Talking Simpsons - Our Crossover Episode With Michael And Us Podcast

Episode Date: February 15, 2020

Special surprise as we were guests this week on the lefty political media criticism podcast Michael And Us to discuss The Simpsons Movie in their particular podcast style. (Consider this a preview of the eight-hour movie podcast we'll do in a few years from now.) So give this a listen for some extra fun chat about the film's politics and how Simpsons changed society and how society changed it. Listen now to this fun crossover!

Uh, hoi hoi everybody and welcome to a very special Talking Simpsons presentation. I am one of your hosts, uh, the spider pig hater, Bob Mackie, the spider pig scoundrel, if you will. Uh, and hey, it's Henry Gilbert. I, uh, do the least offensive throat singing anyone could do. Uh, so this is, uh, an unusual thing for us, but it's a very fun thing in that we are presenting someone else's podcast but thankfully we happen to be on it yes yeah the uh the awesome podcast michael and us me and bob are big fans of it support them on patreon even we have had both of the hosts luke savage and will sloan on our podcast before and they wanted to cover the simpsons movie for their podcast and invited us on and we were more than happy to do it and it was super fun to record with them uh actually just last night at the time of this recording yes it was a very quick turnaround and uh so their podcast essentially well you'll hear what it is in the uh episode itself but

essentially they are a leftist look at certain kinds of movies often you know good and bad documentaries but often they'll do things like watch the original british office and give a leftist critique of that actually there aren't a lot of politics on this episode not as much as i thought there would be yeah yeah so if you think that would be a turnoff to you i say give it a chance and i think you'll really like it they are very uh very smart guys yeah and they have some great commentaries that uh we often don't hit sometimes so yeah it was a ton of fun to talk and also just to be complimented by them. I really appreciated that. It's a real ass-kissing festival on this podcast.

But yes, so you could listen to this on their feed, and I would definitely say check out in previous episodes as well. But we wanted to upload this to our feed so you guys could check out this crossover episode of sorts of Talking Simpsons meets Michael and Us. Yes, so please listen and enjoy this little bonus. 20th Century Fox presents Homer. Orkley.

Marge. Lisa. Bart. Maggie. Mr. Burns. Smithers. Krusty. Barney.

Lenny. Carl. Itchy. Moe. What? Grandpa. Apu. Wiggum.

Milhouse. Nelson. Rel. Selma. Maddie, Bumblebee Man, Willie, Jimbo, Skinner, Otto, Brockman, Reverend Lovejoy. Here's the money shot. And a cast of thousands in the movie event 18 years in the making. All right, well, hello, everyone, or I should say ahoy hoy.

Luke Savage here with me as always, my esteemed co-host, Will Sloan. Hello. And we are joined in a special crossover episode by Henry and Bob from the Talking Simpsons podcast. Hey guys, how's it going? Hey, it's me, Henry. Epa to everyone out there. Hey, it's me, Bob, the other guy on Talking Simpsons. So this is something we've been wanting to do for a while.

You know, the Simpsons movie is definitely something that's been on, you know, well in my radar for a long time. It's the perfect foil for both our shows. For those that don't know, Talking Simpsons, it's a great effort of Simpsons scholarship, the greatest one out there. Bob and Henry are two of the greatest living scholars, the greatest show of all time. Thank you. So they know The Simpsons. And as for The Simpsons movie, which is our main topic of discussion today, it's perfect because it came out in 2007,

which is ancient history in 2020 terms, and yet is strangely kind of late period for The Simpsons, at least if you grew up watching The Simpsons kind of in the 90s. So it's weirdly like late period and also backward looking. We're looking both backwards and forwards in strange ways today. But before we get into the movie, I wanted to kind of just explain what our show is to listeners of the Talking Simpsons podcast and to have you guys do the same. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your podcast and kind of what you guys do? Sure. Well, it's called Talking Simpsons podcast and to have you guys do the same. So why don't you tell us a little bit about

your podcast and kind of what you guys do? Sure. Well, it's called Talking Simpsons. And for about five years now, we've been going chronologically through The Simpsons. And we go super, super in depth into each episode. We really we focus on guests. We have guests on every show. And what we do is we go through every episode scene by scene. We play clips from the show. And if there's a reference, we dig deep into what it is and often play a clip of what the reference is referencing. And we are really a clip-based show with guests offering their input. And often episodes will go up to close to three hours long because we are definitive. We know we only have one chance to get it right. So we uh dig down into every reference and joke and quote

yeah pretty recently we wrapped up season 10 you know we decided to revisit season one because um the first time we did it was a bit shorter and so now we're really giving it the the proper due for season one but we'll soon be back to season 11 again and talking about Mel Gibson's wonderful episode of The Sims. And the death of Mott Flanders. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, you know, politically, me and Bob are pretty lefty Bay Area dudes. And so, you know, our show isn't a political podcast, but definitely we rant enough politically from time to time and we've had on had on you guys had on folks from the awesome lefty podcast uh choppo trap house and also uh the struggle session

i'm a big fan of that one you know politics enters the show from time to time it is it is quite a concept uh politics so uh so yeah we and we have a separate podcast called what a cartoon where we do similar for different animated series once a week as well. But yep, that's our whole deal. You know, whenever I was a kid and a season one episode of The Simpsons came on, I was always so disappointed. How has it been revisiting? like intellectual exercise for us to be like looking at it through the prism of history like what does this say about 1990 the state of tv the state of the world but there are often like you know funny jokes brilliant pieces of animation but just funny to see where everything began yeah and like watching them figure it out as they go it's uh so it's been fun in that way but yes no when i was a kid if it had come on in syndication be like season one i'm putting in my tape of season five or whatever and just watch that which is wild

because simpsons mania was about season one people had people had never seen anything like it you know yeah people were so used to the huxtables and then all all of a sudden came a wild little Bart Simpson. It's hard to not just say The Cosby Show when we mean a mainstream sitcom. Whenever we're just like, oh, The Simpsons were doing this when The Cosby Show was doing that. And then we all just get sad the second we say it. Just like, we got to just start saying Full House or something else. Yeah. It's just a bummer. But I mean, it was engineered to take down The Cosby Show because that's why it moved to Thursdays just to be Cosby.

And it did once. It beat a rerun of the Cosby show. The last season. Yeah. So right here, this is the kind of, you know, that is like the high level trivia about the Simpsons that Will and I do not know. So I'm glad that we I'm glad we put this to you guys. I did want to. I knew that.

