Theatre / Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play

MATT: It starts... the episode starts with Bart getting letters saying 'I'm going to kill you, Bart'.
JENNY: Right... 'I'm going to kill you Bart'... because doesn't Lisa, doesn't she have a pen pal or something?

A 2012 play written by Anne Washburn, which explores how pop culture might work After the End.

It is 20 Minutes into the Future, and society has collapsed following a series of nuclear-based disasters. A group of survivors have found themselves brought together around a campfire in the wilderness. As a way of bonding and lifting their spirits, they begin to talk about their favourite episodes of The Simpsons, which soon results in an impromptu attempt to recite the events of the episode "Cape Feare".

The events then jump forward seven years, at which point the survivors have become a theatre troupe performing their interpretation of the episode to audiences of other survivors, as well as commercials, chart-topping hits, and reminders of what was lost. The third act takes place seventy-five years after that, where the episode is still being performed - as an operatic morality play which has amalgamated myth and history into an allegorical epic about finding a reason to live in a harsh and unforgiving world where everyone and everything you love is gone.

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This play provides examples of:

• Accidental Misnaming: Jenny can't remember whether Itchy is the cat and Scratchy is the mouse, or the other way round. This carries over into the play in Act III:
  Mr. Burns: Itchy, Scratchy – whichever one you are.
• Actually Quite Catchy: When Bart's dead family sing to encourage him to keep fighting in Act III, Itchy and Scratchy are briefly caught up in their enthusiasm and even sing along before Burns snaps them back to attention.
• Adaptational Badass: By Act III, the Simpsons are treated as a family of legend who escaped the nuclear holocaust and bravely stand up to Mr. Burns even in the face of certain death.
• Adaptational Jerkass: The play in Act III amplifies the villainy of some of the characters to better reflect the survivors' experience of the nuclear holocaust.
  • Mr. Burns, the Corrupt Corporate Executive of the show, ends up taking Sideshow Bob's place as the villain who seeks to kill the Simpsons. Unlike both of them, this Mr. Burns is a Satanic figure who gleefully relishes in death and destruction. And he succeeds in killing everyone except Bart.
  • Itchy goes from a cartoon character to a very real demon that works for Mr. Burns.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Act III's version of Jerk with a Heart of Gold Homer Simpson is all heart, lacking abusive tendencies and serving as Bart's encourager from beyond the grave after his death.
• Adaptational Villainy: Scratchy in The Itchy & Scratchy Show was a genial character who the psychotic Itchy endlessly attacked without provocation. The Simpsons play in Act III casts Scratchy as Itchy's equally psychotic partner in crime.
• Adaptation Expansion: While the confrontation on the houseboat takes up only a few minutes in the original episode, it forms almost the entirety of the play in Act III.
• After the End: The play is set after a series of nuclear catastrophes has hit the United States.
• As Long as There Is Evil: Keeping with the themes of radioactive death, Mr. Burns in Act III claims that even if Bart kills him, he'll return and be around for a very long time, potentially forever.
• Battle in the Rain: "Cape Feare"'s climactic incident has turned into this by Act III.
• Bound and Gagged: The antagonist tying up Bart's family is one of the few elements of "Cape Feare" left in its distant adaptation in Act III, though the gags are a new addition.
• Call-Back: The script specifically notes that Edna's notebook in Act III should be the same notebook that belonged to Jenny in Act I.
• Cerebus Callback: Burns' murder of Homer by breaking his neck in Act III serves as this on two levels: it recalls the Headbutt of Love between Sam and Gibson (played by the same actors) in Act II, and it evokes the Simpsons Running Gag of Homer strangling Bart.
• Character Exaggeration: In Act III, Mr. Burns' Evil Is Hammy nature has been pushed far beyond what even the show's Flanderization would allow for (save perhaps in a Treehouse of Horror segment), going from merely evil and selfish to a Satan-like embodiment of the nuclear apocalypse who hunts down and kills the Simpsons one by one. Inverted with the Simpson family themselves, who have been downplayed to the point of appearing as a dignified clan of survivors, with most of their comedic traits only alluded to in dialogue.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Mr. Burns demands that the audience clap if they want love to conquer hate.
• Composite Character:
  • In-Universe, after 75 years, Sideshow Bob is now Mr. Burns, a Satanic entity who also represents an avatar of radiation and death and incorporates elements of Robert Deniro's character from Cape Fear.
