Talking Simpsons - Disenchantment - Episode 3 "The Princess of Darkness"

Episode Date: August 27, 2018

Surprise! If you're not yet a listener of our sister podcast, What A Cartoon!, we've got a nice preview for you today! If you're a Simpsons fan, you're probably at least a little intrigued by Disencha...ntment, Matt Groening's new series on Netflix. Bob and Henry go through the third episode of the series in the same manner as Talking Simpsons, going through the series history just as it is beginning! Listen and then subscribe to the What A Cartoon! feed on your podcast listening device of choice OR sign up at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons where you'll get early and ad-free access to ALL OUR PODCAST! Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and go to VRV.co/WAC to get a free 30-day trial of the fantastic streaming service VRV!

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 hey there simpsons fans are you curious what this is doing in your free feed well it's an episode of what a cartoon where me and bob go through a different cartoon each week and if you've never listened to it before we think this is a great first episode to check out this is me and bob going through the third episode of disenchantment if you've been watching disenchantment on netflix the new show for mac reigning josh we, Bill Oakley, and pretty much all your favorite Simpsons writers from seasons seven and eight, you can hear our thoughts on the third episode and the overall course of the series right here in this What a Cartoon podcast. And if you like it, be sure to check out the rest of the What a Cartoon shows, either on their own free feed, or if you sign up
Starting point is 00:00:43 at the Patreon for five dollars a month you'll get access to that a week of head of time and ad free just like all the simpsons episodes you get a week ahead of time and ad free and tons of other extras so without further ado here's disenchantment the what a cartoon podcast cartoons from present in the past every week will be an animated bash What a cartoon! What a cartoon! Maybe a short but mostly short. We'll talk, we'll analyze, exploring as we go.
Starting point is 00:01:21 What a cartoon! What a cartoon! What a cartoon. What a cartoon. What a cartoon. Hello everybody and welcome to What a Cartoon where we talk all good and stuff. I'm your host snake root addict Bob Mackie and this is an audio exploration of every cartoon ever who is here with me today. I'm Henry Gilbert and I don't like the sound of that. Let's do it but don't say it out loud again. It's one of my favorite lines and today's episode is the disenchantment episode The Princess of Darkness. I'm actually a more way careful driver when I'm drunk. I assume that is because I never I've never driven before. This episode aired the same day all of them aired because TV is weird now.
Starting point is 00:02:08 August 17th, 2018. And yes, we're doing Disenchantment. And this is the first time we've done a cartoon before it actually premiered. Yes, you're hearing this after it's out. So hopefully you've binged it all on Netflix. But we're recording this a little before. And so we actually haven't even seen the last five episodes of the season. But I think this was our favorite of the first five. We were going to do the first episode, but then after we recorded the Disenchantment review cast, which is
Starting point is 00:02:33 on the Patreon, and I believe also on the free feed, we were like, uh, let's not do that. Let's do another one that's not as, you know, story heavy or like lore heavy. Yeah, lore heavy. There's a lot of, obviously in the pilot, there's a lot of world building. And then the second episode is basically part two of the pilot. It's more like an hour long first episode. So episode three, this one is where they kind of more settle into the groove of what the show is and who the main characters are. And it's really about getting to lounge around in the world they've built at last. It reminds me a lot of the third episode of Futurama as well, because the first two episodes of that really set up the world. And then the third one
Starting point is 00:03:16 is that's when Fry and Bender move in together. Yeah, now they can play in the world. So we normally do historical info at the top of the show. Is there any history to speak of yet? I actually have quite a bit. Oh my Lord. Okay. Surprise me. But also I'm going back over some stuff that our Talking Simpsons listeners probably know because this is a very connected show to The Simpsons.
Starting point is 00:03:36 And Talking Futurama listeners too. Yes. Especially those guys. And I should also say this is our first What a Cartoon where it's just me and Bob. So no other guests because no one else has seen it yet. That's right. They're not allowed to. Yeah, legally we can't.
Starting point is 00:03:49 Netflix would get mad if me and Bob shared it with anyone else. But okay, so 1977. Whoa, what the hell? Just as folks were enjoying Star Wars, a young man named Matt Groening started a weekly comic strip called Life in Hell. And about a decade after that he was approached to make cartoons based on it by james l brooks but instead pitched some show about a family of yellow weirdos called the simpsons that then graduated into its own show which i'm sure you've heard of and meanwhile two comedy writers were the biggest simpsons nerds
Starting point is 00:04:22 in pro comedy writing bill oak Oakley and Josh Weinstein, who then got hired on staff for The Simpsons in seasons four and showrun the show for seasons seven and eight. Around the same time in seasons seven and eight, Matt Groening started working on a brand new show with writer David X. Cohen called Futuraba, which instead of being a family-driven modern times thing, would take observational stuff about today's life, but abstract it in a crazy way through the tropes of, in this case, science fiction. I'm with you. And that would be the show Futurama, which would premiere in 1999, right ahead of the millennium. And Billley and josh weinstein who by the that time had left the simpsons actually were consulting producers on the first years of futurama that was sort of a
Starting point is 00:05:11 one day a week deal like yeah he's has with the simpsons now yeah just kind of like guiding things and actually not to skip ahead too much but on disenchantment bill oakley had said that it's kind of a reverse situation where David X. Cohen is now sitting in on their show to help them out instead of them being the mentors for him. So it's interesting. I believe he's just Skyping in to work on Disenchantment, which is awesome. Bill Oakley, yeah. Yeah, not living in LA. I mean, I love visiting LA. That was great, but boy, not driving. I wonder how much he's having to fly down though these in at this time as it's about to launch. That's an easy flight to do. But after launching Mission Hill around the same time as Futurama and then working on several other shows,
Starting point is 00:05:54 Josh Weinstein and Bill Oakley professionally separated. Gasp. So that Weinstein could work on Mitch Hurwitz's animated series, Sit Down, Shut Up, which lasted for six episodes and Fox didn't do shit with it. That really broke my heart when they split up. I thought it was on bad terms. Thankfully, it wasn't. They're still friendly. Of course, they work together on this show.
Starting point is 00:06:15 But I was like, what? Is it Splitsville for Bill and Josh? It was sad to see they actually... So at the time when everyone was waiting to see if there would be more of Arrested Development during that decade, I would go and learn anything I could about what Mitch Hurwitz was doing. So at the WonderCon convention in San Francisco one year, Mitch Hurwitz was there to talk about Sit Down, Shut Up. And he had with him Arrested Development mainstays like Will Arnett and Henry Winkler, as well as voice actor keenan thompson from the show and tom kenney and then also there was josh weinstein and herwitz actually like sort of joke bragged
Starting point is 00:06:54 that he had broken them up to get josh to work on his show was this some sort of contractual thing i believe uh yes you know i don't want to speak too much for our good friends yeah weinstein but you know when you're partnered as writers that's that your entire business is built around that basically you're always hired as a pair and paid as a pair you're also in some cases splitting the pay that a single writer will get because you're partners so in that case i think think that maybe they didn't want to hire two guys, or they talked them down into one person being paid a certain amount, and then the other person didn't want to be paid it. I'm not totally sure. Well, they're best pals again. Yeah, I would like to think that they stayed personal friends, even if their professional relationship was a divorce at that time.
Starting point is 00:07:42 And they have been friends since high school, which is crazy. They have known each other. We joke about how it's all these Harvard writers that know each other. But these two guys were best bros even before Harvard. Did they make some sort of like anime oath to go into the same college? They're like, we'll strive together.
Starting point is 00:07:59 We'll both be comedy writers together. That's a manga I haven't seen yet. So all of that set up here to january 15th 2016 it is announced through a press release that matt graining has signed a deal with netflix to produce an animated series for the streaming service now this is kind of a big deal that netflix has been doing for the last few years well i'd say even more like six years ago they kind of realized licensing is a mugs game they're paying for stuff that they'll only briefly have the rights to they need to start paying to make stuff themselves that they'll always have the
Starting point is 00:08:36 rights to then they would do that not just with prestige series like house of cards but also with animated fun series like bojack horseman and now they've for real release more than one season of a show per week that they own they are spending more than they make to produce so much stuff it's like how can you afford this it's not i think they're in massive massive debts yeah but even though everyone has netflix for what point and it's also like they're but they're spending up because now they're seeing say disney has said well why are we licensing this to netflix and then they get the subscribers we should just have the disney service and people sign up for that i will if they have bunkers they make bunkers available to the public again i'll do it just for the novelty value. And that's the future, guys.
Starting point is 00:09:25 You can maybe cut the cord on cable, but you'll still have to pay per channel, basically, in the future. I mean, I have like, what, five streaming networks I subscribe to now, so. Yeah, I think I'm at that too. Let's see. Hulu, Prime Now, Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Verve is kind of with Crunchyroll. It's like my Verve subscription through that. And oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:46 And sporadically, though, no, I'd stop that. my Verve subscription through that. And oh yeah, and sporadically though, no, I'd stop that. I don't pay that anymore. I've been getting freebies, but the WWE network, so, because those guys are evil. Oh wait, no, the New Japan network. I pay for that too.
Starting point is 00:09:57 Wow, that's just right now. There's a new cord now. You cut the old cord, now there's a new cord. It's a wireless cord. It's Wi-Fi. You can't cut that. It's uncuttable. Big deal like getting Matt Groening. That's a kind of signing that with creatives that netflix is really going for now they just signed apparently like seven figure deals or even eight figure
Starting point is 00:10:15 deals with like shonda rhimes and the executive producer blackish to get shows for them they're quitting abc it's like you know we're not making crap for ABC anymore. We'll have a lot more freedom to make this stuff on Netflix and also cut out the middleman. Netflix too is thinking, why are we going to license Black-ish or Grey's Anatomy when we can just pay the people who make those shows to make us a new show? Would you say Groening is their biggest get ever? Because I really think he is. Shonda Rhimes, I'd say now is the biggest just because she has a bigger footprint right now. I'm saying bigger than Barack Obama, bigger than Letterman, Matt Geraning. I'm not being sarcastic. I think the creator of The Simpsons is making a show for
Starting point is 00:10:57 not a broadcast network, not a cable network, but a streaming service. That is a huge deal. I think we just sort of just, we're so used to all of these streaming shows. There's like, oh, another streaming show, but he is doing something for Netflix. It's huge. It's a huge deal. that is a huge deal i think we just sort of just we're so used to all of these streaming shows there's like oh another streaming show but he is doing something for netflix it's huge it's a huge deal it is a huge deal and then mac reigning who has his pick of the litter i think of pitching tv shows he went with netflix over other suitors is telling yeah i'm gonna assume that he can get a meeting with anybody at any time any network i think so yeah i would hope so uh so that was the 2016 news that they had just started a deal and behind the scenes as actually in our first interview with bill oakley he at the end when we asked if he had anything to promote he teased well not now but you guys
Starting point is 00:11:39 are gonna see it you guys are gonna really I was like, whoa, what could this be? And it was then revealed on July 25th of 2017, 18 months after it was first announced, what the show was. And it is Disenchantment, which is taking the kind of Futurama concept, but doing it for Game of Thrones style medieval fantasy. And that's when it was revealed that josh weinstein co-developed the show with graining which means he also co-wrote the pilot with graining and that many classic simpsons and futurama writers were on the staff which was a huge like i was excited enough i'd watch whatever matt graining was making on netflix but graining was really smart to get all these simpsons vets on it as well especially and i think we brought it up in the review cast,
Starting point is 00:12:25 Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein don't seem to be invited back to the Simpsons Fun Club as much as other old writers. And I'm not spinning any conspiracy theories, but it is sort of suspicious. I don't know why. They seem like great guys, and they are clearly great writers, but it's great that Matt Groening, there's no bad blood between them and Matt Groening, obviously.