I did not know that. I'm i'm obviously the ignorant one here but i'm full before we're all fully sucked into the vortex of the simpsons movie i wanted to kind of explain what our show is to your listeners who may not have heard of it basically around 2016 will and i decided we wanted to do what I think at the time, it's safe to say, was a quasi-ironic dive into Michael Moore's oeuvre. Will and I, I think like a lot of people of our generation, grew up watching Michael Moore. He kind of helped politicize us. We thought it would be interesting to revisit his films through the prism of the events that were going on in 2016 and kind of see how they held up. And we found that some of them did or kind of did, and some of them really didn't. After we got through Michael Moore's oeuvre, we dove into the kind of wider universe of sort of Michael Moore themed paraphernalia, kind of conservative

kitsch documentaries that were critical of him, but nevertheless aped his style. And when we ran through that, which of course, you know, it's not inexhaustible, got into just, you know, a kind of wider, you know, wider podcast universe that we've been building ever since that includes everything from, you know, Ingmar Bergman and Sergei Eisenstein to evangelical documentaries about how the libs are stealing christmas um so you know it's a there's something for everyone and uh yeah so that's uh that's pretty much it if uh you're michael and us listener we highly recommend you check out talking simpsons if you're a talking simpsons listener we humbly ask that you check out our podcast and maybe even subscribe to our

patreon we recommend it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Well, let's get into it. I mean, it's hard to know where to start with The Simpsons movie, but I guess since you guys are the scholars here, it might be useful to just have some basic context for what The Simpsons movie was, how it was conceived, and then we can all kind of do a go around and kind of see what our general takes are of it. Well, I think it's important to point out that this was always sort

of floating around The Simpsons, the idea of a movie. And Camp Krusty, The Simpsons episode, that was almost the movie. When that was in production, James L. Brooks called Gracie Films and was like, this should be the movie. But that episode was barely long enough to be an episode. So they were like, okay, we can't do this right now. But it was only until the early 2000s when it was starting to become more possible, but they could never shut down production of the TV show to make the movie. So this was being produced at the same time as season 18 of the show. Yeah, I think the proper ramp up for it came around when they started doing the commentaries for the DVDs, because it was an excuse to get many of the older producers and writers for the show back into the studio, like almost on a daily basis.

And so that's when more and more conversations were happening. And they got back uh almost every showrunner of the show uh and lead writer back to write a script and just workshop workshop workshop it and and yeah it was all happening during the prime time of you know the michael and us era of the bush administration and the 2004 election like right up to mid 07. Well, yeah, they'd been working on it for the longest of times while still producing the show. And they finally like Fox studios started advertising it in 06. I'd heard for many years, like Groening in, he'd do some interview somewhere, Matt Groening would, and he'd say, the movie's coming. We're working on the movie. I'm like, yeah, right.

Yeah. They'd, they'd even drop something like, we talked with Aaron Brockovich about doing a part in this, which totally got cut from the movie. Right. Yeah. But,

but then they did the first trailer and like late, oh, no, summer of 06, because it was a parody of the Superman returns trailer. Remember that? Oh, that's right.

And then I remember this. In 2007 2007 leaping his way onto the silver screen the greatest hero in american history i forgot what i was supposed to say the simpsons movie the season 10 dvds the uh the framing device for that is like the movie studio and there was a little like sneak preview of the movie within that dvd set before we get into the plot of this movie which you know is is i think fairly perfunctory we don't need to spend too much time on it i thought you know we could do a little go around and you know i want to hear everyone's takes on the movie we've all just kind of watched it in the last few hours i had not seen it since maybe 2007 or 2008. You know, for people listening,

you know, we haven't kind of gamed this out. You know, maybe we'll agree, maybe we'll disagree. I think if we disagree in some places about what we like, what we don't like, that'll be interesting. So I don't know, Will, do you want to start us off with kind of what was your take revisiting this one? I found it disappointing in 2007. I remember it was enjoyable to hear Harry Shearer's voice in Surround Sound and to see my favorite characters, you know, up there on that big screen. But I remember at the time feeling it compared unfavorably to something like the South Park movie, which really takes advantage of the possibilities of the medium. It felt like an extended episode. And watching it again, I am still disappointed by it.

Fundamentally, something better could have been done with this plot of Springfields getting trapped in a dome. I feel like we don't spend enough time in the dome. Instead, we go to Alaska with the Simpsons. And I feel like the conceit of the Simpsons going to Alaska doesn't bring a lot to the movie. And the movie really spins its wheels. And I think the movie is constantly gesturing

towards political satire and not really going there. I guess I agree with much of that. But what was it like for you guys revisiting this, particularly as two people who are so immersed in the Simpsons universe on a daily basis? Oh, well, I was still watching the show at that point. And I was watching it up until, I think, 2009. And I was also writing a column for my grad school paper, The Kent State Stater.

And I wrote a furious review of this movie. I was so mad about it when I saw it. And I will tell you guys out there, I spent my entire 20s just being mad about the Simpsons is that a review do you still have that if you look it up I'm sure it's still online somewhere like if you type in Bob Mackie Simpsons movie Kent State Stater I'm sure you'll find it I'm sure it's embarrassing oh let's find it and let's put it in the show please do I am not I'm not too ashamed of it but yeah I I watched it today and i found it watchable but whenever i see this movie now i just think of all the missed opportunities because this was their one shot to make a simpsons movie and they uh i just see a complete lack of confidence and this could have

been like every simpsons fan dream come true instead of having like the dream of like what if like mr burns and sancho Bob teamed up, the two ultimate villains in the universe. It's like, no, here's some new guy that isn't Hank Scorpio. That's what drives me insane. All of these weird choices that just show a lack of confidence. And then a year later, when I rented the DVD and listened to the commentary, it was all laid clear to me. Al Jean is on that commentary saying, here are the jokes that didn't work with test audiences. Here are the ones that did. Test audiences love Spider Pig,

so we put the Spider Pig in song as much as we could. So this was just a movie that was focus group to death on a show that famously did not have to accept notes from the network, and that drove me nuts. I enjoyed it in 2007. I revisited it for the 10th anniversary, like three, two and a half years ago. So it was relatively fresh for me. My feeling in 2007 was I thought it would be as bad as the worst episodes of the show were at the time. And so it being better than that, I liked that and I think now I give it it feels like a six out of ten to be maybe a five out of ten honestly but there are bits where I as me and Bob watched it together right before this and I kept going like that's a good joke that's a good joke like I think there's enough times

