Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?/References

== Cultural References ==
*The episode title is a pun on the song "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" from the Great Depression. (The actual song is sung by Mr. Burns in "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish").
*The sequence where Homer reminisces about the old couch contains references to the following:
**The prime-time soap opera TV series Dallas (specifically, the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode)
**Hands Across America
**The fall of the Berlin Wall (which Homer considered to be boring, so he changed the channel)
**Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (much more to Homer's liking)
*New Coke - When Herb commiserates with his fellow bums about losing his car company because of the car that Homer designed, he says, "Forbes called it the blunder of the century. A bit overblown, don't you think? What about New Coke?" At this, one of the bums protests and says he was the inventor of New Coke.
*Mickey Mouse and The Walt Disney Company: One of the bums mentions that he used to run the Mickey Mouse Massage Parlor, but Disney got the business shut down for copyright infringement.
*When Joe Frazier announces that Homer is the winner of "The First Annual Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence," the orchestra plays The Simpsons Theme.
*2001: A Space Odyssey - When Homer has the furniture store salesperson demonstrate the Spinemelter 2000 vibrating chair on full power, the light show he experiences and his face being under different colors of light are exactly like the movie's penultimate scene.
*Raffi was referenced when Herb demonstrated his Baby Translator, with one of the translations being "Turn off that damn Raffi record!".
*The Wizard of Oz - When Herb gives gifts to the rest of the family, Homer (whose fondest wish was to have the Spinemelter 2000) dejectedly comments, "I don't think there's a vibrating chair in that bag for me." Near the end of The Wizard of Oz, after the Wizard gives gifts to the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man (a diploma, a medal, and a testimonial, respectively), Dorothy—who wants only to go home—sadly says, "I don't think there's anything in that black bag for me."
== Trivia ==
* Homer considered the fall of the Berlin Wall to be "boring" before more future construction of U.S.-Mexico border walls began, including the longer construction of a wall which covered hundreds of miles at the border began in 2005. "Build the wall" and "finish the way" would later became one of the main pieces of Donald Trump's Presidential campaign rhetoric.
* The producers revealed that the reason why they made this episode was that fans were disappointed with the sad ending to "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" and so this episode was created where Herb regains his wealth.
*The vibrating chair can be seen in the attic in later episodes.
* This is the last Simpsons episode to use the 1981-93 TCFTV logo as is was replaced with the 20th Television logo starting with the 4th season until the end of the 6th season.
* Surprisingly, for such a revolutionary device, the baby translator is never seen again.
* The drinking bird, which Herb cites as an example of a little idea being a big moneymaker, is seen again in the seventh-season episode "King-Size Homer."
* Originally, Barney Gumble was going to win in his fight against Joe Frazier, but Joe Frazier's son objected to that idea (as Frazier was a world champion at the time of the show's airing), so they changed it to Frazier winning.
* Originally, Bart's line before he vaulted over the couch was "I do this for the Soviet Union!" However, the Soviet Union already broke down between the writing of the script and the air time, so the line was changed to "I do this for StainMaster Carpet, proud sponsor of the Living Room Olympics!"
* George Foreman was originally supposed to be in the episode instead of Joe Frazier, but Foreman was unavailable.
* While playing Monopoly, when Herb tells Lisa to "Get to the point," he says it in a way that's a little aggressive, as he grudgingly gives her the money after she says the cost.
* This is the last (and not so far) episode to have a Turkish dub on Disney+. The Turkish dub would later return in Season 33.
* This is also the last episode to be dubbed in Catalan.
== Goofs ==
* The waiver that Mr. Burns has Homer sign became a law school discussion topic. In real life, if Homer had later discovered he became sterile due to his employment at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, he would have still been able to sue. Burns did not specifically state that Homer was sterilized or that the $2,000 was compensation for his having been sterilized. Instead, he called Homer "you big virile son-of-a-gun" and referred to the $2,000 as an award. That would be considered deception, so Burns would still be vulnerable to being sued—both for Homer's sterilization and for with holding that info from him. However, it's possible that the info was included in the contract as he didn't actually read it.
* The reason why Homer wants the vibrating chair in the first place is because the couch broke. However, when Herb presents the baby translator to the family, the couch is intact. It's possible that Herb fixed the couch offscreen.
*When Marge is initially impressed with the baby translator, her neck is layered over her necklace and thus cuts it off for a few frames.
*When Herb spreads his arms towards the end for Homer to hug him, Homer denies doing this, saying he has never hugged a man before. This is actually untrue, because Homer has actually hugged a few people who are men in the series prior to this. Two examples at least of him hugging a man is him hugging his neighbor Ned in When Flanders Failed, and hugging Karl in the climax of Simpson and Delilah. He can go on to hug more men or male adult people later on in the series.
fr:Le Retour du frère prodigue/Références
Category:Trivia
Category:Goofs
Category:Episode references