Starting point is 00:12:42 Seemingly not. They wouldn't hire him if there was. Al Jean's our enemy. That's what i'm saying no no algy we want we want to interview yeah no i you know this is just guessing from the outside but it is it was always you know interesting to me that you'd see on the simpsons movie that all the previous showrunners were invited except for bill and josh and maybe they were busy with other stuff who knows yeah it's possible but uh but they weren't really invited back like some other writers were.
Starting point is 00:13:07 Even Merkin was working on the movie. Oh, no, he was deep into it. So it was really cool to hear, though, that Josh Weinstein, since he was uncoupled from Bill Oakley, they're not co-credited on it, but Bill Oakley is still working on the show even though he has left LA
Starting point is 00:13:23 and is working out of Portland where he lives and eats burgers now. I love Bill Oakley is still working on the show, even though he has left LA and is working out of Portland where he lives and eats burgers now. I love Bill Oakley's food reviews. They're adorable. And so along with the July 25th announcement, it was said that the show is greenlit for 20 episodes, really meaning it's two seasons at once. So we're getting 10 episodes this year, 10 episodes next year year and then we'll see where they go from there to 20 episodes is also that's a bigger than normal order for a netflix season of something and we have not seen the last five in this first season i don't know if there will be a cliffhanger i assume there will be that's netflix sro yeah and they're sort of like there's
Starting point is 00:13:59 a few breadcrumbs in the first five like who are the mysterious figures that are watching lucy and things like that but i'm not seeing a direct through line quite yet as where we are in the series it's there's more breadcrumbs though thrown out than even futurama have like though that's kind of the graduation things like simpsons has an overarching narrative it's the sitcom starring a family then with futurama you watch that when we watch the pilot again for our patreon thing it was it was telling like oh there's the setup of lila's family but now we know all the answers to this stuff in retrospect it's going to be fun to see like oh there's a shadow of something in this first episode oh that character in the background there is very important later like oh that's who
Starting point is 00:14:39 that was like i assume like they're they're mega nerds and i assume they're cramming all these episodes with little tidbits that we'll realize later. Yeah, I think so, too. I spotted a few in this next newest viewing of episode three. I spotted a few things like, hmm, is that set up that this character looks too specific to just be drawn into the background. There are many other Simpsons veterans on there, including David Cohen, Patrick Varrode, Reed Harrison, and Wes Archer, who directed this episode of the cartoon. He is one of the original Simpsons animators, along with David Silverpin. He's got to make 70 more episodes of Rick and Morty.
Starting point is 00:15:17 What's he doing? What's he doing on this show? In that long break of Rick and Morty, he was able to direct one episode of this, I guess. I assume this is like a post-season three production, Rick and Morty. He was able to direct one episode of this, I guess. I assume this is like a post-season three production, Rick and Morty. He was working on Disenchantment. I think the timeline would fit with that because the show ended last year, or the last episode aired last year. So I could see him being done with it at that point.
Starting point is 00:15:40 And not to mention too, that they are working with the same production company, Rough Draft is Futurama, meaning Peter Avanzino and Scott Vanzo. Though there are also some new faces in this. It's not just all Simpsons reruns. But there's comedian Rich Fulcher, who's also a voice actor on the show. And he wrote this episode. Yeah. Which surprised me upon looking at the credits again. I'm like, oh, he's a writer too?
Starting point is 00:15:59 I mean, I know he's a writer, but he's a writer on the show. Rich Fulcher is so funny to me. He is such a crazy goofball i don't know if you've seen the show the mighty boosh i have i want to revisit it it's been a long time he was the american on that show for viewers if you wonder like hey why is there an american guy talking here i think that's why he's so good at british accents in this show too though i think so and he is like dana sny, who plays Master Shake, and his voice is just naturally funny, so he can say anything and I'll laugh. Yeah, yeah. And then also on the acting slash writer side, there's Jenny Batten, who, along with her writing partner, M. Dixon, another g-g-g-girl.
Starting point is 00:16:37 Ugh, they let those on shows now? Yes. They're a writing team on the show, and Jenny Patton also does some voices. And another woman on the staff is Shion Takeuchi, who comes to them via Gravity Falls, a series I really enjoyed. And then lastly, I think rounding out the writing staff is Eric Horstead, also of Futurama fame. And I should mention, too, we talked to Reed Harrison about, well, he really couldn't say anything about the show, but we did do an interview with him on the Patreon as well. One of our first. And I think I spotted Patrick Verone in oh yes he's like as we learned from talking futurama he's like a superman he really is he's done it all he's uh and he's making time for this show so it's quite a strong lineup on it and i'm though i'm glad too that they found room for
Starting point is 00:17:19 folks like new folks like vulture batten and Dixon as well on the writing staff. And then also, speaking of returning favorites, the voice cast on this. I mean, we talked a bit about it on the review cast, but in case you didn't hear that, there's returning favorites like Billy West, John DiMaggio, Tress McNeil, Maurice Lamarge, all big Futurama voices. Dave Herman too. Dave Herman's there too, yeah. They're all, and when you hear them, you're like, oh, that's funny. That's, I know that voice. And it's also funny that they are kind of the when you hear them you're like oh that's funny that's i i know
Starting point is 00:17:45 that voice and it's it's also funny that they are kind of the none of them are the lead roles the lead three they're all the supporting cast yeah so it's just like well what do we have the supporting cast oh that's all the futurama people there we're still keeping them employed regularly unlike futurama the show is not 80 billy west voices which is great it's great but it's good to have a different kind of vocal tone to everything. Yeah. And that's in the case of the leads, who I think are cast very well. They're perfect.
Starting point is 00:18:11 You've got Abby Jacobson as Princess Bean, Nat Faxon as Elfo, and Eric Andre as Lucy the Demon. I didn't really know who Nat Faxon was, but apparently he is ancar award-winning screenwriter with jim rash yes yeah it's it's funny now that the jim rash the dean from community he was starring in everything after community he was like the more famous one but then they became like big-time writers and they they won the oscar from the george clooney film the. But Nat also has been an actor on sitcoms as well. And he has such a great, all three of them have such a great specific voice that they also can't.
Starting point is 00:18:51 We talked about that on Futurama too. You said how when they cast Billy West and John DiMaggio, they know that they're going to do 80 voices. In the cases of Abby and Nat, especially they are so specific, they're not doing other voices or it'd be pretty rare that they do kind of like Yardley Smith on The Simpsons right I only caught one other Eric Andre
Starting point is 00:19:10 voice yes in this episode now Eric Andre is a semi-regular as the eye patched guardman right right that's the only he's the only guy doubling up on there as far as I can tell unless Nat is really Nat and Abby have some really like specific second voices they can do but abby is so much fun like she is she brings so much like youth and energy to bean and her it's a different character from the kind of like uptight neurotic character abby plays on broad city that's very true and i don't know if they record together and i'm guessing they don't because nobody does anymore but there are a few scenes in this where it does sound like they are together like when they're having a little talk inside of record together and I'm guessing they don't because nobody does anymore. But there are a few scenes in this where it does sound like they are together
Starting point is 00:19:46 like when they're having a little talk inside of her shirt. Yeah. They sound like they're all in the same room and they're just bouncing things off of each other. I don't know if that was improv. With the show, with all of these writers, I really doubt it was,
Starting point is 00:19:56 but it feels so natural. I'm hoping it really, it was meant to feel like improv, but it was written. Then really great acting on their part there, too. But Abby, Nat, and Eric Andre all have a background in improv. They are all UCB-trained improviser comedians and writers. They all are professional writers, too.
Starting point is 00:20:15 So I would hope they give them that kind of leeway to improv, even though it's famous. Like, Simpsons and Futurama are also very heavily written. Though, you know know I say that but they give Dan Castellaneta tons of space yeah and I take that back
Starting point is 00:20:29 partially by the way because I remember Bill Oakley told us who wrote what when we when he found out that we saw the episodes we were asking him like oh
Starting point is 00:20:35 who did this line who did that line and he was like looping in Josh but apparently one of my favorite lines in this episode it's a very long rant he said that Abby
Starting point is 00:20:43 threw in some of her own ad libs too so I guess I guess they did have a hand in crafting the characters as well oh there's also some really good guest voices that we've heard in in the episodes we've seen my uh favorite is matt barry that's right he is so his voice is so amazing i i loved him in gareth Marenghi's Dark Place. As the fiance of Fiennes? Yes, yeah. My tie of dawn. He's so, so hilarious. He fucks all of those walruses. That's true.
Starting point is 00:21:11 And he likes it. That's his kink. I hope he comes back. I hope he's a pig. He's a pig. But he can come back. They didn't kill that pig. He just sort of ran away.
Starting point is 00:21:19 They killed the other guy. Yeah, that's where we are with the show now. It just premiered. One thing I am a little sad about the prospect of is that because it's a netflix show i wonder if there will ever be audio commentaries for this or a physical release some netflix shows do get physical releases like the marvel shows if you want to buy dvds of daredevil you can do that like same with house of cards because i think they recognized maybe there are people who want to gift this to their parents who
Starting point is 00:21:44 don't know what netflix is and they won't open it. Yeah. Like any gift you give your parents. Yeah, exactly. That band of brothers still sitting on the shelf. Don't tell me about it. But yeah, whenever I walk into Target, I see Stranger Things. I'm like, who would buy this? But actually, I would buy this on DVD or Blu-ray because Matt Groening, when he did the Simpsons DVDs, he was like, my rule is we do a commentary for every episode, even though he stopped showing up on them. That is the rule he put in place, and the same was for Futurama as well. So I would hope that that tradition follows through. I hope so, too.