where I go like that's a good joke that I don't feel it's a completely wasted time watching it and I also think there have been way lower lows in the 13 years of simpsons episodes after this one so maybe that's like changed my views on what's good or bad about the movie but yeah i i'm totally with bob so many missed opportunities that i think they were really scared of their own like references in a way and instead they're like no let's reference just Titanic and Arnold Schwarzenegger and just everything that people all know. It is the most famous stuff. So I think it's an interesting place to start off. I mean, I feel like we have

mostly a consensus here. There's a few things I want to talk about, but I do think we should kind of lay out the plot of the movie for those who haven't who haven't seen it does anyone want to does anyone want to take on that somewhat work with like i can i can maybe do it the simpsons movie opens when springfield is in the midst of an environmental catastrophe the springfield lake is it uh springfield has a lake, by the way. The Springfield Lake has become, it's on the border of being irredeemably polluted. Poor little Lisa is, is trying to raise environmental awareness of the townsfolk, but is meeting with only resistance,

except from her love interest. Her muse. The, the wonderful character of Colin really caught on colin mania does anyone remember he was right up there with spider pig is the most popular i have a fading colin t-shirt in my closet don't we all meanwhile a homer becomes the proud papa of a new pet pig. And the aforementioned spider pig, in fact. He fills an entire silo full of the pig's droppings. And he's going to humanely and environmentally friendly

get rid of the pig droppings. But instead, he decides to dump it all in the lake. And this seems to be the tipping point that makes Springfield irredeemably polluted. And so the Environmental Protection Agency becomes aware of this. Big government comes in to intervene. The head of the EPA, voiced by Albert Brooks, consults with the president, who is Arnold Schwarzenegger, and comes up with a plan to contain Springfield inside a gigantic dome,

kind of like the Dark Knight Rises plot. They drop a big dome over Springfield and try to erase all knowledge of the town. Homer, who has caused this problem and his family managed to escape through circumstances too contrived to get into here and try to start a new life in Alaska. Meanwhile, civil society collapses in Springfield and Albert Brooks decides that what really needs to be done is to drop a bomb in Springfield and end it once and for all. And Homer is able to get a shot at redemption by coming back and saving the town. Those are the broad strokes of the plot. I mean, as a big budget movie idea, it lets them have a giant action set piece at the end and

travel places like it. It checks the boxes of what you expect from a big film adaptation of something. Same with like how in the X-Files movie, which I was a giant X-Files fan, just like in Simpsons, 30 minutes into the film, they're just like, well, let's just blow up that premise, get them away from each other, go somewhere else. We got to move away from the premise that you enjoy about this. And even though this is a feature film, and feature films typically expand the universe, this movie is rigorously focused, I would say, on Homer and Bart. Oh, yeah. With a little bit of Lisa, you know, a cast of dozens, hundreds, even each get a little 10

second bit. Yeah, you get these weird assemblages, like towards the end of the movie where in the sort of bombed out you know anarchic springfield where society's collapsed like you see is it it's lenny and carl with they've just teamed up with dr hibbert they're just and cletus they're just together for no reason which is like it seems strikes me as very arbitrary assemblage of characters or then there's another scene where a sort of committee of concerned citizens goes to mr burns is the only one that still has electricity and it's like a poo and then who's the other way it's dr hibbert poo and chief wago yeah i like i love that a poo is one of them like this random convenience store owner is part of the summit to springfield's wealthiest citizen and that just seems like the

kind of choice where it's just so that they can get all those characters on screen check them off yeah i like the depiction of class harmony in springfield because you know from the green day concert at the beginning where we see crusty the, who is one of Springfield's most famous citizens. He's just rocking out in the crowd with anyone. We see Mr. Burns and Smithers at church just in the back row. That's very random. I will say upfront, if we are still upfront, that I don't know if you guys agree with me,

but to me personally, the Simpsons movie is Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1 and 2. That is the ultimate celebration of all the characters with the best Burns moments. Like, he is the villain of the series, and his plot is very similar to Cargill's, like, basically destroying the entire town. So, that is what I'm measuring the movie against. If that's unfair, I'm sorry, but that, to me, will always be the Simpsons movie. I've never thought of that, but I actually really, really, I really, really like that.

Let's like officially, both our podcasts officially endorse the idea that who shot Mr. Burns one and two is the official Simpsons movie. I suppose the reason that we're covering the movie as opposed to regular episode of the show on this podcast is because the Simpsons movie has some mid two thousands politics in it. Way more than I remembered. i re-watching him from the political viewpoint i was like oh that's yeah i guess that is kind of a joke about iraq or

whatever yeah yeah before getting into that i'm curious from you guys to what extent did the simpsons if at all contribute to your politics oh i mean I mean, for, for me, it definitely, you know, influenced it as a kid of just like knowing that like Republicans are bad or whatever. And at least taught me that to an extent. I, I mean, the Simpsons also like talk shit about Democrats just as much and unions and unions. Oh man, does it hate unions and union labor? But I think it gave me, you know, at least a bit of a political, like, you know, the, the crunchy, softy Portlandy liberalness of, of grading. It taught me that I, sadly, my political journey is, is, I mean, the reason I listen to your show is because Michael Moore was a big part of my political awakening. Like I watched politically

incorrect because Bill Maher was definitely very smart to me in 1996. And then, you know, Michael Moore was on that. So I kind of followed it to there. And when Michael Moore was on The Simpsons, I was excited for that too. But I saw that when it aired. Yes. But yes, The Simpsons definitely like pointed me in a direction for sure. And the more politically aware I got into the late 90s, I could recognize the stuff I liked politically in The Simpsons. Yeah. For me, it was more like, well, so this is Matt Groening's goal is to brainwash the

children of America to have disrespect for every authority figure. And I certainly did. But I think it was a very, I have it both ways kind of attempt in that The Simpsons says, you know, every authority figure is full of shit, but also they're helpless, and they are pitiable, like Principal Skinner. So that is really what it informed me of. Yeah, I would say that in my own political upbringing, so to speak, The Simpsons occupied a similar place that Mad Magazine occupied, where it, as a child, gives you permission to laugh at authority and laugh at grownups and their institutions, whether it's the school or the church or big business. I wouldn't say it really

went beyond that for me. But just as Mad Magazine, I don't think really has a coherent set of politics aside from disrespecting authority. But I think it's a good entry point for a kid. I think the sensibility of a show can be useful and can have kind of political content, even if it's not kind of, as it were, didactic political content. And the show definitely had, you know, the sensibility that all you just described, it was present for me as well. I grew up in rural Ontario. And there were a lot of kids I knew that weren't actually allowed to watch The Simpsons. And the reasons they would cite is they would say things like, well, my mom and dad say that it showcases bad family values, which of course just made me

like it more. And I do think that that is a vindication of what the creators of the show were trying to do. In this age of very wholesome, kind of moralistic family sitcoms, they were kind of trying to intervene in that and present something that was, I don't know, much more ironic and a bit more transgressive. And of course, there's a famous moment that I'm sure you guys have talked about where George H.W. Bush condemned The Simpsons

in that speech, prompting- We need more families like the Waltons. Yeah, right, right. Prompting, you know, Marge Simpson, of course, to pen a letter to Mrs. Bush. We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons. Yeah, they'd engage more with H.W. Bush than W. Bush. When this movie came out, they never had W. on the show,

which was politically bugging me at the time because I was all about, like, make fun of George W. Bush like Bill Maher does all the time. I had a dartboard with George Bush on at the time. I did want to mention the Henry. That's a really good point because this is on the record. I don't want to pick too much on Al Jean because he was like the overlord of this movie

and work in the short run of the show at this time and still is. And on a commentary, he basically said like, we didn't mention George W. Bush or make jokes about him because his popularity was up, but it was down.

