Recap / The Simpsons S 4 E 21 Marge In Chains

Original air date: 5/6/1993

Production code: 9F20

Marge is tried and imprisoned for shoplifting a bottle of bourbon. Her time behind bars however makes Springfield go haywire.

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Episode Summary

Homer watches an infomercial for an orange juicer, and in spite of being comically noisy and inefficient, he and the entire town buy the thing. Unfortunately, at the factory in Osaka, one of the workers has the flu, spreading it on all the juicers shipped to Springfield, generating an epidemic.

At the Simpson home, Marge is the only one spared from the illness, and is forced to run errands for them at the Kwik-E-Mart, which has jacked up the prices. As she exits the store, Apu notices a bottle of bourbon in her coat (that Grampa asked for) and calls the cops on her.

After Mayor Quimby accidentally reveals to the townspeople Marge is a shoplifter (being specifically told by Chief Wiggum to keep it confidential), all of her acquaintances begin to badmouth her. After unsuccessfully trying to get Apu to drop the case (his mind being set on getting Marge in jail), Homer hires the services of Lionel Hutz, although the judge has a grudge against him for hitting his son with his car.

At the trial, the Blue-Haired Lawyer is so confident of Marge's guilt that he decides to talk to the jury about Hollywood stars, Helen Lovejoy gleefully railroads her by implying she is a heavy drinker, while Professor Frink links her to the Kennedy assassination. While Hutz starts out well by outfoxing Apu's self-described "photographic memory" and convincing him that Marge could be innocent, his performance soon drops to pathetic depths and gets Marge sentenced to 30 days in prison.

In spite of her initial fears, Marge blends in nicely, making friends with her tough-as-nails cell-mate (who murdered her husband with a screwdriver). Things fall apart for everyone else however. The rest of the family somehow turn the house into a disaster (including having an alligator in the toilet) and run through the wardrobe over the course of 10 minutes while the annual bake sale comes up short without her cakes, forcing the town to get a statue of Jimmy Carter instead of one of Abraham Lincoln as it was planned. This becomes enough to send Springfield into a pandemonium.

Realizing their mistake, the people of Springfield decide to forgive Marge and, once she is freed, they honor her by modifying the Carter statue and dedicating it to her.

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"Marge in Chains" contains examples of...