  • Troy McClure's portrayal in Act III implies he may have been in part conflated with Kent Brockman as he is the one reporting on the nuclear disaster (though Kent is briefly mentioned as breaking up, which could mean he is still remembered but Demoted to Extra).
  • Mention of a character named Thelma implies that Patty and Selma may have been merged into a single character.
• Covered in Gunge: In Act II, the actors discuss adding a new visual gag: having Sideshow Bob emerge from under the Simpsons' car with his face covered in motor oil. A discussion ensues as to whether the joke is really about Bob's Determinator nature (implying that he was willing to cling to the car even with hot oil spraying him in the face) or just that "something on a person's face is funny."
• Creation Myth: The explosion of the "Springfield Nucyalur Power Tower" becomes the explanation for the apocalypse in the play in the third act.
• Cue the Sun: The play concludes with an array of light bulbs brightening the stage for the first time since the apocalypse... courtesy of the actor playing Mr. Burns pedaling a stationary bicycle behind the set.
• Darker and Edgier: The original silly "Cape Feare" episode of The Simpsons is turned into a horrific and grandiose battle between good and evil where the world is destroyed and most of the Simpsons are violently killed.
• Dark Reprise: Act III consists almost entirely of these.
  • The original troupe's renditions of "Toxic" by Britney Spears and "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons have become literal descriptions of the post-nuclear world. Other songs from their repertoire are similarly repurposed or rewritten to reflect the new tone.
    • "La Vida Loca" is reworked into the residents of Springfield's song about the nuclear disaster that ultimately kills them all.
    • "Toxic" is reworked into part of Burns' Villain Song.
    • "Lose Yourself" is rewritten twice, first for Bart asking Burns to just finish him off already after killing his family and then for Bart's family encouraging him to stand up to and kill Mr. Burns.
  • "Three Little Maids From School Are We," a song from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado that appears in the original "Cape Feare" episode and in Act One, is rewritten as Itchy and Scratchy's Villain Song.
  • The cartoon's familiar Title Theme Tune itself:
    No one thought to flee no one knew to flee
    There's just one family
    There's only one family
    Runs towards their destiny
    On a dark and savage journey
    Runs from catastrophe
    To their final agony
    THE SIMP-SONS!
• Dawson Casting: In-Universe, adult actors play Bart and Lisa in both Act II and Act III, where an adult also briefly plays Nelson Muntz.
• The Dead Have Names: In the first act, it's become common for survivors to write down the names of others they've encountered and compare notes upon meeting someone new to find out if anyone has seen their loved ones. In the third act, these lists of names have been incorporated into the play and are chanted by the chorus while Troy McClure soliloquizes about mortality.
• Death by Adaptation: In Act III, everyone except Bart dies in the play. Springfield is destroyed by the nuclear meltdown and it's implied that the Simpsons family are the only ones who escaped. Mr. Burns kills the majority of the Simpsons family on the boat instead of tying them up before confronting Bart. And Bart kills Mr. Burns in their duel instead of stalling for the police to arrive (as they were likely dead at this point).
• Defiant Captive: The Simpsons in Act III.
• Defiant to the End: After a brief lapse when his family are killed, Bart regains the "Simpsons spirit" and decides to "make a little trouble" during what he believes to be the short time he has left to live.
• Determinator: Sideshow Bob's role as this in "Cape Feare" comes up in Act II during a discussion of the staging minutiae of the scene where he emerges from under the Simpsons' car. When Gibson suggests that there should be engine oil on his face, Quincy and Maria debate how realistic it should look; while Quincy thinks it doesn't matter since they're trying to evoke a cartoon, Maria feels it's important to his character that the substance should be recognizable as "it's not just that he's dirty but [that] all during the journey, he's clinging to the underbelly of the car, hot engine oil, in his face [...] but he holds on, he perseveres. Like that's what makes him scary."
• Distant Finale: Act III takes place 75 years after Act II (and 82 years after Act I).
• Dumb Struck: Colleen is nonverbal (though clearly conscious of what's going on) throughout Act I, and it's implied that she's been through some kind of trauma that made her this way. By Act II, seven years later, she's recovered her voice.
• Enemies with Death: Bart essentially is this in Act III, with Mr. Burns having evolved over time into a personification of the nuclear holocaust and taken over the role formerly held by Sideshow Bob as Bart's murderous nemesis.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: In-universe, it's stated that Mr. Burns is very popular with audiences, which proves to be problematic for the protagonists because they only have one play that features him ("The Springfield Files") and it isn't well regarded. Provides some foreshadowing for why Burns would eventually go on to replace Sideshow Bob in the final version of "Cape Feare."