We just didn't know if people liked them or not. Like number one, that's not a good reason to not make a joke, but also it is very toothless, which is why like now they make all the small hands, orange man jokes and those terrible shorts. But when they could, they could not do that back in the early two thousands and they wouldn't,

I think it was a top down mandate. Like guys, no, no George W. Butch jokes. I think the Homer made one joke, like this is what happens in dick cheney's america back in that era but that was it and that was shocking like oh they mentioned reality oh my god another interesting fact about the simpsons is that one of the key writers one of the acknowledged geniuses of the

show was john schwartz welder who was pretty vociferously conservative. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, he's of a right libertarian bent for sure. But sometimes those stories I hear about him, I think he is an odd duck to be sure. But I also think he was just kind of iconoclastically just trollishly trying to get on the nerves of all the liberal writers he was surrounded by. He would say things very negative about Clinton when they're just all like, Clinton's the best. What are you talking about? Yeah. And he left the show early in Bush's first term, too, in that era. Yeah. So, yeah. But I think spiritually, his type of hatred of all government definitely is inside the Springfield for sure. Something else I realize, a way that The Simpsons, I guess, has informed my worldview is, because it loomed so large in my childhood, it almost set a default of what America and what Americana looked like. It's like the nuclear family as depicted on The Simpsons

almost became by default. That's an American middle-class, lower middle-class nuclear family. And of course they have a two-story house and a single parent income. I often forget how much it exports like Americana or a view of it. And once we started doing the podcast,

we started hearing way more from like, you know, Canadian or British or, uh, even like South American fans of the Simpsons who have just a totally different, uh, viewpoint on it and how it in,

in has a view of America, which it's funny. The opposite for me with Canada was I learned it all from the red green show on pbs that's beautiful oh man we're gonna have to do an episode on if you haven't seen the red green film uh is it duct tape forever i think duct tape forever was a strictly local phenomenon yeah i mean red green although we've never i don't think done an episode on him on michael and us is uh very much in our thoughts, much of the

time. But to get back to the movie, I think that one of the key questions about how you're going to receive this movie comes down to, to what extent do you think the Simpsons making a transition from a show and, you know, kind of the production values of a regular episode and the regular, you know, the length of a regular episode into a movie, you know, how well does that work? And there are a few things tied up in that, you know, one is the, you know, the plot, like does the, is the plot enough to sustain a movie? But I think more deeply, there's the issue of in the movie, you get a lot of these kind of visual idioms, gags, and things like that, that are clear references to the show, to the library of visual idioms that you'll recognize if you're a regular viewer of The

Simpsons. And I found when Will and I were watching the movie, I think I received some of these a little bit differently than he did because I found a lot of them pretty derivative. For example, when I said, you know, actually kind of funny gag of Bart riding the skateboard naked. And then all these things happen to kind of conceal his bits. And then you actually do see his bits somewhat surprisingly at the end. I mean, the part where the skateboard kind of swoops around the corner is quite literally taken from the intro, you know, the classic intro of the show. And so my reaction watching things like this, and there were innumerable other examples is that, you know, it felt derivative to me, but, but Will made the good point, I think that, you know, when you're adapting things to a movie,

actually, this is sort of part of what the point is, and it's part of how you do that. And if, you know, I'd have been a kid watching this, I mean, I guess I wasn't quite a kid in 2007. But I mean, if this movie had somehow come out seven years earlier, and I'd been in a theater, and I'd seen these production values, and I'd have I'd have seen the characters I love with surround sound, and I would have been like, Oh, this is so cool. And maybe maybe that's what it's doing. You know, it's a lot of fan service. And I think their problem was not enough fan service. I totally agree with you. But getting, say, the gorge back and showing them just redoing the Homer jumping off the gorge thing, but with Bart and Homer on a motorcycle, that's one of those shout outs to the fan service that I think does pay off in a more like big screen sense and watching it in, I guess, dude, the specialness isn't really there as much as it was in 07 of like, this is HD widescreen Simpsons.

And when I'm seeing it on my Disney Plus app on a television, like it's as widescreen as HD as the show is now, though, obviously you can tell they spent more money on one than the other, you know, I think one of the problems is that it doesn't really expand the universe or doesn't doesn't add to our understanding of what the Simpsons is. I think it it maybe could have done that if it as I said earlier, spent more time in the dome and and been like, well, what does Springfield actually look like when society collapses? You mentioned why Who Shot Mr. Burns would have been an interesting movie, because it sort of takes Mr. Burns' villainy to its logical conclusion and imagines how would the city and how would the

characters in the city react to Mr. Burns doing this? Whereas this movie, not only don't you get to see society crumble, but it's instigated by this character, Cargill, the Albert Brooks character, who we'll never see again. And who they have to very forcibly put in a scene with Homer at the very end, just like, this isn't satisfying unless they directly defeat him.

