injuries, and Lisa is crowned Little Miss Springfield. One of Little Miss Springfield's duties as spokesperson for pageant sponsor Laramie Cigarettes, is to lure a younger demographic into smoking. Instead, Lisa protests against the dangers of cigarettes at her appearances, and also vows to target the corruption of Mayor Quimby. Quimby and the Laramie officials look for a way to dethrone and silence Lisa. They find a technical error on her entry form: Homer wrote "OK" underneath the instruction "Do not write in this space". As Amber is recrowned Little Miss Springfield, Homer is upset that he cost Lisa her title, but Lisa reminds Homer that he entered her in the pageant to help her self-esteem, and thanks him because it worked. Homer requests that she remember it "the next time I wreck your life", to which Lisa gladly agrees and embraces him. Production Many of The Simpsons''' writers had left the show or were absent at the beginning of season four, which left Al Jean and Mike Reiss to brainstorm plot ideas alone. After brainstorming "Homer the Heretic", they thought of Lisa entering a beauty pageant. They assigned Jeff Martin to write the episode because they assumed he would fill it with songs, like he had done on previous episodes. Martin obliged, and wrote the episode and its music. He also based the episode on some of his own experiences, such as the scene where Lisa has a caricature of herself drawn. Regarding the topic, Martin stated, "I'm not sure if we could do this episode today. People had a more innocent view of child beauty pageants before JonBenet Ramsey." According to Reiss, the pitch session of the joke on how Homer got Lisa disqualified took longer than any session he could remember, with Frank Mula eventually pitching the winning gag. This episode featured then-89-year-old Bob Hope as a guest star, with his part recorded at his house by screenwriters Jeff Martin and Conan O'Brien. His appearance is based on his younger, Vietnam War-era self. Cultural references The episode makes two references to Star Wars, where the caricature artist displays a caricature of Darth Vader and a montage shows Lisa with a double-bun hairdo like Princess Leia. When Barney crashes the Duff Blimp the pose it takes makes reference to the Hindenburg disaster. Laramie's mascot Menthol Moose is a parody of Joe Camel. When Lisa is sworn in as