• Evil Gloating: Most of Burns' dialogue.
• Evil Is Hammy: Mr. Burns' existing hamminess is ramped up in proportion to his Adaptational Villainy and the fact that he's absorbed the still hammier (and eviler) Sideshow Bob.
• Expy Coexistence:
  • In-Universe in Act III: although Burns has become a Composite Character with Sideshow Bob and assumed his role in "Cape Feare," Sideshow Bob himself is mentioned among the citizens of Springfield that died in the meltdown, showing that he still has a separate existence in the public memory.
  • Troy McClure has seemingly absorbed the main role Kent Brockman had in the series, but a line where he says "Kent, you're breaking up" implies that Brockman has been Demoted to Extra rather than forgotten entirely.
• Fair-Play Villain: Rather than stab a defenseless Bart, Mr. Burns gives him his own sword to make things "interesting."
• Faux Affably Evil: Mr. Burns as he is portrayed in the Show Within a Show in the third act. He's bombastic and puts on a thinly-veiled mask of jocular civility, but is an evil demonic figure who relishes in death and destruction.
• Fire-Forged Friends: It is implied that most or all of the survivors only met each other after the apocalypse. By act two, they've formed a theatre troupe, and been traveling together for seven years.
• Food Porn: In-Universe. The "commercial" in Act II doesn't actually mimic an ad for anything in particular but is an excuse to lovingly describe the wide variety of food and drink options available to people before the disaster, along with other conveniences like hot baths. As Jenny puts it, it hits "that fine line between tantalization and torture."
• Forgot Flanders Could Do That: Act III treats the Simpsons like characters in a dramatic epic, but now and then the original tone jumps through, like when Burns complains about the racket the "Ghost Simpsons" are making or when Lisa struggles out of her gag:
  Bart: Cowabunga! Way to bust a gag, Lis!
• Foregone Conclusion: In true Greek Tragic style, the Act III's chorus predicts the "final agony" of the Simpsons before the action even starts, making it clear they won't survive, although Bart makes it in the end.
• Freak Out: In the second act, Gibson starts to have something of a panic attack when he starts to verbally recall the nuclear meltdown and the subsequent collapse of society afterward.
• Future Imperfect: The Simpsons episode takes on very different forms over the years. Even in the (relative) present, the unreliable memories of the people reciting it result in it being slightly inaccurate; e.g., they recall Sideshow Bob writing letters in ketchup instead of blood, and the houseboat being surrounded by piranhas instead of electric eels.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: By the second act, the survivors seemed to have developed a gesture for this that involves pulling one's head forward until their forehead makes contact with your own. It's described as being "half comforting, half hostile, weirdly intimate, and not sexual." Sam uses it on Gibson to curb his Freak Out.
• Get It Over With: Initially Bart's response when Burns goes for him after killing his entire family.
• Ghost Song: Act III has two different ghost choruses: one of the citizens of Springfield explaining how they died and another of Bart's deceased family urging him to keep going.
• Greek Chorus: The supporting characters in the third act form a chorus that comments on the struggle between Bart and Mr. Burns.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Bart faces Mr. Burns in a life-or-death sword fight.
• Heroic BSoD: Bart in the third act falls into despair after his entire family is killed by Mr. Burns, and resigns himself to a quick death. However, the encouraging words of his family from beyond the grave influence him to keep fighting.
• Historical Character Confusion:
  • As the story of "Cape Feare" evolves over time, Mr. Burns takes on the role of Sideshow Bob.
  • In Act I, Jenny isn't sure if Itchy and Scratchy are the names of, respectively, the cat and the mouse or the mouse and the cat: Matt, the most Simpsons-knowledgeable of the group, tells her that Scratchy is the cat and Itchy is the mouse. In the script of Act III, Itchy has become the cat and Scratchy the mouse, although this Brick Joke doesn't quite make it onto the stage as Mr. Burns himself is unsure which is which.
• Historical Villain Upgrade:
  • In-universe; the villain of the episode is gradually changed from Sideshow Bob to Mr. Burns, who in turn goes from being an elderly Corrupt Corporate Executive as he is in the original show to being a Satanic deity of death and radiation.
