Meh. That was not a Simpsons convention that needed to be called attention to, especially in an extended/A-story way. Short glimpses and meta-jokes can be fine but this is like dissecting gossamer. If it were funny or poignant or interesting, that would be one thing... but it really wasn't. It didn't help that the whole episode was full of ridiculousness (and whining and screaming). Other episodes (Homer's Enemy (4F19) comes to mind, for one) have called out series-wide oddities in a much better way.
On the other hand, let's see what was positive. It was necessarily for the plot, of course, but nice to see Bart being a little hellion again for a while (cement in the rain gutters - if that isn't a paddling, what is?). Paul Rudd was a fine choice (though he wasn't promoted and I couldn't tell who it was till the end - he has the male equivalent of all the equal-sounding 20something female guest stars' voices). The flashback fakeout of Homer strangling Abe was actually kind of funny... the concept of Kareem strangling Homer to show him what it's like was nice... and the dream sequence where he's bullied by Bart is good, and would have been better than all the actual bullying. And at the end, I got an interesting sort of flash of Stark Raving Dad (7F24), when we see just how easily Bart can get someone's goat.
DYN: ...an odd shape on Bart's mouth while he whistles? It's not the usual balloon-rim shape.
Previous episode stuff 4F11, 5F20: "Everybody Dance Now" (interestingly, it tends to make at least one relevant person not want to dance every time) 3F01: Parenting class DABF01: Family bonding retreat LABF09: Marge and Lisa doing nails (and AABF08, 13: lame activity while the boys are out)
Meta -Homer does a blackboard punishment at school (at Bart's insistence): "I'm a grown man who's scared of his own son" -Bart takes prank calls to Moe into the 21st century, with a text of/ from? "I.M.A. Weiner" -The opening sequence object is the Planet Express ship, with Futurama- esque music instead of the usual chorus (notably, it goes left-to- right, which the Futurama opening does). I'd actually rather just see a fully reanimated opening in the style of Futurama. The two sequences already share many similarities.
Goof -The gym doors are double-hinged, apparently. Yet these wrongly- opening doors are always equipped with crash bars. Has no one in animation ever *seen* and used a door with a crash bar?
Finally Dedication (for this airing only, I'm sure) to Elizabeth Taylor, who died last week. I find it pretty intriguing (but touching) that they used a still of Maggie from 9F08, instead of Elizabeth voicing herself in 9F19. But while that cameo exists, and could have been used, I'm sure the role as Maggie is a lot more memorable; it's one of the first things I thought of when I heard the news.