Talking Simpsons - Talk To The Audience?!? - August 2026

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

We've reached the end of the month, which means it's time for another episode of our community podcast! This time around, listen in as we report on the big, bad, boatload of Simpsons news brought to us by Comic-Con and D23. And, as always, we read and respond to your questions and comments from the last round of podcasts. It's all happening on Talk to the Audience, where we're very proud to make you a member of our very select group.

I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to talk to the audience where this is always death. I am one of your host, Bob Mackie, emerging from a bush for the millionth time. And who is here with me today, as always? Ready to retire at 40 seasons, Henry Gilbert. And yes, welcome again to talk to the audience. This is our community podcast. And on this podcast, we talk about what's happening in the Simpsons world, what's happening in our world,

and then we spend the rest of the podcast responding to your questions and comments you left on the Patreon. And we have had a few slow news months this summer. But now we are reporting to you after D23 in Comic-Con. This is the time of the year in which Disney lifts the boot off of our throat just a little and then changes the flavor of our slop tube. So now the slop's a little tastyer. There's some bigger chunks in it. We're going to report on those chunks.

And they're talking to their stockholders first, but we happen to get to listen along with the stockholders about all of the new things they're working on. We're rooting for this little company that could. So let's cover Comic-Con 2026 because that happened like right after we recorded our last episode, but before that episode even went live. So we were a little behind the eight ball there. But now we can tell you it was kind of disappointing because they saved some of the bigger stuff for D-23, I guess, less than a month later.

So not a whole lot to mention here. There was a lot of vague like wait till D-23, wait till next year's Comic-Con. Wait till next year's D-23 because they're all, really busy working on the movie. But if you were at the show, you got to see a little snippet of Yellow Mirror, which is the next Disney Plus exclusive episode. That goes live on August 26. So we'll talk about it next month.

But we have mentioned that, I think. We've known about it since like April or May. So this has been a recurring bit of news that this Black Mirror parody, this two-parter, written by Carolyn Nomey, is coming at the end of August. Yeah, yeah. She also like co-show run it. She really has moved up in the ranks there a lot in the under the Selman era. I think Selman in general has, as opposed to when we talk about the 20 years of Al Jean,

it seemed like it took a long time before Selman even got to showrun four episodes a year. But then as soon as Selman became the head lead showrunner and now only showrunner, I think he does hand out co-show runner credits much faster and quicker and is giving people a chance at guiding the show and delegating more too. Yeah, now the people who should have been show running 15 to 20 years ago are getting a chance at bat's in their 50s, and I'm rooting for them too because I'm enjoying the different flavors of the Simpsons lately. I am starting to feel like now

almost that a regular episode of the Simpsons are the weird ones now, because every episode feels, maybe it's just because we're during the Disney Plus episodes what we've gotten lately are all high-concept ones, but I wouldn't mind seeing what about like Bart gets a new paper route in March, for Mont Somer to take a diet. After a summer of high-season episodes,

sorry, high concept episodes. I do want to see one about the family, one about a semi-normal story. And we can also talk about the beginning of broadcast season 38. That begins on September 27th, the episode we call the Children's Book Job, which is actually the 10th production episode of season 37. They have a very long backlog to get through

when it comes to actually getting to production season 38, which will probably happen like in March of 2027, or maybe April of 2027. Who knows? Maybe that buffer is. helping them work on the movie more, which we'll get to later. But maybe that's kind of their lower demand of episodes right now than they had in 2005 to 7. Maybe that is helping with a smoother movie production.

Or they're at least silencing people better about any troubles they're having while working on the movie. Yes. And we don't know what this episode is about yet, but we do know it's written by Dan Weber. And yes, it is actually from production season 37. We're used to that, though. Oh, yeah. And we have some Simpsons-related news from Comic-com. by the way, about a show we cover, Futurama. So we spent the past couple of talking Futurama's wondering,

will the show be renewed? We're going to find out at Comic-Con. And yes, it was renewed. But under non-ideal circumstances, at least according to us, I think we're on the same page about this, Henry, where Futurama will be coming back for not an entire new season, but three extended-length specials. We don't know how long these specials will be,

but the first one will be launching in December of 2027 as a Christmas specials. So this could potentially be the last Futurama we ever get. This signals to me a lack of confidence in giving us more Futurama, but I'm happy the show gets to stick around a bit longer, although I will say having watched all of the movies within the past couple of years, we covered the first one on what a cartoon movie, Bender's Big Score. Futurama does not work very well in a long form format.

Maybe they'll be given more time to work on these compared to the directed DVD movies, but I feel like I won't like these as much as the last couple of Orrata. orders, but we'll see. I'm going to be optimistic about this. I wonder, it left me with a lot of questions. I'm happy that it didn't just like end and unceremoniously. But yeah, do these extended links specials, are they the equivalent of two episodes? Are they three episodes? Like, are they going to be 60 minutes? Though also, I really do hope I feel like this will at least free them from when they made the movies in the aughts.

Those movies were another season of the show. They were 16 episodes. that technically had to be continued, but they really suffered from trying to make them actually be a movie when they weren't movies. They were four episodes. Now, these extended length specials, let's say they're three episodes long. They're not going to feel like they end every, like, 20 minutes and should have the credits play.

Maybe they actually tell a story that can really fit within 60 minutes. Yeah, and I believe they were given basically no time to write the last four movies. the ones that went direct to DVD in the late odds because the writer's strike was happening. They had to get a lot into production before the writers could no longer write anymore. And I think that did affect the last three movies of the four. We do kind of like Bender's Big Score. Check out our episode about it. But the other movies suffer greatly.

I'm just happy that there will be a little more Futurama. This potentially could be the end of Futurama as it reaches its 30th anniversary in, I think, 29. I think too, you got to wonder that this is like money-wise. I hope everybody's getting paid good on it, but this does feel like one of those sneaky things Disney would do of like that, again, I am going under the assumption that this is the equivalent of, let's say, one is three episodes and this equals nine episodes, so almost the same order as half a season.

But by calling them specials, they get to pay the artists and the writers different amounts or different scales like, well, this is just a special. This isn't, or maybe two, that if it got renewed for a third season, then they're supposed to be like bumps in pay for everybody, and they're like, ah, ah, we didn't renew you. We ordered specials. It's pretty sneaky. Ultimately, I'm disappointed because I just want more seasons.

And also, I feel like the writers have really found their groove, and the episodes have been very good lately. But who knows what will happen in the future? We will be around covering it. So don't worry. We'll let you know what's going on with Futurama as soon as we do. So now we move on to D23 news. D23 is this magical convention in which shareholders hear how much the line will go up.

That's essentially what goes on to this convention. Correct, Henry? It's where Disney announces sequels and only sequels to things are coming out. I think they announced two movies in the same panel, the same three-hour panel. I think they did announce like two or three movies that weren't a sequel, but that was out of like 30 to 40 films that were sequels. Yes, a lot of sequels. And let's talk about a sequel.

We're looking forward to The Simpsons movie too, because that is no longer called The Simpsons movie two. It's gotten a new name, and that name is the new Simpsons movie. Very clever, I guess. We'll see how that plays into the marketing, but I wasn't sure what they were going for. My wife thinks it's a new Coke reference, and I feel like, yes, they would really make a, like, mid-80s reference in their 20-26 movie title with how much they love Dusty Old Jokes on The Simpsons. I would think it's not a reference to, like, New Super Mario Brothers or. They'll also back in their youth, when I think of when Al Jean was a younger man in the 70s or late 60s, they made cartoons that were called, like, the new Superman Adventures to make clear, like, these are new episodes.

These are the new Scooby-Doo Adventures. We just cover the Mighty Mouse the New Adventures from the late 80s, so they were doing it even then. And then I was thinking, I mean, this is a very simple math equation to do. But we've had to wait more time for a new Simpsons movie than Star Wars fans had to wait for a new Star Wars. Isn't that crazy? There was 16 years between Jedi and Phantom Menace, and now there's going to be 20-plus years

between Simpsons Movie 1 and 2. It's weird to have lived through that. And, I mean, I guess we both live through the weight. for Star Wars movies, but when that wait started, we were one. So we weren't really feeling it. And time felt a lot longer back then. Yes, yeah. The time in between, like, I just remembered, oh, I've been waiting all my life to see a new Star Wars movie in theaters because I never got to.

All of them were old movies when I was even like four and saw a Star Wars movie the first time I can remember. But meanwhile, 2007 to 2027, because of aging and time, doesn't feel that as long to. me. It doesn't feel like no time, but it feels like, oh yeah, that was 20 years ago, wasn't it? Huh? Yeah. I bet Backroom's director Kane Parsons was really filling that weight. Oh, God, yes. Yeah. When he was three, like, we're still having to reckon with like, you know, younger people in their 20s, late 20s even, that that's like, wow, I'd really discovered the Simpsons with the movie. That made me go back and see when my dad took me to see the Simpsons movie in theaters. That then made me want to watch his DVDs. It has been a strange experience to hear people's

childhood memories of the Simpsons movie. When I saw it out when I was a cranky graduate student in 2007. This new Simpsons movie, though, I love right before the little bit they showed at D23 that they made a new cartoon of Bart at the Couch, voiced by Nancy Cartwright, complimenting the agelessness of the chief operating officer of Disney. They're like, you know what? Neither of us have aged in 40 years. What's your secret?

Who draws you? Yeah. Yeah, like I've said a few times before, Disney, the Simpsons so they could do cameos. Yes, they have to compliment them so much. Like, I feel like if they did this stuff back at Fox back then, then we didn't at least have to see it. Like if maybe at a meeting, Nancy Cartwright called in and said like,

Happy Birthday, Rupert Murdoch, we didn't have to see it if that ever happened. It feels like a humiliation ritual for all of us involved. So also, more news about the movie. It has been essentially confirmed this is a traditionally animated movie because they showed off an animatic of a scene that seems wholly unremembered. related to the plot, who knows. It's a scene in which Homer and basically the entire town chase a foul ball across the city and cause a huge rampage as they chase after this precious item.

And you can watch people have filmed this. You can watch this online. It looks really interesting. It does indicate how the actual final animation will look, but it does tell us that this will be regular, shmegular animation that we're used to from the Simpsons. Yeah, yeah, though animatics for Pixar film also can look like this sometimes. they are 2D, but yes, I think this indicates that it's still in 2D, which they never said it wasn't, but they never said it was. Yes, but here's the thing. I've seen Pixar Story Wheels. They don't have this many frames, key frames included. So I'm going to say right here, confirmed. I agree with you, yes. I thought it was a fun little scene, the kind of like big event scene you start a movie with. Like it's a giant chase that grows bigger and bigger. It goes all over the city. Homer keeps trying.