Starting point is 00:22:13 Hey, crossing our fingers, hope Netflix lets him do that. And even the Simpsons DVDs are no longer on permanent hiatus. At least I hope they're not. I guess that depends on the sales of the last one. You bought it, I didn't. I need to put my money where my mouth is're great episodes season 18 everybody and uh so yeah that takes us to where disenchantment is now i think the i really like the feel those first five episodes i'm looking forward to seeing more the the kind of fantasy futurama thing really works for it
Starting point is 00:22:41 i think they there's a lot of really good gags in this that just also remind me of kind of like, when we rewatched first season of Futurama, I'm like, this joke is interchangeable. It could go anywhere. It felt more like it came from early meanings of, if we were to do a joke about this in fantasy times, why would we do that? Yeah, yeah, exactly. What would a stretch limo in the Game of Thrones be? Or in this episode, how would a teenager do all the bad limo in the game of thrones be or in this episode how
Starting point is 00:23:05 would a teenager do all the bad teenage things in the fantasy past right but like i said in the review cast i was so happy that they did not do the obvious parodies uh if you want a really bad example of that look at the look at the futurama movie bender's game where it's like let's have our characters cosplay and go through all of these very obvious parodies it's all fan service and i mean if you're into that it's fine but i can go without them battling all of the morgues oh god the morgue yeah uh speaking of a joke that does not age well but i do not like that i didn't like that joke then it just really brings me down now but it's not that it's it's way more inventive uh that's why i did not like the first episode as much, because it was not really playing with a very, very used trope. But after that,
Starting point is 00:23:49 it's all super original, super fun stuff. Yeah, no. In the first episode, where it's all about Bean running from a wedding that she's forced to have, I mean, that's a very fantasy archetype thing there. And same with the characters are acting more in their archetypes, too too instead of really figuring out who they are especially i'm really glad we did this episode because in the first two episodes lucy was like my least favorite character i was like i love eric andre but he's not got a lot to do he's just kind of like a jerk he reminds me of why i didn't like bender at first when i watched original futurama because i just saw him as like he's the smoking swearing guy he's the bad boy who cares like but that's why this episode they find something more to do with him just like they would with Bender over time too and also in that first
Starting point is 00:24:36 episode so in uh with the Simpsons uh there were no notes creating said no notes on Futurama they were given notes by the network but they tried to address those notes and they made the network even matter. So there were no notes. On this series, there are notes. Graning says we take notes and they're very helpful. So one of the things I feel was very note driven was in that first episode, I feel like they were trying too hard to make Bean likable because in this episode, she is who she will be for the rest of the series she's very naive but not in an elfo way but she's also like very like accrued and like into partying and drinking and just being like acting out and stuff like that in the first very selfish too yeah in the first episode they really want you to identify more with her and make her more sympathetic so i
Starting point is 00:25:18 feel like let's hold off on all that stuff until we get out of this you know setup i think that's what their what their idea was the the only reason i'm sad we're not doing the first episode is just because i love all of the elf world stuff that's the funniest those were all my favorite scenes and actually all the first five are the elves it is they really are the best scenes in that whole uh setup yeah elfo is my favorite character on the show too i think it's funny that people i get it when you see the design he is a green quarks in design but kind of kind of kind of there are only so many faces and bodies you can draw on that style yeah but it's it's more that he is a happy little elf who comes from the land of happy little elves who's surrounded by happy people who make candy to then sell to each other for candy
Starting point is 00:26:02 and i don't think we've seen the last of that world either now i i would hope not i would think they had so much fun writing all the return oh and leave oh kissy jokes that or maybe they let they use up all their elf jokes maybe they're like we got to do every elf joke he's leaving here forever but the i think elfo as the innocent who gets beaten up and destroyed by the world but still keeps a smile on his face is always funny to me and it's funny what they're doing too but i'm not into his uh creep is creeping on bean stuff it's still very innocent they won't they it's true i mean they never will but it's i like how it's also very innocent it's not like very sexual or anything like that i mean physically is it even possible does he have probably not i mean uh in this episode it's not like very sexual or anything like that i mean physically is it even possible
Starting point is 00:26:45 does he have probably not i mean uh in this episode it's clear he likes being in her shirt yeah oh yeah but it's still fairly innocent well in the second episode he does try to peep on her as she takes her true but it's just curiosity henry although elfo is pure how dare you unlike lucy who is literally a demon that's true true. Is it a thing on Lucifer? Is his full name Lucifer? Now that you mention it, duh. Yeah, of course it is. Wow.
Starting point is 00:27:11 And speaking of mysteries they're setting up, whoever Lucy's bosses are, there's some real interest in them. And we get a lot of them in this episode, too. But the setup of them in the first two is pretty clever. I like it as well. By the time this goes live, all of our listeners and us will know the answers to these questions. That's true. I am very curious as to, I'm going to watch the rest of them when they come out on Friday and just figure it all out and see what the next cliffhanger is going to be.
Starting point is 00:27:34 But yeah, I'm excited. So now that we've covered the history, I guess we're going to call it, let's roll into the episode, The Princess of darkness. You've seen the future in Futurama. You've seen the present in Springfield. So, what's the obvious third move? The past, of course. Welcome to Dreamland. Hear ye, hear ye.
Starting point is 00:28:27 Royal court is now in session. Let's have a look at this no-good pile of scum. Weak chin, buck teeth, and... Wow! Hi, Dad. Disenchantment, August 17th on Netflix. Twice as funny as Game of Thrones is this week's episode of Disenchantment. It's Henry Gilbert here.
Starting point is 00:29:03 Hey, it's Bob, and I hope you're not disenchanted with this episode. You better not be. I kind of wish that was the name of it but everyone's getting it wrong. If you look online everyone's getting the name of the show wrong and I wonder what that's going to do for their SEO. Season 2 it's like oh it's just called Disenchanted now. Whatever. Well they'd have to get the rights from Disney That's right. Oh man.
Starting point is 00:29:17 They should have called it something. Well Disenchantment it still works. The gag still works. But what's in a name anyway? But this is What A Cartoon that's the name of our podcast.'s in a name anyway uh but this is what a cartoon that's the name of our podcast a totally original name uh right uh but we appreciate you guys listening and i hope you're enjoying our slightly different episode where we're going through a brand new cartoon not a old thing in cartoon history we're recording it before it's actually live to most of the world so before we've seen the rest of season one,
Starting point is 00:29:46 it's true. Yes. And, uh, and if you're enjoying this, you know that you could listen to next week's episode right now. Yes. You can listen to the Spider-Man,
Starting point is 00:29:54 the animated series episode, the menace of Mysterio. If you are a $5 patron. And not only that, it'll be ad free as well. That's right. Go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Like Henry said, you get every episode of this podcast a week ahead of time and ad-free.
Starting point is 00:30:09 And the same goes for our sister podcast, Talking Simpsons. Yes. In both those cases, we put out the episodes a week early and ad-free. And we also have a ton of exclusives on that Patreon. Like, we talk a ton about futurama in this episode and we do the entire first season of futurama exclusively in the same style as talking futurama at patreon.com slash talking simpsons that's right uh i believe 13 episodes of talking futurama 23 episodes of talking critic we went through all of the critic last year that feels like it was forever ago but there are 23 podcast
Starting point is 00:30:42 episodes waiting for you that's like an entire day's worth of podcast. You could start it as soon as you wake up and then never go to sleep. The next day you'll be out of critic episodes. And you could listen to interviews with writers for Disenchantment, such as Bill Oakley and Reed Harrison. And you can hear about their careers up to this, including Reed Harrison telling us about working on the Pinky and the Brain cartoon. That's right. He was a writer for that as well. And Bill Oakley just serenading us with so many Simpsony secrets. He'll be back, guys. I know he'll be back.
Starting point is 00:31:12 Well, now I just want to ask him about eating burgers on camera. I could never eat food. I'd be so scared of sharing a video of me eating food on camera. He only takes like one bite usually, right? Yes, yeah. I mean, there's one guy I see on i mean a lot of the youtube guys are like this where he's just eating in his car and he eats the entire
Starting point is 00:31:29 thing and it's disgusting it's disgusting uh but you won't see any disgusting stuff like that at patreon.com slash talking simpsons only the best exclusive i will never videotape myself eating anything for you guys that's that's a high tier patron that's uh though at the ten dollar tier you can watch a monthly exclusive video that me and Bob do in the past we did the deleted scenes for season one of Futurama deleted scenes for seasons five six and seven of the
Starting point is 00:31:54 Simpsons and we went through every short of the Simpsons that led up to the show it's true and all of our exclusive series in the future will be exclusive to the Patreon we may unlock one more this year who knows It could still happen. And we can only do it with your support. So, once more, patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons.
Starting point is 00:32:12 Why don't we now snort up some spider roots and listen to the rest of Disenchantment. well so this episode it starts off with mark mother's bombs really nice theme for the show it's grown on me at first i was like was like, eh, it's a lot of, it reminds me much of Mother Bomb's other type of music. If you don't know him, he's the Devo guy who also has written every song in Rugrats and a million other songs. I like how raucous it is, though. It's like a party.
Starting point is 00:32:56 And I also like that the opening, which intros are made to be skipped now. I mean, Netflix literally gives you a button like, hey, skip this. I don't want to watch this so uh i like that despite that fact that they give a unique intro every time with specific images teasing what's going to be in this episode over the credits and you get a writer and director credit and is that all the credits you get at the beginning uh and the executive producer oh yeah creator gets his credit in there too. And Groening is credited, just like on Futurama, and Simpsons.
Starting point is 00:33:29 Groening is the sole creator credit and then developed for the other folks. Less money goes to... I'm sure he gets some money. It's true. I mean, I think this is a gorgeous show, especially the background art. It's so nice to not have credits clutter up the screen for two minutes. Yeah, I didn't know what that was like. I didn't know.
Starting point is 00:33:47 It was just so awesome to see each time in the writing credit. That's when I first discovered it. Like, oh, this is David X. Cohen wrote this episode. Wow, awesome. He wrote an episode of a TV show. He should just be counting his Futurama money. And same with like seeing Wes Archer on there. Him back in the
Starting point is 00:34:05 saddle was really exciting to see too yeah and uh this episode looks great too start off with one of those type of grab bag jokes i talked about at four o'clock in all's well, a parody of that and how annoying that would be at night. And he has to clarify what well it means in this instance. He has a very like sociopolitical view on it and it's followed up by the person, do you know what time it is? It's 401. Then we drop in in our three leads.
Starting point is 00:34:45 What a naughty night we had. I drank so much, I can't even remember if I drank anything. I might not have. You know it's a great night when we're still up to see the plague patrol. Morning, princess. I just got winked at by a corpse shoveler. I don't want this
Starting point is 00:35:02 night to ever end. Well then, madam, I have just the thing. May I interest you in a joyride? Joyride? Is that like a jolly trolley or a fun run or a tingle mingle? Oh, he means that we steal it and that it's a bad
Starting point is 00:35:18 idea. If my dad found out, he'd kill me. Oh, boo-hoo. Baby doesn't want to get killed by her daddy. I'm a chicken. Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk. Hop on, boys. Unless you're chickens.