Yeah, and I think Mr. Burns, or who shot Mr. Burns as as a movie as i view it is more satisfying because this this movie is basically just homer the homer movie but that movie is about the town and i like how we at least get like little flashes of the town during the alaska stuff but like you guys are saying i wish this was a story about the town i hate that they leave it i don't like the Alaska stuff. I wish they could have just done so much fun stuff in Springfield. I don't know what the plot could be or would be in that scenario, but I think that's a huge missed opportunity to not do more

with Springfield, the location that we love. And what was the Alaska stuff? It was just another story where Homer almost loses Marge and has to win her back. So I'm glad you brought that up, because it's something I wanted to get into. I mean, the point I just made about how the show draws all these visual reference points, and to me that felt sort of derivative. I think there's also something similar going on in terms of the plot lines and the narrative. And you guys will have to correct me if I'm wrong here, but it strikes me that, you know, things like Lisa meeting a socially conscious boy or a socially conscious kid, her own age and being kind of smitten or Bart, you know, deciding, well, actually maybe Flanders would be a good dad, that sort of thing. I mean, maybe those haven't

exactly been, those plots haven't exactly been mirrored in the show. But to me, those felt like echoes of, you know, narrative arcs that we'd kind of already seen before. Yeah, I really feel like Lisa was wasted in this movie because it's a movie about an environmental topic. And she is sort of sidelined with a very boring love interest. And her story is, I guess, Lisa falls in love with someone you never see again. And technically, Bart was the son of Flanders in the foster home episode, but it was shown that he does not like that family or his vibe. This is a different version of that story where Flanders is a good dad for Bart, but I guess Flanders might have changed his fathering techniques without Maude.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, stories of Bart gets a better dad than Homer and then goes back to Homer. Lisa gets a new crush and then, well, in this case, they actually just stay together at the end, which is not reflected in the show at all. But still, Lisa gets a new crush. Homer messes up with Marge and then they have to get back together. These are just tried and true plot points they'd done more than once and in some cases more than four times, by 2007. And I think it was them counting on what they could do, that they knew they could do it. But none of it felt, especially with the Homer and Marge thing, they tried to make it feel like, okay, yes, we know you've seen Homer and Mar marge break up before but we really mean it this time

they they're trying to say they step it up for a movie with moments like that but it it never rang true enough for me especially and that one was the one they tried the most on and got closest but even then it's like this doesn't step it up from the show a show plot to a movie plot so i'm not quite sure where this fits in but there was was something particular that bugged me just in a very pet peeve way. And I'm hoping maybe we can, we can tease this out, but the decision to have Arnold Schwarzenegger be the president, but he's clearly just ran your Wolf castle, right? He's McBain. And there's something about that. I'm not, I can't quite put my finger on why it bothers me but i guess to take a stab at it the simpsons was at its best when it was dealing in these archetypes

you know as opposed to uh specific characters i mean or like specific characters drawn from the real world the simpsons characters were so strong because they were these aggregations of different archetypes that captured something very real about like different kinds of people, different kinds of social roles or, you know, membership in a particular social class or whatever. There's the Reverend character, there's the evangelical Christian neighbor and his extremely like too perfect and weirdly prudish family. You know, there's the principal who is ostensibly like this figure of authority, but is actually this like wimpy mama's boy who has, you know, who's like not really a full adult,

you know, et cetera, et cetera. And so there's something about the decision to take this character, Rainier Wolfcastle, who is, I guess, you know, he's clearly an Arnold derivative character, but, you know, he's also just more broadly about a particular kind of action star who stars in these hideously violent, extremely sexist movies that nevertheless do really well because people actually want to see them. And so the decision to just sort of almost peel off the mask and say, oh no, he's just Arnold now, bugged me. What do you guys make of that? Yeah. I mean mean i think that was the about to go on all day about all the fury that i felt in 2007 was because of those uh surrogates

for characters we knew and again going back to those uh the dvd commentary they were up front saying yeah people wouldn't know who rainier wolf castle was people wouldn't know who hank scorpio was so believable yeah how dare they disrespect the simpsons like that but i also feel like does it matter if you're presented with new character a or new character b if you don't know who either one of them are like if you've never seen the simpsons before you won't know who hank scorpio is or who russ cargill is so why does it matter at all yeah yeah either way i i mean and but schwarzenegger especially like he really sums up just the the worst choices the film makes because yeah i i mean one we've done a bunch of

interviews with folks who worked on the simpsons one of them was with mike scully a former show runner super nice guy and he told us about you know working we asked him a couple questions about the movie and we asked him like why wasn't that ramier wolf castle and he i i not quoting verbatim but he did he kind of brought up that like it was in some drafts and then they changed it and we're like why and he's like you know i don't remember which maybe he didn't remember but or maybe he was covering for the fact that it was just somebody else's pick it just feels like it's a lack of confidence that is uh just put on screen as a character like we didn't think you'd get this so here's this guy instead without the remove of it and not even i mean what really bugs me with schwarzenegger as as a choice about

not trusting the audience with something is that he has to on his desk have a big name plate that says president schwarzenegger i'm just like come on yeah come on it's like not only do they not like think that people will know who Rainier Wolfcastle is, they don't even trust the audience to get the reference that it's Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah. They have to scream it out loud. It's also like a weird disconnect because in the Simpsons world, our president is their president. He was never president in the show before this.

Not once. It's such a weird idea. He's sort of both Arnold Schwarzenegzenegger who at the time it was this popular thing to say oh democracy has reached its nadir when california is voting for an action star um he's that but he's also george w bush in this movie isn't he yeah when when they roll out the plans and say like pick one they are so casting him as the what I definitely feel like the Simpsons liberal writers vision of Bush was, which is just like he's a dumb guy controlled by evil people around him. But a likable, charismatic, dumb guy that's being misled. Ultimately.

Yeah. No, I need to know what I'm approving. Absolutely. But on the other hand, knowing things is overrated. Anyone can pick something when they know what it is. It takes real leadership to pick something you're clueless about. Okay, I picked three. Try again.

One. Go higher. Five. Too high. Three. You already said three. Six. There is no six.

Two. Double it. Four. As you wish, sir. Well, I mean, the character, Ross Cargill, too, on the DVDs, they've got extras that show the original version of him they had with Albert Brooks doing a completely different voice and character. And he just is Donald Rumsfeld. Like I said, do a Donald Rumsfeld voice. And I think they rightly gave him a higher energy voice in their second take on him. But like they animated a scene with him as much more of a direct rumsfeld reference to while we're talking about the politics of the film do you have any insight as to why they went with uh the environmental angle and in particular the movie references an inconvenient truth a couple of times why that well i i mean for one thing mcRating is a Gore buddy. Like, he's, he, Al Gore was on Futurama multiple times.

Like, he's, Al Gore's daughter wrote for Futurama. Yeah. So I, I could see, you know, it's just a shout out to his, his political buddy and wanting to push up his his agenda and i mean you know the environmental angle on it's not not bad and it's definitely from a like you know at least a left of center vision of it but i think uh i think that's an easier place for them to take it than going to like you know the war on terror even though they kind of deal with it but maybe they saw the my thinking is maybe they saw the EPA as an easier department to address than having to deal with, you know, the NSA or whatever. I like that the EPA is depicted as this incredibly evil, conniving and secretive organization. That's that's all powerful.