Like it's just Homer falls down a bunch of times And they get to draw like a huge mob of characters That because it's the movie They can all be distinct, nameable characters in the mob And that's their way of showing off Like a big set piece in a Simpsons movie Yeah, and it's I think mostly visual humor too It's just all like the physical antics

Of where the ball goes, what gets damaged As all these people chase after it Across different notable locations in Springfield So we don't know why this is happening This could be a cold open or something but expect this to be in the movie or maybe it won't be. Maybe James L. Brooks will look at the finish animation

and say, throw it out. Barry three more directors. I do hope they stick to things a bit more. And I think that movie took twice as long to make just because they had to make it too many times and deleted too many things. They were just new, I just saw the other day, newly discovered like reels of cut jokes from the movie

that are like even partially fully animated in color. That I was like, wow, you guys work. cut so much just because you overthought this shit. But I definitely think based on that opening, I am hopeful that they will not be thinking anymore about like, well, the people who go to see the movie aren't going to know who Millhouse is.

The people who go to see the movie aren't going to know who Rainier Wolf Castle is. Please. We have constant access to the Simpsons via Disney Plus. We can look up any reference on our own. We could look up things on the internet back then. I don't know. Maybe James O. Brooks, his iron fist, the grip of that won't be as tight because the mighty man has been felled by

Ella McKay's. Poor box office, receipts. And when he made the Simpsons movie, I mean, Spanglish wasn't a hit, but I mean, as good as it gets was only 10 years in the rearview mirror. That's 30 years ago, his last significant movie. And he's in his 90s now, so he doesn't have the same. Though he still

got some fire, I'm sure. It had just happened when we talked about it on Bart's Comet. But again, if you watch him getting stuck in that elevator, he is so pissed when he gets out of that elevator he got stuck in recently. Like, you can tell the anger. Somebody got yelled at as soon as he got

into a private space. If I was 90 and I got stuck in an elevator, I can feel how much life I have left. That's true. And you don't want to die. I get it. But though, hey, dying in the elevator at the Academy Museum for such an Oscar-winning director as James L. Brooks,

worst places to go. Worst places to go. It's true. They should just entomb him there if he dies within the elevator. And in more D-23 news, Matt McGraining possibly leaked the existence of a Simpsons hit-and-run remake before quickly being silenced by Matt Selman. So it's all but confirmed at the day.

this point. And I'm just hoping that they will add some friendlier touches to make the game a little more playable for 2026 audiences, because as you get deeper in the game, some of those missions are like early GTA hard. And I feel like a lot of people are not going to tolerate that in the year of our Lord 2020s or 2027. Yeah, I watched the whole panel that was uploaded by a fan that it was a fun panel where they cut out all of the clips they showed. But that moment is very funny because a guy comes up in the line and just in the Q&A section, which I have to also say, I went to the D23 panel for Simpsons in 2022.

They did a joke version of Q&A, which was fun. It was nice. Writers from the show played the Q&A people, and then they had Homer answer it with it. So it was all pre-filmed and everything. But had they done Q&A at it like they did at this one, I would have definitely got up because you got an original drawing from Matt Gray,

if you asked a goddamn question. And I was like, God damn. Awesome. That's great. I didn't see that element of the Q&A session. Every time he drew them all beforehand and he just like tore them off like, hey, thanks, here you go. He started with like Lisa and then deeper into it, he became more of a joke of like, here's one of Kearney.

You get the Kearney one. And the last one was Binky. He still drew Binky. But I'm so sorry. All that to say, the guy asks a question about like, you should do a sequel to hit and run. And then Matt Graning just, he looks around, bring him. He goes like, are we doing a thing with Hidden Run? That's coming back in some form, right?

And then Matt Selman goes like, or not? Again, Mac Raining, he leaked that they were working with Michael Jackson and then had to publicly retract it like back in 1990. So he leaks things sometimes. He forgets NDAs he signed. At this point, you can just be like, I'm 74 years old. What day is this? Yes, that approach could help him out more in these coming years, I think.

Yes. So in other news, David Silverstone. will be directing this year's Trioz of Horror episode, so we're assuming he won't be directing on the movie. Maybe there will be some fun David Silverman flourishes on the movie, but since the movie's development is happening now, it seems unlikely that he will be part of it because of his work on this upcoming Triocer horror.

And by the way, David Silverman is almost 70. So I understand why he might not be directing a movie, an animated movie. It makes sense when he's, you know, almost 50. He's still in his prime animating years, but this feels to me more like, okay, while other people are working on the movie, we'll get a trusted hand like David Silverman to handle the treehouse this year.

Silverman has directed many tree houses. He's one of their best treehouse directors. Treehouse episodes get to break the rules, and he's one of the best rule breakers in The Simpsons because he made the rules, so he's got it breaking up. So I'll be looking forward to seeing the animation on this. In the movie, too, I just wonder, like, who the creative team will be. And I imagine it will be someone in-house, like, last time.

So I think they understand if they're like, and the movie will be directed by Matthew Nastic. No, people would just be like, who? What? Yeah. Like B. Anderson. Who's that? Like, people don't really know the Simpsons directors, honestly.

Yeah. Now, if they got, you know, like, this is something I don't think happened. If they got Rich Moore, let's say, came back, because he has been just like in development hell with films since he left Disney. But let's say they got him back to direct it. That's what they would say. They would say, and it's directed by Oscar-winning director of the Zootopia, Rich Moore. They would have now said we'd know it by now. Or like Wally's Jim Reardon will be directing.

Exactly. He's returning to The Simpsons or something like that. So yeah, I can see that. But I feel like it will be a bunch of sequence directors that are sourced from their talent pool that works on the show, like the previous movie. Yeah, yeah. Now, I mean, I would love if Laura McMullen or somebody to, again, it would be great if it was one of those types that may be, well, after her experience on the Simpsons movie, Laura McMillan's a bad example. I don't think she'd come back for the new one. But yeah, I want to know the director's.

I want to know the director. Me too, me too. Other news. So on a recent podcast, the podcast is called Inside of You, kind of gross, but Nancy Cartwright was on this podcast. And the host tossed out a question like, how long do you think The Simpsons will go on for? I'm sure every voice actor has asked this. Every writer is asked this. Maca Raining is asked us. And I'm sure they're very tired of answering this. Weirdly enough, Nancy Carwight seemed to have a semi-definitive answer. She said, essentially, I'm paraphrasing here. I think we'll end at 40. And she said, that's just my opinion. So maybe Nancy knows something that we don't. But I guess somebody brought this up to MacGarend. at that panel and he said, we're never going down. Come on. So a bit of contention there. And he says, oh, I think Nancy was just saying that casually. There's no definitive statement on her part. But for whatever reason, I find very interesting on that podcast, Nancy Cartwright said, I think we'll stop at 40, which potentially we don't know. I mean, it's renewed through 40, correct? Yeah, it was 37 to 40. It was a four-season renewal at 15. So, yeah, it is 40.

It could be like, I'm just throwing out a prediction here that will never come true, but it could be like with Futurama where The Simpsons, 40 is a good number. That's a lot of content for people signing up for our streaming channel. What if they come back three times a year with specials like Futurama? That could be the future of the Simpsons. I'm not saying it will be, but that's a lot cheaper for Disney who can continue making a ton of money off of four decades worth of content, nearly a thousand episodes by that point. I think closer to 900, but still, it's a lot. And that way they get to stop paying as many expensive executive producers, have a smaller animation team, everything gets cheaper. And same with the actors too.

The actors who, you know, they have been, Fox did it. I'm sure Disney has kept at it. Ever since the actors got their big raise like a little over 20 years ago, they've been chipping away at that like each contract negotiation. Like, let's see if we can get them down another 10%, another 10%. So yes, we don't know what's going to happen. Obviously, we'll be here three. season 40 and beyond. So we'll find out when you find out, but we'll definitely start talking about it when we know some more definitive news. And our final news item based on some D23 stuff is that Matt Selman is teasing some Universal Studios food at least because in the past he talked about how Universal now finally wants to get in on using the Simpsons as part of their Halloween horror nights. That's the name of the event, right, Henry? Yes, Halloween horror nights. They've been doing it since we were kids and it's been scaring me. I only recently did my first Halloween horror nights because, It happened to be going when I went to Universal Studios Japan last year,

where it's a little less intense, I think, at Universal Japan. Well, just by being a big American, you're larger than everyone trying to scare you. That's true. Also, I'm like, well, you guys can't hold a gun. So, I mean, I'm a little less scared in that way, too. These do not inspire a lot of interest from me because some upcoming items seem to be the Forbidden Pumpkin Donuts and Daddy's Soul Donut Cold Brew based on The Devil and Homer Simpsons. that Treyhouse a 4 or 4 parody?

Yeah, yeah. So Selman, this bit was funny. It was also prompted by a question because obviously D-23 they don't want to talk about a competitor. And Selman jokes like, oh, Disney loves it when they were asked about this. He then says, like, you know, not even supposed

to say this, but I'm just going to say it. And I'll ask for forgiveness that, yes, we're working with Universal for Treyhouse stuff to come to Halloween Hard Nights. We hope to have bigger stuff next year. This is like the first step in it. So, yeah, they basically just took a few of their regular items, you know, the big pink donut that they have. Well, what if one of the variants we make now replaces the regular pink frosting with an orange spice frosting,

and we then put a sticker of devil flanders on it? Yes, essentially it's the Malibu Stacey's new hat donut, which is weird because the original donut they sell at Universal. It's great, by the way. It's a big donut. They make it on site that day. It's very fresh. It is the pink donut with sprinkles that devil Flanders offers Homer in that episode. So they already had the sole donut.

They just weren't calling it that. And then over time, that became the definitive Simpsons donut, the pink donut with sprinkles. So it's strange that they're now leaning into pumpkin spice for their giant donut, which is, I mean, I like pumpkin spice, but it's fine. But it's very obvious. But I guess that's what you're going for with Universal. But we are spoiled little piggyies, Henry and I, because we have been to Japan and they really do theme stuff correctly and put a lot of effort into it. I'm a lot more impressive what's going on in their theme parks than like, yeah, we got a new donut. Yeah, they also have a couple new T-shirts, but that's really it.

They try harder in some other sections, but yes, I think this cold brew thing is a new snack they already had there of like, they already have a few themed new cold brews based on Simpsons. This is now the Halloween variant as well. I will say the one little video I watched a bit of a universal exec explaining why they did it. They're like, oh, but you see, in the daddy. soul donut. They put the daddy's soul do not eat sticker on the cup. And then they're like, and it has a little

ball of the donut which represents the last bite that Homer didn't take. And I was like, well, it feels like afterthought theming of it, but it's a good story. It's a good story. Yeah, that's not bad. I'll say that is a little inspired. But usually I'm just like, the Simpsons Food at Universal has never been themed enough for me, right?