Starting point is 00:35:32 I do like they show the bar and the barkeep is sweeping scepters off of the stoop into the gutter. I like, yeah, there's tons of great visual gags in this and tons of fun sign gags, too, that makes it feel like classic Futurama or Simpsons to me. The same kind of structure with sign gags as well. Him calling her chicken is pretty funny. Her going to steal the thing while calling her chicken is a cute little moment. I mean, Lucy's role in the series that we've seen so far is to make bean do bad things and i mean knowing that going into this episode again i realized like even in the staging lucy will be on her shoulder and telling her to do bad things just whispering yeah or just screaming like steal that do this
Starting point is 00:36:17 take these drugs like actually no not much whispering i take that back pretty much just shouting at her it's funny how many times you can notice that Elfo is on one side and Lucy is on the other. And it's such a just smart, rich dynamic to be like, well, you have Bean as this character and she has two tiny enablers with her. One telling her to be lame and innocent like Elfo. And then Lucy, who actually inspires her. Actually, it's more like Lucy makes her do stuff. And then Elfo says, I don't know, guys.
Starting point is 00:36:49 And then she does it anyway, because no one listens to Elfo. Yes, the good part of your conscience is a wiener. Exactly. And it also kind of evil, too, as we'll see later in this. Sometimes I'm watching this and thinking like, well, in Futurama, we didn't realize that this one-off character would end up growing into something else. So I wonder if Corpse Shoveler in the fourth season will get his own episode as well. He's going to be like that Sal guy, probably. Yeah. Like one of those characters that just keeps popping up. Scruffy. Or Scruffy. Wow. Maybe not that high tier.
Starting point is 00:37:19 I also, let's talk about Lucy's design. There were moments when i was re-watching and just pausing like wait how does this turn work how does this action work when lucy is always drawn as flat it's just faced one way or the other and if if lucy turns there's no in between on that it's just it flips the snap okay i didn't i didn't even think to do like pause through that yeah just i guess they did it so well that it didn't look off no that's and kudos to the animation team at rough draft and all the others on it that they are able to make it work you you said when these images first came out that you're like that lucy especially is such a matt graining drawing it's like a rip right from the pages and i know that sounds redundant because these are all technically matt graining drawings but then other artists clean them up and make them you know
Starting point is 00:38:02 more applicable to animation but that is a a straight off-the-page, life-in-hell, Matt Groening design. And I like that Lucy can even point at stuff with his arrow-like tail. It's like he does when he points at the carriage to steal. And that somebody doesn't like getting killed by a dead. That's a great little tease there. When they go on the run,'s when the we get to see the what the cops are like in dreamland with a candle lit siren and them making the and the donkeys constantly braying is so funny i'm glad they knew when to lay off that it wasn't constantly
Starting point is 00:38:38 throughout the entire scene but uh it was played just enough to be funny i love that they for no reason do things that happen in modern times such as there is no reason to make a walkie-talkie noise when they don't exist and yet they go i love that and the chase is fun speaking again of people that look like they might matter later the group of people crossing the street that stops the line yeah they look so specific. I'm like, are these guys showing up again? It's like a procession of movers, and they're also carrying one guy. Yeah, you know, it seems important.
Starting point is 00:39:13 One important looking guy. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also the tropes of a car chase. Yes. In this wagon donkey chase. And I'm also glad that when they did the big jump, that they resisted using a direct Dukes of H of hazard thing yeah that's more of a family guy choice but they did do slow-mo which is always fun in animation and uh when they crash we also get to see uh lingonberry lady lingonberry who
Starting point is 00:39:36 is related to the lord lingonberry who was killed by the elf blood in the second episode and she does not drown because we see her later in this episode so that's good i think they're like uh let's not have bean kill anyone that's innocent in this series to make her more likable so they let lady lingonberry live it's tough she kills in the first five episodes she's responsible for some deaths of i mean not exactly completely innocent people but people who are not trying to kill her not innocent enough enough. It's a good gag in the fifth episode where she says, I've never killed anybody before.
Starting point is 00:40:08 They're like, eh. And the I'm drowning, I'm Elfo. It's a cute little exchange. It's a good smash cut to the title card. Yes, yeah. It makes it even funnier there. And so then they are sneaking back into the castle. And that's where we get another hilarious Elfo.
Starting point is 00:40:26 I'll never not laugh when bad things happen to Elfo, even when it's so obvious a bad thing is about to happen to him. If anyone asks, just be honest and say she was alive when we ran away. Some might say her cries for help were a cry for help, but I think she was just being an attention whore. Oh, no! We're locked out! Okay, remember, the trick to not getting swept over the waterfall is swimming upstream. Got it. Now what's swimming?
Starting point is 00:40:59 Okay, Elfo, you can do anything if you believe in yourself. It was so nice of that swarm of crabs to drag me ashore. We find out Lucy's eating the shells and throwing away the meat. Not the meat. Lucy eats garbage. I like that that implies to you that Elfo, he can't swim was obviously going to drown and the only reason he didn't drown is because crabs were tearing him apart to pull him to shore to eat him he's covered in wounds but again they're playing with the tropes of how would a teenager act out in this past fantasy world so she stays out too late with that
Starting point is 00:41:38 horse donkey chase yeah and she's also also locked out of the house because she's she gets there way too late so she's got to find another way. And instead of sneaking in a window, she has to swim through a moat. That's the first time somebody has fallen off of that conspicuous waterfall that's in the show. I have a feeling a lot of that's going to happen a few more times.
Starting point is 00:41:54 You see it a lot. And one thing that made me angry, angry, I say, is that in the promos for the show, they use this scene, but they didn't have Elpho go, what's swimming? They just had him say,
Starting point is 00:42:04 you can do anything if you believe in yourself. he goes over the edge like you need that what's swimming thing to make it funny yeah otherwise just a character getting hurt it's you know as somebody who watches fewer promotional things these days it does stick out to me when I see it before seeing it in context and it it reminds me of it lessened by enjoyment of the first episodes of futurama because all the jokes were spoiled in the endless commercials that fox did for it netflix is i haven't been assaulted with as many commercials they're mainly on twitter uh that's where i see them in facebook actually when i looked up the official ad for disenchantment on youtube for this uh for prep for this it then played for me a 15 second ad for a disenchantment before i watched the official trailer i'm seeing double here and
Starting point is 00:42:52 then they decide that they're going to eat the lemon from the lemon crusades which was left over and they just smash it up they can open it from the top they instead just smash it open and pull it out they that bean is a teenage you know that too bart is 10 fry is in his late 20s bean is a teen like a late teen like 19 or something and so she's acting out in different ways as the lead character on this show and once again lucy makes her get the lemon yep this is when in the first time in this episode, we get to hear from John DiMaggio's lead guy in this. King Zog. I love him. Have they no respect for the Lemon Crusades?
Starting point is 00:43:30 Civilizations were decimated. History rewritten. Maps redrawn. To be fair, sire, you were never going to eat it. I heard it was sour. I don't care for sour stuff. I care about Bean. She's out of control.
Starting point is 00:43:43 And I've tried everything. Yelling, screaming, everything. I think all the classy old bats in this family let right to Bean. Carousing, taking her clothes off every chance she gets. Doing God knows what with that elf. Aye. Bean
Starting point is 00:44:00 hasn't been the same since she lost her mom. Ah, Dagmar. You are my perfect queen regal kind talk all good and stuff not like reptilicus oh he thinks i am reptile ah i need some snake root to soothe my nerves the scene just cuts after that but yeah i really feel like john dimaggio is channeling someone he knew growing up in the bronx or wherever he grew up it's such a great voice reminds me a bit of mr punucci yeah plus 20 years yeah no actually he grew up in boston oh boston okay you're right you're right because baseball arguments yes. They're very silly baseball arguments.
Starting point is 00:44:46 But the... Yeah, Zogg. I think Zogg is even drawn to kind of look like DiMaggio as well. A little bit. He does, again, look like another Matt Groening-style drawing. They didn't change very much. Like you said, the doodly-bobber on his head. Just like Nibbler. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:01 But the John DiMaggio features are especially the red mustache and red hair and kind of stockier, but in the John DiMaggio features, especially the red mustache and red hair and kind of stockier frame, though, John DiMaggio, big red, he is tall. Zog is short. It's something I caught for the first time in this. His attendant, voiced by Maurice LaMarche there, he normally stands fully tall when he's not around Zog,
Starting point is 00:45:21 but when Zog's there, he has to be even more than Mr. Burns, hunched over to meet Zog in but when Zog's there he has to be like, even more than Mr. Burns, hunched over to meet Zog in the eye and not tower over him. I think it's also like him being obsequious. I can use another Simpsons word. He has to be at the king's level or lower.
Starting point is 00:45:38 And this also was the first time I noticed that the attendants to him... Oh yeah, they look just like Ackbar and Jeff from Life in Hell. I was thinking the same thing, yeah. And they look just like akbar and jeff i know i was thinking the same thing yeah and they don't linger on them for too long you can just barely see them trailing behind the king holding his uh train or cape or whatever you want to call that i guess yeah i wonder if they're going to be like the like the owls in futurama not commented on for a while but they're they're there they're right there akbar and jeff season three they get
Starting point is 00:46:02 their own episode and just zog zog is so funny just that he sounds i saw one reviewer put it this way i forgive me i forgot but he he sounds like a mets fan who became a uh the king of this country of dreamland and just ways like talk all good and stuff oh it's a great hilarious choice to have a king talk like this and i love it in fact one of my favorite lines comes from this episode, and it's all, I mean, the joke is funny, but the delivery that he does is so great. We'll get to it. And it's also, he's so mean to his second wife, calling her Reptilicus. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:36 But that's some more, I want to know this. This is what's hooking me. I want to know this story. Not only what happened to queen dagmar bean's mom but also why did he marry reptilicus that's not her name but the new queen and transoming neal plays are so funny as with kind of a natasha type voice from rocky and bullwinkle yeah and i want to say this is not what they're going for explicitly, but I do get a real Ivanka vibe from her. The bored sort of kept woman who resents her rich asshole husband.
Starting point is 00:47:12 With a fail son around them too. He think I am a reptile? And also she's supposed to feel foreign in the way that Melania Trump does as well. Yes, I hate even thinking about that person, but I bet that's correct. So yeah, she does her drugs and I just love her screaming. Her screaming is so great.
Starting point is 00:47:33 Same with when you hear Tress McNeil screaming again when they decide to steal some drugs. You use your curtains to escape one time and your dad's all like, no more curtains. You know, if you don't sleep for 72 hours, you become clinically insane. So wakey, wakey, nutbag.
Starting point is 00:47:51 Fine, but I'll need a little something to put the edge on. I need Una's little helper. Oh, does she have a friend like me? Nope, she has no friends. She has nothing in her life except a drug that makes her happy. Now let's go steal it. Stealing from my stepmother's purse. Is that who I really am?
Starting point is 00:48:26 It's exactly who you are. You're also the type to steal enough for your friends again stealing from your parents purse another bad teenage thing yeah bring it back to old timey times you're so right this is it's so relatable even though she's a princess above everybody else and this is also the funny this is the bathing area we saw in a previous episode where it's set up that, like, it's just communal bathing. Like, no, you just bathe together. The genders bathe together. It's very open-minded in that way. And the way she slithers into the pool, too, is really funny.
