Whacking Day/References

==Trivia==
*The Springfield Christian School sign reads, "We Put the Fun in Fundamentalist Dogma."
*Bob Woodward is the author of The Truth About Whacking Day. One piece of information he reveals is that Richard Nixon once participated in Whacking Day. Woodward and his partner Carl Bernstein were the investigative reporters responsible for breaking the story on the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to Nixon's resignation from the presidency.
*The "Oh Whacking Day" song is sung in the same tune as "O Tannenbaum" (aka "Oh Christmas Tree").
*This episode marks the first appearance of Superintendent Chalmers.
*Matt Groening once said that the scene of Reverend Lovejoy making up a Bible verse to convince Lisa that Whacking Day is accepted by God was the point where he felt the series was going too far in being outrageous.
*Running Gag: Homer driving his car into the garage, nearly running over Bart and Marge who are in the garage and stopping the car inches away from Bart.
*In this episode, Lunchlady Doris says that she was hired as the school nurse because "I get two paychecks this way." In the Season 6 episode "Round Springfield," Lunchlady Doris working double duty as the school nurse was because of school budget cuts.
*Grampa's story about how he had to pose as a German cabaret singer after he got separated from his platoon during a raid in Dusseldorf is impossible, not just because of how out there the flashback was, but because the German cabaret was outlawed in 1935, with many involved either fleeing the country or getting put in concentration camps due to their anti-Nazi views (and some of the performers possibly being on Hitler's list of races he thought weren't Aryan). The Dusseldorf air raid that Grampa was said to be a part of happened in 1942. However, Grandpa was probably being his senile self, as he mentioned that the only thing true about the story was that he cross-dressed in the 1940s and that the dresses back then had excellent designers.
*The book Marge wanted Bart to read was "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Forbes. The novel was written in 1943 and it won the Newbery Medal for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."
*Homer's suggestion that Lisa bottle up her rage until she releases it at an appropriate time "like that day [Homer] hit a referee with that whiskey bottle" may have later received a callback in the episode "See Homer Run", where Dr. Pryor showed Homer some drawings of some terrible memories from Lisa involving Homer, one of which, titled "the day the policeman came to my soccer game", involved seeing Homer being arrested with an irritated referee looking on as Homer is loudly yelling "I'LL SUE YOU ALL!"
== Goofs ==
* Milhouse was briefly seen in the classroom flying a paper airplane. But while Skinner falsely announced the winners of mountain bikes, Milhouse was seen with Nelson filling his shirt with dead leaves.
*Skinner only summons Bart, Nelson and Jimbo to the basement for their bikes, but Kearney and Dolph also turn up despite being neither summoned nor near Jimbo when he is summoned. He may have summoned them offscreen.
* Miss Springfield's voice sounds slightly different in this episode, sounding sultry yet otherwise decent, when in future appearances, she sounded shrill (though, since Miss Springfield is a beauty contest title that goes to a different woman every year, it can be assumed that the Miss Springfield in this episode is not the same one in later episodes).
* Why does Marge homeschool Bart in the garage where Homer always parks his car after work when there are other rooms in the house she could use? Homeschooling is done during school hours, and Homer works 8 hours a day.
*When we first see Bart reading The Truth About Whacking Day, Bob Woodward's name is displayed in a single line on the bottom of the front cover. However, when we see it a little later, his first name is shown above his last name.
*According to this episode, Groundskeeper Willie lives in an apartment complex. However, later episodes would establish that he lives in a shack on the Springfield Elementary School campus. The apartment complex could have burned down or been condemned or Groundskeeper Willie could have been evicted (considering that Much Apu About Nothing showed him being deported back to Scotland because he was an illegal immigrant, he probably lost his apartment and couldn't get it back when he finally returned to America to be a legal immigrant).
* In Grampa's flashback, some of the Nazis are wearing their armbands on their right arms. In reality, they always wore their armbands on their left arms.
Category:Trivia
Category:Goofs