We talked about this on Doe Boys. It has to have Simpsons flare, but not to the point where it scares away regular people who aren't Simpsons freaks. Yeah, actually, yeah, there was one other one I saw on there. They technically said they're selling like two new things that I was like, well, wait, this doesn't. The person explained they have a thing called the sloppy dough, which is like a new chicken sandwich they have. And I was like, well, okay, why is it called that?

And she's like, well, you know the sloppy Jimbo that's in the episode. This is kind of like that, just like Homer gets turned into food. Like I was like, wait, why can't you just sell me a sloppy Jimbo, right? Yes. That's the name of the thing. Just make the thing. That's all we're asking for. We'll buy it.

But yes, this looks interesting. I don't know if I'll ever go to one of these. things I don't really like Universal that much and I don't like being scared. So stay away from me. Stop trying to scoop me. But yeah, I'm just glad. It feels like this should have been happening over the past, I don't know, what, 17 years this area has existed within Universal. It makes me think that Matt Selman in particular, he has been so invested in this and talks about it a lot. Like, this is like the third time I've seen him talk about in public. I think he has probably been saying almost the entire time he's worked there or at least since the Simpsons

right opened. Why are we not doing Tree House of Horror at Halloween Horror Nights? This is insane. How has it been almost 20 years, and we've never done any Trias of Horror stuff there? I'm hopeful that next year, there will be a big thing there. Also, my husband and I are park people. We like the theme parks. And this also led us to think that I no longer accept as a given that the Simpsons ride is going to close in the next couple years because this expansion of the stuff tells me that Universal isn't going to close it that soon because Disney also has announced

like their next like five to ten years of park things. And there's no space to do a Simpsons thing new in their parks anyway. So my feeling is that I think they realized at Disney theme parks, they aren't going to do a Simpsons thing anytime soon. So let's just let Universal have five more years of the Simpsons ride, maybe even more. That's my new theory. My new theory.

Yeah, they'll be happy to collect the rent checks from Universal, the licensing rent checks. Though not promote it or rent out the space for events or anything. No. And our last news item here, I just something, Bob's gear grinding corner here. And it is, if you looked at the photo ops at D23, folks, guess what joke they used? Guess what you could do at D23? You could go through the hedges. And that's essentially what the Simpsons area looked like. We formally have to have an injunction against this joke. It cannot continue. It has ruined my love of the original joke. I am someone who owns a nice pair of Homer going through the hedge shoes. I believe my wife, sorry, socks. I believe my wife bought those for me like seven years. ago and that was fine but now it's gone too far and if there is a hedge joke in the Simpsons movie too I will boo at the screen it would be the 18th time they self-referenced it I will

chalk this up to I'll try to put more of the blame on just Disney PR that like back at an old job being you worked at a couple times we got to be in those kind of meetings and it is first thoughts of like oh hey wait isn't this the big new meme that I just heard about

says a PR guy and they built these things yes I was thinking about our old job and I understand like a lot of people want to do better things but you always go with the obvious cheapest thing to do at these kind of events and yes I always say this but I was hired to write at that job how does us having a food truck at Comic Con make money and then they're like you're fired get out yes yeah I quit then yeah it was funny at that job it always came down to a food truck it always came down to a food truck I still don't know if you're a website how does having a food truck the food was given away for free correct yeah they couldn't sell it they'd have to like

gotten new permission to sell it. Yeah. It's like a bold new way to waste money. But yes, let me know in the comments. Am I being a crank? I say there are lots of jokes. Let's select a new one from the Golden Era of the Simpsons. And maybe not run into the ground, but like, celebrate it. It was cool to see the hedge joke celebrated

for a time. But now I feel like it is the go-to. And people are forgetting what made it funny in the first place. That Homer was creepy going through the hedge. Yeah, you're supposed to make a blank face while you do it, too. Like, that's what you're supposed to do. Here I have two new pitches for Disney PR people for next year if you want to do a giveaway thing based on Simpson's memes that aren't

even that fresh of memes. One, it should be you have a fake wig sphere and you like have a wig giveaway and give away free wigs to people and see you look like characters. And then my second one is free coffee giveaway, but you have to pose like Lisa getting the coffee in the coffee cup to get the free coffee. You know what? That meme still great has not been running to the ground yet. So let's do it. And by the way, before we move on to our news, I have a new installment here. There we go. It's time for Bob Soap Corner to return.

You fuckers thought I was kidding, no. That music, it does not mean you were watching Comedy Central in the summer of 1997 like Henry and I once did. The show Soap is not starting. It's time for me to talk about Dr. Squatch's amazing products. I only will buy once. That's it. I'm not going to buy them again. And previously,

last month, I talked about Donut Delirium, the Homer Soap that smells like a delicious donut. Well, I was satisfied with that, but eventually soap has to come tune and it's very tragic. Let me turn off this music. It's distracting me once again. So I moved on to the Bart soap here, a

squishy Supreme. And this is the more citrusy soap, and I don't have much to add. I feel the need to have a second soap corner to report on the second bar of soap. When they make new Simpson soaps, I will be back with more soap corner. But I will say, I think I prefer the Bart's soap because

I like citrus smells more than pastry smells. I'm not always ready to smell pastries. It can kind of be like stomach churning in the morning or at certain times of the day where I don't want to think about snack cakes. But I'm always in the move for citrus. I feel like it is a zesty, enlivening kind of scent. And I like the Bart soap a lot more. So I'm going to say the Bart Soap is a better pick, but also don't buy products from Dr. Squatch because they use AI in their ads. Oh, well, geez. Yes, right, right. That's crummy to learn. I feel like every day there's like a thing comes out of like, oh, this company obviously used AI and a thing

they didn't disclose, but that's too bad on Dr. Squatch. But yeah, I think to technically smell like a squishy that it's just like it smells like citrus, that sounds like an easier one to fake too. Yes. It all depends on what you're in the mood for. Like if you want to smell like a cake all day, go crazy. But I feel like that can be, I don't know, it doesn't feel like it's always appropriate. Maybe it's just like not a summer thing.

And I feel like more into citrusy smells in the summer. Maybe I'd be more into this in the time of the year where I'm eating more cakes and cookies in drinking more like flavored coffees and stuff. But yeah, and I will say, Dr. Squatch, please stop using AI because I kind of like your soaps. Each bar of soap lasted a little over two weeks, which is pretty good, I think, because these are essentially like $10 each USD, which is pretty pricey for soap. But I got a lot of use out of them. So that is the end of soap corner, folks.

I want to see the March soap. Where is the Lisa soap? Where is like the comic book guy soap? I want to see more of them. But again, Dr. Squatch, you're dead to me. Dr. Squatch is a cryptid. If you see Dr. Squatch in the wild, you can shoot him and bring him into the government for a cash reward.

Dinner alive. Yes. But yeah, thank you for tolerating soap corner. We're going to move on to Talking Simpsons News. What's coming up in the month of September. And we've got a big What a Cartoon. So in August, we covered a show. We honestly should have covered in year one of What a Cartoon.

But now we're much better. Our episodes are five times longer. And we are equipped to cover these very important programs. And in the month of September, we're covering another important one. We're covering the amazing stories episode, Family Dog. That's right. It is the, basically, Brad Bird's debut as an auture. And this essentially was his calling card for the rest of his career and the few movies he was actually allowed to make. But it all starts at Family Dog, not the bad television series they made later, but the original short that was part of Amazing Stories.

And you can easily look that up online if you're trying to find it. Archive.org. You can watch Amazing Stories and Family Dog there. It's a really important animated short or TV special. I think we had to drill it down to listeners. so many times in the episode, but of like, The Simpsons didn't exist yet. This predates the Simpsons by three months, and you had never seen a mean family before.

You had never seen like a family cartoon like this before. Though I do have to say, it was rude of Brad Bird to write after we recorded that episode to do a career retrospective panel at Comic Con. That is pretty rude. Come on, Brad. At least let us know. Give us a heads up before. But yes, Family Dog, when you watch it, and I had not watched it since,

it's like maybe the 90s, you immediately realize like, oh, this is why Bradbird was hired for the Simpsons. And I can see what he added to the show in its first eight or so years. And the story of the failure of the family dog television show is also incredibly interesting, I think. Yeah, yeah, it's great. So that is what a cartoon for the month of September. And then we have our Patreon shows at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. If you're a patron, $5 or more, you can listen to these. We have Talking Futurama.

The episode is another Comedy Central one. It's called A Farewell to Arms. and the title reference is something that happens in the last like 30 seconds of the episode. But essentially, this is their 2012 apocalypse episode when we were all talking about that. So I found this to be like another Futurama episode that should have been a movie, but they're squishing all of this big action planets colliding into just 20 minutes. I really like this one. It was a lot of fun to talk about too.

I don't think I saw it when it was news. So it was a neat one to also watch as we're thinking about those specials that it's like they have to, the poor. It was a great one to hear about the poor animators on that one too. Yes, like Peter Avanzino. And also on the Patreon at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. We're covering the King of the Hill episode Nancy Boys in which the Nancy John Redcorn relationship comes to an end. And it's a surprising bit of canon in King of the Hill. And then John Redcorn becomes like sort of like a new character unattached to Nancy and they're developing an interesting way. So in a way, I'm kind of disappointed that he's back with Nancy in the new stuff. But he's, He's obviously not a major presence in the new stuff because his voice actor was killed. So maybe they'll bring him back in a bigger way with future episodes and a new voice actor. But I like how John Redcorner is more than just a joke. He gets a lot of dignity. And it's more than just about him cucking Dale.

Yes, he goes from just being like a hymbo who is just like a sex machine to both of them become realer characters. And Nancy becomes a realer character too. Like it is a deepening. The episode is such an interesting deepening of everybody. in an entirely new situation for the show that they deal with. Yes, I kind of regret that they reset it in the new seasons. And in the most recent season, they even have an episode that's like kind of just Nancy Boys again

in a confusing way. I was like, but I thought this was settled. But yeah. Well, I should have finished the season by the time we cover this hopefully. So maybe I can comment on it there. But yes, if you're a patron, you can listen to these. And what a cartoon movie episode at the end of the month is going to be very special because here's the thing.

We are reaching the end of year eight of what a cartoon movie. We're about to start year nine. We never listed these rules, so we were allowed to break them whenever we want, which is why our what a cartoon movie subject for the month of September will be the Adams family, not the animated movie, the 1991 classic starring Royal Julia, Jellica Houston, Christina Christina Ricci, and so on and so on and so on. Because, you know, we could have covered the pretty good CGI-adim family movie, but I think everyone out there are listeners who are all around our age,

probably want to hear us talk about this one a lot more. And I know we have a live action month, but previously we have covered live action movies outside of that like The Muppet Christmas Carol, so there you have it. And I'm so excited to cover this. I just ordered the more Mamushka edition of the film. Whoa. Oh, wow. That's great. I didn't know there was. I just had a very bare bones Blu-ray in my place.

