The Homer They Fall/References

== Trivia ==
*Ironically, just one day before the episode aired, Drederick Tatum inspiration Mike Tyson lost his WBA Championship to Evander Holyfield. This partially resembled February 11, 1990, when he surprisingly lost his championship belts to Buster Douglas the same day Moaning Lisa aired; the episode featured Bart and Homer playing a parody of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! called "Super Slugfest." Tyson would never again win another championship belt following the November 9, 1996 loss. https://www.liveabout.com/mike-tyson-career-record-424338
*Paul Winfield, who voices Don King parody Lucius Sweet, played the real Don King in HBO's 1995 biopic Tyson. himself rejected the part.
* The announcer is legendary boxing ring announcer Michael Buffer, who voices himself.
* Despite the Fox Broadcasting Company's longstanding history of business ties with the WWF/WWE, which even resulted in a rerun airing of Wrestlemania XI's two main event matches in a special that aired on the network in September 1995, Buffer was at the time the announcer for numerous main event matches for rival World Championship Wrestling (WCW), whose flagship program WCW Monday Nitro was at the time surpassing the WWF's flagship program Monday Night Raw in a head-to-head weekly rating battle. At the time, the World Wrestling Federation had recently mocked the Fox logo in March 1996 while airing Wrestlemania XII in the Arrowhead Pond, home of the then-Disney owned Anaheim Mighty Ducks. In fact, WWF Raw would not lead Nitro in the ratings again until after Fox Broadcasting Company co-founder, and Mr. Burns physical inspiration, Barry Diller acquired the WWF broadcast home the USA Network in early 1998.
*The ring announcer introduces Fat Tony as "Anthony 'Fat Tony' D'Amico"; however, in "Bart the Murderer," his name was given as "William 'Fat Tony' Williams." He may have numerous aliases due to his mob connections though. 
* Above the boxing ring there is an advertisement for the Assassin shoes that Homer buys in the earlier episode "Bart's Dog Gets an F."
* The match referee is obviously based on veteran boxing referee Mills Lane.
* In Moe's "office," there is a poster featuring Moe Szyslak vs Bill Oakley, and Mark Kirkland vs David Silverman.
* Homer encourages Bart to squeal after he gets beaten up by the bullies. This is contrary to the "code of the schoolyard" in "Bart the General" where Homer advises Bart to fight back physically against Nelson.
* Moe uses gin to treat Homer's wounds.
* There are advertisement posters of Duff, Buzz Cola, Kwik-E-Mart, Laramie Cigarettes and Assassins on the Homer v. Tatum bout.
* During this bout, Bart and Lisa sit in the section ZZ and in the row seats 14-30.
* Homer has an unusual condition - "Homer Simpson Syndrome".
* The chalkboard gag is a reference to "Treehouse of Horror VII".
* Boxcar Bob looks similar to Lenny.
==Continuity==
* In a later episode "HOMR", Homer is supposed to have a crayon in his brain but on Dr. Hibbert's X-Rays it doesn't show the crayon.
* In later episodes Kearney mentions that his father is in prison, so presumably his father was incarcerated after this episode. If his father goes around beating people up in bars this doesn't seem to be unlikely.
* Homer getting beaten up by Drederick Tatum is shown as a flashback in "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace" and "How the Test Was Won".
== Cultural References ==
* The Homer vs. Tatum bout is a reference to the film Rocky, where a local champion faces the heavyweight champion.
**A lot of the training sequences are based on the same movie, including Homer running alongside Moe, Marge asking Moe not to let Homer fight and the line "You will always be a loser."
*The title of this episode alludes to the 1956 movie The Harder They Fall, the last film starring Humphrey Bogart. Its plot is the main inspiration for "The Homer They Fall". Bogart plays a washed up, cynical sports writer who agrees to lend his services to a criminal boxing promoter (played by Rod Steiger) by writing stories that make a star out of an untalented, naive Latino boxer whose fights - unbeknownst to him - are all fixed. When that system doesn't work any more and the boxer is about to be thrashed for good in what would surely be his last fight, Bogart's conscience reawakes. He helps the boxer escape to his home country of Argentina before the gangsters can take back all the money he won in his short-lived career. Moe's role in this Simpson's episode is in fact a combination of the roles played by Steiger and Bogart in the movie.
