Now I feel less bad about spending money on the DVD so I could watch this a few times, back in the early 2000s.

It was the 1980s, they had to tack on the moral turpitude to fit "educational" guidelines. Plus, you got to see Orko run into a tree again.

Wikipedia says Jesse White, and I have no idea who that is…

I remember this episode from back in '83 (I was 9).  We watched Diff'rent Strokes every week.  My mom really pushed stranger danger on my sister and me, so this was more of a reinforcement than an eye opener.  However, we also watched WKRP, so Gordon Jump pretty much freaked me out from this point forward - I couldn't…

I should note that he laughed about the similarities - he wasn't angry, and made a joke.  I recommend seeing him - he was very interesting.

I saw Stephen King speak on a book tour for Under The Dome, and the first thing he mentioned was frustration that the Simpsons movie had come out just a few months before the release of his book.  I'm sure he had them add that line, acknowledging the similarities.  

Except Ernest movies were not high-budget, and Adam Sandler is no Jim Varney.  Ernest movies are actually pretty funny, if you ignore the little kids they throw in there.

They should have just called the CBS show, "Shat, My Dad, Says…"