I was a big fan of this movie, too. I'm excited to do it. I saw it as a kid. And now I feel more informed than ever to watch it because last, year. I watched all of Twin Peaks, which I had not done before. And now, after seeing it, I understand why Twin Peaks actors started appearing in everything is because, like, people became aware of them and they started casting. And that includes Lurch in this. And I can really appreciate Lurch's actor. The Giants was who he played. And I'll learn his name by then, too. Yeah. His name is the big guy. But yes, I love this movie. I recently reconnected with it during COVID and realized,

I was like, man, this is so great. And controversial thoughts, I like this more than values. I'm sorry, values is fine. It's a little too 90s for me, though, in a way that hasn't aged particularly well, but I still like it. But this one is a solid classic of the early 90s, and I can't wait to talk about it. And it's really troubled production history and the great Rale Julia, who we mostly know from playing things like Gomez-Adams and Bison. But I recently watched Kiss Up the Spider-Woman for the first time. So I want to seek out a few more real Rall Julia movies before I revisit Am's Family.

Because guess what, guys, he's a great Shakespearean actor. who took the role of Gomez Adams and M. Bison very seriously. Yes, gone too soon. I enjoy values. It has some real highs, but some low lows in it. But as great as Joan Cusack isn't it? And she rules in that movie. You're watching Raul Julia die,

and he's in a lot less of the film than you remember. I'm going to say, not to be a downer, that's the biggest bummer of the film. It's like, why is Gomez in bed? Yes. Why did his scene just stop? And it didn't have another scene after this part. Yeah.

I wish he was still alive, but it's nice to see Raul Julia, lively, lots of scenes with Morticia, and as a fellow wife, I appreciate their connection with each other. So now it's time to talk about what we've been playing and watching that's unrelated to podcasting. And folks, I have finished Mina the Hollower with a big asterisk at the end of that because I played through 98% of the game. It was challenging.

I had the same experience everyone else does. You play, you suffer the first three hours. It clicks with you. And you're just always like slightly ahead of the difficulty. curve or slightly behind it. It's never too too punishing. But then I got to the final boss and everything

you've done up to that point does not matter because it's that difficult and I said, are you kidding me? And I tried fighting him once and I said I am 44 years old. Ideally, I'm halfway through my life. Do I want to spend two to three hours mastering this boss? The answer was no. Thankfully, me to the hollowware let me turn on invincibility and I ended the game and I feel great.

I was able to move on and thank you for those accessibility options me to the hollowware because I just wanted to see the end. And a problem I have with a lot of games is often the last level or the last challenge is there just to punish you and make you regret ever starting the game. It's not like a fun experience. It's always like so frustrating. And when games have like a slightly breezier, a little more streamlined final challenge, I think Pragmata was a recent example of that, not to spoil the ending of that. I am elated. I'm like, thank you for letting me exit safely without like ruining the day I started playing this

game and wasting 25 hours of my life. So I wish the end. ending was not that hard. I wish that final boss was not that hard, but I'm also happy that they let me turn on baby mode, and I can live with myself after that. I just wanted to move on to something else. In the mainline Mario games or Pregmatas is another good one, that the extra challenge is there if you really want to find it. They have like, okay, in Pregmana, it's like, well, now that you beat it, guess what? We discovered a new area you can go to to really torture yourself if that's what you want in Mario games or Donkey Kong Bonanza. It's like, now the credits have rolled and you've basically seen everything.

Do you want to play more and be really crazy and have the hardest shit ever? Congratulations. Now you can. Yeah, you're totally right. I like when you can opt into the torture. With this game, you really can't. And if I finish Hollow Night, I've played all of the Dark Souls games and finished those and have played a ton of them. But at this point, I have to eventually cut bait and say, okay, game, I'm done with you.

Let's move on. Actually, my wife and I are having a similar problem with Baldur's Gate 3. We're in act 3. We're like 100 hours in. We think we figured everything out. Like, we know how to play this game well. Like every new quest we get into terminates in like an impossible boss fight. So I think we're going to have to bump the difficulty down there because it's either like waste a lot of time trying to get good at these fights by failing at them repeatedly or just steamroll them to just see more content from the game we're really enjoying.

And at this point in my life, I feel like I should be able to get to decide when this ends. And I feel like that will be how we get through the rest of Balders Gate 3. To talk about non-R-rated parts of Balders Gate 3, yes. for me as well. We closed sections of Potter's Gate 3. Yes, everybody's wearing clothes. And that is what we ended up doing

after 10 hours and losing and having to do the third fight we did in the game like three times. We did put it down to story difficulty. And we were like, look, we want to just have a good time. We want to not have to think about every possible thing you could do,

whatever angle to do. And if we're also just, okay, well, let's redo this fight again, knowing that that guy's there. and this guy's there. It's like, why are we even doing that? Then we're not even playing it really anyway then. So why not just go down to story difficulty? Yeah. Yeah. And like I was a game journalist for 10 years. I think you were too, Henry. And I'm used to everyone saying I suck at games. So I have no shame in admitting like, yeah, I'm not good at this. And frankly, I have better things to do than investing time and getting good at this at this point in my life. So yes, thank you to Yacht Club games for adding those options. But I also wish the game was tuned a little better to not be so punishing with its intended difficulty. also finish Lego Batman, the new one, Legacy of the Dark Night. I've commented on it before, maybe a few months ago. It is really good.

But again, it's one of those games where I had to cut bait, not because it was getting difficult, but just because there was simply too much to do. And here's a thing. It's like an Ubisoft game where it's full of all these alternate objectives that are all over your map. But in this case, they are all very well designed and uniquely designed and very thoughtful. And I felt the urge to kind of do all of them. But at a certain point, I realized what I was in for, and I just kind of beeline right to the end and had a great time. So it is unlike any other Lego game.

It is just an Arkham game and a Lego skin. And it was very satisfying, especially because there has not been an Arkham game in 11 years. So if you like Arkham Games, buy this or wait for it to go on sale inevitably over the holidays. I'm waiting for the holiday sale on that, but I will be playing that one. After the fall game, Bananza has his wrapped, I think.

And recent game I started, I just want to throw it out there because it's a little indie made by some Polish folks. It is called Mouse, P.I. for hire. It is essentially asking the question, what if Cuphead was a first-person shooter? And the entire world is basically a black and white, a nudely armed 1930s cartoon

where you are a mouse with a gun, and there is a giant film NARA story that unravels from the very beginning. And it's been very, very fun so far. The gameplay is not far beyond, like, doom, but I'm really surprised by just the sheer amount of character and assets that are in this fun little game with a unique idea.

So, yeah, mouse PI for hire. I'm really enjoying that, like, two or three hours in, and it's been a fun ride so far. And my final announcement here is I wanted to end out the year with a big JRP, just to chip away at it for the next couple of months. And I put a poll out there on Blue Sky.

And even though this game didn't quite win, it's the one I decided on. I am going to end the year by playing Persona 5 Royal, which I feel like the heat's under my ass right now because Persona 4 remake has been announced, Persona 6 has been announced. Persona 4 remake is coming out in February,

and I love Persona 4. and I'm desperately wanting to play that remake. And I know I should play five before I play another version of Persona Four. So I'm starting in September. I think I will start it on the 10th anniversary of the game's original release in Japan, which is September 15th. So it's officially retro. Oh, man. Yes.

It's U.S. release in April, I believe it was April 2017, was like one of the last reviews. I did at our old job. And it was that now it's so long ago. It's crazy. It's pre-your husband. It is. The Royal, I did not touch because the game, Persona 5 was too long. It was good.

It was good. But I was like, boy, I don't need this next 15 hours, guys. That last 15 hours of it, I don't know if I needed that. I hear Royal makes the game a lot smoother. I was looking at all of the improvements. And I don't know how the original game played, although I played the past ones. But I'm looking forward to seeing that. And yes, it will be the rest of my year.

So it is retro now. So I'm allowed to play it as a retronaut host. And that's it for games. movies I want to mention in a few things. So there is a really fun documentary. Fun is in quotes here. Interesting is more like it. It's called The Contestant.

So I was playing that 428 should be a scramble game last month. And I was like, who is this odd looking guy? I bet he's a Japanese comedian because often Japanese comedians will be weird looking. And most of the jokes are like someone else making fun of their weird head. And this guy does have a weird head. And I was like, what has he done before? So apparently he is the subject of this documentary called The Contestant because in his younger years in the late 90s, I believe. He entered this, it's not quite a game show,

it's more a reality show called Dempah Shonan. And he became part of this contest in which he is basically like locked in a room naked. And his entire survival relies on what he can win from magazine contests. That includes food. That includes things to clean himself. That includes clothing. And this documentary examines that entire timeline with so much footage from the show. It is fascinating, but you're also watching torture that is worse than when they put you in jail with nothing with no one. What's that called again? We just covered this on the Simpsons. Oh, why is this solitary confinement, you mean? So there you go. Sorry, I don't know why I couldn't think of the word, phrase, but yes, essentially it's a worse punishment than solitary confinement that a guy, he signed up

for being contestant not knowing what he was in for, and he committed to the entire ride, which did last over a year, and there are lots of crazy twists and turns. This was a Hulu documentary. I'm not sure where it is now, but if you've heard of this story, you have not heard all of the details, and it was really, really fascinating. I think those are, I'd seen clips from it here or there and just the general, you know, shows up in your timeline or a clip on a TV show. I probably would have seen like clips of this on like talk soup or something like that back in the odds of just like crazy Japan, but your description of like, no, this is a crime

that was like, this should never have happened. Yeah, you're essentially watching a like 18-month or like 4. 14-month crime unravel. But the way the guy survived and how he kind of bounced back from that experience is very heartening. It's a great experience. I'm glad his life was documented in a way that is not attached to this ephemeral reality show that existed 25 years ago.

So check out the contestant. It's really good. And also, my wife and I have been seeing a lot of film noir movies at the Cinematex Film Noir Festival in Vancouver. I recommend you go to it. It happens August of every year if you're in Vancouver. But if you live in a big city, there probably is a noir festival. So just watching a lot of great noir movies like The Killers and Kiss Me Deadly, things like that.

And weirdly enough, my wife and I have been watching a lot of Edward G. Robinson movies because I think I watched The Stranger with her. And I was like, oh, he's great. And I need to see him in more stuff. So we've been just like getting a lot of Edward G. Robinson movies from the library. He is more than just the guy that Wiggum is based on. He's a great character actor with a wide crazy face. He didn't just say meh, ma'er, me, all the time. Only in that one movie. And it really says. stuck. So yeah, and then finally, I did want to announce that I read Jurassic Park for the first time because my wife and I saw Jurassic Park in concert where they show you the movie and an orchestra plays the music. Then Sam Neal died. And this is already on my agenda because we picked up a copy at a used bookstore like a year ago. But I thought, I'm finally going to read Jurassic Park

and I did. And my main takeaway is I can see why sixth graders around me really like this book. But it is vastly inferior to the movie in many, many ways, mostly because Spielberg is full of awe and wonder, and Crichton is a cynical crank who seems to just really hate dinosaurs and children. Right. Though one of the compliment, it has been a long time since I, as a kid, listened to the audiobook version of this book. How did you have access to audiobooks as a kid? I'm just wondering this. It was tapes.

