In this Christmas anthology episode, Bart goes after Krusty Claus, Lisa dreams of Christmas in World War II Germany, Martha Stewart teaches Marge the true meaning of Christmas, and Katy Perry appears with Muppetized Simpsons.
Tropes:
- Action Mom: Marge in Lisa's story. She is called to serve in the US Army during World War II instead of Homer, and successfully kills Hitler.
- All Just a Dream: All four stories of this episode.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: When Bart wished Mr. Burns wouldn't sing "12 Days of Christmas", Burns said he'd sing the "original" version with 39 days.
- Breakfast in Bed: At the end of Marge's segment, Marge wakes up from a dream on Christmas Day to find that the rest of the family has brought her breakfast in bed... only to raise the lid off the tray to reveal breakfast ingredients. The rest of the family's attempts to make breakfast went awry, so Homer opted that they go out for breakfast instead.
- Budget-Busting Element: Parodied. The final scene is done in puppetry and features Katy Perry as a Special Guest. Mr. Burns is only able to release one of his trademark hounds, which is just a cheap sock puppet, because they blew the budget on Perry.
- Dirty Coward: When Marge shows up at the movie theater to kill Hitler, he rips off his mustache and puts it on another man's face as a failed attempt to avoid being killed.
- Fatal Family Photo: One of the snowman guards melted by Bart has one in his wallet.
- Jumped the Shark: Referenced with the live action Muppet-style segment with Katy Perry, with them questioning if people will think this bit went too far.
- Magic Wand: Martha has one she uses to press the Reset Button when Marge expresses dissatisfaction with the changes she implemented.Martha Stewart: Take an old car antenna, marinate it overnight in the tears of a heartbroken leprechaun, bake at 350 till a rainbow shoots out of the oven, and there you go.
- No Budget: So much was spent to have Katy Perry appear there was only one hound to answer Mr. Burns' usual "release the hounds" command.
- Non-Natural Number Gag: The Muppets segment hedging into a parody of Sesame Street by mentioning that the number of the day is Euler's number, or e (the exponential function, equal to approximately 2.72).
- Shout-Out:
- Bart’s segment is a spoof of The Polar Express.
- Lisa’s segment ends with Hitler being assassinated in a theatre in 1944. The movie he’s watching also features a flying elephant destroying London and strangling Winston Churchill, an allusion to rumours of Walt Disney having affiliations with the Third Reich.
- Mr. Burns decided to visit the Simpsons because he was visited by three spirits.
- The final segment is a generalized spoof of The Muppets, but the ending specifically parodies Sesame Street ("Tonight's Simpsons episode was brought to you by the symbol umlaut, and the number e
") and The Muppet Show (Abe and Jasper doing a Statler and Waldorf-type bit).
- Tearing Through the Movie Screen: Marge tears through the cinema screen to kill Nazis during the Inglourious Basterds parody segment.
- Tempting Fate: When the Simpsons were about to depart for Hawaii, Homer said nothing would stop them. Mr. Burns then showed up.
- Unfortunate Names: The munitions factory where Homer works in Lisa’s dream was formerly “Mama Mussolini’s Meatball Factory”.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: Apparently, a Christmas Eve trip on the Polar Express takes 25 Earth years.
