This week’s optional topic: displaced references. TV Tropes has a page devoted to “Parody Displacement,” where parodies or references to a original work popular in its day are spoofed so often that they overtake the original. A classic example is Foghorn Leghorn from Looney Tunes, a parody of the popular radio character Senator Claghorn. Nowadays, a bunch of old properties, or even politics or historic events are only known for inspiring scenes or characters on The Simpsons. Something like Lloyd Bentsen’s “You’re no Jack Kennedy” put down to Dan Quayle in 1988 being repeated in various combinations, long after people have forgotten who Bentsen or Quayle even are, is an example from politics.