Yeah, it's watching it. Watching it again. I was struck that the environment... I remember that there was an environmental arc, but I'm not really sure what the message is. I wish it had either leaned into just burlesque satire or didactic. I probably wouldn't have liked it if it had really tried to have a heavy-handed message, but at least then there would have been some kind of coherent purpose for the environmental angle which doesn't seem to me

to be there yeah and uh russ cargill like uh it's a fun performance by albert brooks but he's sort of a boring character because there's no ulterior motive there's no like coup or anything like that he's trying to pull it just like no he just gone crazy and he just wants to do whatever he wants to do to springfield well his his stated goal of like i why the world's richest man start to work from here to give back and that that feels much more like an obama era statement than a bush era statement really like uh but yeah i think the epa stuff they they just dropped the environmentalism like at minute 30 because like they should have had a thing where lisa says now let's get back to cleaning things up or you know the epa has gone too far but there's good ways that citizens could clean up the thing but instead they seem to be saying that just like if you try to clean

things up and then fail the government will destroy you rather than help you clean things up it's a little it's a little South Park-y, actually. Oh, for sure, yeah. Like South Park at its worst, well, I once heard the politics of it referred to as libertarian passive. And the definition that was given to that was, you know, it's a show where the do-gooders are always the problem.

So in this case, the do-gooders, you know, one of them is the EPA, but then when we see the EPA trying to protect the environment, they're just Big Brother oppressing ordinary citizens. You know what I mean? Actually, to bring it back to Al Gore, the definitive South Park episode along those lines

is the unfunny man-bear-pig episode. Yes, yes. Yeah. Which they apologized for last year, i wasn't listening i was like oh hey good good on you late in my opinion so something something else that i think is really funny to discuss is you know which is what more widely applicable beyond this movie in the simpsons universe and i think gets to i't know, I hate to put it this way, but like core metaphysical questions about the Simpsons and what Springfield is,

which, and I'm referring of course, to the fact that the geography of Springfield changes so much and maybe this is nitpicking, but I actually really like it when they do that on the show. And in the movie, I didn't particularly like it. So, you know, in the movie, you know, we see, for example, Moe's Tavern is next to the church, which I don't think we'd ever seen before. You guys can confirm that for me. Yeah, no, no way. Yeah, no way. Mr. Burns, it turns out, not only does he have a mansion, but he has his mansion is kind of on this great Acropolis, like towering over the city. I don't think we've ever seen that before. Springfield has a giant

lake, which I don't think was, was present before. And in the show, this is a device that's used frequently. And I think kind of mirrors the device of, you know, the episodes aren't always contiguous with one another in terms of character, like Mr. Burns, you know, the episodes aren't always contiguous with one another in terms of character, like Mr. Burns, you know, hilariously doesn't remember that he's had interactions with his family before and things like that. In the show, there's, you know, funny things like I can't remember which episode it is, but where, you know, Homer has to drive through traffic to work to get to the nuclear plant. And then he finally pulls into the lot. And it turns out that, you know, he just parking on the other side of the fence outside the Simpsons yard. And that,

that's funny to me, but in the movie, I did not like it. And I actually don't have an explanation for that. It is weird. I don't like to get too hung up on it, but I do feel like things are moved for the sake of convenience. And as a, as a writer, I understand why, but also I'm more of a fan when they change, they play with the idea of locations changing and they really like hang a lantern on it. Like there's a joke in the show in a later season where Marge, every time she looks out the kitchen window,

there's like a new landmark outside. Like there's a nuclear plant, there's like the prison and just like, we move buildings around so they can be where they need to be. But often if it's just for the sake of convenience, I'm just like, I wish the, you know, Moe's Bar was not next to the church. It works for a gag, but then you're thinking like, well if it's just for the sake convenience i'm just like uh i wish the the you know mo's bar was not next to the church it works for a gag but then you're thinking like well it's never been there so it's kind of distracting well and for a film where they

like want you to build real stakes of like but the town could be destroyed and here's the town they even zoom out so far that you see a dome drop on top of it yet to show you this is what the entirety of springfield is that then when they play around with it more at least in the world of the film it does kind of damage at least like the the reality of the stakes they want you to feel like no you should be really worried about this ticking clock look at it there the city of Springfield it's really in trouble Marge really means at this time when they're gonna break up but i guess in a larger sense the show when they fuck around too much with the shared reality or history of it that was a thing that led me to feel like well if you're going to change

that history then you'll change the next history so why why did i get so invested in this history that you don't care about like it's a danger of telling your audience not to care that the simpsons i sometimes they do it to funny effect, but other times they push that envelope a little too far and punish you for caring too much. So I guess, you know, we've been pretty hard on the movie and I do think it's worth, you know, maybe going around and, you know, saying, you know, is there a joke or a gag

or just an effort that was made in the movie? Something that we like about it. I'm going to save mine for last because it's extremely random. But, Will, was there something you liked? Well, there are many gags that I liked. I liked spending time with my good friend Homer. Off the top of my head, one gag that I liked was bit at near the end where he dresses up as like the the yeah god now i'm going to try to pathetically recite a comedy routine from a movie but this is

why they put clips on there but what's the bit where he's dressed up as like a brigadier or something oh yeah where he where he's he's outside of the dome and he's and there's a soldier patrolling and he goes up and he just has this costume out of nowhere, and then he tries to use it to bluff his way past the guard, and then he ends up just punching the guard. And then he checks his checklist, and number five is return guard's uniform. Yeah, him pulling out the second leaf that he had been making notes on, that was a good one. I think there are a good of like funny jokes in there. I, I'll say two of my favorites.

One is when they set up the first motorcycle challenge to win the truck, he really does just fail three times in a row. And for just a second, it, it leads you guessing like, Oh, then I guess that doesn't move forward the plot. And they just,

they do it so fast and i do like the gag and an execution of it of the two burly cops appearing and cornering marge and she's so scared and then they instantly walk past her and just start hardcore making out and jump into a room for some privacy i those ones both gave me really good laughs in the theater. Yeah, there's lots of very good gags in the movie. One of my favorites is when they go to the gas station, they see the wanted poster of the family, so Bart draws on it,

and there is a version of the family that looks like the doodle Bart drew over the existing photo. That's a very funny joke that I remember to this day just from watching the movie originally. And I think broadly, we often, in discussions of of the show we often take for granted the animation the animation in this movie is very good with the flourishes they are often not allowed to do on the tv show thanks to budget reasons and other reasons entirely and this is the best the show

would ever look in this period and unfortunately now they use a tool set to make the show that does not allow for this level of expressiveness with the characters. It's very unfortunate. Yeah, it's interesting. I have, I guess, something I liked about the movie in a moment. But the animation is obviously very crisp. And I agree with that. You know, Will was making the point while we were watching that he found it, you know, like if you watch this movie when you're in your kind of Simpsons phase and what you know is the show,

you're like, wow, this is a movie. Look at the amazing production values. But I kind of didn't like it in the same way that later episodes, like I remember a particular one from season 20, that is a, it's kind of a mock episode of 24 or something like that.