Starting point is 00:48:56 Hiding all of her nudity. Yeah. Who knows what's going on? She has reptilicus. I know. So, clearly she can, well, I think she can make a baby with the John DiMaggio, though. I get a real feel. So, Bob, I don't know if you've ever seen Game of Thrones. I've watched a little bit. I haven't. Thrones, but I also get a feel with the Queen, the Failson, and Zog. It's very much Robert Baratheon, Cersei, and her son Joffrey, though I'm hoping Reptilicus is not fucking her son in this case.
Starting point is 00:49:35 You said Joffrey. I just thought of Strangers with Candy. Yes. No, no. Not the wonderful Joffrey Jellydeck, but God. Let's do Strangers with Candy on here. It has a cartoon intro it's it's actually a cartoon it is it's just a very well animated one yeah i mean i'm gonna say because i don't watch game of thrones and know nothing about it i'm glad they didn't do a game of thrones parody but watch episode six be called like lame of thrones and then it will be everything bob mackie does not understand but i don't i don't think they'll do that i swear i don't think they'll do that i don't think they want to get that specific with
Starting point is 00:50:03 stuff and especially you can't get specific with pop culture references as much anymore because there's no monoculture anymore true it's all just kind of dead you got to pay for those thrones buddy and we also get a cutaway to lucy's unnamed controllers and this is the first time i could see i noticed the establishing shot of where they live which which is kind of like British Egypt a bit. And one of them is Rich Fulcher. Yes. I mean, they just draw him to be Rich Fulcher. That is very true, yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:31 He can be that character in live action. And I really like Jerry, their kind of Python-esque attendant of like, you never tell me. The peacocks don't like him. Yeah. Or he sounds like in Warcraft the uh you show oh like the peasants yeah the people who do your bidding lower class accents yes uh and okay so this might be line of the episode here well with a future zog one but them getting high is pretty great but first uh it's it's a weird drug and that it is, first it starts as LSD and then it becomes cocaine.
Starting point is 00:51:07 That's what the effects are. Yeah, you've got to crush it up and take it. It's hallucinogenic and then an upper, right? Yeah, that's what it seems like. I don't know. I'm not really feeling anything. Me either. Me either.
Starting point is 00:51:21 Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either. Me either.
Starting point is 00:51:26 Me either. Me either. Me either. What's happening? Wow, my God, you guys. We should start a band. Yes, we sound amazing. We'll fix up an old carriage and tour the country,
Starting point is 00:51:42 playing what we want to play, never selling out, never splitting up. Elfo, you're out of the band. What the hell? We're a duo now. The fans didn't even notice. Lucy, you fell off a balcony or were you pushed? We'll never find out.
Starting point is 00:51:55 Dreams come true, because I am a solo act now. The fans love my voice. I have dreadlocks, but then I shave my head like a true artist. Why is the crowd booing? Oh, no, I'm the talentless one. Elfo, you came back. Lucy, I thought I pushed you.
Starting point is 00:52:10 I mean, we're together again. Let's get out there. We're back on top. Nothing can stop us now. Oh, no, I have cancer. What? I dedicate this next song to the memory of Bean. There's so much going on. I love how starts with their uh unrhythmic clapping and they're just staring off into space and like clapping their hands and that's why she thinks
Starting point is 00:52:34 they should start a band also they're really amazing i call this a real futurama joke in terms of how the the uh sentences take a sharp turn it It's like, never splitting up. Elfo, you're out of the band. What the hell? Or maybe you were pushed. Who knows? Lucy, I thought I killed you. No, we're back together. But I love when characters immediately contradict themselves.
Starting point is 00:52:55 That is such a Futurama thing. It's so great. Yeah. Also, it only took three episodes for a drug trip. It was like the ninth episode of Futurama before they had a drug trip. That's right. When he got high, he was jacking on. He was jacking on, yeah. But in this case, I love the me either, me, me either, me either.
Starting point is 00:53:16 And I don't think the drugs have any effect on Lucy. I think nothing has an effect on Lucy thanks to him being a demon from hell. He's just into the clapping. Yes, yeah. Who wouldn't be? It's so much fun. But I also love how Abby says, or Bean says, I shaved my head like a true artist.
Starting point is 00:53:37 A true artist shaved their head. Shave off your dreadlocks. And then we get the bender scene. I don't. A little capital, lowercase b, lowercase b It's a montage right All the things they do on their trip Elfo fights a cock They steal armor and they go on a parade
Starting point is 00:53:54 And one of the suits of armor has Elfo and Lucy Both in it stacked on top of each other And with Elfo coming out of the Cock piece Cod piece And then she shoplifts from 7-Eleven, opens in 7-Eleven. That's a great joke.
Starting point is 00:54:10 Yeah. I love that. The sign is spelled Roman numeral 7, Roman numeral 11. It's great. I mean, Roman numerals for 7-Eleven, that's funny enough. But then to say that it has been open
Starting point is 00:54:20 since the year 7-Eleven, even funnier. Those aren't their hours. And that was when they do their kind of russian nesting doll of stealing because all he needs is to put it under his hat but then she also puts elfo under her shirt which he certainly enjoys he likes it yes i also think elfo a couple times this episode in the first episode it's set up that Elfo is so light and also weak that he kind of can't do anything. But in this case, he beats up that chicken.
Starting point is 00:54:50 He also beats up a dude. He has kind of magical strength when Elfo needs it. Matt Groening would call that rubber band reality. It's also a huge cheat. Yes, yeah, hey, either way. And so while on the spender, Bean makes some new friends. We've heard about you. Word round the gutter is you're a right proper villain.
Starting point is 00:55:11 Of course, I'm not threatened by that. Women gotta support women. Crime is male-dominated, innit? If this world were run by women, there wouldn't be so much crime. So our crime, yeah, is one for the ages. A real legendary caper. We could use your help. Well, I'll have to confer with my associates
Starting point is 00:55:30 first. Guys, do you think we should do this? I've never done anything bad before. I've never done anything good before. I want to be bad. I always admired bad Elfo. Bad Elfo doesn't really exist. I would rather hang out with bad Elfo. Okay, I'm gonna tell exist. I would rather hang out with Bad Elfo.
Starting point is 00:55:45 Okay. I'm going to tell them yes. That was a yes, right? Yes. I only got in trouble once, and Daddy Elfo slapped me on the bum bum. Yeah, we're open to it. God, that scene where they're all talking inside of her shirt,
Starting point is 00:56:03 that really feels like they're in the same room or they're improv-ing or something. I just, especially him talking about his dad spanking him, it feels like he's making it up as he's talking, but it's so funny. Yeah, it's... My dad, my dad, spank my bottom. Yeah, they kept it, and I also don't think they'd write him to say bum bum. Bum bum. But he would use a euphemism. Yeah, but it's so funny, and his just pauses as he's making it up.
Starting point is 00:56:27 That does feel very made up for the time. And just that extra long pause as Bean just ignores what he just said. I'm like, okay. Yeah, and the other line he says that I think is also could be ad-libbed is like, I've always admired bad Elfo. Yeah. Bad Elfo doesn't exist. Bad Elfo doesn't exist. Bad Elfo doesn't exist.
Starting point is 00:56:46 Eric Andre also, God, I just love him so much. If you folks haven't watched the Eric Andre show, I'm sure you've seen the clips of it out there. These thieves, I love them so much and I hope they come back. They don't get killed in this episode and I think they're such a unique and great idea and I don't think the joke is punching down
Starting point is 00:57:01 or anything like that. No. They're all so much fun. Yes. And one of the characters, their dad died in the lemon crusades we learn later i want to hear more about those lemon crusades i i also like his uh the just huge dent in the head of the rich vulture one it tells a story yeah it's i think those guys will be like i think we've seen our new clamps in these characters here. I'm sorry if I constantly, this is its own show, but I am viewing it through the lens of Futurama because it's so new.
Starting point is 00:57:32 Most of the same people, though. Come on. Yeah. Give me a break. It's its own show. So they're going to just steal some potatoes. And then Lucy makes it worse, again, by suggesting they rob the tomb of her family not even robbing the castle yeah which would be conceivably easier i guess yeah i would think
Starting point is 00:57:52 just open that door and walk on in instead go into the tomb and it's also where they set up again dagmar and how much she misses her mom but don't see dagmar's corpse though we don't not see it either if if she is dead, she could be right off screen and she just didn't get to her mom's corpse. I think it's very telling that they don't show her, though. I mean, there is a statue of her that leads down into the tomb, but we don't actually see her. We see the grandma.
Starting point is 00:58:16 Yeah. But I do like how when Bean is stealing from the corpses of her relatives, it's like she's shopping. She's walking around with a basket, just picking things up and putting them in the basket. It's really cute. And also, talking about the family, that takes me back to when they show Zog
Starting point is 00:58:34 looking at the portraits of the previous queens. And you see that his mother, who we'll get to know more about in a second, but Zog's mom has red hair like he does, and then Dagmar has white hair like Bean has. And that's in hair color in Game of Thrones with the Zog character is actually very important for trying to show who the parent of him is.
Starting point is 00:59:01 It's actually what proves that Prince Joffrey isn't really Baratheon's son. I don't know if the science really checks out on that, though. Look, I trust that Ned Stark did all the right... It had shown that in the Baratheon line, they had only had
Starting point is 00:59:18 black hair, and then the first son, Joffrey, has blonde hair, then it proves he's not the father. Check his roots. They don't have hair dye. I wonder, man, what is hair dye? That's another great gag, the wig scene gag in the second episode. You can see Fry's hair in that wig set as well.
Starting point is 00:59:36 Oh, really? Okay, damn, I didn't see that. Keep an eye out for it. There's tons of, just like Simpsons Futurama, they stick in a ton of gags in the margins there. But yes, it's time to steal from Beba. Oh, my sweet Beba. Remember when you used to sit me on your lap and tell me stories?
Starting point is 00:59:54 Well, I'm in a gang now, and I got to take your crown and your necklace. And didn't you have a... Sometimes when you pull off your grandma's jaw, it really makes you stop and wonder, am I doing the right thing? Come on! This is a burglary, not a family reunion! Okay, that's everything! Whoa! Think of how many potatoes we could get with this! All right, guys, if I spend any more time with my family,
Starting point is 01:00:25 they'll start asking why I'm not married. So you want to drop me that rope? Just so you know, I would have done the same thing if you were a man. Now! So, when are you getting married? We have to assume the king got her out of there, or some of the guards. The guards found her in the morning, I'm guessing. Well, they didn't replace, you know, the highway people are nice in that they don't push back Dagmar's tomb covering.
