The Simpsons' episode , "Whacking Day" is about an special day with the name of the episode, and consists of taking snakes to the center of town and whack them to death. Like in "The Lottery", the people follow this outdated tradition, and refuse to abolish it, even if the young people don't like it. In both stories a living thing dyes killed by the people for fun. This two thing are made in small towns and people are not sure why they do it, they just do. The difference is that in " Whacking Day", the people realize the tradition is wrong because of Lisa, Bart and Barry White that defended the snakes. The Simpsons wanted to express the same thing as "the Lottery", about outdated traditions but without the violence and barbaric part of "The Lottery".