• Accidental Theft: Marge accidentally steals a bottle of bourbon, setting the episode's plot in motion.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Squeaky-clean Ned Flanders actually had a chuckle over notorious Dysfunctional Family sitcom Married...With Children. He thinks God sent the Osaka Flu to punish him for it.
• Affably Evil: Marge's cellmate Phillips is so named because she murdered her husband with a Phillips head screwdriver, but she's very friendly with Marge.
• The Alcoholic:
  • Helen Lovejoy implies Marge drinks. Marge's incredibly tense reaction suggests it's true, although it's just as likely she's tense because Helen's gleefully digging Marge's grave.
  • Lionel Hutz is a recovering one, having David Crosby as his A.A. sponsor. Hutz is strongly tempted to relapse while defending Marge for accidentally stealing a bottle of bourbon, and Crosby's disappointment when Hutz comes to court without pants implies that he eventually did relapse offscreen.
• All Women Are Lustful: During a conjugal visit, Homer makes it clear that he's willing to just hold hands and talk if that's all Marge is comfortable with. She immediately jumps on him in a fit of lust, knocking over the trailer they're inside of.
• Anything but That!: Lionel Hutz imagines what life would be like without lawyers, which features people from every race, ethnic background, creed and color dancing under a rainbow while a non-copyright-infringing version of "I'd Like to Teach The World to Sing" plays. It sickens Hutz.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • The alligator is shown with interlocking teeth as it crunches Abe's dentures. Gets jarring in that it was correctly shown with an overbite in other scenes.
  • Flu viruses only live for a few days to a month without a host. As Homer's juice loosener took at least six weeks to arrive, any viruses would be long dead by the time he opened the box.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • There's no way a Judge would ever be allowed to try a case where he has such a clear and personal bias against one of the lawyers involved.
  • Helen Lovejoy's "testimony" full of gossip and slander of Marge's character not only wouldn't be admissible in a real trial but Helen would actually be looking at jail time herself for perjury, whether she believed these lies herself or not.
  • Related to the trial, an Accidental Theft (as it happens in the episode) would likely not be punishable by prison time, especially since Marge tried to explain the situation to the store owner and made it abundantly clear that she intended to pay for it.
• As Himself: David Crosby (who is said to be a doppelganger for Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder), from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Homer walks into the Kwik-E-Mart and finds Apu and Sanjay celebrating by dancing and singing to Bollywood-sounding gibberish.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Lionel Hutz repeatedly ran over Judge Snyder's son for reasons unknown.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Flanders thinks his family falling ill from the Osaka flu epidemic is God's way of punishing him for watching and laughing at Married... with Children.
  Flanders: The network slogan is true: Watch Fox and be damned for all eternity.
• Blatant Lies:
  • When Dr. Nick turns on the juicer, it makes a very loud grinding noise. Troy shouts, "ARE YOU SURE IT'S ON? I CAN HARDLY HEAR IT!" Nick shouts back, "IT'S WHISPER QUIET!"
  • Mr. Burns finds Homer in his secret chamber and asks what he's doing. Homer responds "My name is Mr. Burns" to Burns' face.
  • When Marge is released and says goodbye to her new friends, Phillips says she has a romantic pen pal waiting for on the outside. She waves to Barney in the parking lot, who has flowers. "He says his name's Homer, and he works at the nuclear power plant."
• Bollywood Nerd: Apu can recite Pi to forty thousand places.
  Apu: The last digit is 1.
  Homer: Mmm... pie...
• Brick Joke: Lionel Hutz imagines what life would be like without lawyers, which features people from every race, ethnic background, creed, and color dancing under a rainbow while a non-copyright-infringing version of "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" plays. After Hutz loses Marge's case, the judge announces that the next case features Hutz as the defendant being sued by the very same people featured in his imagination.
  Hutz: Oh right, that thing.
• Buffy Speak:
  Lionel Hutz: I move for a "bad court thingy".
  Judge Snyder: You mean a mistrial?
  Hutz: Yeah! That's why you're the judge, and I'm the... law-talking... guy.
  Snyder: The lawyer?
  Hutz: Right.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Chief Wiggum mentions to Mayor Quimby that Marge was arrested for shoplifting, telling him not to tell anyone. Quimby not only makes a public announcement of the fact apropos of nothing but spoils The Crying Game for good measure.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin':
  • Played Straight: Marge, having a bad day, forgets to pay for an item at the Kwik-E-Mart, after having paid for all of the rest of a big basket of items. She is immediately arrested and sentenced to 30 days imprisonment.
  • When Apu starts to gloat after Marge's sentence that his store is now safe, we cut to Snake towing the entire Kwik-E-Mart to Mexico.