It's, it looks super high tech compared to the original Simpsons. Like it's, it's really crisp and three dimensional, but it just drays so far away from the aesthetic that I'm familiar with. And this is like, admittedly a very subjective kind of grievance, but that, that is kind of how I felt about it. I don't know. You, you have seen, you know, many more of the later episodes than I have. What do you think about that? I think, I mean, I honestly really missed the many more of the later episodes than I have. What do you think about that? I think, I mean, I honestly really miss the analog look of the show. We could never have that back.

It's very unrealistic to ever think that they could bring it back. They're just gonna be digital only. They have been since like 2003. I think like internally, the show has been reined in visually just to streamline the process and then ensure there are no mistakes overseas. So we often lose the individual takes by different directors like when we're watching the earlier shows we can see like oh david silverman did this scene or this is a jim reardon scene like in the movie especially we can see like very david silverman drawings which often get ironed out in the tv production process yeah i mean i'm always going to miss the warmth of the cell animation and one thing a lot in the research is that we've done for the show has revealed to me that like in like season nine forward they lost a lot of their best

folks on the animation side like it's easy to focus on the writers but they lose so much on the animation side and this film brought back a lot of folks who had who had kind of left the simpsons like uh on the animation side david silverman rich moore uh laura mcmullen just to name a few and so i think they brought more artistic choices and stronger artistic vision to the show than it had had in the film that the show hadn't had in a while but i think they were returning to a thing they'd left and seemed like oh this this is the way the railroad runs now or this is where the track goes and they they're having to figure it out among digital skill

uh tool sets they didn't have before and it is crazy seeing this 07 thing now compared to a 2020 episode of simpsons that is just so it's it's so much more on digital tool sets and just controlled in a way that is feels even more lifeless than digital did in 07 it's pretty crazy how the difference I could even just feel 13 years after the movie I guess my my real wish is that this movie had come out seven years earlier and it could have been almost exactly the same movie and if I'd have seen it in in the year 2000 I and it could have been almost exactly the same movie. And if I'd have seen it in, in the year 2000, I mean, it could have honestly been worse and I still would have just loved it. The idea of a Simpsons movie by the time they actually did it, it sort of felt

like the ideal moment for it had kind of passed, but there, there was something I really liked about this movie and actually has nothing to do with the movie but um her herman appears uh at one point i'm actually forgetting herman's military antiques yeah he's he's in i think one or two kind of crowd type scenes and i was remembering way back at the start of uh the episode we were talking about the you know kind of early episode or early seasons and i can't remember if it's seasons one season one or two where uh, uh, there's the episode. This was my favorite episode as a kid. And I think it speaks to how, when you're really young, you don't fully get the Simpsons, but my favorite episode was the one where, uh,

Bart is getting bullied by a character who like, I guess it is Nelson months, but Nelson isn't like fully formed as Nelson at this point in the same way that, uh, Ralph Wiggum, you know, takes a while to kind of full, you know, take, take full, go full Ralph. It's the episode where, you know, Herman basically helps Bart start an army. And the way I received this at age, I don't know, six or seven was just like, wow, that'd be so cool. I wish I had an army. And I'd completely forgotten about that episode until Herman appeared just now. And so it took me back to the age of like childish fantasies like that quite warmly, I should add.

Well, I like Herman because clearly they had high hopes for Herman because they included him in the opening credits. And so well into season, I don't know, 20, he was still there along with Jacques in that opening credit scene of just failed season one characters who never went anywhere. The joke in that episode where they have, they're in the treehouse, I think, and Herman has a map and he says,

the key to Springfield has always been Elm Street. The Babylonians knew it. The Greeks knew it. Now you knew it. So good. Mr. Herman? Yes? Did you lose your arm in the war? been elm street the babylonians knew it the greeks knew it now you knew it yeah good mr herman yes did you lose your arm in the war my arm well let me put it this way next time your teacher tells you to keep your arm inside the bus window you do it yes sir i will the episode's barth the general

we actually just revisited that one and yeah the uh i mean the current character of herman we talked about swartz welder earlier like he was the show's writer's way of mocking swartz welder too like they they made him look kind of like him and he's you know a right-wing crank who uh loves a lot of nazi memorabilia included which they they don't interrogate too closely. He's like, I got some Nazi underpants like he tries to sell Abe in one episode. Yeah, it's really weird when the one-armed character just shows up at the middle of nowhere in an episode. Yeah. As we're winding down, I just have a couple of stray thoughts about The Simpsons and why it was what it was to me as a child and why it is what it is

now. I'm hardly the first person to observe that one of the reasons why the show doesn't really work anymore is because it's frozen in amber in 1989. The Simpsons is no longer the default American family. Springfield is no longer everybody's idea of an every town. But aside from that, when I was a kid, one of the things that was so exciting to me about The Simpsons is that it actually felt like a grown-up show. It didn't talk down. And like, say, the Looney Tunes came from a very particular time and place and cultural sensibility. There seemed to be a unified, let's say, boomer or older Gen X voice behind it. And it had the texture of that and the cultural reference points of that. Just as the Looney Tunes would often have references to, I don't know what

was big at that time, Al Jolson or whatever. The Simpsons had things like, say, in Mr. Plow, when Adam West is signing autographs at that car show. I mean, we all know who Adam West is, but that's a particularly kind of boomer conception of him. Whereas now, it's this thing that's frozen in amber in 1989, and yet all the cultural reference points are, well, like 10 years ago, that 24 episode. Yeah. Or now when there's that clip circulating of AOC and the squad

yelling at Donald Trump. Yeah, it's both stuck in time, and yet also it's lost all its texture. We're more American than your wife. She's not a big presence in my life. Your love life makes us heave. You two will never see Tel Aviv. I mean, if I could diagnose that particular problem, I would say it's like the Lorne Michael-ification of the show. Of just like the Simpsons, even in the classic era, they were always like, oh, let's promote this thing. Let's say we've got a big star on this. Definitely, it was about self-promotion and trying to get those headlines. But yeah, in the post 9-11 years of Simpsons, it felt so much more about that of

like, well, no, we definitely need to get Lady Gaga on here. And we need a scene where Lisa says, wow, Lady Gaga. I was thinking of Lady Gaga during here and we need a scene where Lisa says wow Lady Gaga I was thinking of Lady Gaga put it out there during your sentence yeah so quest for relevance just feels like chasing a tale really instead of in the in the 90s it felt like they were leading the the way on like saying what things were at least like cool and relevant and when they lost that, it feels almost like sweaty how much they try to get it back by having too many different, you know, guests on. And I also think that like star fuckery is what kind of defangs them a bit, too, because they're like, well, you know, don't want to be too mean to person X. What if we want to have a month sometime? What if we started this movie with Green Day for some reason? Yeah, or the beloved to Michael and us, Tom Hanks as well.