  • Interestingly, the character of Mr. Burns also seems to be this to actual nuclear plant managers. In Act I, it's discussed that the nuclear disasters happened because during the unspecified apocalyptic event, the work required to maintain the reactors was left until the last minute, and the understaffed plants ended up melting down, irradiating the environment. In the in-universe play, 82 years later, Burns is presented as deliberately sabotaging the nuclear plant and killing everyone in Springfield, whereas in real life it's certainly less clear that the disasters were the result of intentional malice, rather than market forces.
• Hope Spot:
  • Jenny gets a brief one when it seems that Gibson has met one of the people on her list. As the name and physical details continue to match up, she gets increasingly excited - only to be let down when it turns out to be someone different.
  • Act III has two: Lisa breaks out of her gag and defies Burns along with Bart, both asserting that he'll regret messing with their Badass Family before they're threatened into silence by Itchy's Wolverine Claws. Later, Homer also breaks out of his gag to reassure Lisa and tell her that "Hope will always triumph" before being killed by Burns mid-stanza.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Burns menaces Lisa by sticking his thumb into her mouth in a scene that echoes the 1991 Cape Fear. He also notably kills Marge by pulling her towards him "as if for a dance," then breaking her neck.
• Indestructible Edible: Diet Coke and lithium batteries become increasingly treasured as the years pass and the quantities left in existence dwindle.
• Informed Attribute: Aside from a smattering of Bart's characteristic smartassery, the key comedic traits of the Simpson family don't really show up in Act III at all, but they're briefly alluded to by Bart, showing that they're still a part of the public consciousness with regard to the characters:
  Bart: Homer there is a small-time drunk, my sister is the most annoying nerd on the planet and Mom God love her, ya gotta love 'er but that blue hair, the nagging, well good riddance to them all, that's what I say.
• In Medias Res: The first act of the play opens up with the survivors gathered around their campfire just as they're beginning to recall the "Cape Feare" episode of The Simpsons. It's not made immediately obvious that this takes place sometime After the End.
• In-Universe Catharsis: While Act Two's iteration of "Cape Feare" as a Show Within a Show is pure Escapism, reuniting survivors with a favorite cartoon and other reminders of the time before the disaster, Act Three's iteration is very much this, taking the Simpsons through the harsh reality of the loss and death associated with the meltdown before finally offering hope on the other side.
• Ironic Echo:
  • "[I'll/You'll] Stay away... forever." In the original episode, it's a comedic failed threat made by Sideshow Bob to Bart. In act three recreation of this episode, it's what Bart tells Mr. Burns (who fills the same role as Sideshow Bob) to do as he kills him.
  • Act II has a touching moment where Sam presses his forehead to Gibson's in order to calm him down. The script explicitly says that Mr. Burns' murder of Homer in the third act should mirror this scene - right down to casting the same actors in these roles.
  • In-Universe in Act III's play, when Bart tries to get Mr. Burns to let his family go, Burns points out that there's nowhere to go but outside in the storm and mockingly repeats Homer's earlier suggestion that they should stay inside to "play cards and drink hot cocoa."
• It Amused Me: Echoing their role in the show as embodiments of grisly comedy as discussed in Act I, Itchy and Scratchy are motivated by this in Act III, claiming in their Villain Song that "appalling things are a source of fun" to them.
• Just Ignore It: In Act III, Homer's solution to dealing with the unknown future is to ignore the problem and pretend things are fine.
• Killed Midsentence: Homer Simpson is killed mid-song in Act III.
• Knuckle Tattoos: Mr. Burns has "Love" and "Hate" tattoos, referencing "Cape Feare" and The Night of the Hunter.
• Legend Fades to Myth: The Simpsons episode gradually goes from being a way for the survivors to bond over shared cultural loves to a mythic representation of life before the collapse of society.
• Living Prop: As a character, Maggie doesn't have much to do in either Show Within a Show iteration of "Cape Feare"...which is Justified as she is in fact a prop, being represented by a baby doll.
• Made of Evil: Mr. Burns is treated as the physical embodiment of the disaster itself.
• Meaningful Echo: Troy McClure narrates the unfolding destruction of the power plant in Act III, and his Catchphrase "You might remember me...", recalled as "You may know me...", is repeated with variations until it becomes associated with his death and all the lives lost to the crisis:
  You you you you you may know me
  You may have known me
  Maybe you knew me
  Now there's no knowing me
• MegaCorp: In Act II, the rival theater team "Richard's Couch" has the resources for a competent security team, stashes of rare items like lithium batteries and flashlights, and enough clout to buy lines and run competitors out of business entirely. The characters worry that it could end up as the only theater troupe left.
