History Recap / TheSimpsonsS12E3InsaneClownPoppy

* Don’tExplainTheJoke: Amy Tan’s cameo is essentially (and hilariously) this. Lisa goes up and gushes about The Joy Luck Club, and how it showed her the strength of the mother daughter bond, Tan shuts her down, calling her out and saying she couldn’t have gotten it more wrong, and for her to just sit down, as she has embarrassed both of them. The joke is twofold: One, that’s EXACTLY what The Joy Luck Club is about, and Two: Amy is overly critical of Lisa for no reason, another major theme of the book.

* ShoutOut: The episode's name is a {{pun}} on Music/InsaneClownPosse.

The Simpsons visit the annual book festival, where Krusty is in attendance to sign copies for his new book (ghostwritten by John Updike), only for a young girl named Sophie to approach him and reveal herself to be the daughter he's never met. Completely unfamiliar with fatherhood, Krusty asks Homer for assistance with bonding with his daughter, but the relationship hits a snag when he bets Sophie's beloved violin in a high-stakes poker game with Fat Tony. To gain Sophie's forgiveness, Krusty and Homer risk their lives to break into Fat Tony's mansion to retrieve the instrument.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: In the flashback, Krusty's girlfriend was going to assassinate Saddam Hussein with an [=RPG=] instead of a sniper rifle.

* BaitAndSwitch: Marge gets talking with Creator/StephenKing at the book fair, who tells her he's taking a break from writing horror to write a biography about Benjamin Franklin, at which point his book pitch makes it sound like one of his usual creepy works (complete with DramaticThunder)...at which point Marge asks him to drop her a line when he gets back to writing horror, which King cheerfully promises to do.
-->'''Marge''': So, Mr. King, what tale of horror and the macabre are you working on now?
-->'''Stephen King''': Oh, I don't feel like writing horror right now.
-->'''Marge''': Oh, that's too bad.
-->'''King''': I'm working on a biography of Benjamin Franklin. He's a fascinating man. He discovered electricity, ''(menacingly, as dark clouds gather)'' and [[MadScientist used it to torture small animals and green mountain men]]! And that key he tied to the end of a kite? ''([[DramaticThunder thunderclap]])'' [[EvilIsHammy IT OPENED THE GATES OF HELL]]!
-->'''Marge''': [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Well, let me know when you get back to horror]].
-->'''King''': ''(cheerfully)'' [[PetTheDog Will do]]! ''(Writes a note: Call Marge, Re: horror)''

Krusty meets the daughter he never knew he had, then breaks her trust by losing her violin in a poker game with mobsters.

* OneTrackMindedArtist: It's revealed that, during the Gulf War, Krusty prevented a solider's attempted assassination of Saddam Hussein to keep his act fresh. Years later, when Krusty meets the daughter they illegitimately conceived, he finds her apartment full of paintings depicting clowns getting murdered.

* EveryoneHasStandards: Homer's tasteless joke about the deceased Maude Flanders "playing the field with all those guys" in heaven did not go so well with his family during his prayer. Even ''Bart'' was mortified.

* TropesForDummies: At the Festival of Books, there's an entire "Books for Dummies" section, with books like "Eating Sandwiches for Dummies", "Cow Tipping for Dummies", and "Animation for Dummies". There's even a "...for Dummies" book for ''Literature/MobyDick'', with opens with the words, "Call me Ishmael, dummy." Bart meets the fictitious author of the books and asks how he wrote all of them. The author responds, "D-uh, I dunno. Me got to go to bank, now."

* TooDumbToLive: When the mobsters chasing Homer decide to stop, he provokes them again. Frankie the Squealer can't keep his mouth shut even under threat. Johnny Tightlips won't tell where a bullet hit him.

* WorldsSmallestViolin: When Krusty begs for his daughter's violin back after losing it in a poker game, Fat Tony does this, then realizes he can now do it for real. And he's [[HiddenDepths quite good at it]]!

!! Tropes:

* TooDumbToLive: When the mobsters chasing Homer decide to stop, he provokes them again. Frankie the Squealer can't keep his mouth shut even under threat. Johnny Tightlips won't tell where a bullet hit him.

* TooDumbToLive: When the mobsters chasing Homer decide to stop, he provokes them again.