Starting point is 01:01:00 So, someone in the morning must have noticed that it was open. Yeah, they are redeemable, and they're going to buy so many potatoes. I love the egalitarian thieves. They're very much like, hey, it's all very inclusive. Now give me that stuff. I'm going to steal from you or I'll kill you. And also her saying like, oh, Bebop, well, I'm in a gang now, and I need to steal your shit.
Starting point is 01:01:23 And fries off her jaw. Just rips it off. You see a little bit that Bean knows it's wrong, but she's also too fucked up at all points in this. She's never sober for two days straight. And I can understand her being. Weren't we all impressionable teens who did things to impress people? I never joined a gang and stole from corpses. Yeah, I didn't't do that either but so they get captured and we get to see this is
Starting point is 01:01:49 actually one of the first scenes that was released in the trailers for it was zog slowly looking up the body of the thief and just his zog's inability to understand things as he stares at them is so funny it gets worse every time they do it he's assessing her from the ground up like every Zog's inability to understand things as he stares at them is so funny. It gets worse every time they do it. He's assessing her from the ground up, like every element. It's like shoes, legs. In the first episode, there's the great thing. There's like, let me look at this cake.
Starting point is 01:02:17 Topper is fine as I move downward. I forgot that's sort of a running joke with him. He can't see things like all at once. He's got to examine every element one at a time. And he has to announce what he thinks of them. And it's such a great way of doing jokes because you all know where this is going, where he's like, what the? But they have to delay it as long as they can. It's great. I mean, it is so unrealistic and so stylized. No one would ever do this, but it's great to draw out the, you know, the explosion you're waiting for.
Starting point is 01:02:47 Yeah. But here's just how angry Zog is. I love this. I know I went a tad wild. But what do you expect from someone who's got no control over her own destiny? So I turned to booze, drugs, and my evil little friend. Oh, my God. Shut up.
Starting point is 01:03:03 You're weird, cat. I'll pulverize him. I'll pat him in the wrong direction. I'll put a cucumber beside him. That drives them crazy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, not him. I meant... She meant me.
Starting point is 01:03:15 I'm so bad. Oh, I'm bad. No, you're not. You're a marshmallow with legs. Ah-da-da-boo! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! I love to do the woo-woo-woo-woo- legs. Stop! Well, I got into some shenanigans in my day,
Starting point is 01:03:31 but my mom never lost a head. We recovered this. Oh, that's mom's head. Mom's head! Your daughter was caught ransacking the royal tomb. You stole stuff from our dead family? Oh, I don't even know what to yell at you. You take it.
Starting point is 01:03:48 Why you? I order, if I weren't so fat, I'd... Shut up! She gets the point. Bean, go to your room while we decide what to do with you. And take Elfo, so I know you're not having any fun. And Lady Lingenberry is in the audience there. Yes.
Starting point is 01:04:05 I think she's still wet. She's one of the nine victims of them, which I think when I counted it, two of those puppets have to count as the victims for it to be nine. Okay, wow. That's the count that as I take it. He even says a goddammit,
Starting point is 01:04:20 which you can't do that on Fox. That's true. It's one of two goddammits I noticed in the first five. And I love the very Marx Brothers-y, my mom would never lose her head that's my mom's head my mom's head yeah oh god and and also he's like he holds up the wanted poster that just has the slightest strand of a mustache drawn and he's like you can't tell me this is my daughter uh and that he knows that Elfo, everybody sees Lucy as a cat, which they have to do for plot purposes.
Starting point is 01:04:50 Otherwise, they'd just be like, why is this demon always around you? We should get rid of it. And they accept very readily that Lucy can talk. Like, it's your talking cat. I mean, in the world of Dreamland, what is a talking cat, really? It's true, yeah.
Starting point is 01:05:02 I think, you know, actually, I think that makes him kind of like Felix the cat cat a little bit which knowing how much matt graining loves oldie time cartoons and felix it could be intentional yeah bender's chest door is very much like felix's bag of tricks oh my gosh direct reference i believe yes you're right and also this is it's classic john dimaggio just sounds of like that's another running joke in the series is that people tickle Elfo until he gets really offended by it. Stop it! He can't tell. But also that he knows that Elfo is no fun and that she hates being around him.
Starting point is 01:05:40 So I wonder, though, how did Bean officially get magically linked to lucy was it by opening the gift that she receives in the first episode i think so i think so yeah there was no like oath or pact or anything she just opens that package and then they're paired together but i think lucy just like no you're stuck with me because i'm i'm here now i'm i literally can't leave you and i think it's good too that they set up that bean enjoys the stuff that lucy talks her into doing it's not that she's forced to it's that she's just easily suggestible and i think any teenager with a demon on the shoulder saying like come on do it do it do it do it and meanwhile elfo is just such a lame-o who who loves licking rug fuzz off of lollipops.
Starting point is 01:06:27 Yeah, Lucy sticks his lollipop to the ground and then goes back for more. It's like, oh, this is actually pretty good. I love the King's line. She's a one-man wrecking woman. Yeah, yeah. And that's also in that we get to hear the Eric Andre eyepatch guy say, like, your real mistake, your first mistake was teaching her, like teaching her to read.
Starting point is 01:06:48 And this is when we get Billy West entering the scene as the Merlin as such. Does he have a name, this character? That one I haven't caught. I can't remember. But I apologize, listeners. I don't know. But here's his voice. That don't exactly explain why she desecrated sacred remains.
Starting point is 01:07:01 Don't worry, Ma. I won't let her get away with it. Oh, we can spout crazy theories all day, but science suggests a more logical explanation. That being is possessed by a demon. Oh no, they're
Starting point is 01:07:15 on to us. They'll know exactly what we're up to. You don't even know what we're up to. Oh, every day you say you tell me, and you never do. I wonder if they're going to use him to eventually explain what they're up to. It's like, okay, fine. You do need an idiot in the room to give exposition, or actually to absorb exposition.
Starting point is 01:07:38 In a future episode, he might say, you never tell me. He's like, okay, here, we're going to tell you this is why we're doing this. Or he'll find out on his own, and we will absorb the information. I think we're going to learn a lot more about Jerry here in the future. And the idea that it's so great that they correctly guess that she is possessed, but they cannot identify a demon when it's right in their face. And just that Billy West is really, I'm's it's like two different guys who have been dead for 80 years that i don't recognize he's doing the voice up but it's a really good
Starting point is 01:08:10 specific voice for billy it feels like kind i think it's like a combination of different old-timey actors like it feels a little james mason-y like a little touch of james mason especially when i was like of course yeah of course. It goes about testing out three different techniques on her. First smoke, then magnets, and then shaking. No demon could survive this preposterous degree of jiggling. This is not good for my hangover. Oh yeah, that's it. Crank harder.
Starting point is 01:08:43 You got him on the run now. Woo! Work those scrawny nerd arms. Jiggle that demon back to hell. Noice! Oh, alas, the demon remains even after the application of all three sciences.
Starting point is 01:08:57 All three? Even smoke? Indeed. We scholars like to think science has all the answers, but in the end, it's just a bunch of unprovable nonsense.
Starting point is 01:09:07 So now what? I suggest something based more in reality. Religious magic. An exorcism, huh? I don't like the sound of that. Let's do it, but don't say it out loud again. Two amazing jokes in that. So I got confirmation from Bill Oakley that the Even Smoke line was David X. Cohen. I love that. Even Smoke! He's so incredulous. The smoke didn't work.
Starting point is 01:09:34 There's also a really, really great little line delivered by Merlin. Ah, your talking cat's here to keep you company. Now, let's find that demon. And Lucy then says, says meow all right yeah like and i like how uh we just we just heard the uh him sarcastically cheering uh merlin on i like how he eventually just gets tired of it you could see his eyes go half-lidded just like shut up and i i it felt very eric and andre to say noise yeah not nice noise noise and her getting shaken about as she's as a hangover it's fun to see things happen to bean that when bad things happen to her it can be funny
Starting point is 01:10:13 and that and that line that i know you love say i don't like the sound of that let's do it but don't say it out loud again it's so uh it's such a great i've never heard that joke before with that turn of phrase yeah yeah every you've heard that in so much fiction of just like, I don't like the sound of that, but let's do it. Instead, it's like, he literally, he'll do it, but he doesn't want to hear the word exorcism. It's not even an expression. He just doesn't like the sound of it. Oh, that's another of my favorite Zog lines where he says like, he mentions a rodeo. He's like, do we have rodeos?
Starting point is 01:10:45 What is this now? Is that like, he said, it's not my first rodeo? There's a play on that too. It's great. And also in that, as they're doing that, they're taking more blood from Elfo,
Starting point is 01:10:58 which is them showing that even though you thought they finished the whole Elf blood thing in the first episode, they're still taking his blood just slowly. It's funny that they still make him sit in a cage. Like he's going to escape. He's happily.
Starting point is 01:11:10 He's like, I got a cookie. Yup. But he has to be in a cage and he seems fine with it. Look at us down on the floor. So they call in big Joe. This is also great. So before Henry,
Starting point is 01:11:23 you were telling me not to call you out or anything, you were telling me you weren't completely sold on the animation. This is what really made me buy into how good this show looks. All of the Big Joe stuff is just glorious and beautiful and beautifully lit, and the colors they choose are so wonderful. It is so nice looking. I don't know. How do you feel now? It transforms into a horror movie so easily.
Starting point is 01:11:42 I agree with you, Bob. It kind of shows the flexibility of the animation style and that it's not all like flat or anything i guess at first i was comparing it to directly to simpsons or futurama in that i the characters seem lightlier detailed than in futurama or simpsons and You've got characters like Zog and Elfo and Lucy who are just very small, low on details compared to characters in Futurama. So it made me think,
Starting point is 01:12:15 oh, is this on a lower budget or less detailed? But then when you see the stuff they get, especially with Big Joe, he's teleporting around in the lightning. Yeah, I mean, in terms of animation, it's not a lot of animation, but him just he's teleporting around yeah i mean that is when like in terms of animation it's not like a lot of animation but him just sort of teleporting closer to them with the lightning strikes and then just appearing in front of them it's i get that a lot uh i also wonder like is big joe is funny but he's also kind of evil does him being sort of evil or at least
Starting point is 01:12:40 like dogmatically righteous make actually the demons the good guys well i mean they they technically kill him so there has to be some sort of justification there so i think you're right i wonder how they're gonna get away with murdering big joe by the way if that should ever come back to haunt them when the equivalent of the catholic church in this world finds out the princess murdered him i guess really elfo Elfo is the final killer of Big Joe. Well, I mean, we'll get to it, but Big Joe does try to kill Bean. That's true.
Starting point is 01:13:10 To find the demon, so he's a bad guy. What I also like with this bit here is that it shows the flexibility of this fantasy parody in that this also becomes an exorcist parody. They're not too direct. Well, a couple parts a little bit direct, but... But again, I mean, they do a few of the, I the i would call obvious jokes but they do new things with them they could have done all of the exorcist stuff but they play with it in new ways yeah yeah and the and it also shows
Starting point is 01:13:35 that in future episodes they could just do like more direct film parodies or tv parodies, but then have it be through fantasy. And it would totally work. But yes, the exorcism begins as Big Joe arrives in the room. Fear not, princess. I will soon have the demon out of your body. Nobody in this body but us princesses, man. Oh, wait, just one princess. Me, Princess Dea... Oh, God, what's my full name?
