The character of Selma Hearst Rose is played by real-life Hearst family heiress
Patricia Hearst. Although in the show, the source of the fictionalized "Hearst" family's fortune is a chain of retail stores instead of the publishing empire owned by Patty Hearst's grandfather
William Randolph Hearst, this episode contains several references to the real Hearst and her family history. Selma asks Keith Mars if he knows how it feels to be at the center of a national scandal, just as Patty was during her kidnapping, brainwashing, and crimes. Selma's husband is named Bud Rose, a reversal of the key phrase from
Citizen Kane (1941) (based on William Randolph Hearst's life). And Patty Hearst's character being named "Selma" is even an oblique reference to her own name, "Patty," since "Patty and Selma" are the names of Marge's two constantly-paired sisters on
"The Simpsons" (1989).
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