• Characterization Marches On: Apu isn't yet the close family friend he'll become in episodes like "Homer and Apu" and "Much Apu About Nothing," nor has the backstory in the following season's "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" (which shows that his relationship with Homer goes back at least to their time as members of the Be Sharps) been established. He still comes off as unusually mean for getting the wife of his best customer publicly humiliated and sent to prison for a month over a minor slip-up she tried to correct.
• Chewbacca Defense: An example that predates the Trope Namer! Instead of actually arguing his case prosecuting Marge, the Blue-Haired Lawyer decides to instead ask the jury who's more attractive: Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson. When the judge asks him how this pertains to the case, the lawyer says that he is "so confident in Marge Simpson's guilt that [he] can waste the court's time by rating the superhunks." Both the jury and Hutz take this as a trial-winning argument.
• Comically Missing the Point: Wanting a cure for Osaka flu, the people of Springfield mob Dr. Hibbert's office, who tells them that the only cure is bed rest and that anything else would be a placebo. The mob then overturns a truck filled with killer bees in search of placebos.
  Bystander: (eats a bee) I'm cured! I mean, ouch!
• Continuity Nod:
  • One of the jurors at Marge's trial is Jack Marley, from "Marge Gets a Job".
  • Homer wears a devil costume, just like Evil Homer in "Whacking Day".
  • When it briefly appears that Hutz is going to win the case, Bart decides he wants to be a lawyer when he grows up. Earlier in the season, "Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie" had established that Bart eventually becomes Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
• Cool, but Inefficient: The car chandelier might look cool but it makes driving harder. Cue car crash.
• Couch Gag: The family is shrunken and climbs the "giant" couch.
• Department of Redundancy Department: "Springfield Women's Prison - A Prison for Women"
• Designated Villain: In-universe. Marge is suddenly treated like a pariah by nearly everyone in Springfield because she accidentally forgot to pay for a bottle of bourbon.
• Disastrous Demonstration: The Juice-Loosener, Dr. Nick's current invention and Troy's current shilling target. Not only does it make a deafening grinding sound and rattle like it's about to explode, but it only manages a single drop of juice despite Nick dumping what looks like eight oranges in there. Naturally, Troy and Nick cheerfully shout about how they can't hear a thing over the din, and Troy marvels that Nick got "all that out from one bag of oranges?"
• Disguised in Drag: Bart's Imagine Spot for breaking Marge out of prison involves him dressed as a woman named "Bartina", romancing the warden, then knocking him out with a crowbar to get the cell keys.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Marge forgets to pay for a bottle of cheap bourbon at the Kwik-E-Mart (she was too exhausted from dealing with her sick family for several days to notice it was in her pocket). She apologizes for that and makes clear she will pay immediately. Apu calls the cops on her (which arrive with multiple officers that point their guns at her like she was a psychotic thief) and she's put through trial and then placed in jail. The rest of the townspeople treat her like a drunken maniac — and as a matter of fact, it's because of this that they lie in court and take Helen Lovejoy's slander as iron-clad proof in order to declare her guilty.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: While battling the alligator, Grandpa keeps taunting it with a toilet plunger until his dentures fall into its mouth. The gator promptly crunches them to bits and gives Grandpa a mocking grin.
• The Dog Bites Back: Literally. When the Springfieldians riot over the Jimmy Carter statue, Wiggum attempts to sic the police dogs on the rioters. When Lou notes that they look angry, Wiggum explains that's because he's been mistreating the dogs to rile them up (such as starving them, teasing them and singing off-key). The dogs proceed to tear him apart when they're set loose.
• Easily Condemned: All it takes is her forgetting to pay for a bottle of bourbon (which she was perfectly willing to pay for and apologize, but Apu didn't care) and Helen Lovejoy gossiping about her being a drunken maniac while she's testifying under oath in order for Springfield to toss Marge in jail.
• Epic Fail:
  • When Burns finds Homer eating a sandwich in the special chamber he's built for himself to sit out the flu epidemic, Homer's cover story for what he's doing there: "My name is Mr. Burns."
  • Lionel Hutz gets busted on jury-tampering by submitting the verdict himself...on a cocktail napkin, that still says "guilty", and "guilty" is spelled wrong.
  • After only ten minutes of the family returning home, the house descended into chaos and despair.
  • At some point in the aforementioned chaos, Bart decided to vandalize his own fridge.
• Evil Is Petty: Helen Lovejoy spreads gossip that Marge is an alcoholic maniac (which is lying under oath), which gets Marge imprisoned, just because she'll never stop spreading gossip.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: "Could you imagine a world without lawyers?"
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Both Apu and the jury manage to miss Lionel Hutz removing his tie and hiding it up his sleeve (where it's visibly sticking out) to convince him that he was never wearing a tie at all.