It was tapes. But were you buying these? This was a library. I never had access to audiobooks because they were so expensive, and my library never had them. For big ones like this in Lost World, they had both of them. I did listen to the audiobooks for both of these. but I remember just listening to the description of like, what was it, the compies eating the guy as I think that's the first chapter of Jurassic Park, right?

Like compies are found off of Main Island and they have to track like where they're coming from and you eventually get to the island and the story unfolds. Though it's a lot meaner to the creator of Jurassic Park, right? He's not the wonderful Walt Disney type figure that he is in the movie. I mean, I want to know what listeners think of the book because it's weird when a book, the characters have less personality and dimensionality than they do in the movie. Usually you watch the movie, then you read the book and the book tells you, okay, here's what they're thinking, here's what their past are like, here's what they're reflecting on.

There's none of that in Jurassic Park. It all basically takes place in the moment. It's very like screenplay-like, and I understand like Michael Crichton, obviously filmmaker, he's a better director than Wes Anderson. We know this. I pointed this out before. Westworld better than anything Wes Anderson has ever made. I'd rather be in Westworld than Westworld, to be honest.

Henry, I'm waiting for you to defend this man. Look, he's going to take it on the chin, I understand. Where is my Michael Crichton box at Cartiery and I'll pay $500? I personally would put most, I really enjoy Westworld too, the original film, but no, I wouldn't put it over. I'd put it over the Phoenician scheme and I'd put it over Moonrise Kingdom and the French dispatch. But the rest, I think I personally would put over Westworld. It's a constant conversation in film circles. Who's better, Michael Crichton or Wes Anderson?

I mean, I'm just weighing in with my own take here. But yeah, the book is very odd. I was kind of struggling to get through the last half of it. But I really appreciate for the ideas it brought to the table. But then you have the Ian Malcolm character essentially doing all of these anti-science rants throughout the book that are pages long. And I'm like, well, this is what Michael Crichton actually believes. And then you find out, like, later in life, yes, he did come out against like, oh, climate change is bullshit. Then he kind of ruined his legacy there.

But the seeds are all planted in Jurassic Park with Ian Malcolm being so anti-science and anti-scientist. It is funny when you end up. up reading books like that and you later in life realize this is how before authors had social media to put those rants in it they just create a character to have page long essays about their opinions on things that derail books maybe social media is better in that way that it can distract people it's not quite like iron ran levels of that kind of material but it was still like well i know this is just the mouthpiece for you michael craven you're dead now but i know like this is how you felt but yeah the book it's okay i'm glad i finally read it though because

Like all around me, like right after that movie came out, every sixth grader, that falling fall had a copy of Jurassic Park around me. And they were like, oh, the book's so much better. But I think it's just because the book was more violent and people are like firing rocket launchers at dinosaurs in the book. Yeah. Well, also, Ian Malcolm, whatever he says, comes out much better with the raw sex appeal of Jeff Goldblum instead. Yes. Ian Malcolm is like a scrawny balding guy in the book, not like the pinnacle of masculinity in the movie with his shirt open. Right.

I also rewatched it recently in the last month after the passing of Sam Neal. And now I want to retroactively cancel Alan Grant for dating his, honestly, a junior in his learning group who's like in her early 20s. The age gap discourse, he's canceled. Sure. Things are wet and wild in the early 90s when it came to that. I'm kidding, of course. I'm kidding. But I was looking up.

I was like, oh, right, Laura Dern is so young in this movie. So much younger than Alan Graham. Yeah, she's shockingly young. Like, Sam Neal's like almost 50 and she's maybe like 23 in the movie. Yes, yeah. It's because she proved herself to be a generational talent, like, in blue velvet as an actual teenager playing a teenager. Yeah. And a personal note to end my little segment. I recently celebrated 15 years as a retronaut's host, early August. I started in 2011, and I'm very happy about that milestone. I still love working on the show. I still love, I'm putting the other great episode I'm recording today. And if you want to listen to my first episode that went live in August of 2011, I threw it up. up on my YouTube page, but there is a public post on a Retronauts Patreon that has a little statement for me, and it links to the video version of that original podcast. If you want to hear

what I sounded like 15 years ago, instead of just going back to our archives and hearing what I sounded like 10 years ago. 15 years as the new guy on Retronauts. I'm still the new guy, kind of. If you listen to the people who complain, like, ah, it fell apart when Bob Mackey joined. Well, Bob Mackey has been around for like a very long time. First Obama term. That's where I was originally. No, you're so firmly established there. I just still laugh at occasionally seeing people like, oh, Bob, it's a new Bob one. I'm just like, what? Listeners, I was a listener of Bob first before I was his friend. I was just enjoying him on Retronauts. And then getting to, like, do a retronauts was, being a guest on Retronauts was an early podcasting goal of mine. Who'd have thought I would become friends and business partners with my favorite host on Retronauts? And taking over the show, rather, was an early goal of mine and I did. Yes, yeah, you've pulled it off. Like, your scheme worked. Yes, and by the way, we will be at Portland Retro Gaming Expo this October,

and I'll be doing a little panel about the 20th anniversary of our show, talking about the history of our show, various milestones over the years, and a lot of fun bits and videos and sketches and stuff. So please come to Portland Retro Gaming Expo. It's my favorite event of the year. I always love going to that little show. So for me in August in gaming, I really was light on video games because, you know,

I'm busy with stuff, and also I had a real movie month. though I did play a bit of the Magic the Gathering Hobbit release that came out this month, both in the app and at a couple real in-person events. Though the Hobbit deck is not as exciting to me as the Marvel deck. It's not as rich or as deep, but I still had fun to play it like, oh, this is like this version of Bilbo pops in and does this, or, oh, this Gandalf card gets to vanish and reappear out of nowhere,

just like how randomly he appears and goes away in the Hobbit book. express is fun stuff. I didn't see you post any images. How many cards did you buy at this event? Just like, how does it go down? Oh, in this case, I bought very few cards. Basically, you pay, your buy-in is buying six packs and then building your team out of those six packs. So that's like 70 cards, I think it is. Though I still am waiting on a scene box of cards that is coming to of like it's the dishwashing scene, the song scene from that in The Hobbit gets to be its own six cards. that are laid out of of Keeley and Geely and Thorin and Bobbin and all of your favorite dwarfs. My wife actually just read The Hobbit because I have an old version of it that belonged to my step that are kicking around here.

And I think I might do it next so we can watch those movies. Suffer through all three chapters. I saw some of her thoughts on Blue Sky and I am interested hearing that I saw other people in that chat talking about how like the extended editions, some people like them more. say that by extending them and making them longer, it actually did become better movies, which mentally to me sounds insane. That's not how I think it would work. It's why I never tried out those extended editions because the Hobbit films are too long as they are to me. I dutifully watched them in theaters, but they were too long as it is, in my opinion. Yeah, with some of these extended editions, it's been more like, we'll watch the first half

and then like, you know, it'll be the end of the night and that's it. Or we'll watch half the movie, go out to dinner and then come back and watch the other half of the movie. So he's just split into shifts to get through the movie. I think for the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings, I think fellowship of the ring extended is what the real length of the movie should be. But Return of the King is where Peter Jackson became too indulgent, I think. That's where he became too indulgent of a director. It's what broke him, I feel like.

Yeah, that was a two-shift movie for us, for sure. I played a little bit of the new Marvel Fighting Game that's on PlayStation and PC. Marvel Tokon, which means fighting souls. It's from Arc Systems, the Guilty Year people. And I mainly did it to play the single player mode because it has a cool story in it. Now, playing it online against real people, I even got all right at playing Street Fighter online. But if you've ever played like Guilty Gear and other Arc System games, these are too goddamn fast.

I cannot, even if in my 20s they were probably too fast for me. But now I cannot move fast enough to play this game. I feel like we have aged out of certain games at this point. Maybe fighting games are no longer for us anymore. But the story mode was a lot of fun. It's full of like very dense Marvel references and fighting game references to. The Deadpool character should win an award for Fourth Wall Breaking because it breaks every possible, not just Marvel references. Every frame of Deadpool is a reference to a fighting game.

in some way. It's insane. There's 30 minute long videos of every Deadpool video game reference explained in it. It's nuts how dense it. Well, at least there are video game references and not gay jokes, which is Deadpool's usually that's the currency he trades in. I do think he still like hits on Wolverine and calls him like sexy or something, but mostly he's less gay than he is in this one. More often he's just saying lines from Street Fighter with a wink of like, am I even allowed to quote Street Fighter in this not Capcom game? Though compliments to previous What a Cartoon guest, Sungwon Show, he really is a great Doctor Doom.

He needs to just be the Doctor Doom all of the time. Get rid of that Robert Donny Jr. creep. Yes, yeah, I hope he gets to take. Same with my husband and I were just talking about Bill Farmer, older gentlemen, still doing great as goofy, but we saw film footage of him at D23 and we're like, man, who's going to take over Goofy Sunday? And we just didn't say like, oh, it should be someone.

show. Like his goofy is perfect. He should just be goofy for the next 50 years. At some point in our lives, we will have Goofy 3. Bill Farmer is still enjoying it. He's already recording his stuff for Kingdom Hearts 4. Did you, did you see any of the Kingdom Hearts 4 stuff? Yes, but I saw that and I thought, well, this won't actually be in the game. This is just to make everyone think a game as being made. Right. Like, well, Nomora actually showed up to Los Angeles and did a panel for D23. I couldn't believe he showed up. He was wearing like Baggy jeans and a black t-shirt, which is like perfect Nomura too. He needed to do laundry.

That was his look. But there's a co-director, at least one co-director on the game that like, these are the real directors of these games. That's how any Nomura game has come out in the last 15 years. But yes, as for movies, my three biggies I wanted to mention, all involved going to a movie theater. Well, actually two of them did. So there's on tour right now.

I'm telling it to folks all across the U.S. This tour is happening. Check your local listings. It's going around. is The Little Shop of Horrors film's 40th anniversary tour with Ellen Green in person doing a Q&A. And Seattle is one of the first stops, and it was great. She comes out and sings somewhere that's green,

does that cold, just comes out on stage with just a quick intro, sings it, and then, like, is in tears. She's like, oh, like she's 75 and just killing it. And then she does a Q&A for 30 minutes, and then you watch the movie. And it was great. It was also fun to be surrounded by fans there because I felt stuck in the middle. There were people older than me

who were fans who were adults when it came out. And then there were people younger than me who were clearly Disney children who then, through being fans of Ashman's and Minkin's Disney work, went backwards and watched this movie. I see. And which cut of the movie did they show?

