Original air date: 3/30/2003 (produced in 2002)
Production code: EABF-11
Lisa takes up astronomy and causes the town to go crazy from sleep deprivation when she protests the light pollution in the sky.
Tropes:
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Fat Tony has no qualms about ordering his goons to beat up a bird just because it landed on his hood ornament.
- Celebrity Paradox: Eric Idle (Declan Desmond) is best known as a member of Monty Python, which was mentioned in Season 5's "Homer Goes to College".
- Disproportionate Retribution: Fat Tony orders Legs and Louie to beat up a bird because the bird landed on his hood ornament.
- Deadpan Snarker: Declan Desmond is brilliant at this, especially at Lisa's expense. It definitely helps that he's voiced by Eric Idle.
- Drinking Game: Moe's "Drink a Gallon of Gin Challenge". Instead of taking pictures of everyone who's completed it and putting them up on the wall, he instead takes pictures of everyone who's failed it and given themselves alcohol poisoning.Moe Syzlak: (cackling) No one's ever won Moe's "Drink A Gallon of Gin" Challenge, and no one ever will!
- Failure Montage: In Declan's documentary, Milhouse says that he wants to be a major league batter. Cue many clips of him failing to hit the baseball. Milhouse finally manages to hit the baseball... and he trips over the tee while running around in excitement.
- Foreshadowing: Carl briefly recalls his childhood in Iceland. Carl's family is the plot point of "The Saga of Carl".
- Giftedly Bad: In the final scene, Milhouse imagines himself batting "3-52 in the Majors". Gilligan Cut to him struggling to hit a stationary baseball on a pedestal and then tripping over after he finally hits it.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Declan Desmond is an asshole but he's right that Lisa is a Master of None and needs to stop overextending herself.
- Loophole Abuse: At the start of the episode, Principal Skinner reminds the students that the school computers are not to be used to access various websites that disparage him (i.e. skinnersucks.org). However, he forgot to mention skinner-in-a-shredder.com, and Bart gleefully visits the website.
- Master of None: A plot point is that Lisa overextends herself and if she continues down that path, she won't reach her potential or accomplish anything.
- Motive Decay: At first, Bart wants to steal a hood ornament to impress his fellow students. He eventually forgets why he wants the hood ornament but still tries to steal it.
- Oh, Crap!: Bart's first attempt to steal Fat Tony's hood ornament is foiled when Mayor Quimby switches the lights back on.
- Paper Tiger: Bart loses his title of king of the school when Nelson throw dirt at him, making him cry and say that he'll snitch.
- Pet the Dog: Despite the Snark-to-Snark Combat between Declan and Lisa and how he mocks her petition to deal with light pollution, he still signs it.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title refers to Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" and its line "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky".
- Pragmatic Villainy: Fat Tony refuses to let his enforcers fire blindly into the night, as they might hit a made man.
- Unwinnable by Design: Moe's "Drink a Gallon of Gin" challenge. Based on the US gallon (3.785 liters) and the average volume of gin being around 40%, a gallon of gin would have over 150 units. That much alcohol would kill anyone, not to mention how hard drinking that much of any fluid in one sitting would be.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The reason why Bart's plan failed the first time is because Mayor Quimby turned the lights back on in order to prevent crime.
- Would Hurt a Child: After creating a mass blackout, most of the town turns into a mob and converges on Bart and Lisa, intending to "tear them limb from limb" (and presumably Homer as well). Only Lisa pointing out a meteor shower above prevents the mob from hurting the kids.