*The character of Drederick Tatum is based on real life boxer Mike Tyson and his many run-ins with the law.
**Tyson had famously been recently released from prison in 1995 following a rape conviction which saw him serve almost 3 years of a 6 year prison sentence and made a major comeback which saw him win his first boxing titles since February 1990, though he would ironically lose his final championship belt to Evander Holyfield the day before the episode aired.
**Just before the fight with Homer, Drederick is seen walking to the ring with a group of shady looking characters walking behind him. This is also based on a real-life photo of Tyson.
*The character of Lucius Sweet is an obvious parody of Don King, a vicious boxing promoter. Homer even points this out with the line "He's one of the biggest names in boxing! He's exactly as rich and as famous as Don King, and he looks just like him, too!" King was also the manager for Mike Tyson.
*It is possible that Homer's "take punches until they're tired, then finish them off" is based on Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-dope tactic.
*The montage of Homer's victories mid-episode spoofs Raging Bull. The Homer vs Tatum bout itself also spoofs the film's last fight between star and Sugar Ray Robinson
**Some controversy has arisen about what song is exactly played during Homer's montage. DVD commentary of the episode has attributed the song to an original Alf Clausen composition. Some people alternatively have stated that it is "The Flower Duet" from Delibes' opera Lakmé. However, there is no passage in "The Flower Duet" song that convincingly matches up with the boxing montage scene, but it can be said that the song is done in the style and semblance of "The Flower Duet."
**The song can also be a reference to Yanni's song "Aria", based off the music of Lakmé, and which was popular around this time due to its heavy usage in British Airways advertisements.
*At one point in the episode, the screen freezes and turns to a black and white view of one of Homer's boxing opponents falling out of the ring. This scene is a parody of the 1924 painting Dempsey and Firpo by George Bellows.
*Drederick Tatum's theme song is "Time 4 Sum Aksion" by Redman. It was the same song chosen by Mike Tyson for his first fight upon his prison release.
*Homer's theme song is "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War. He also comes in wearing a robe labeled "Opponent."
*The closing song is "People" sung by Sally Stevens.
*The scene in which Homer and Moe go to the fight is a reference to the video game Punch-Out. That being said, both media have a boxer in training and have their respective trainers ride a bike. In the episode Moe appears to ride a scooter.
== Goofs ==
* In this episode Homer tells Bart he should tell authorities about being bullied, but in "Bart the General" he was so strongly against the idea that he said it would be preferable for Bart to die. It's possible that he just changed his mind. Homer is also a known hypocrite in many cases, so this isn't exactly out-of-character behavior.
* Moe says that he turned the women's bathroom into a office when he noticed no women have been to his bar since 1979, yet in "Flaming Moe's" he hires a female waitress. Also, in the episodes "New Kid on the Block" and "Homer the Vigilante," Ruth Powers appears in the bar, and orders a beer in the former episode while Marge visited the bar in "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". It is possible that he made it into an office BEFORE those episodes. Given Moe's personality, it seems likely that he might have just had the women since then use the men's bathroom.
*Homer asks Moe about Tatum, "Is he another hobo?" This implies Homer doesn't know who Tatum is. But in Season Two, when Homer stole cable, he invited a bunch of people over to watch "The Big Tatum fight." Unless he hadn't known it is Drederick Tatum.
*When Moe is telling Homer about the upcoming Tatum fight, the Duff beers they are drinking have blue labels instead of the usual red.
*When Homer is struggling to stand up at first, his navel repeatedly disappears and reappears.
* In some FXX reruns when the credits play, the song Luckiest People is replaced with the Simpsons credits theme.
* The closing credits are white instead of yellow.
== Production Notes ==
* The final draft for this episode was published on April 10, 1996.https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=2&ti=1,2&Search_Arg=the%20simpsons%204f03&Search_Code=FT%2A&CNT=25&PID=bbXnaY9DwRz6N-x31aKLGgIBFIj9
== Citations == 
Category:Trivia
Category:Goofs
Category:Cultural references
Category:Episode references