  • Hutz gives his closing arguments while completely bottomless. He doesn't notice until Judge Snyder points it out.
• Foreshadowing: Apu's Laser-Guided Karma in Snake stealing the Kwik-E-Mart and transferring it by truck to Mexico is the first sign that Springfield will enter chaos.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Lionel Hutz switches out the verdict with a cocktail napkin, if you pay attention when the verdict is being handed to the judge you can actually see Hutz performing a quick sleight-of-hand and switch the verdicts.
• Funny Background Event: During the riots, a man can be seen stealing a TV in nothing but his underwear.
• Gaslighting: During the court case, Hutz attempts to manipulate Apu into believing his memory is faulty. He does this by asking Apu what color tie he is wearing, and when Apu not only tells him the color but what type of knot it's in, Hutz not-so-discreetly takes it off and demonstrates his bare neck. Despite the tie sticking out of Hutz's sleeve, it works on both Apu and the jury.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: Bart's temperature is checked by Marge and is informed that he is alright enough for school. He immediately sends signals to his immune system to catch the disease, which leads to this exchange in Bart's stomach:
  Antibody: (in Squeaky Voiced Teen's voice) Sarge, we keep getting orders to let the virus win.
  Sergeant: Hmm. Must be a school day. Lay down your arms!
  (the antibodies immediately fold flat in front of the virus, who starts absorbing them)
  Virus: (with Snake's voice) All right! Let's make some pus!
• Gilligan Cut:
  • After Marge was found guilty, Apu commented on how safe the Kwik-E-Mart was. Cut to Snake and an unnamed criminal loading the store onto a flatbed truck and hauling ass to Mexico.
  • With Marge gone, Lisa suggests that if the rest of the family work together they can keep the house clean. 10 minutes later, and the kitchen is a total mess.
• The Glomp: In one of the conjugal visit trailers, Marge aggressively glomps Homer for sex, which then turns over the trailer.
  Homer: Honey, I don't know what you're feeling, right now. So I don't want to push anything. We can just hold hands or sit and talk...
  (Marge, overwhelmed with feelings of lust, immediately glomps Homer aggressively)
  Homer: Whoa!
• Gossipy Hens: Helen Lovejoy, by her own admission. She even gives gossip as evidence at Marge's trial.
• Gone Horribly Right: Troy and Dr. Nick's demonstration of "Sun'N'Run" (the sun tan lotion that doubles as a laxative). It works so well that Troy runs off to the bathroom the instant Nick finishes explaining what it does.
• Heel Realization: The whole town had this when they realize putting Marge in jail was the worst mistake they ever did due to her not able to help with the bake sale and lead them to getting a Jimmy Carter statue instead of Abraham Lincoln one.
• Hong Kong Dub: Parodied; the two Japanese factory workers' dialogue is deliberately wildly out of sync (including their laughter, which isn't nearly long enough for the animation) to give the impression it has been dubbed.
• Illness Blanket:
  • After getting the flu, Bart lies on the sofa under a blanket.
  • During the scene of the sick Flanders, Todd also lies under a blanket on the sofa while Maude is wrapped in a blanket and giving herself a Foot Bath Treatment.
• Infection Scene: A Japanese worker at a kitchen appliance factory begs one of his co-workers not to tell the supervisor he has the flu, right before he coughs a visible cloud of green and red germs into a box shipping a juice loosener to Springfield. This leads to an Osaka flu outbreak in Springfield when the juicers arrive at their destination several weeks later.
• Informed Attribute: Downplayed. Hutz implies Judge Snider has it in for him due to (repeatedly) running over his son. While Marge's trial is a Kangaroo Court, it has little to do with Snider's involvement, and most of his grievances with Hutz only stem from his genuine incompetence in court.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • After Marge is accused of shoplifting, Professor Frink, testifying for the prosecution, pretty much accuses her of being the second gunman of the Grassy Knoll. His evidence is nothing but a blue bush that looks similar to Marge's trademark blue hair. Even though it's unlikely, the jury buys it.
  • Apu thinking that Marge being in jail will mean the store is safe. Even without the scene with the store being hijacked, one of the recurring gags about Apu is how often his store is robbed by people who aren't Marge. Though he might have assumed Snake and Marge were in on it together.
• Jerkass Ball: Apu, Sanjay and the majority of on-screen characters who gossip about Marge because she forgot to pay for the bourbon even though it was clearly an accident due to how stressed out she was. Special mention goes to Helen Lovejoy, whose gossip mongering and testimony help get Marge thrown in prison.
• Just Following Orders: When Homer asks Apu and Sanjay to drop the charges against Marge, Apu tells him they're required by company policy to prosecute her. Their celebratory mood over the issue, however, makes it clear that it's not the only reason they're doing it.
• Kangaroo Court: Poor Marge gets put through this in spades, experiencing a Felony Misdemeanor and untrustworthy testimonies to receive an excessive and unnecessary sentence. To recap:
