Couch Gag: The family rush into the living room to discover that the couch is missing. Through the window, Homer spots the couch escaping down the road, and the family gives chase. The Simpsons follow the couch to various destinations throughout the world, such as the streets of San Francisco, the water canals of Venice and inside a palace room in India before finally catching up with it in outer space. Homer directs the couch towards Earth, and the family (dressed as astronauts like in the couch gag to "The Principal and the Pauper") crashes through the ceiling into the living room. Homer pulls out a remote from underneath him and turns on the TV...which is now a wall-mounted flatscreen TV that ends up falling to the floor.

Marge: At least in other sports, they're trying to put a ball in a net or a zone, but in this sport they don't put anything in anything, and if they did, I wouldn't want to see it.

Marge: Is he okay?
Akira: He feels no pain. Oh I'm sorry, my English is not so good. I meant to say he feels only pain.

Marge: I'm worried about Mrs Krabappel.
Bart: No worries, I heard in the old four square court she was doing great.
Lisa: No one even plays four square anymore, they just gossip.

Bart: Mrs K, you have to get out of here. When was the last time you washed your hair?
Mrs. Krabappel: Hmm, two weeks ago...
Bart: Well, that's better than me, but still, you gotta get out.

This episode's title is an adaptation of 'The Great White Hope', the 1967 play written by Howard Sackler and later adapted in 1970 to a film of the same name that starred James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander