E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) break into the house to obtain the last Tomacco is a reference the film "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) and the zombies' attack. A farmer is shown using an elephant to measure his corn plants' height; this is a reference to the song "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" in the musical "Oklahoma!", which features the line "the corn is as high an elephant's eye". The Southern colonel's accent is similar to the Warner Bros. character Foghorn Leghorn and he uses Foghorn's phrase "Sir, I say sir!", while the mudflap on his RV features a picture of him in a
An Elephant for Aristotle that the goal of the whole enterprise is essentially a malicious prank concocted by Alexander on his former teacher: he gives Aristotle the elephant but no funds for its upkeep, while sending the funds (but no elephant) to the savant's arch-rival Xenocrates. The story is founded on the fact that Aristotle's writings include an apparently eye-witness description of an Indian elephant, though the circumstances under which he might have come into contact with such an animal are unknown. Contemporary reviews of the novel were favorable. The "Chicago Daily Tribune" called it "an amazing narrative vehicle for the display of ...