• Minimalist Cast: The play begins with five survivors, later another survivor appears and joins the group. Seven years later, another survivor joins them. The actors (plus one) play another group of characters 75 years later, performing Mr. Burns.
• Monster Clown: Mr. Burns is something of this, as a Composite Character with Sideshow Bob.
  (He is a clown gone terribly wrong: Sideshow Bob’s red dreadlocks have retracted into twin horn-like protuberances; he wears a sinister version of Burns’s three piece suit, and the red clown paint smeared around his mouth may be a distant echo of Heath Ledger’s Joker.)
• Mood Whiplash: Between the serious reality of their situation and reminiscing of funny moments from The Simpsons. It's especially notable in one moment where the survivors are talking about the nuclear meltdown, and after a quiet moment one of them suddenly remembers a forgotten punchline from "Cape Feare".
• Motive Decay: In-Universe. As briefly referenced in Act I, "Cape Feare" had Sideshow Bob trying to kill Bart in revenge for foiling his plans and getting him sent to jail in two previous episodes. By Act III, Mr. Burns' hatred of Bart and willingness to kill, not only him, but his entire family goes completely unexplained. This is Justified by the fact that Burns has become the embodiment of nuclear disaster in the evolution of the story, and the destruction he wreaks is appropriately senseless.
• Mundane Made Awesome: By Act III, what was once a Simpsons episode has become an operatic tragedy with mythological overtones.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In Act III, Burns kills all the Simpsons except Bart, who's now hopeless and eager for Burns to Get It Over With. However, Burns not only arms Bart for combat with him but yells at the ghosts of Bart's family who are singing to encourage him, making Bart aware of their presence for the first time and giving him the strength he needs to kill Burns.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The cause of the apocalypse is never explicitly stated in the play, and it's implied that the survivors themselves aren't really sure about what caused the collapse or what order things happened in.
  • The trauma that Colleen is reacting to throughout Act I. When Gibson arrives with his notebook full of names of people he's met, Jenny and Maria make a point of asking him if he's encountered a 12-year-old named "Rebecca Wright," deliberately being loud enough for Colleen to hear from her hiding place, while quietly assuring Gibson that they already know he's encountered no such person.
• Nostalgia Filter: The performers in Act II spend time discussing what they remember of the past and how good it was in reality, and a key facet of the commercials is to appeal to nostalgia with a welcoming, rosy picture of the past.
• Nothing but Hits: The troupe in Act II performs an a capella medley of 21st century pop hits, which in the third act becomes integrated into the play.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Apu's single line in the play, in the scene where the Springfield power plant melts down, has him urging the citizens to borrow buckets from his store with a "There will be no charge for that."
• Overly Long Gag: Averted - despite it being one of the most iconic gags from the episode, and its being teased repeatedly over the course of the play, the rake gag is never actually performed.
• Parody Displacement: In-Universe: it's fully possible that by Act III, the bizarre spectacle that the future has made of the Simpsons episode "Cape Feare" is the only version of Cape Fear left out there. By this time it's lost its parodic edge and dramatic details like the scary leitmotif ("Whomp whomp whomp whomp!") are Played Straight as they were in the original.
• Poisonous Person: In Act III, due to being an allegory for radiation and its fallout, Mr. Burns can kill with a touch. This is underscored with the use of "Toxic" as he kills Lisa.
• The Pollyanna: Homer is characterized by this in Act III. It doesn't save him from getting killed but enables his ghost to lead the family in encouraging Bart to keep going.
• Posthumous Narration: In Act III, Edna Krabappel leads a chorus of the citizens of Springfield who died in the meltdown.
• The Prima Donna: Downplayed with the new actor, Quincy. She is mostly nice enough, even though she has given starring roles in both of the commercials. However, she does tend to complain a bit, and also ended up starting a massive argument with Maria, where she accuses Maria of not pulling her weight.
• Proscenium Reveal: Act II, set seven years after Act I, opens with Gibson sitting in a living room watching TV before being greeted by a woman we haven't met before, complaining about her day at work. It briefly appears that society has somewhat pulled itself together during the interim before they're interrupted from offstage and it's revealed that this is a "commercial" they're rehearsing as part of a traveling theater troupe's TV-based performance.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: Act III ends with everyone in Springfield and all the Simpsons but Bart dead and no guarantee that Mr. Burns will stay away forever, but the sun rises on a new day and Bart has a limitless future, full of potential to be anything, that awaits him. Significantly, the Show Within a Show also ends with the first use of electric lightning in the entire play, showing that humanity is gradually starting to rebuild.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Subverted. The characters in the first and second acts stumble over their words, repeat themselves, and interrupt each other regularly.