Yeah, and that's why I bring this up, I think, because I see that ironing away of the specific perspective and texture of the show in this movie. The way Green Day appears in this movie, it's not like the way Adam West appears in the Mr. Plow episode. Yeah, they're heroes. Yeah. No, they're just there to be themselves. Tom Hanks is there to be themselves. And it's just, it's lighter mockery. Like we, I think we got to that a bit. It really hit me when we got to the Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger episode. Yeah. Where you

could definitely tell they were told where the line was of how you could make fun of them and the acceptable amount of safe mockery they would take on, you know. While in that one, though, I think Ron Howard actually was much more game to at least be like, yeah, do whatever shit you want with me. I don't care. They could be meaner. I mean, Adam West was, they were happier to be meaner to him anyway. And they were just a bunch of dorks, especially the writer of that episode, Mr. Plow John Beatty.

Yeah. He's called himself like the biggest Batman 1966 fan there ever was. Well, that's something I like about that particular episode and why I use that example, because it does seem to come with a lot of genuine affection for him and his his place in the pop culture ecosystem and yet it also has this kind of jaundiced like former boomer kid who's now an adult and is sees adam west at a car show perspective yeah yeah and i mean it's a very lived-in perspective now and now they're even just older people who they're all their heroes are dead pretty much like so they can't when they have on people younger than them they they don't

come at it from a childhood wonder perspective like one of the last times they did that it felt like when they had stan lee on and like it's it's really cute on the commentary with stan lee they get him and al jean is just like oh he's asking about like 60s fantastic four comics and yeah it's it's an endearing moment it's very sweet i did want to go back to the movie really quick before we go because one thing so i see this movie as just a big miss opportunity like there are so many opportunities they miss what i do like is how they bring a lot of old writers in to write the movie, especially David Merkin. David Merkin is so important to what The Simpsons is. He was just an outsider brought in in season five, and he changed the show completely, made it faster, funnier, meaner. Two big omissions in

this movie are Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, two of the most important architects of The Simpsons, and it feels wrong that they are not part of this movie. They are so protective of characters. They are so, like, just deliberate and specific about jokes. I feel like they could have made this movie so much better and would have made smarter choices. But for whatever reason, they were not part of this. I missed it. I missed it. I could tell from watching it.

They are not part of this movie. Yeah, Bill and Josh, they're probably our favorite showrunners and writers for the show ever and they were like the first simpsons nerds hired to write for the simpsons but also just very smart but funny empathetic writers who who really could do a great they could do a great silly episode about homer doing a dumb adventure or bart befriending his loser principal like it felt like because they were there for the classic arm and tam's arian episode i feel like the show was punishing them by not inviting them to the party and it it still bugs me to this day that they they weren't there and it also like they have some of the of of of posters on twitter they have some of the best

politics of the simpsons former writers on there too like they're both big bernie boosters uh josh weinstein even more so yes definitely so and it's always funny to see them like engage with their um more centrist hollywood liberal buddies on twitter from time to time so it's i, a huge part of why the film didn't take chances they maybe would have or have cared as much about history was not having Bill and Josh in there to offer up suggestions. Well, I think it's fitting that we kind of ended,

we ended the discussion almost by accident, you know, dishing about our favorite episodes and just things that we like about The Simpsons. Because of course in spite of everything we've said today that's critical of this movie all of us absolutely love the simpsons to death your worst day thinking about and talking about the simpsons is still a pretty good day so i'm glad we were able to uh you know finally do this with you guys it was a fantastic discussion we'd definitely love to have you back. Was there anything that you wanted

to plug? Oh, well, I mean, me and Bob, you know, do the weekly Talking Simpsons podcast that everybody should check out the older episodes, like the ones we've did with both you guys separately. I think listeners, this will really enjoy or also, you know, we did the ones with the Chapo folks with Virgil and matt and amber i think your listeners would really enjoy too but uh and also you know we talk uh about a bunch of different cartoons on what a cartoon so if you enjoy lots of animated series or old ones and wanted to go back through them you know maybe just check out our library and see which ones uh our shows you remember liking and want to learn more about. Yeah, and we have a Patreon.

It's patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons right there. We have a lot of episodes that aren't on the free feed, including our miniseries. We've gone over episodes of The Critic, King of the Hill, Futurama. There's about 50 or 60 episodes of our miniseries today, and there'll be more coming in 2020. Yeah, and I mean, if you want to engage

with my always online personality at Twitter, that's at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. And I am at Bob Servo, like Tom Servo. Since we're doing plugs, I already plugged our show, but I'm at Luke W. Savage on Twitter. I guess I'm Will Sloan ESQ. Will Sloan-esque. It's a word. Just say it out loud.

That's how I read it. Well, it's Will Sloan Esquire. Esquire. But the thing is, I want people to know how to spell it. I've always thought of it as like Will Sloan-esque. I didn't realize that it was short for Esquire. It was like the quality of being Will Sloan. There'd be a U in there if it was Will Sloan-esque.

You're quite right. Anyway, got into all kinds of topics today. There you have it, folks. Talking Simpsons, Michael and us, the crossover finally happened. I hope we'll do it again. What's the appropriate way to say goodbye? Every time we say goodbye. What's the operative of hoi hoi?

They'd end with a song for sure. Yeah. But we know how you guys, you guys should close it out with your classic farewell. Now watch this drive. There you have it. The Batmobile. Adam West. Hey, kids, Batman.

Dad, that's not the real Batman. Of course I'm Batman. See, here's a picture of me with Robin. Who the hell's Robin? Oh, I guess you're only familiar with the new Batman movies. Michelle Fiverr. The only true Catwoman is Julie Newmar, Lee Merriweather, or Eartha Kitt.

And I didn't need molded plastic to improve my physique. Pure West. And how come Batman doesn't dance anymore? Remember the Bat to see? Nice meeting ya. Just keep moving. Don't make eye contact.