Starting point is 01:14:06 Damn it. I shall soon cast thee out, demon, with these sacred tools. Your sacred tool. Jokes are a sign of fear. A fear that is well justified. Hold on, there's something I've always wanted to try. So cool! I didn't even know that the human body could do this it can't out get out be gone damn you sounds like some quality exorcism i was talking to you nobody talks to me like that
Starting point is 01:14:38 except my daughter and my wife and now you another great oh i love the king so much so what i like the joke idea is the arrival of the exorcist is what makes bean get possessed because lucy has to hide inside of her so pre exorcism she's not possessed but when the guy shows up she's like oh shit i gotta get into she's more like being suggested to by him all the time but never officially possessed and they only do it to high and it's not even by lucy's choice it's a magic spell done by his bosses it is interesting to see that lucy is ultra confident throughout the entire series but this is something that actually makes him afraid this was the moment i finally this whole sequence here is when i finally really liked lucy and it's that little bit of like humanity or just the dropping of his harsh exterior that lets you in to like him that's what i really love about this part and same him
Starting point is 01:15:32 afraid of the weirdo as as his owners call him yeah and i really love in terms of animation the great pose that bean is in with lucy peeking out of her mouth. Yeah. She looks like some sort of weird Muppet creature, but it's a very funny drawing. And her reaction to having her neck broken, I guess, of the spinning head. She bounced back from that. Yeah. Also, right before Big Joe comes in there, this was the first time I noticed on this viewing that Lucy is sleeping like a cat on top of the covers of them, too. He is living the life of a cat as well and uh and
Starting point is 01:16:07 yeah the way he screams at zog of just his zog in the first two episodes is almost too mean for you to really like him but in this episode it's more like i love my daughter i just don't understand and even you think he'd say like no one speaks to me like except everybody i know except that you are you uh you feel more for him because he's shit on so much but he is he is much more of a I think he'd say, no one speaks to me except everybody. I accept that you are. You feel more for him because he's shit on so much. But he is much more of a dick and a monster in the first two. Yeah, and also in the fifth episode, too, when he throws her out. The bit with him putting chemicals in his ears to make steam come out of them.
Starting point is 01:16:40 It reacting far too late. Yes. But so Lucy is resistant to it and just kind of mocking him the whole time. But eventually he gets exercised in a most unexpected way. Fire doesn't hurt demons. You're only hurting Bean. Exactly. Once the flesh is burned away, the demon is revealed.
Starting point is 01:17:01 Flesh burn. Demon return. Dude, she needs her flesh. Great. You're going to make me be the good guy? Ugh, I hate that. I saved your life. Now I can go back to ruining it.
Starting point is 01:17:25 Gotcha. You can't do this, man. I want your life. Now I can go back to ruining it. Gotcha. You can't do this, man. I want my lawyer. I'm in here. Don't say anything. What happened? You have been exorcised. Don't forget to take it easy today and drink plenty of water.
Starting point is 01:17:42 I love how all the demons look in the bottles. They're very fun designs that, again, remind me a lot of macarooning drawings they've all been like liquefied they they're kind of like liquid in there but they also uh they remind me a lot of the pac-man flatness as well especially when they're talking and they the empty space in their mouth yeah the side of their head they're talking it's great. And so that's the moment there that you see that Lucy let Bean die and be burned to death by this person who doesn't care. No, he will not. I feel that's a cover. I think he's not allowed to let her die.
Starting point is 01:18:18 I think part of the rules of his thing are like, look, you can torture her, but she can't die. You have to prevent that if that happens i think they're also leaning towards lucy is actually starting to like have a friend to it like bender his first friend ever of all my friends you're the first and his but he also has to make sure she doesn't think he's gone too soft and that the audience doesn't think he's gone too soft so he says like i'm only doing this so I can make your life worse. Yeah. That's why. I'll save your life so I can ruin it. That's right.
Starting point is 01:18:48 So they're taken away, and Elfo and Bean are getting used to their new Lucy-free life. So is Lucy really gone? Well, it depends what you mean by gone. If you mean carted away, never to return, then yes. Well, maybe it was for the best. Life with him was fun, but I probably would have been dead in a few weeks. I will miss how he always pointed out my foibles
Starting point is 01:19:09 and mocked me ruthlessly. But we'll be okay. You'll be amazed how much fun I am on my own. That's not a daisy. What? You put a dandelion in the daisy basket. So? So, we're making a daisy chain,
Starting point is 01:19:26 not a dandelion chain. Why even bother to call it a daisy chain if you're just going to... Oh, God. I'm so sorry. I lied. I'm not really fun. The pressure it just got to me.
Starting point is 01:19:39 And then the pressure to sustain the lie. Oh, God, it was a nightmare. We have to find Lucy. I like this perspective on Elfo in that he's also sort of a type A personality when it comes down to it because he grew up in a very regimented society where everything was just this very clockwork,
Starting point is 01:19:56 you know, schedule of everything happening. Yeah, and they have very, that world seems so nice, but they have very specific rules about everything. I mean, in that elf world, you're allowed to be weird if you're weirdo. But if you're elfo, you're not allowed to just make out with some girl or leave your job. You just box candy all day for candy. That's your job.
Starting point is 01:20:17 Yeah. Same with like, you're so defined by your job. So it makes sense that he would passive aggressively tell someone how to correctly make a daisy chain and what you need for that. Him just giving up. And it shows too, that how without Lucy there, he, he would drive being crazy.
Starting point is 01:20:33 Bean would murder him in a minute without Lucy there to counterbalance it. Elfo also is not going to have a chance with being, if he doesn't have Lucy around to help with that situation, as we'll see in later episodes, too, which I gotta say, again, when Elfo is a creep, it's not even him being a creep. It's that he's a total dick that reminds me of how
Starting point is 01:20:53 young man reacts to crushes the wrong way, where he's just like, oh, hey, are you making out with this guy? Meh. I'm gonna fuck this up. Very possessive. Very much so. I don't know if you have this clip, but another one of my favorite King Zog lines is coming up It's like
Starting point is 01:21:07 Oh sweetie I can see the sparkle In your eyes is gone Yes I I don't have that clip That's okay It's another Like again
Starting point is 01:21:15 I am You're gonna hear this a lot When I talk about the series But I love just the sharp Linguistic turns That they write And these actors deliver So perfectly
Starting point is 01:21:22 You're like what? Oh okay Wow That was great They're right in the foreground Is what I'm assuming is Bean's brother. And I wonder when we're really going to get to know this guy. He's right there. I mean, pardon my foggy memory, but do we see any other shots of him?
Starting point is 01:21:36 He's like, yes. I think in the fifth episode when Zog is sitting with Reptilicus watching over the execution, he's sitting there too. But to my knowledge, he doesn't say any lines. Okay, yeah. He's also eating a giant pile of pancakes, too, which, hey, man after my own heart there. We will find out or we will already have found out. But so I think it's telling that Bean is making these good decisions when Lucy isn't there. That's when she decides to do the right thing
Starting point is 01:22:05 and help her friend and actually also fight against the highwaymen. Maybe it's because Lucy's not there to influence her. I'm going to assume that if Elfo was taken away, Lucy would be like, don't rescue that dork. Absolutely not. He's no fun. He'd be like, no, let's just keep stealing stuff or drinking.
Starting point is 01:22:21 Let's keep doing that. Meanwhile, Lucy is hanging out with some other demons. It's our first time we've met other demons in the show. So there I am, possessing the Duchess. And she has the nerve to drop dead. And I'm like, now where am I going to live? Rude. Well, if it isn't Stacey Ann LeBlanc.
Starting point is 01:22:39 It's LeBlanc. Yeah. It's French. Like I said on her first date, nothing could be worse than this. I really enjoy that the demons are all of this 2D flat black creature design. Yeah. They're all of that model. It's not that they're, maybe there are different types of demons in hell,
Starting point is 01:22:58 but it seems like you're only a flat pitch black demon if you're in hell. And I love too that all of the little clothing accessories given to a couple like stacy has a miss pac-man bow and the lawyer has a tie that's really like one of the few ways you could tell a cartoon's gender yep yeah a bow and eyelashes that's that's how it's presented man it's uh and and and and that's when Bean decides to go on the road and save him. And I wonder if it's foreshadowing when she says they're probably going to try to kill you at some point, too. He's like, what? She's like, never mind.
Starting point is 01:23:33 As they get on horses and ride on their way to the mountain, they run into some old friends. Yay. Look what we caught in our little trap. What, now you're highway men? Highway people. We're a gender neutral kleptocracy. And we'll be taking these nice horsies. They go well with me neck sparklies.
Starting point is 01:23:53 Hey, that's my grandmother's necklace. Or your grandfather's. This isn't a gender thing. It's bee bars and I am taking it back. Ugh! Ugh! A lot of punches. I'm so sorry.
Starting point is 01:24:13 I'm normally a nice person, but we really need to save our friend. And we're in kind of a hurry, so... I really enjoy how the one highway person is trying to make this into a bigger philosophical argument, but she's like, no, that's literally my grandma's. Yeah, I'm not saying this is not a gender thing. That is my grandmother's plea. And I was glad they didn't die because I hope these guys come back.
Starting point is 01:24:39 They're funny as hell. Yeah, it would just be too wasteful to kill them off. I feel like we haven't seen the last of these guys. Even this season, we haven't seen the last of them. And even though they're gender neutral, the, I guess, woman of the group, if that's what she identifies as, I don't know. She's got a real Leela-style bracelet on, I noticed.
Starting point is 01:24:56 Yeah, that's true. It's also, this has more action than I expected in general in the show. There's at least one big fight per episode, and that begins with Bean is introduced in a giant fight scene in a barroom brawl, just so you know that she can hold her own in a fight, even against a guy as scary as Big Joe.
Starting point is 01:25:19 This is, like, so unfair. I never got to haunt a house or spook a dog or get married. Please put me out of my misery. Prepare to be put out of your misery. Ungerless, dominate, persequence, eos. I possessed your mother and she loved it. No! You just killed my lawyer!
Starting point is 01:25:52 You won't be needing him anymore. Your appeal has been denied! Wait, wait, wait! I love you? Big Joe, I love you! Cursed are those who consort with demons Bean saves Lucy And risks her own life to do that too
Starting point is 01:26:10 I'm also thinking of the demon science So fire can't kill demons Because we see Lucy literally sleeping in a fire But this lava can? What's going on here? Well, this is Mount Pipinghot's suckhole And it could be a Lord of the Rings reference. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:26:27 But that, Mount Doom, is a special lava mountain that can kill magical things. Oh, it's a real special mountain. Way to go, Tolkien. I feel like they could have come up with a better joke than Piping Hot Suckhole. I don't know. I have Mount Flaming Suckhole on my notes. Oh, maybe that's it. Okay.