Because now I feel like the extended cut is now more definitive since it's been restored and that great Don't Feed the Plant segment has been added back to the movie. Yeah, it was the regular version. That's still good. It's what I grew up with. Now that I know what they cut out of it, though, it does feel incomplete. We covered it on a cartoon movie a couple years ago.

I wish after the movie they then played at least the Don't Feed the Plant section of the movie again or for the first time to us. Though Ellen Green did have a funny thing. We talked about it in that history, but she had an insight into it. I don't recall hearing before, which was she talked about why she thought it didn't work with the test audience and why they had to change it, which is she said that when, and this is spoilers for Little Shop of Hours, the stage show, you never see it. But when Audrey dies, Ellen Green says, I turn to the audience and say, and when I die, which should be happening very shortly, when she turns to the audience in person and says that, it's a fun wink to be like, don't feel too sad. I'm joking. with you and looking at you and saying it. So it undercuts the tension a little bit. But in the film version,

she just is looking at Rick Moranis and says it to him. And it makes you just feel worse. It makes you... It is a laugh line when you see the musical because she does look at the audience for that. That is true. It was a funny or it was a really interesting angle on that. She talked so much about all the work she put into defining Audrey. Also, she could not not talk about Howard Ashman

and how much like the hurt he passed away 35 years ago now I think it is it was 91 and so but the hurt seemed as fresh now as then like she said oh yeah I was with him when he died and on all this I was like man and then they also did a fan Q&A and a person asked like oh what Alan Mencken what was it like working with him and I think this is mine for it's she was saying that like she likes Alan Mencken and he's had such a great career. But there was one genius on the show, and it was Howard Ashman, and she really seemed to be, like, kind of underplaying,

like saying, like, yeah, Alan Mencken's a nice guy who was lucky to know Howard Ashman is what she, my inference was in what she was. I am a Macon maniac, and I appreciate his work. I think he does great work, too, yeah. But, yes, she's torn all around, totally worth going to. You don't even have to stay for the movie

if you've seen it a million times, so it's great to see it with an audience who is there. Also, it was not an ironic audience. It was not a joking audience. It wasn't even a sing-along audience. It was just after a great song ended, we all applauded. And that was it. That's the most fun.

Speaking of excitable audiences, the other big film I saw in theaters this month, other than Spider-Man Brand New Day, but listen to the Man McMustles podcast that I did about that. We did a quip about it. Did you see The Quip? Oh, yeah, the quip. I've got to do one of those today, actually. The other one I saw was Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma in 35. millimeter. We got a 35 millimeter screening. I don't know if yours was 35 millimeter. I don't think so,

but it wasn't advertised that way. But yeah, I just saw it two days ago, I believe, yeah. I did see it with like a very queer audience. I felt like I clocked like eight other cis gay guys in the audience, but otherwise it was a lot of just sapphic energy in the room, I would say, and a lot of femme and non-binary energy who was very excited to see the movie in a receptive way. And it was It was an infectious thing. I gave a four and a half on my lighter box because it was a really fun night at the movies. I didn't like it. This is our Siskel and Ebert Corner now.

We're both turning around looking at each other. Well, here's the thing. I went out to get concessions. It took a very long time because it was like a nearly sold-out show. And when I was gone, I didn't realize the entire crowd had been dosed with Joker gas. I think my wife held her breath because everybody was laughing at everything in the movie. And a big stumbling block for me was Jillian, Anderson's accent. And everybody laughed at everything she said. No matter like, there are certain

parts of the movie where I thought like, this is like a sincere expression of like queer desire. I know everyone's laughing. Okay, fine. I didn't understand like the movie to me was, it was like very on the nose but also very like indistinct and fuzzy in a frustrating way. I'm like, what's happening? What is sincere? What is irony? And to me, there was just like too much irony. It was cloaked in for like really get invested too much. So I was just mainly along for the visuals and the love for 80s horror and things like that. But I was not a big fan of this movie. And I find it to be like, it's very polarizing. I'm looking at a lot of reviews and people either like really like it or they really don't like it. Hey, look, there are aspects of both you and Nina's reviews I agree with or I'm like, yeah, I get that.

And same with Will Sloan had a good letterbox review too about feeling like what exactly it wants to be is there. I also think with my audience, though, that it was, they weren't laughing at everything. When things got more real, it felt like, or sorry, we're both trying to not spoil things in the movie, too. But like when there's deeper conversations in the movie about sexuality, for instance, the audience wasn't laughing in mind then. And even when Gillian Anderson was saying something in a ridiculous Southern drawl, people weren't. I do so enjoy my dipping sauces. Though part of the movie, too, is like, I accept that I am watching. what Jane Shone Brun, what they masturbate to.

And I didn't like that. I stood in line for half an hour to watch a two-hour movie about your self-insert character having sex with Julian Anderson. This could have been a fanfic is what I'm saying. Jane Show and Brun better start showing me some better movies. The stuff about like watching the film alone. Also, Kevin McDonald, like, I loved his bits. I needed more Kevin McDonald in the movie. I also love the stuff about, like, I love the opening is my favorite part of the movie.

the timeline of the miasma or miasma I always said miasma they say miasma in the movie I like the horror stuff in the film clearly it's coming from place of love and it is both like a mix

of Friday the 13th and sleepaway camp which I feel like does not get talked about enough especially because of the transphobic qualities of that series and I feel like if anything this movie will cause people to reevaluate sleepaway camp it's a very fun very cheesy very bad horror movie that I had a great affinity

for in my late 20 A friend and I watched Sleepway Camp like over and over and over again. We have so many like inside jokes about it and stuff. But I do like that. But then like the movie had me rooting for it. But then it kind of lost me when I realized like, oh, this is fanfic. And some fanfic can be great, but it really feels like self-gratifying fanfic to me. Well, I mean, yeah, it is a masturbatory film.

It's about watching a VHS in the dark and touching yourself. And if the film was called, do you want to watch me jerk off? I'm going to see the end of Oak Street. I felt got in a good way by the movie when I'm watching the movie and in the movie a split diopter shot happens and I think of itself like ooh that's cool a split diopter shot then

Hannah's character turns to Jillian Anderson and whispers ooh split diopter and I was like oh the film is like making fun of me for bragging to myself that I recognized it and I liked when Jillian Anderson's character just kind of rolled her eyes like yes

this is the transphobic part I know yeah if anything this movie shines a light on how annoying millennials are. And I'm all for it. I'm like, yeah, get my ass. We suck. Same of like, we were all writing articles

about like, oh, the actual queer history of this thing or whatever. Yes, yeah, it was. Okay, but hey, it must be at least an interesting movie to cause this much conversation. It's true.

I'm glad it wasn't boring. I gave it a 2.5. You gave it a 4.5. But I feel like there are, there are conversations to be had about it. And I like, omages to 80s horror.

There's some interesting visual things, but ultimately, like, I quoted Wolf Sloan in my review. And he's like, this movie is, clever, but I also wish it was funny or scary. That's why I like, no part of this was funny to me. The audience around me, again, the Joker captured them after.

They're all missing now. I do sometimes rate things higher when I had a good viewing experience with a good audience. And that's called peer pressure and it's wrong. It really was like such a queer audience that it made it more fun. You know what? I did not get out my gaitar for my audience. I couldn't tell. And I also wanted the spotlight, one of the biggest animated films that came out in the last

month, which was Avatar Ang, the last Airbender, which was the big Avatar movie that came out that they leaked a while back, but I didn't watch the leak. It was, I did like it. It is wholly and entirely exactly like a Dragon Ball Z movie. Oh, here's the guy, here's the movie villain. They're going to Movie Island. Here's the big, you know, turn. Oh, this character gets beat up just like Piccolo would get beat up in it. And then everybody comes back and has, and also like a Dragon Ball movie, it has stupendous animation. You're really watching it just, I wish it was in theaters to be just owing and awing it on the big screen. Wow, look at the animation in this crazy fight where Ang goes into Avatar mode and is just going ham on this character. Like, this would be amazing to

see on the big screen. I don't know why it wasn't in theaters and said it was put on the most evil streaming network to exist. But yes, it's there. But I'll say, hey, folks, just steal it because Paramount is evil. You should just steal it. And also Paramount is hates money and that's why they didn't put it in theaters. They didn't want to make money off the theatrical release. It's insane that they want to do that for at a time when the movies, anime movies, and this is essentially

is one, are more profitable than ever in American movie theaters and yet they didn't want to do this with their giant with millennial filmgoer series. And hey, speaking of that too, movies that actually do end up coming on theaters instead of going into the dustbin.

This weekend, after we record this, I'm seeing very soon, Coyote versus Acme. So, hey, let's support this, folks. I need to see that. I name drop the end of Oak Street because that's what I am seeing this week. And I'm hearing it's the best dinosaur movie since Jurassic Park, and I'm willing to hold people to that. That's really pretty much everything I did this last month. In September, maybe I'll have some more fun things to report on. But a good month of like, also I've been chipping away in my criterion backlog, but look at my letterbox to see all of the like French and English and otherwise films I've been watching lately.

Henry promises trip tales. Yeah. Woo. It's been a minute since it's trip tale, though not to Hollywood. You're not getting a Hollywood. I've had to retire the Hollywood Henry Gilbert song, unfortunately. Let's move on to questions and comments. For talking Simpsons, let's start with Mobile Homer. And Adam says, by the way, this is all about the strange Turkish subplot that takes up a big part of Act 3. And Homer calls these guys Cypress splitting jerks. And we were like, that's a reference to something. We're not learning ancient Hebrew, but somebody out there learned ancient Hebrew. And this is what Adam says. The Cypress split is referring to the post-colonial split of the eastern Mediterranean island from the British Empire.

The ethnographic Greek side to the south launched a military coup to gain independence from the British. However, the north of the island is typically a more ethnographic Turkish population. The island sits between the two countries, which led to a similar Turkish-backed invasion and revolt to split the island, which has remained to this day since 1974. The UN acknowledges the Greek side is Cyprus, but the Turkish side is only acknowledged by Turkey. Thank you, Adam. We are less aware of world events than Homer, unfortunately. That's impressive that Homer has heard about this. This is right up there with like telling us where the Falklands are at with his answer. So thanks.

That is a very interesting bit about, there's a lot of that in history of the English, show up somewhere like assholes and split things into an ethnic group. And then it flucks up the country even after the Brits have long gone. Also, VV says on Mobile Homer, Henry, you most definitely were not wearing your crusty fishing hat when my daughter and I saw you on the streets of San Francisco after the Choppo 2020 live show at the Presidio.