• Recursive Adaptation: In-Universe, by Act III the Show Within a Show now has at least six levels of recursion, being an opera based on a play based on a TV episode based on a movie based on a movie based on a book. Whew!
• Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: They're recreating The Simpsons episodes as plays in a post apocalyptic future.
• Seinfeldian Conversation:
  • Throughout Acts I and II, with much of the former consisting of the cast hashing out the details of a remembered Simpsons episode.
  • In-Universe with the "commercial" being rehearsed in Act II, where a couple have a lengthy discussion about lunches being stolen from an office refrigerator. The point is that the mundane details of everyday life before the disaster are now an obsession.
• Serious Business: The post-apocalyptic theater circuit in Act II, where rival troupes with names like "The Reruns" and "Primetime Players" compete fiercely to stage accurate recreations of Simpsons episodes, trading and negotiating for cobbled-together scripts along with the implied performance rights and paying audience members for remembered lines of dialogue. The last practice is starting to prove unsustainable for the group we follow, as people desperate for money make lines up or take credit for lines already present and demand payment, becoming threatening when refused; to their frustration, groups with a better security detail don't have this problem and thus are able to assemble more accurate shows.
• Show Within a Show: Parts of the second act are just scenes from the play that the characters are rehearsing. Act III is an entire sung-through theatrical production, with no moments out-of-character.
• Signature Scene: In-Universe, the houseboat confrontation in "Cape Feare" (with major variations) has subsumed the entire story by the end.
• Sole Survivor: In the third-act iteration of the story, Bart is the only survivor of the Simpsons family and the Springfield disaster as a whole.
• Sound-Only Death: In Act III, Maggie's death is conveyed by a baby's cries suddenly ceasing.
• A Storm Is Coming: Act II's play, following suit from the Simpsons episode it's based on, uses Dramatic Thunder and lightning to signal Sideshow Bob's presence. In Act III's version, this has combined with the memory of a song about rain from the Act II musical medley so that a storm threatens when the Simpsons board the houseboat, begins shortly before Mr. Burns appears and is ongoing until Bart defeats Burns in a Battle in the Rain.
• Suddenly Speaking: Colleen spends all of Act I without speaking but gets a substantial amount of lines in Act II, where she becomes the play's director.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: In Act III, it's implied that the rest of the Simpsons are simply casualties of Burns' hatred for Bart.
• Terms of Endangerment: Burns to the Simpsons family throughout Act III.
• Uncanny Valley: The stage notes themselves state the costumes of The Simpsons characters in the third act should be done up in a way that doesn't "look quite right to our eyes." Depending on the performance you see, expect them to look silly and garish, or utterly nightmarish.
• Uncertain Doom: The characters we follow for most of the show flee from gunshots at the end of Act II, and the third act skips 75 years ahead without revealing what became of them.
• Villain Song:
  • In Act III, Itchy, Scratchy, and Mr. Burns get a rendition of "Three Little Maids" twisted to describe themselves and their villainy.
  • Burns also sings one about himself that repurposes some lyrics from "Toxic."
• Weird Currency: Live theatrical recreations of The Simpsons become a cultural currency, with the actors trading food and pre-apocalypse consumer products for lines from the show that people can remember.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't know what became of the survivors after getting shot at in the finale of Act II.
• Wolverine Claws: Itchy has a set in Act Three which are described as evoking Freddie Krueger's glove.
• Would Hurt a Child: Mr. Burns has no problem with killing the Simpson kids.
• You Can't Go Home Again: A major theme of Act III is that while the Simpsons long to return to the conveniences and happiness of Springfield, they can't, and have to live in the unknown.
• You Meddling Kids: In Act III, Lisa and Bart are seemingly about to make this reference as they predict Mr. Burns' defeat at their hands, but they're cut off when Itchy threatens them, with the setup clearly implying where the rhyme was supposed to go:
  Lisa: You're gonna go from dreams of glory!
  To the gutter and the skids
  Bart: There's a chance you coulda done it too...
  Together: If it weren't for these darn--

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