Yep, don’t know the reference. What is it? I thought it was an original musical piece for the show.
See Post #34, which is where I went when I read the OP. They also referenced G&S on ST:TNG repeatedly, and I’m pretty sure The Simpsons have gone there as well.
presumably in the expectation that a large proportion of children in the audience would know the original.
That’s from the Mikado. It’s a list of people who need to be executed. In most productions, there are sometimes extra verses added where the singer adds a few of his own, often other people in the production or notorious celebrities. It’s worth going to see just for that.
It was the episode where Sideshow Bob was threatening to kill Bart, so they went into the Witness Protection Program. Bart delayed his own demise by asking Bob to sing the entire score of Pinafore. And earlier, the Simpsons were singing Three Little Maids from School.
And apparently Aaron Sorkin likes to drop G&S lines into his scripts whenever he can.
Frasier and Niles were both G&S freaks who took every opportunity to sing bits on Frasier.
tdn - that was exactly the scene I was remembering.
I’m in a “let’s feel superior and passive aggressively mock other people” thread! Yay!
What a swell party this is!
Is there any other? 
He runs a summer camp for student musicians. One year, his daughter (who sings professionally) arranged for the students to perform The Mikado as a change of pace. Perlman was cast as the Mikado and came on stage in his electric scooter, with a book with the lyrics in front of him and sang “A More Humane Mikado.”
Perlman has a fine voice, and is a wonderful showman (he once kept an audience entertained by telling the stupidest jokes you’ve ever heard in your life, but still had everyone laughing at them).
IMO being shocked that an 18 or 19 year old wannabee theatre major is not up on G&S is kind of overreacting. There are certainly young theatre majors who are historically aware, but there are also a whole bunch who are not all that intellectual or historically minded and just want to be in show biz.
Yes, I’ve seen him in concert. And yes, his jokes are stupid (like the claim that he drives a “Kreisler”). And yes, everyone laughs.
Yes, this is what I was going to say. I don’t think I’d even know what the Mikado was now without the multiple references to it on Frasier in the late 90s. I remember Bulldog tricking Frasier into singing “Three Little Maids From School Are We” on his sports call-in show.
Maybe that’s why Sideshow Bob liked G&S, too. Perhaps Kelsey Grammer is a G&S fanatic.
“A possibly recognizable tune…”
Gilbert & Sullivan lyrics are also good for the elocution…
A Metulous Analysis of History, although they don’t reference G&S by name.
Gilbert and Sullivan songs were added to Charles’ brain (along with a lot of lawyer-ese) in the tv show Angel. In one scene, he charmingly sings a bit from Three Little Maids from School.
Gordie Laforge sings I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General as an audition piece in Star Trek Next Generation.
And an even-worse-than-most Gico commercial.
Pervasive? perhaps not, but it’s possible to see/hear G&S without knowing what it is.
This I think is the larger truth here.
You could have seen most of these references and have no idea what they are referring to, nor would they inform you of who Gilbert & Sullivan are, or what they are famous for.
But a theatre student not knowing who G&S are would be kinda like a music major not knowing who Tchaikovsky is or a lit major not knowing who Tolstoy is. G&S aren’t the most prolific people in their field, but maaaaaan.
As did Magnum PI with at least one episode. I loved when Magnum, TJ, and Rick had to perform “Three Little Maids.” And, of course “Chariots of Fire” had a major (almost continual) Mikado reference.