  • She runs herself ragged caring for her sick family, cumulating in her having to buy a big basket of items from the Kwik-E-Mart.
  • Due to her exhaustion, she forgets to pay for Grampa's bourbon (having put it in her pocket). When the alarm goes off and the bourbon is found, Marge tries to explain that she intended to pay for it, but Apu won't listen.
  • The police force swarm the building, treating Marge as if she was armed and dangerous, arresting her.
  • The only people who should have known about the incident are Apu (and Sanjay), Marge (and her family), the police, and the mayor. Mayor Quimby not only tells people (after being ordered specifically not to), but makes it a public announcement, ensuring that as many people know as possible.
  • Apu not only refuses to drop the charges, but openly celebrates the possibility of Marge going to prison (for something he knows was an accident).
  • The "testimony" that gets levelled against Marge involves Malicious Slander that includes her being accused of rampant alcoholism and masterminding the Kennedy assassination, despite Marge being a small child at the time.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Homer going to the Kwik-E-Mart to see if Apu can just let go of the charges, only to find him and Sanjay celebrating and Apu pausing long enough to tell Homer that he can't do that because it's company policy to deal with any shoplifters with the full extent of the law (and talking about Marge like she was a criminal as bad as Snake, even saying they're going to "put the bitch on ice").
  • The main reason why Marge ended up in prison is because Helen Lovejoy is a bullying Gossipy Hen.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • The majority of Springfield treating Marge like a pariah comes back to bite them big time when riots break out after the city purchases a statue of Jimmy Carter instead of Abraham Lincoln, all because they couldn't raise enough money to buy Lincoln. The reason behind this is because, had Marge been able to help out with the bake sale used to fund the statue's purchase (which she would have, if she hadn't been jailed unfairly), they would've made just enough to buy Lincoln.
  • Apu assumes the Kwik-E-Mart will be safe now that Marge is in prison. We see that while he's been at Marge's trial, Snake has loaded the Kwik-E-Mart on a truck and is now driving it to Mexico.
• Lazily Gender-Flipped Name: Bart's Imagine Spot for breaking Marge out of prison involves him dressed as a woman named "Bartina".
• Limited Wardrobe: Lampshaded by Lisa when she gets her clothes dirty.
  Lisa: It seems like I've been wearing this same red dress forever!
• The Lopsided Arm of the Law: The ringing of the Kwik-E-Mart's silent alarm to deal with an accidental shoplifter merits multiple patrol cars that arrive within seconds of the button being pressed and officers pointing their guns at Marge like she was armed and dangerous. Later on, Snake steals the whole damn building with a flat-bed truck, yet nothing happens.
• Lower Half Reveal: Mayor Quimby is holding a press conference, claiming that he cancelled his Bahamas vacation to oversee the flu plaguing Springfield. At first, the live footage shown on TV shows him in the Mayor's office wearing a suit and tie, it then cuts to the actual filming location in question, showing what's off camera. First, it reveals that Quimby isn't wearing proper pants, but swim trunks, before panning out to reveal that the office is just a set on the beach, revealing that Quimby is lying about cancelling his vacation.
• Master of Your Domain: Bart deliberately suppresses his immune system in order to avoid school.
• Men Can't Keep House: Exaggerated. With Homer in charge after Marge's imprisonment, it takes all of ten minutes for the house to become a complete mess.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Maude was basically the voice of the town who thought this after putting Marge in jail.
• Noodle Incident:
  • What did Hutz do to piss off the National Council of Churches so much that it resulted in a lawsuit?
  • And for that matter, why did he repeatedly run over Judge Snyder's son?
• Not So Above It All: For all her self-proclaimed virtue, Maude still treats Marge with paranoid suspicion when she comes over to her house.
• "Not So Different" Remark: When Nelson tries to taunt Bart about Marge's situation during school.
  Nelson: Ha ha! Your mom's a jailbird!
  Bart: So's yours.
  Nelson: Oh, yeah. Let's play!
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Troy McClure gets a literal "Oh Crap" moment when, during an infomercial for Dr. Nick's Juice Loosener, he tries on Dr. Nick's Tanning Cream/Laxative without knowing what it is.
  • Otto sunbathing on a rooftop, just as he realizes he's about to be hit by a dollop of vomit infected with the dreaded Osaka Flu falling from Arnie Pie's helicopter. Shown from the perspective of said dollop.
• Plaguemaster: At the Juice Loosener factory in Osaka, Japan, a worker carelessly coughs into numerous machine boxes, thus causing the Osaka Flu outbreak in Springfield.
• P.O.V. Cam: Of Arnie Pye's vomit.
  Otto: (laying down to sunbathe) Okay, Mr. Sun, gimme what you got! (cut to POV of the vomit falling towards Otto) Aaaahhhh!!!
• Powder Keg Crowd: The fact that the statue purchased by the mayor was of Jimmy Carter instead of Abraham Lincoln is enough to make everybody angry enough for a riot to quickly break out afterwards.
• The Scourge of God: Played for laughs. Ned Flanders believes that he got infected because God did not like the fact that Ned found Married... with Children funny.
