YMMV / The Simpsons S 11 E 13 Saddlesore Galactica

• Accidental Aesop: The Ogdenville band cheated (by using glow sticks, expressly against the rules) and won. Lisa spends the rest of the episode appealing to progressively higher authorities until finally then-President Bill Clinton himself overturns the results. He delivers the Spoof Aesop "If things don't go your way, just keep complaining until your dreams come true"; Marge points out that it's a petty lousy moral to take away from this, and Clinton simply replies that he's a pretty lousy president. Be that as it may, "Calmly and logically appeal to authority figures when faced with an injustice" isn't really that bad a moral.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees: "Diving horses" were a popular sideshow attraction in North America from the 1880s to the 1970s.
• Bizarro Episode: One of the show's most infamous. Given the show's usual formula, something had to happen that would make Homer quit horse racing. There were many ways this could have happened, but the other jockeys revealing themselves to be elves, singing a musical number, and threatening Homer into losing the next race was probably not something anybody would have guessed. The show usually never uses overt fantastical elements outside of brief gags, but here it plays a major role in the plot's resolution.
• Broken Base: Many fans hate this episode and call it one of the worst ever, but a fair number enjoy it because it spoofs the Flanderization and absurd plots that started to crop up in Season 9.
• Strawman Has a Point: Lisa is painted as a Sore Loser for appealing the Ogdenville band's ill-gotten win all the way up to the President, but her outrage is absolutely justified. Even if it wasn't meant maliciously, Ogdenville broke the rules and should have been disqualified, and the competition judge brushed Lisa off when she complained.

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