She yelled out, Henry, and you turned and looked at us like we were crazy, then hurried along on your way. You made our night. Well, I have to say, if you look at any picture of Henry outside, he almost always has earbuds wrapped around us next. Maybe they were in his ears, perhaps. I usually recall it at a lot of live shows, or when I say things like this Chapo event I went to, that if I get recognized at them, the person has to like, you got to wave to me,

and I will then take my headphones out. And I just think of like, every time I met somebody at a thing, I usually remember I took out my headphones and then talked to the person. But yes, I vaguely remember this. The Chapo event, I remember before the show, somebody said, hey, oh, Henry, nice to meet you. And this was like right before Bernie did not win, everything's falling apart for Bernie.

Right before COVID. COVID's about to shut down. Bob would have been there too, but you were making your last visit to Vancouver for a little while you've learned to wear it. I was seeing Tim and Eric instead of Chapo. Yes, right, which was pretty great too. And so I have, this is making me rethink these other times

where after shows like this I am walking outside and I think I heard my name, but then my brain tells me, oh, you're just hearing things. And then I just put my headphones back on and go walking away. And so I actually wasn't imagining things that time. Henry has a big

podcast backlog. It's more important than any fan that approaches him. You have to recognize this. It's like, well, thank you, but you know, this doughboys double. I haven't listened to it yet, guys. But thanks, thanks. So let's move on to Bart's Comet. And Peter Avanzino says, by the way, he worked on the Simpsons, supervising director of Futurama, et cetera, et cetera. He says, if you look at the storyboard for the full crowd bunker scene, you'll see I put Mr. Spock up in the top.

I figured they take him out if they wanted to. And yes, I went back to Peter's storyboards. I posted this in the notes, Henry. I cropped this out. And yes, Mr. Spock, at least in the storyboards, for. or act three. He is part of the bunker. I believe he is not in the show. No, yeah, I think, I guess I would take away from that Waldo joke, perhaps. And he's sticking more random people, but that Spock drawing is great. I wish he had remained

in there. I would love to hear too more from Peter that, like, clearly he put his own stamp on it to hear on the commentary. They only really mentioned Ishvan Majoros, as I recall, being part of the drawing of that scene. But I would love to hear more, Peter, if in the comments or something you've wanted to get more details on the art for that scene. I would love to hear it. Here's the thing. I'm now on Frinkiac looking at this scene and Spock is there. Oh! I don't know why we never caught this before. Wow. He doesn't have pointing ears in every shot, but he is there in some of the later shots in a blue outfit with like a little squiggle on the sleeve. So yes, somehow in a few shots, Spock made the cut in the spunker scene.

Well, congrats, Peter. That's awesome. That's awesome. This is trivia. You're only getting here. I don't think I've ever heard anyone call out Spock in the crowd scene. Yeah, it is funny. We all looked at Waldo and then we're just thinking about, and then I can't stop looking at Mo's insane face in that one. One of my favorite Moe drawings. You have the button of it of Mo's face in that. It's so funny.

Andrew Bouvier also says on Bart's Comet, if this episode has a failing, it's that the astronomy is pretty poor, if it has a failing. The comet part discovers wouldn't be called the Bart Simpson Comet. As with the mentioned Schumacher Levy 9 and the hail-bop comets, astronomy rules at the time typically dictated that a newly discovered comet or set of comets got named after the first two or three people to discover or confirm it.

So it really should be the Simpson, Warren's last name, and possibly a named lady, astronomer's last name, comet. Though since about the mid to late 90s with larger, better, and more telescopes, with entire teams dissecting the data, comets are now named after the agreed-upon system of letters and numbers, taking all of the magic out of it. And that's just a little bit of Andrew's very insightful astronomical inaccuracies in his full comet. I think it's because after Hillbop, you don't want your name associated with any mass suicides. You know, that's a very good point. They could never predict that comets would lead people to do extreme things that would then be associated with your name forever.

It stinks. Let's move on to the seven beer snitch and Tiny Crow says Your Honor, I have committed the crime of seeing a movie by myself. I went to the only screening my theater's head of the day the earth blew up. It was an 8 p.m. showing on a Wednesday at a theater that was still hard to get to because Hurricane Helene ravaged the road to get there. I was one of four people in the entire audience surrounded by guys making quiet idle remarks about the animation and jokes. It was so poorly attended I was scared that the patrons could hear the crunching of my snacks. At least I couldn't feel too bad about being alone.

was a poorly advertised film clearly sent to the fewest theaters to die quietly. But at least I couldn't be singled out for seeing it alone. Although I think it was the last film that they were showing that day because as soon as I left, the employees were hastily closing the theater down, judging me for intruding on their progress as I wait outside for my Uber to arrive. Maybe not the best situation, but at least I did my cartoon duty by seeing the pig and duck movie on the big screen. Yes, thank you, Tiny Crow. I'll say like my theater was probably like one third full, and there was a guy behind us. who had went to the movies alone, which is fine.

And he was really having a good time in a delightful way, not in a distracting way. A lot of belly laughs. The audience really appreciated the movie. It was great to see. And probably like one of the two screenings we got up in Vancouver. I had about a half-ish full theater, maybe 60% when I saw it with my husband. And then we both remarked after it was over that, nice to see people brought their families to it at that one. Like there were kids.

I've said this on another podcast talking about seeing it, but there was a kid in the movie theater after the movie was over, just telling his dad how funny he thought Daffy Duck was. And I was like, oh, that's adorable. Like a kid understanding of Daffy Duck is funny. It was very sweet. It's good to see the kids understand Daffy. And you know what? I saw Camp Miasma by myself as well. That was another

my husband, I said it with backrooms and obsession. My husband doesn't want to see horror films. Even though Miasma was barely a horror film, I agree with you on that too. Unless you're scared of lesbians. Maybe that's really secretly scared of lesbians. Katie Lamont

had, you know, we talked about going to see movies by yourself or not. We also had another question to the audience about eating parts of a certain animal. Katie Lamont says, Henry, I also eat shrimp tails. When I told my husband, he was horrified. I also eat pumpkin

seed shells. They taste great, but don't digest well. Oh, the secret things we eat. And Henry has linked to an article here, which feels designed for people like me as a big so there. Yes. Well, because I still was like questioning. There were other people in the comments who were saying the opposite. I'm like,

shrimp tails. Like there was, some people were still grossed out by it. I just wanted to be like, okay, I need to find another source that is not like, you know,

shrimptails.com says shrimp tails are great. I found a 2016 Epicurious article, which that is just, one is back before AI wrote all of these, any food article you read. And Epicurious is a relatively trusted one. So yes, look up why you should be eating shrimp tails.

I see. Yeah, look at the article. And I feel like there are context in which it feels more appropriate than other contexts. I'm never going to do. this, by the way. I'm still anti-shrimped tail. But I feel like when they're prepared a certain way that

makes them as soft and chewable as the rest of the shrimp, that's fine. But if you're dealing with, like, shrimp tempera in a Japanese food, for example, like the tail in that is the crunchiest, most kite-y thing you've ever put in your mouth. And I can see that not being as tasty or easy to eat as something like an entire shrimp that's cooked so everything is very chewable and soft. It's not everybody's favorite mouth feel, but I've come to enjoy it. I saw another, somebody else had a good point somewhere I saw say like another reason chefs cook with the shrimp tail on

is that if you take it off the shrimp just shrivels up a whole lot more in the cooking and so it just turns into like kind of a sphere of a shrimp and you're not even eating shrimp here. Usually when I eat shrimp though I'm eating like the long straight shrimp that are in curry.

Most of the time most of my shrimp interactions happen there at that stage. Those are like the jumbo shrimp too though right. Those like a big old shrimp. Yeah. So yes, the verdict is still out. The jury is still deliberating about shrimp tails. We'll never reach a consensus here.

So up next we have Mighty Mouse, the New Adventures. That was our What a Cartoon for the month of August. And Thad Kamarowski weighs in. We referenced him a lot in that episode, so I was waiting for him to weigh in. And he did multiple times, so thank you, Thad. So Thad says, I felt like I might have been a bit too hard on the show. I accept that maybe one of the most important American TV cartoons. And what you didn't mention was its production schedule.

Greenlit in April, 87. It had to be on the air by September. and John Chris Felusi would check out midweek usually to consume massive amounts of alcohol while Lynn Naylor, Bob Jakes, Jim Gomez, Bruce Tim, etc., covered for him. But then I watched it again on MeTV Tunes and realized I was getting more laughs out of the Tasmania reruns

also airing, and that show isn't good either. Pretty incoherent stuff, and I think that there's at least one shooting error in every scene. There's at least one that gets a little closer to Ren's Stimpy, the Ice Goose Cummeth, which explores the homoeroticism of Terry Toon favorites Gandy Goose in Sourpoise.

there's a cartoon in the second season where they're showering together. Henry should probably cover it with Drew for Gayest Episode Ever. Thank you, Thad. Unfortunately, Gayest Episode Ever is coming to a close, but we can still cover Tasmania. It's one of the Warner Brothers Silver Age shows that we have never covered, and I watched and enjoyed it. It was a lesser show compared to Tiny Tune Adventures in Animaniacs,

but it still had the same kind of vibe and look and sound of those cartoons I enjoyed a little more. But potentially this or next year, we should cover Tasmania. That's another on our list. of like Mighty Mouse of, oh, we should get to this someday because it's such a core part, especially of our childhoods too. Like, hey, we're also, I won't spoil it yet, but October, we're dealing with another, we already have plans for that what a cartoon, checking off another, like, classic of the 90s that we have not covered before.

So I watched a lot of Tasmania too. Just like on Animaniacs, I did not understand, like, that guy's Woody Allen, a parody, for instance. It really taught me about Bing Crosby and Bob Hope before I saw you. any of their films or TV appearances. When Taz's uncle showed up and was Bob Hope parody, it still took me a while to understand. They're like, oh, wait, this is a Hope and Crosby thing. I didn't understand that as a kid.

And yes, folks, there were 65 episodes of this. So there's a lot of Tasmania to cover. Also on that episode, Blake R says, I have a personal axe to grind against the forced pathos of the Chipmunk series, particularly the episode where the trio take in a stray cat. The siblings give it an adorable. name, Cookie Chomper the third, and all bond with their new family member. So, of course, the cat chases a moth out of a window and into the road where it gets hit

by a car to teach everyone a lesson about grief and accepting death. As a lifelong cat owner, it traumatized and angered me. I know my pet is going to die. I don't need the talking chipmunks to remind me. Wow, thanks, Blake R. I watched a ton of this 80s cartoon. I can remember not a single episode of the chipmunks from the 80s. I watched quite a lot of it too, especially Nickelodeon reruns. I remember Mr. T's guest

episode, for instance. Now, after I read this ahead of time, I did pull up clips of the Cookie Chomper episode, and it started tingling my brain just a little bit of like, huh, I do think I saw this, but I also think I could have just had a trauma response to it of like, I don't want to remember this one. It's just, they adopt a cute kitten and then it's dead. And all three chipmunks are crying and blames. for like the next like four minutes of the cartoon. I just wanted to hear you sing Beat It. Now you're telling me everything dies.

