5 In-Jokes From You Never Noticed In Beloved Shows

That seems like nothing but a goofy way of lampooning how a lot of rich TV characters are given totally generic business backgrounds, but Community went with something a little weirder. You see, Chevy Chase's step-grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, was the heir to the Crane Company, a conglomerate that has, among other interests, a plumbing division. They even gave Pierce's dad the same old-money name of Cornelius, made him resemble a more ridiculous version of the real person, and, uh, wrote him as an abusive racist. Was that based on reality too, or did they kind of screw over a dude who took in Chevy's mother?

The episode "Celebrity Pharmacology 212," wherein the gang puts on a lame anti-drug PSA that Pierce ruins/improves with his antics, is also based on Chase's life. Some of the characters dress as bees for their role in the skit, which seems like a random cartoony visual but is actually a reference to the time that Chase got in a fight with Bill Murray backstage on Saturday Night Live and John Belushi broke it up while wearing a bee costume.

Supposedly, if you watch the relevant SNL episode, you can see Chase come on stage for his monologue in a way that looks like he's being shoved out there by a Belushi who just wants the show to go on. That's not the only SNL reference Community crammed in. When Piece's off-screen death is revealed in "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics," the show is clearly referencing the fact that Chase was banned from hosting SNL for being essentially impossible to work with.

It's a reference to a famous-among-nerds conversation between mathematicians G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan that occurred in 1918, and please don't close this tab to go watch porn, we swear it's interesting. Hardy went to visit Ramanujan, and took a cab numbered 1729. When Hardy arrived, he told Ramanujan that the number struck him as a dull one, and that he hoped it wasn't a bad omen, because mathematical geniuses are often not great conversation starters. But Ramanujan replied, "No, it is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways." Oh, and he dropped that little math bomb while he was in a nursing home because his health was wasting away, although we guess the 1910s didn't exactly have Matlock reruns with which to while away the hours.

If you're not good at math like, uh, some people we know, know that it's very rare for a number to have that particular set of properties, it was hella impressive for Ramanujan to recognize one offhand, and they're now known as taxicab numbers in honor of that chat. That's why, in the show, there's a cab with the number 87539319.

87,539,319 is the smallest number that can be written as the sum of two cubes in three different ways (167³+436³ = 228³+423³ = 255³+414³, if you want to get technical). Congratulations, now you're armed with the knowledge necessary to impress countless future dates for untold minutes.

Maude Flanders spying on Marge is an obvious allusion to Psycho ...

... but you probably didn't pick up on the reference in "Three Men And A Comic Book" to a more obscure Hitchcock movie, Saboteur.

The episode in which Mr. Burns tries to reclaim his beloved childhood teddy bear isn't subtle about some of its Citizen Kane references, but it also delves into the movie's more obscure shots. Now you finally know what was up with that weird Burns bird that haunted your dreams.

And it's not only famous movies and directors that were riffed on. "Radio Bart," wherein Bart fakes a boy being trapped in a well before falling in himself, is inspired by Ace In The Hole, a 1951 Billy Wilder movie starring Kirk Douglas that readers over the age of 10,000 may vaguely remember.

Douglas played a reporter who exploits a man trapped in a cave to benefit his struggling career. Both rescue sites turn into literal carnivals, satirizing how the media has the power to manipulate a gullible population.

So if you want to pass along your love of The Simpsons to your children, make sure you sit them down and make them watch dozens of decades-old black-and-white movies first. It's the only way they'll truly be able to appreciate it.