When Homer and Marge get stuck on a Tunnel of Love ride thanks to Bart's prank, they decide to pass the time by telling three romantic stories: Homer and Marge as 1930s bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde, a Lady and the Tramp parody again starring Homer and Marge (with some ancillary characters as supporting cast), and a Sid and Nancy parody with Nelson and Lisa as punk couple Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.
Tropes:
- Alliterative Name: Robby Robin.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: A dog catcher tells puppy!Bart and Lisa he'll put them to sleep... by his boring stories... and then he'll kill them.
- Ballistic Discount: Averted. Clyde doesn't need to shoot anybody for his stolen gun. He simply punches through the glass and picks one of the guns without even entering the shop.
- Did Not Do the Bloody Research: In the Sid and Nancy segment Bart, in character as Johnny Rotten, sings a song repeatedly using the word “Bollocks”. This word is considered a casual expletive in the U.S but is seen as much more offensive in the UK, this led to the episode having to be screened after the post 9pm “watershed” instead of its usual early evening time-slot.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Ned (who had been an unwilling accomplice to Homer and Marge during their Bonnie and Clyde tale) is quite willing to allow them to continue their criminal rampage throughout the country... up until he hears that they are unmarried.
- Flush the Evidence: Lisa as Nancy Spuggen and Nelson as Sid Vicious get hooked on chocolate as if it were cocaine or heroin. Their chocolate spree involves them snorting lines, cooking (melting chocolate powder on spoons), and flushing various chocolate bars and candies down the toilet when the police come a-knocking.
- Forgotten Framing Device: Homer and Marge get stuck on a ride, and to pass the time he tells her a story. The other Simpsons join, and Marge and Bart tell stories too. The end of Bart's story, however, segues straight to the end credits and doesn't show if they decided to get off the ride or wait for it to work again.
- G-Rated Drug: The Sid and Nancy spoof has Nelson and Lisa addicted to chocolate instead of heroin, complete with them chopping the chocolate up into little lines and flushing it down the toilet when the cops show up.
- The Joy of X: The episode is titled with the pattern "X, Y Style" in mind.
- Meaningful Name: Clyde stole his gun from a store named "Tommy's Guns".
- Miss Conception:
- Alone with Shady after a romantic dinner at Luigi's, Vamp tells Shady "I am in heat. That's the safe time, right?", to which Shady (presumably despite better knowledge) replies "Oh, the safest!". Predictably, Vamp gets pregnant.
- Bart Simpson, king of Ping Pong Naïveté, attempts to intervene between Homer and Marge out of concern that their spending too much time kissing will lead to another kid—specifically by causing a stork to lay an egg in Marge's tummy so that "the next thing we know, we find a baby brother in the cabbage patch." His hand-drawn diagram on the subject doesn't clear things up much.
- Morning Sickness: Vamp becomes nauseous in the morning after mating with Shady while she was in heat. Shady knows what's up and quickly bails on her.
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Clyde tells Bonnie nobody calls him "chicken" without goading him into doing something stupid.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: In their dying moments, Marge and Homer as Bonnie and Clyde drop their Southern accents and speak like they normally do in canon.
- Outlaw Couple: Marge and Homer as Bonnie and Clyde.
- Papa Wolf: Shady attacks the dog catcher when he is about to euthanize Shady’s pups.
- Riddled and Rattled: The story of Bonnie and Clyde ends as it did, with Homer and Marge being riddled with bullets by the police. However, instead of just instantly dying, Bonnie and Clyde have a long drawn out romantic conversation with each other, even getting the police chief to chime in with his thoughts, even giving his blessing for marriage, while the police just continue to pump them full of lead.
- Shaped Like Itself: Homer introducing a story of "two young outlaws in love":Homer: They were the Bonnie and Clyde of their day. Their names were Bonnie and Clyde.
- Shout-Out:
- Robby Robin is a parody of Woody Woodpecker.
- At the end of the second story, when Shady tells Vamp that she had nine other puppies, he utters "Ruh-roh".
- After briefly kicking their chocolate addiction, Nelson and Lisa as Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen become a Donny and Marie Osmond-style pop duo. They then get kicked out of CBGB's (Comic Book Guy's Bar) and return to their vices.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike the real Sid and Nancy or their fictionalized counterparts in the film of the same name, Nelson and Lisa don't die.
- Suspiciously Similar Song: In-Universe. The songs Bart, Nelson, Jimbo, and Dolph perform as the Sex Pistols are not actual songs from the band, but more of a style parody.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: We're led to believe that the puppy versions of Bart and Lisa are "Shady" and "Vamp"'s only two kids, but when Shady brings them back he has an Oh, Crap! reaction upon finding out that they're only a small fraction of Vamp's litter.
- Take That!: A Goofy Expy would rather endure the gas chamber than work for Disney.
- Tunnel of Love: The Framing Device takes place in a spooky themed one that Homer and Marge get stuck in thanks to Bart's prank.
