There was also an episode in which Chalmers commented that he was born in Queens, went to Ball State, and then moved to Intercourse, Pennsylvania- easy fodder for Bart to make a joke about.
This might be way, way overthinking it, but when I was in college, there was a riddle that started “My Aunt Tilly likes Ball State but not Harvard.” You’d then give other clues (Such as “She likes fetuccini but not angel hair, and her favorite color is yellow, even though she hates goldenrod.”) Using the pattern in the riddle, Billings would be an acceptable city in Montana, but Helena would not.
Might be way, way overthinking, as I said.
P.S. Didn’t it say Snake played lacrosse at Ball State during the Treehouse of Horror episode where he was executed on TV and Homer got his hair?
Pretty weak episode, in my opinion. My wife and I talked about this after it ended: it’s kind of sad how Family Guy ripped off the Simpsons (sort of; IMO) and now FG is more popular with the kids and the Simpsons have to “rip off” Family Guy to keep viewers interested. The injury cutaway and the Footloose bit at the end were just way too Family Guy to me.
And I didn’t like their attempts to be “edgy” in this episode; Marge kissing the girl and Skinner being terrified of being at the intersection of Caesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. It felt very forced to me. “Faux-shocking,” if you will.
Ralph Wiggum has also become a very annoying character. I cringe everytime he opens his mouth now. Overdone.
Apart for those MAJOR FLAWS, it was a decent, I guess. I feel like the story of hiding the bad kids for the test has been done, though? I knew what was going on as soon as they said Bart got a good grade.
I really enjoyed the opening section related to the testing satire (Mrs. Krabappel drilling the test answer patterns and so on), and Skinner’s determination to save Ralph using the conservation of momentum. Homer’s various attempts to save the lives of the book club ladies were also terrific physical humor and animation, especially that toothpick / meatball sequence. The three subplot structure was unusual and well done; made it feel like one of their Trilogy episodes, but with interlocking stories. And I usually don’t even like the trilogies, mainly because they’re usually noncanonical and relatively out of character. Finally, I liked how quickly Bart picked up on Chalmers/Skinner’s scheme. Maybe he only recently watched Whacking Day himself. 
On the downside, it felt like there was a lot of time-wasting humor. Aren’t the writers always kvetching that 22 minutes is too short for them? But in this episode we had a long couch joke – which was, admittedly, very good; the endless Homer-gets-hurt clips; the repetition of the glove compartment joke (which wasn’t bad); several repetitions of the “superstars” making weird faces; and the interminable Footloose sequence. Any one of these would have been fine on its own, except the Footloose dancing, 'cause that was just lame, but adding them all together made this episode feel very draggy to me.
It’s a shame, because the satire of the NCLB testing obsession was spot on and would have been nice to see that expanded a bit.
Yeah, way over thinking it. It’s just a simple pun regarding dodgeball and Ball State.
(Viewers of public television’s ZOOM- both the '70s and '90s version- would recognize the riddle you mention as “Fannee Doolee.”)
Yes when Snake was about to be electrocuted, a ‘voiceover’ for the TV program gave out the lacrosse tidbit.
I forgot that was a ‘Treehouse’ ep though - it may not be canon.
Actually, he’s from Utica, where they’ve never heard of steamed hams.
Billings was the correct answer to “Biggest city in Montana!” Helena would be “WRONG!”