YMMV / The Simpsons S2 E18 "Brush with Greatness"

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Marge, when explaining her painting, muses that behind Mr. Burns' horrid personality and cruelty is "a frail, withered body, perhaps not long for this world." Just four episodes later, in the season finale, Mr. Burns becomes deathly ill and nearly dies.
  • Also in the ending, Mrs. Hoover says she actually likes the unflattering nude painting of Mr. Burns because he's going to die some day. Yeah, about that...
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • As Ringo Starr is responding to fan mail from the 1970s, he says, "I don't care if it takes me another 20 years. I'm going to answer every one of them." In October 2008, Starr announced he'd no longer accept any more fan mail. In fairness, this was because Starr found out a lot of autographs he'd send in response to fan requests were being sold online for ridiculous prices, and he was understandably irritated by that. However on a more heartwarming note, he did say that he just didn't have the time to answer all of them and didn't want people to be disappointed.
  • Carl speaking with Lenny's voice is a goof in this episode. In "Holidays of Future Passed", Lenny and Carl have switched brains and speak with each other's voices.
  • H 2 Whoa would become the title of an episode for The Angry Beavers, the plot of which, centers around a water park.
  • Mr. Burns calls Homer "The fattest thing he's ever seen", despite the latter going on a diet and losing over 20 pounds. In a later episode, Homer would get out of work by gaining so much weight that he's declared legally disabled and forced to work from home, and Burns' attempt to get Homer back to his original weight through vigorous exercise is such a bust that he ends up having to pay for liposuction instead.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The caption of [Onlookers booing] (as seen when Homer is removed from the H2Whoa! section he had gotten stuck in) has reached this status.
  • "Will you take us to Mount Splashmore?" "No."...
• Signature Scene: Homer getting stuck in Mt. Splashmore's H2Whoa! water slide. As a Continuity Nod, season six's "Homer the Great" has the slide on his enemy list. It is also featured as an obstacle in the water slide level of the video game Virtual Bart.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Ringo Starr says he'll take the time to answer every piece of fan mail he's ever gotten. In October 2008, Ringo announced he'd no longer accept any more fan mail.^note It should be noted that this was not for any prima donna reason, rather he found out too many fans were selling his autographs online for outrageous prices.
  • Ringo writes to Marge from "merry old England." In 2014 he would sell the last of the homes he had there and make Los Angeles his permanent base.
• The Woobie: Homer. He'd be a Jerkass Woobie normally, but he wasn't really being a huge jerk most of the time. It's heartbreaking to see that he'd actually been working hard to lose weight, only for him to burst into tears when Mr. Burns calls him "the fattest thing he's ever seen."

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