• Sewer Gator: A sewer gator appears trapped in the Simpsons toilet - and battling Grampa:
  Bart: "We flushed the gator down the toilet, but it got stuck halfway, and now we have to feed it."
• Shooting the Swarm: When the clouds of infected air are spreading the Osaka flu, Wiggum tries shooting one of them.
• Shout-Out:
  • Annie's tattoo on her back is one to MAD Magazine.
  • Flanders remembers watching Married... with Children on FOX and thinks he's been damned for it.
  • Lionel Hutz's brief Imagine Spot of "a world without lawyers" is one to the popular "Buy The World a Coke" Coca-Cola ads (complete with a similar soundalike instrumental).
• Shown Their Work: Apu testifies in a courtroom scene in the episode that he is able to recite 40,000 decimal places of the number pi. He correctly notes that the 40,000th digit is the number one. The writers prepared for this scene by asking David H. Bailey of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (now at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) for the number of the 40,000th decimal place of pi. Bailey sent them back a printout of the first 40,000 digits.
• Special Guest: Phil Hartman as Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure
• Steal the Surroundings: Snake manages to steal the entire Kwik-E-Mart.
• Steel Drums and Sunshine: Quimby pretends he cancelled his vacation to the Bahamas because of the pandemic, but is Instantly Proven Wrong by a beachgoing pannist walking in front of the camera.
  Quimby: Hey, you! Get that steel drum out of the, uh, mayor's office.
  Pannist: Sorry, mon.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: At the juice loosener ad, Troy McClure smashes an orange at his face to imply that's the only way to extract juice from it before the loosener was invented. Homer is then seen using that method while watching the ad and being surprised it's not the only way. Considering the success of the product, it seems Springfieldans have no idea about other methods either.
• Take That!:
  • The crowd goes into a riot when, instead of an Abraham Lincoln statue, a Jimmy Carter statue is built (according to the DVD commentary, the writers do believe that Jimmy Carter was a bad U.S. President, but not as bad as George W. Bush):
    Random Townsperson: He's history's greatest monster!
  • Marge being accused of shooting JFK could be this towards the various conspiracy theories.
  • Ned thinks he's invoked The Scourge of God by laughing at an episode of Married... with Children.
• Tattooed Crook: The aptly-named Tattoo Annie is positively covered in ink, even having a MAD Magazine fold-in on her back (she pushes her shoulders together to make it work).
• Tempting Fate:
  • After Marge gets sent to jail, Apu pronounces that the Kwik-E-Mart is safe once more. Even at this moment Snake is stealing said store and driving off to Mexico with it.
  • Lisa is sure that if everyone does their fair share with Marge gone, the Simpsons can keep their house clean. Ten minutes later, the place is an ungodly mess, and everyone is somehow out of clean clothes.
• Thinks of Something Smart, Says Something Stupid: Mr. Burns finds Homer sitting in a secret private chamber eating a sandwich. Burns furiously demands to know who he is.
  Homer's Brain: Don't panic. Just come up with a good story.
  Homer: My name is Mr. Burns.
  Homer's Brain: D'OH!
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: Wiggum encounters a strain of Osaka Flu and, after shooting at it futilely, throws his gun at it.
• Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: An ad for the "juice loosener" suggests that without said product, the only way to get juice from an orange is to painfully squeeze it against your forehead. Indeed, Homer was unaware of any other way.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • A juice loosener factory worker refuses to take a sick day, which sends an epidemic to the places they were shipping.
  • While a frazzled Marge is heading out to get supplies for her sick family, Abe—who isn't sick himself—throws in a request for a bottle of bourbon, the item she ends up failing to pay for.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: When Arnie Pie is giving his helicopter news report, he gets sick and vomits out the copter window. We don't see it, but smash cut to Otto, who is about to sunbathe. The camera takes the viewpoint of Arnie's vomit, which falls towards a screaming Otto.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The Osaka flu plot is dropped at the start of Act Two, with none of the previously-infected characters or any other Springfieldians showing any signs of the disease.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: According to a sign at the end of Act Two, Springfield is 678 miles from Mexico City, putting it around southern Texas.
• Who Shot JFK?: Frink accuses Marge of this, claiming a hedge by the grassy knoll sort-of resembles Marge's hairstyle.
• Working Through the Cold: One of the employees at the juice loosener factory causes Springfield's Asian flu epidemic. His coworker claims to have a shattered pelvis.
• Worst News Judgement Ever: "Let the word go forth from this time and place: Marge Simpson is a shoplifter!"
• Your Mom: When Nelson taunts Bart with "Your mom's a jailbird!", Bart points out that Nelson's mom is too. Nelson concedes the point and they head off to play.

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