In this, the ninth season premiere (and first episode with Mike Scully as the newest showrunner), Homer's car is left in New York City next to the World Trade Center and Homer (who had a bad experience in NYC when he was a teenager) is forced to take his family there to retrieve it.
YMMV tropes can be found
here.
- Anything But That!: Barney becomes designated driver. He expected Duffman to show up, but not that night. He hears him coming, and realizes he'll miss out.
- Bad Vibrations: The approaching Duffmobile makes the peanuts shake.
- The Cameo: In the flashback Homer gets Woody Allen's trash on his head.
- Bart visits the MAD office and sees the magazine's mascot Alfred E. Neuman in real life.
- Call Back: Neuman asks a coworker for material lampooning the season eight episode "The New Kids on the Blech."
- Competition Coupon Madness: Barney did this offscreen, resulting in Duffman's debut.
- No Export for You / Bad Export for You: Was banned in the UK for years; The BBC first got the rights to air season 9 post 9/11, so it was never aired there at all. Sky One and Channel 4 have reintroduced it lately, although Sky have only aired a heavily censored version that removes any reference whatsoever to the World Trade Center (and both channels remove the aforementioned "they stick all the jerks in tower 1" exchange).
- Shout Out: Carl, Lenny, and Homer get drunk, and sing "The Macarena" in the car.
- Shown Their Work: It took a lot from the animators, but they got New York right...
- ...except for the World Trade Center. Anyone who lived in New York back when the towers were still standing or watched news footage of them getting hit on September 11th, 2001 will tell you the Twin Towers stood at an angle from each other, not parallel. Also, there were bathrooms at the World Trade Center Mall plaza on the ground floor, making Homer's Potty Emergency a complete waste of time (for both him and his bladder). On top of that, he could have peed on the side of his car and risked getting busted on public urination and indecent exposure charges (he's done it before on other episodes).
- Skyward Scream: When Homer is in the Tower #2 taking a piss, he sees his car get another ticket. He then unleashes a "D'oh!" the entire city can hear.
