Attempting to find a suitable partner, Selma tries video dating, a love potion, and flirting with a teenage grocery store cashier.
Returning Bart and Lisa home, the exhausted Selma asks Homer how he manages to raise kids every day.
Writer David Stern said he wanted to go back to a "Patty and Selma episode", because it was sustained so well[clarification needed] when he wrote "Principal Charming".
The singers at Duff Gardens, Hooray for Everything, are a parody of Up with People[6] They are seen performing a kid-friendly version of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side".
[3] Lisa's hallucination after drinking the water on the ride is based on the work of Ralph Steadman, particularly for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
[8] Ken Tucker highlighted the episode in a review of the fourth season: "the Simpsons aren’t winking, rib-cage-nudging rebels; if anything, they’re touchingly sincere.
Groening and company want to suggest that family life is so complicated, so full of inarticulated desires and fears, that it can never be reduced to a mere collection of wisecracks.
The closest the series has ever come to offering a 'message' has been in a few episodes this season that mercilessly satirize the alcohol industry in the form of the profoundly cynical 'Duff' beer company ('Can’t get enough of that wonderful Duff' is its slogan).
"[9] The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood said, "A nice episode for Selma and good for Marge and Homer as well.
"[2] In Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation, Chris Turner said it "Fills in with the usual grab bag of great gags" and "The episode had some crowd-pleasing moments."