Starting point is 01:26:44 Flaming Suckhole. Okay notes. Oh, maybe that's it. Flaming Suckhole. It's just fun to say. But again, in terms of animation, the lighting in this show is just so well observed. And so it just feels so glowing and warm and rich. And especially in all these scenes where they're all lit with lava, by the lava. It's so great. Yeah. And the little poof that the dead demon gives is pretty fun, too.
Starting point is 01:27:11 Oh, and I think, too, it's a really good book ending of plots in this episode that before she can save Lucy, Bean has to defeat the highway people that she had originally befriended. She needs to get revenge on them first, which I really like. Yeah, and I'm trying to think, though. This is a 28 minute episode if this were a 21 minute tv show like what would we lose from this yeah cut out the entire highway people scene they can cut out so much but we get all these extra great jokes because they can go up to 30 minutes yeah yeah i wonder if they are considering if it could be
Starting point is 01:27:39 broadcast if they could cut it down or not oh god i hope not no i did that's the great thing about netflix and other streaming services that the show's as long as it needs to be like simpsons very specifically has to be like no 22 minutes and 30 seconds and then shorter as they need more commercials in the future that's why you end up with shitty my hated syndicated episodes of the simpsons there's a stain on this earth but i also have to say that so before we observe there is a direct exorcist parody coming up there's a direct raiders of the lost ark parody oh yeah and you mentioned that they can only really reference the monoculture because culture is so fragmented now and i like how they are not going again they're not going
Starting point is 01:28:20 for the obvious stuff this is not just a like reference in the past sort of thing they are they are trying to not be as reliant on this as other many other series would yeah yeah totally and that's that comes at the end of this confrontation here it's all over big joe i got the bottle and the knife well i got whatever this is elf throw me the bottle i'll throw you the elf. Thank you. Okay. Catch. You haven't defeated me yet.
Starting point is 01:28:55 Now you have! Help! She risked her own life to save the demon Remarkable She's come along faster than we ever dared dream So I put in that bit there of the demon masters Because they have kind of like a parental vibe to them I mean, it makes me wonder what their intentions are
Starting point is 01:29:22 Are they doing this to corrupt Bean? Or are they training her in something? And does this have anything to do with Bean's mom? We don't know. Again, in the comments, people, we have not seen the rest of the show. So I realize that we're probably going to find out come Friday. Maybe. They could be saving it for season two.
Starting point is 01:29:40 You never know. It's true. And arms getting cut off, amputations happened quite a lot in futurama so continue that here and they're always so so clean and bloodless yes yeah it's it's not as funny if a bunch of blood gushes out or if big joe were to just scream in pain and you do get to see that big joe is definitely a villain of like not only that he would have killed bean to get the lucy out of her but then also he's just like, if you're consorting with the devil, I should kill you. Like, so I'm going to murder you right here.
Starting point is 01:30:12 I like how Elfo kills him with his own arm. Yes. The arm that gets knocked off or sliced off rather. And then Elfo carries the arm with him. Elfo and Bean kill a lot more people than Lucy does. That's true. He's not an active participant, really, in most things. But Lucy is the catalyst for all the killing.
Starting point is 01:30:28 Very much so. He gets them into these situations. Yeah, and that includes killing people to free him. He gets freed, and he's not the only one. No, no, no, no, no. Just pull out the cork. Ow. Ta-da.
Starting point is 01:30:42 Did you miss me? Yes, but never fly into my mouth again. Hey, what's that rolly-wagony sound? Well, at least we saved Lucy. But we released evil upon the world. A happy ending for everyone. And I assume we'll see more of the payoff to this in future episodes. What if there's tons of people possessed by demons all around Dreamland?
Starting point is 01:31:19 With how the episodes sometimes hook up to each other, I was surprised the next episode wasn't about the demon aftermath. Yeah, that's true, because four goes right into five, but not so much here. But I still love the free... It also shows that no good deed goes unpunished in the world of Matt Groening's morality, really.
Starting point is 01:31:40 And it is sort of smart plotting to set this up because Elfo removes the stone to smash the jar open and that the stone is what's holding the wagon in place on the side of the mountain. Only Elfo would be stupid enough to remove the rolling and not know what a wagon was or that that was a break for the wagon. Or that he could just pull the cork out of the bottle.
Starting point is 01:31:58 And even as Lucy's screaming, he's like, they still don't stop today. They're like, no, we're dropping this rock on you. Well, because Lucy can't, Lucy takes no physical damage normally. So he just goes, ow! Yeah. And then he sort of just reforms around it. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:32:10 And it's a cute little line. Animation-wise, I love that it's a zoom-in to one of the demon tails to just go to black. Yeah, it's great. It's really good. Yeah, so disenchantment, C minus. Try harder next time. No, of course. We love this show.
Starting point is 01:32:23 Yeah. It's great. I thought I was like, oh, yeah, I we love this show. Yeah. It's great. I thought I was like, oh, yeah, I'm into this show when I watched the first five. Revisiting this and taking notes and just really digging into all the jokes and everything. I'm like, oh, I am so into this. And I hope the next five that we haven't seen as of this recording are going to be just as good as three, four, and five. And maybe two.
Starting point is 01:32:41 And then a second season even better than that. Yeah. season even better than that yeah you know as futurama the critics simpsons all these shows have taught us the first season is like if the first season is good then the rest of the show seasons are even better and so when you start off this well with characters and situations and a staff that is fresh to you or relatively fresh, then as you get more into your groove and figure things out, it only gets better. So if this is the third episode and it's this good, I really have high hopes for where the show is going as well. And I have to say it was a really bold choice of them
Starting point is 01:33:16 to put our email address in the middle of the screen for the entire episode. I mean, that's great promotion, and we barely know these guys. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Those are on our screener, so in case we leak it to somebody, our fingerprints are all over it. Yeah. So we didn't leak it. If it got out there, you'll know who it is from the email address.
Starting point is 01:33:32 It won't be ours. Seriously, folks. I thank Netflix very much for sharing us the media shit for it. It was really cool. I hope we can work more together in the future. Yeah. I got some Netflix t-shirts out of the deal in a netflix bag i you know don't want to make any promises on here but we've already interviewed some folks who worked on disenchantment before it came out when they
Starting point is 01:33:54 couldn't really tell us anything now the information is out there i hope that we can interview people who worked on the show and to really get a feel of what happened in the writer's room and the sources behind jokes in this i would i would love to know it's funny when bill oakley was sort of hinting at this and saying i the big thing is coming guys and then immediately i don't know a week or two later they announced the futurama uh ios game or the mobile game i was like oh is that was that it i mean i'm sure it's fine but i'll never play it is that what he was sending out but it wasn't it was this and i thought it was that too because there was so much original animation for the ads for that game i figured oh maybe they got david x
Starting point is 01:34:33 and those guys to help write it that's obviously they wouldn't be making a new television show nobody gets to make television shows anymore especially not my favorite writers like bill oakley and josh weinstein i assume that whoever made that game saw that tapped out money on the table and was like, give me some of that tapped out money. Oh, that game is, it's not even a game. It sucks so much. People ask me about it. I'm like, no, it's awful.
Starting point is 01:34:53 It's a money pit is what it is. It's a fish tank that you feed to see references. You can just watch whenever you want normally. I, like, I've never played it. I don't intend to. I've already wasted enough money on Clash of Clans, which I know is garbage and I shouldn't be playing, but it fucking got me. Sunk cost fallacy. I played it. I don't intend to. I've already wasted enough money on Clash of Clans, which I know is garbage and I shouldn't be playing, but it fucking got me.
Starting point is 01:35:07 Sunk cost fallacy. I love it. That's how I live my life. But thanks for listening, folks. This has been What a Cartoon. I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackie. And in case you didn't know, this entire podcast is crowdfunded by listeners like you.
Starting point is 01:35:20 So if you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, you can find out how to help our show. At the $5 level, it's a very popular level. We have so much bonus content that is exclusive to patrons only. It will never be free. Never, I say. So including Talking Critic, Talking Futurama, so many interviews with Simpsons writers and artists, and monthly community podcasts.
Starting point is 01:35:41 Just so much bonus stuff happening at the $5 level. If you sign up now, there will be, I don't know, maybe dozens of things you've never heard before. And if you sign up, you'll get a nice little code. You drop that into whatever you use to listen to podcasts. And you can integrate our bonus podcast into your podcast listening lifestyle. It's that easy. It's patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. And if you can't afford $5 a month, even a dollar a month would be a nice little tip to say thank you for producing quality audio content. Henry, could you please tell folks out there what are two really cool things on the patreon that are new they should check out if they want to give it
Starting point is 01:36:11 the five dollar level well dan mcgrath who worked on mission hill with bill oakley and josh weinstein as well as the simpsons and he also worked on king of the hill he did an interview with us and he doesn't do many interviews and he told us a ton about his time of working on The Simpsons and all those other shows. Plus, if you guys want to go back into the interview archives of the over a dozen interviews we have available on the Patreon, if you listen to the Bill Oakley one and the Reed Harrison one, that was during production on this show. Listen to all these subliminal hints Bill is giving us. They're peppered all throughout. Find all the clues. He said on that one, he's like, I have never been as
Starting point is 01:36:49 kept to secrecy as much on something as Netflix has kept me on this. And it worked. There were no leaks. We never saw art until the official art leaked. So way to go, guys. Keeping it secret. But yes, that is patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Please check it out and help us out if you can.
Starting point is 01:37:05 As for me, I'm Bob Mackie. I said that before, out if you can. And as for me, I'm Bob Mackie. I said that before, but I just want to let you know again, I'm Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I have another podcast, by the way. I have so many podcasts. One of them is Retronauts. It's a classic gaming podcast. Every Monday, go to retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast machine.
Starting point is 01:37:21 It's a classic gaming podcast. We've been doing hundreds and hundreds of episodes over the past 12 years. I recommend you find a topic that you like, download the corresponding podcast, and then subscribe. For the love of God, subscribe. Smash that subscribe button. Thank you so much for listening, folks. Henry. H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter. You can follow me there and find out when every new thing goes up in the Talking Simpsons universe. Plus, sometimes I have fun exchanges with folks like Josh Weinstein and Bill Oakley on Twitter. So check all of that out there.
Starting point is 01:37:49 H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll see you next week for the Spider-Man The Animated Series episode, The Menace of Mysterio. We'll see you then. This has got to stop. Oh, come on. You know you enjoyed it. Yeah, but it's gotta stop.
Starting point is 01:38:33 What? Nuh-uh. I'm your demon, baby. We're magically linked, like lollipops and rug fuzz. It's fine. Listen, just stay away from me for a while, okay? Go ruin someone else's life. Huh, okay. Maybe I will. Ow!
Starting point is 01:38:51 Now I feel better.

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