer tries to hand out Bibles when he arrives on the island, Qtoktok claims that they cannot read. However, when Homer unveils his casino, Ak is able to read the sign. It is possible, though highly unlikely, that Homer taught Ak to read before completing the casino. In addition, illiteracy varies from person to person. Some can read, but not understand what the words mean, while others don't understand letters or words.
== Production Notes ==
* The final draft for this episode was published on July 15, 1999.https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=2&ti=1,2&Search_Arg=babf11&Search_Code=FT%2A&CNT=25&PID=jvJjeXgP1aB0V2g-1aKAI83ak3QY
== Citations == 
Category:Goofs
Category:Trivia
Category:Cultural references
Category:Episode references