Kamp Krusty - Cultural References

Cultural References

Some elements of the plot are borrowed from the Allan Sherman song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", a song about a kid who went to camp and hated it. The idea for the song sung by the children was from a 60s TV show called Camp Runamuck, which has a theme song that is similar to the Kamp Krusty song. The scene where Lisa gives a bottle of whiskey to a man on horseback (payment for delivering a letter) is a reference to Meryl Streep's scene from the film The French Lieutenant's Woman. Some aspects of the episode are references to the novel Lord of the Flies (a pig's head on a spear, kids using primitive weapons and wearing war paint and a burning effigy.) The scenes of the camp in chaos and Krusty's meeting with Bart echo similar ones in Apocalypse Now. The scene where Kearney beats a drum to make the campers work in the sweatshop is taken from the slave galley scene in the 1959 film Ben-Hur. The episode ends with the song "South of the Border". According to the commentary, the song is not sung by Frank Sinatra but by another artist impersonating him. The plot of the episode is also similar to the 1991 video game spin-off from the television series called Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly.