Trivia / The Simpsons S 4 E 2 A Streetcar Named Marge

• Approval of God: According to Edward Norton, Marlon Brando loved the episode:
  I showed him the episode where Marge gets cast in a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire. He loved it. Marlon loves stuff like that.
• Banned Episode: The episode was temporarily pulled from syndication after Hurricane Katrina because of its references to New Orleans being a horrid, run-down hellhole. The episode also angered residents of New Orleans on original airing, prompting an apology in Bart's chalkboard punishment the following episode.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Matt Groening listed this as one of his own favorites, calling the subplot "Maggie's finest moment". James L. Brooks also listed it as one of his favorites, saying it "showed we could go into areas no one thought we could go into".
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Jon Lovitz plays both Llewelyn and Llewelyn's sister.
• Distanced from Current Events: Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans song that trashes the city as a hellhole (which actually was a point of contention years before Hurricane Katrina came along) is now in worse taste than it was when it premiered. Over in the UK, the episode aired on Channel 4 alongside news reports of Katrina's destruction, leading to viewer complaints and a public apology from Channel 4. Subsequent airings on Channel 4 simply remove the "New Orleans" number, though an airing of the episode during the 2019 summer holiday played it without edits.
• DVD Commentary: All episodes have one of these, but this one is unique for featuring Hank Azaria and Jon Lovitz along with usual commentators.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The original idea was to simply have Marge in a production of Streetcar itself. When getting the rights to the play turned out to be prohibitively expensive, a lawyer advised them that they could write songs based on the story and not have to pay royalties. Of course, the songs are the best remembered part of the episode.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jeff Martin first pitched the idea of Homer being in a theatrical production of 1776.
  • There was supposed to be a scene of two Cajuns walking out of the theater in disgust after the infamous "New Orleans" musical number, but the producers couldn't find anyone who could do a convincing Cajun accent.
  • Oh, Streetcar! had a different title at one point: Hello, Trolley!

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