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Some of the store and place names around town are parodies of real life chains: Air conditioner store: It Blows; Airport Bookstore: Just Crichton and King Books (Michael Crichton, Stephen King); Boys' Clothing Store: Wee Monsieur; Comic book store: Androids Dungeon; Cookware store: Stoner's Pot Palace; Discount Store: Try 'n' Save (parody of Shop N Save); Dog Obedience Schools: Eastside Ruff-Form School, Professor Von Bowser's Sanitarium For Dogs; Donut Shop: Lard Lad Donuts; Family Restaurant: Texas Cheesecake Depository; Financial Planning: Let's Get Fiscal (based on Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical") She of Little Faith (2001); Girls' Clothing Store: Saks Fifth Grade (parody of Saks Fifth Avenue) and Dingo Junction; Girls school: Saint Sebastian's School for Wicked Girls; Gourmet Food store: Eatie Gourmet's; Gun Shop: BloodBath and Beyond (parody of Bed, Bath and Beyond); Hair Stylist: Turn Your Head and Coif; Hair Stylist (where Julio works): Hairy Shears (a play on Harry Shearer); Healthcare Facility- HMO (Hibbert Moneymaking Organization); Indian restaurant: Taj Majal You Can Eat; Investing service: IPO Friday's; Jewelry store: The Family Jewels; Joke/Novelty Shop: Yuckingham Palace (parody of London's Buckingham Palace); Junkyard: Uriah's Heap (Uriah Heep, from the story of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens); Law Office: I Can't Believe It's A Law Firm!; Middle Eastern restaurant: Two Guys from Kabul; Museum: Louvre: American Style; Music shop: Suicide Notes, Tommy Toots and King Toots; New Age Shop: Karmaceuticals; Optometrist: Eye Carumba; Optometrist: Eye Care, Do You?; Outdoor Clothing Store: Malaria Zone; Pastry Shop: The French Confection (The French Connection (1971)); Repo man: Repo Depot; Roach Motel: The Ritz Carlton Hotel for Vagrants; Seafood Restaurant: The Fryin' Dutchman; Soup Kitchen: Helter Shelter; Toy Store: Valley of the Dolls (1967) Toy Store: J.R.R. Toykins (J.R.R. Tolkien); Toy store in Chinatown: Toys "L" Us (parody of Toys "R" Us), Pool store: Pool Sharks ("Where the buyer is our chum!"). Many of the characters are named after major streets in Portland, Oregon, where Creator Matt Groening grew up. Examples: Flanders, Lovejoy, Terwilliger, Kearney.
After Phil Hartman was murdered, the various characters he played, such as lawyer Lionel Hutz and actor Troy McClure, were retired, rather than re-cast. However, they continued to appear silently in crowd scenes. Season ten, episode three, "Bart the Mother" (September 27, 1998) was his final voice performance.
In season three, episode fourteen, "Lisa the Greek," Lisa, angry at Homer for tricking her into helping him gamble on football, makes a bet that if she loves him, the winner of the Super Bowl will be the Washington Redskins, and if she doesn't, the Buffalo Bills would come out on top (Washington won). Actually, when the show premiered just before the Super Bowl, those two teams were squaring off in Super Bowl XXVI, and Washington came out on top 37-24. Over the next three years, FOX made it a tradition to air the episode just before the Super Bowl, and change the dialogue, so that the teams would include whatever teams were playing that year. According to the DVD commentary, Lisa accurately picked the winning team every single year.
This is the longest running primetime comedy series, as well as the longest-running primetime animated series, in U.S. television history.
A television critic titled his article "Worst Episode Ever!" after watching a late 1990s episode, and criticized the show's writing. In the later seasons, there are many episodes in which the Comic Book Guy criticizes a character by saying "Worst episode ever!" and "Worst (action) ever!" in reference to the television critic's article.