And also to hear a like theater go like, but, but cookie chopper, it was my fault. I shouldn't have left the window open. Like it sounds even crazy or super pitched up as all of them. And now, actually now after having covered the Mighty Mouse cartoon where we learn about how the dog that's run over in the episode is parodying the real dog that got run over, I'm wondering if the cookie chopper episode was also done in response to that. There are more thoughts about that on the Patreon. I believe Thad posits that Tiger Lily the dog committed suicide.

Rather than have to be in the Baghdasarian household any longer. Something like that. Moving on, though, to Zootopia or what a cartoon movie for the month of July. And Yethyn says, The Sloth scene in the film is a bit similar to the scam football gambling hotline Homer calls in Lisa the Greek. An episode coincidentally also directed by Rich Moore. Thank you, Yethin. I'm surprised we didn't think of that.

So thank you for thinking of it. And it is a nice coincidence, but I feel like Richmore was bringing some of that slow comedy energy to this scene. He's a master of it, the slow comedy. It's what made it a billion-dollar franchise. It was the big jump out the gate they needed. And de Argent, you glad I didn't say banana, says. Personally, I believe that Judy has had,

and I'm with her bumper sticker on her car for the last 10 years, but voted for Trump three times in a row. And Nick is not a registered voter. as we talk about the politics of the characters. Hey, thank you, Argent, because I feel like we spent too long talking about which King of the Hill member voted for Trump, cast member, and not enough time with Zootopia. And I think you're right. I think Judy did vote for Trump three times.

And I think every couple of weeks, she will still do a butter emails post on Blue Sky, and it gets a lot of likes. So it's not encouraging. Yeah, another one. Or bouncing also between, like, Kamala Harris picture of her, like, rolling her eyes of, like, We're not ready to have the conversation about why you weren't ready to get her. Yes. And Nick is afraid of jury duty because he has too many outstanding warrants,

and he feels like if he registers the vote, he will be selected. So that's really what's going on there. Bob, did you check out the Zootopia 3 teaser that came out of D23? Yes, it's exactly. It's just a different version of the teaser at the end of the second movie that teases the exact same thing. So it's like, you already told me this is happening. Now it's, I guess, it's super confirmed that it's happening what this third movie's about.

So my interest has been renewed. And it was their way of saying it's definitely coming out sooner that you're not going to wait nine years between movies like before with Zootopia. And you know what? It was a clever reveal of the footprint becoming a three. That was a clever little design, title design, I thought. Yes, I did like it.

Up next we have Talking Futurama, the Bots and the Bees. And Norman Benford says, at my very first office job in the mid-90s, they had one of those drop a cup, spit out of drink machines. Your choices were terrible instant coffee. terrible hot chocolate, terrible cappuccino, instant coffee and hot chocolate mixed, and chicken soup.

The chicken soup tasted like salty yellow chicken coffee, and it was truly a nightmare. The week before Christmas, the vending company would make drinks free, and my coworkers and I would challenge each other to see how many terrible, wonderful free drinks we could enjoy. I only tried the soup once. That's how awful it was.

Thank you, Norman Benford. If you drank too much of that chicken soup, I imagine you would get painful kidney stone, so I'm glad you only experimented with it briefly. But yes, don't see these machines anymore outside of the high-tech ones in Japan. And on my college campus, the coffee was usually pretty terrible. And like the mocha would make you is just like them dumping hot chocolate into the mix

when it's stirring the coffee up and spitting it out. I wasn't thinking about, oh, it's all from the same tube thing until Norman mentioned chicken soup in there. I was like, oh, yeah, right. It's all, though with, say, a Coke freestyle machine, I do enjoy at a movie theater. I feel like I don't notice, oh, this tastes like every soda thing. Yeah. Maybe the technology is improved.

I usually would just get a straight-up regular Coke at a movie theater, but now I treat myself to vanilla Coke. It's very nice to have every once in a while. Bob, have you seen the new advancement in this technology that I'm just talking about D23 things I saw over and over again, but it's ketchup or sauce, but Coke freestyle machine for that of like build your sauce. It honestly sounds like a sauceman's style Tim and Eric bit, but it's a sauce machine. No, no, I mean, honestly, like, I'm a ketchup guy through and through. I don't need to get too fancy with my sauces. Depends on like the food item, of course, but I'm interested. You have my interest.

Joe Hudson on that talking Futurama says, I am a proponent for male sterilization as it's less intrusive and pretty simple compared with the same for women. It is, of course, also basically permanent, so you do have to make sure you're all set in the kid department. I went through it myself and it's nothing. About five seconds of pain, followed by a life of worry-free sex. I also had a great urologist who complimented me

on my King of the Hill shirt when we first met. So I knew I was in good hands. Very good. Yes, they hand these out in Canada like candy, these vasectomies. But here's the thing. I don't have sex and I never will. So this is not a problem for me. But that means in the future, one of you fans have to be our Peter Bogdanovich. Taking care of us when we're old and crazy and can't make content anymore. That's your job.

So we're going to select one of you in about, let's say, 30 years. Yes. Yes, this Peter Bogdanovich did for Citizen K. For Susan Gain himself. Old Cainey. I also like a urologist who knows King of the Hill. He must have heard every, like his

insight on narrow urethra comedy. You know what? I'm assuming the doctor's a man. Very sexist to me. I'm sorry. I was thinking man too. But whoever this urologist is, they probably have so many more insights into narrow urethra comedy that could really help

out the King of the Hill people in their new season even. And our final set of comments come from Talking of the Hill, Meet the Propaniacs that episode. And Jonathan says, funny that you mention how out of date it is for Bobby to do a Karnak bit. When I was a kid, my family was always invited over to a Christmas party with all of their teacher friends, and each year there would be some gag that the host would do. One year, they did a whole Karnak bit, and I had no frame of reference for it at all,

nor did I get the jokes they were making. It wasn't until watching an episode of The Simpsons probably a decade later, where they parody Carson doing that Karnak bit, that the Christmas party thing finally made sense. Thank you, Jonathan. Yes, I can imagine why that would mystify a kid. I think the references to this would go over my head, too, until I realize, like, here is where the joke comes from and here is, like, the formula of Karnak. I think it took me a long time of even just seeing Karnak parodies,

or, you know, when Johnny Carson was just ending is when I would watch some best of Johnny Carson clips. And I feel like even then is, like, nine years old. I didn't get what the mechanically, what Karnak jokes were. were. Like, I didn't understand those until a few years later in life. So to see Bobby, though, so happily doing a Karnak bit down to like the asides to the audience, we're just assuming this is set in the year it released. In the year 2000, the older out of touch propane business audience that he is playing to would love Karnak material and think it is very fresh. Oh yeah,

there's a reason that Bobby was a hit at the grill stravaganza. And finally, our last comment from Meet the Propaniacs. We have Byron who says, I think of this one as an equivalent to like father like clown in terms of emotional resonance. They're both tier jerkers. As a current dad one of the things this episode

hits accurately, even for involved parents, is finding a way to engage with kids in their own space. I don't care for five nights at Freddy's, Delta Rune, and big chunks of middle school culture right now. My 12-year-old is currently doing games in scratch, though,

and I can help with the programming and be proud of his hard work as he shares it. And I can deal with biting my comments about the movies and shows he likes down and instead is saying things like, I see why you like this, or I can tell a lot of animators worked really hard on this, etc. To try and stay positive about the kids' interests. Even those of us who aren't as emotionally distant as Hank can learn from this episode, in my opinion. Superlative talking episode, as always, and keep them rocking.

Thank you, Byron. And I will say, in defense of your son, you can be a 44-year-old man in being to Delta Rune because I think it works on two levels. The kids take everything seriously. But if you are around the age of the creator, Toby Fox, you realize, like, a lot of it is just shit posting about Japanese RPGs and other games from like the late 90s early odds. And it's funny to see, like, a lot of the shit posting Delta Rune does in Undertale. A lot of the young people take it like so seriously. And they don't realize like, well, this is a reference to Star Ocean 2. You don't know that.

but I'm appreciating it on a deeper level. But I would say try out Deltaroon, try out Undertale. They are games for adults as well. It blows my mind that Five Nights at Freddy's extreme popularity with Gen Z and now Gen Alpha is telling these kids about they have almost no reference even for the Chuck E cheese things, let alone the showbiz pizza stuff that it's really parodying. It's just they think of Freddie Fosber when they think of these characters or like, oh, what's an animatronic that's at a pizza place?

It's Freddie Fosbear. It's not Chuck E. Cheese anymore. Yeah, when those games started coming out, they're not for me because they're all about stupid jump scares. But I thought like, oh, this is made for like elder millennials who have nostalgia for showbiz pizza and Chuck E cheese. But no, a generation who never experienced that, they're the ones who latched on to those games. And I find that very fascinating. And this, you know, gave me thoughts about like, oh, yeah, well, what would it be like to be a parent? And it would be partially like, obviously I would want to share the things I like with my kids.

and would want to say, hey, watch this thing. I think it's good. But if they end up liking things I don't like or think it isn't good, just the learning to be like not just of shit. Because I had to deal with my dad telling me my things were stupid a lot of the time. I would never want to do that to a kid. But now thinking about it is just a challenge of like, oh, God, that's a stupid.

What if your son who doesn't exist was like, Papa Henry, Papa Henry, I love Man of Steel. Let's watch it again. like, great, sure, yes. I'd have to, like, grip my teeth instead of, like, giving the kid a complex. Their dad hates everything they like. These are the things I get to avoid by living a child-free life. I'm keeping the pain inside and not passing it down.

Yeah. But, yes, this has been another episode to talk to the audience. I'm noting on a weird note. I apologize. But we have a really fun month coming up in September. Summer is almost at an end here. But we're kicking off the fall with a lot of fun stuff. for covering family dog.

Of course, our normal episodes of Talking Futurama, talking of the Hill, and we're ending the month with the Adams family, a perfect adaptation of that very, very great little comic

by Charles Adams. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to moving into the spooky season. I'm sure October will have even bigger scares and frights for all of you out there.

And we've got some really cool stuff coming on the Simpsons 2 in the coming months, including we've got several couple returning guests and one new guest, I believe,

in this month that was a lot of fun to record with too, somebody who's for a very fitting episode. You know what's coming up in September listeners. So maybe we found someone who lives in Rand McNally. Yes. They will let us know about how dangerous hamburgers are in Rand McNally. Absolutely. But yes, this has been another episode. Talk to the audience. We'll see you next week

for another Talking Simpsons and next month for another episode of our community podcast and we'll see you then.