Talking Simpsons - Talk To The Audience?!? - December 2024

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

We've reached the end of the month, which means it's once again time for another installment of our community podcast! Join us as we discuss the departure of Pamela Hayden as the voice of Milhouse, talk about the many new episodes that aired in the last month, follow up on The Simpsons crossing over with the NFL, and more. And, as always, we read and respond to your questions and comments from the most recent round of episodes. Thanks so much for sticking with us through 2024! We promise to keep talking Simpsons on Talking Simpsons from now until the end of time.

I hardly endorse this event or product. Ahoi hoi everybody and welcome to Talk to the Audience where this is always death. I am one of your hosts, the guy currently auditioning for the role of Milhouse, Bob Mackey, and who is here with me today as always. Confused about UK celebrities, Henry Gilbert. And yes, welcome once again to Talk to the Audience. This is our monthly community podcast. It launches at the end of the month on Patreon, the beginning of the month on the free feed.

And in this podcast, we talk about Simpsons news, news about us and our network, and then we move on to talk about questions and comments that you left on our Patreon at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And this is a mega massive month for news about the Simpsons because one thing happened that I would say it's fairly important because the one and only Pamela Hayden is formally stepping down from the role of Milhouse and also Jimbo and the other character she plays. But this is, it was the news hit suddenly. And she's basically out very, very soon in terms of how much longer you'll be hearing her

as Millhouse. Yeah, the announcement of it came with, but you know, it was seen as a nice farewell. Like, I'm like, oh, isn't it sad to see her go, but we wish her well. All this time she's been with the Simpsons and all that. And it was saying like, in her last episode last episode is like in three episodes from now, which again it feel it felt very abrupt.

It felt very abrupt. Yes. We're going to put on our conspiracy hats briefly here, but she will be appearing in a few more episodes after Oh, come on, all you faithful coming up very, very soon. So she'll be in the past and The Furious and Yellow Planet. The news story in the official video and everything said oh she's done she's out you won't hear her anymore but Carolyn Omine stepped in and said well this is wrong and she recorded these with us so you'll have a few more chances to hear Pamela Hayden as

Milhouse. So yes Pamela Hayden was cast before a few other actors because Millhouse made his debut in a Butterfinger commercial in 1988 pre-series Pamela was playing Millhouse. This is before Harry Shearer was cast as before Hank Azaria was cast This is before many many beloved characters were even invented because I believe Millhouse was one of the designs in was one of the designs in a macarooning pitch for another show. And so when the Shorts team was hired for the first time to make the It's Neato Butterfinger commercial, they hire a voice talent to play the nerdy friend who's like, but you know, it's classic, it was classic commercial storytelling. You have your cool guy you want kids to emulate and then you have the dork who

kids shouldn't be like and that's what Milhouse's job was. So my conspiracy hat has not yet been placed on my head. Henry can confirm this we're on video. Here's the realistic side of the situation that I feel is plausible. So what's going on here you might be asking why is Pamela Hayden stepping down? Well Pamela Hayden is 71 years old. She's been performing the same role for nearly 40 years. And I can see why she'd want to wrap up things at this stage in her life.

And also we don't like to say this, but if you listen to modern Millhouse performances, it seems like she's having trouble doing the voice. It might be an easier voice to do. If you're a younger performer, it's not quite as easy when you're entering your seventies and maybe she's like, well, this, this voice is too hard. I can't do it anymore. And we saw how like 30 years ago, Harry Shearer was like, no more Otto if you can help it.

No more Marvin Monroe. These are hard for me and I'm in my late 40s. Yes, yeah. Voice voicing and using your voice for your profession is, you know, you can't just keep talking all the time and sound the same. We are going, that's what we experience in our jobs too. So it's, yeah, I don't wanna to I don't want to be being dependant but

she's hardly the only person who sounds different in their voices age all the voice actors have aged in their voices like that that's how it is and it's unfortunate for Hayden that almost all of her major characters are children with high voices. Yeah just sort of like they're like raspy voiced boys Which I could see that being hard to do as if you're a female voice actor and you're aging into your 70s And what's not being reported is that she's leaving to focus on filmmaking and writing and that she also made a documentary in 2023 called from jailhouse to millhouse. This was news to me We didn't report on this because I had not even heard of this

But here's the official blurb about from jailhouse to Millhouse. This was news to me. We didn't report on this because I had not even heard of this. But here's the official blurb about From Jailhouse to Millhouse. Quote, This is the courageous journey of Pamela Hayden, voice of the plucky, resilient Millhouse on the Simpsons. After surviving an abusive boarding school in juvenile jail, as well as other setbacks, Pamela now speaks to teen girls about overcoming obstacles and turning their dreams into reality. Her story is told with surprising humor and great candor. So this is an element of Pamela Hayden's life I knew nothing about. I didn't know much about Pamela Hayden to begin with so she is now going back to her past trying to reach out to teen girls who might be having similar issues that she had in the past and talking about these abusive industries. So that's very nice, very heartwarming and I'm glad

she's able to do these personal projects now. Yeah, a lot of people hadn't seen footage of her in person. She doesn't do a ton of personal appearances, but in the video of announcing her departure, it gave the impression, and I felt it at the very early part of like, oh, that she must have recorded these things as part of her farewell. But no, if you watch it closely in the video released by Fox, this was archival stuff of her previously saying like, she's talking like, yeah, but Millhouse is great to the character I'm still playing.

Like she's talking about it in present tense, not in past tense. So to me, that did feel a little like they were using archival stuff to put a happy face on something that they, now she did do an Instagram post about it though from her personal account so it's not like she is not getting her voice out there either about this. Yeah, she's been very positive about stepping down. We have not heard anything to counter that fact. So I'll put on my speculation hat. The

conspiracy hat has been put away so that's too dangerous to wear right now. So my speculation is that Disney has a history of low-balling voice actors, hence it's quite possible that she was low-balled, which made it easier to step away at the beginning of production season 36. Now we're gonna get into production and broadcast stuff. Oh, come on. All ye faithful The ones that just aired on Disney Plus that is the end of production season 35, even though we're in broadcast 36 So that's 21 and 22 from broadcast season 35. Sorry production season 35 So that implies that Pamela Hayden stepped away after recording a few in production season 36, which tells me

I don't know how contracts work I don't know how often they're renewed but it might be a season to season thing and maybe she was allowed and out because she Said I can't do this anymore or the what she was offered for 36 was much lower than her current rate We hear how they have to keep taking less and less money as the years go on because Disney, you know, that old place is just falling apart. There's no money. Don't look at what their movies are currently making at the box office.

They're simply not enough to go around. So we've heard it from a lot of people, especially John DiMaggio. We've heard it from the Inside Out actors. Many of them did not return because they were low-balled. So this is a recurring problem with Disney. And I think the last thing Disney ever wanted was to pay these people what they were worth. And they are not used to inheriting content that features performers that have 30 years

of salary insinuity behind them. I'm sure if they could wipe the slate clean and there'd be no more Julie, Dan, Harry, Hank, and Yardley. They could, but they know they can't. It's sadly similar to the Muppets, it feels like to me of how they don't, you know, I think, I think a key part of why the Muppets have been undervalued and underused by Disney is because the Muppet performers need to be empowered. The empowerment of the performers is part of why people love the Muppets. The performers are the characters, but that involves one, giving them more creative control, but also the pay to be a good performer. That's the same with Simpsons.

Though I would also think that Pamela Hayden has been underpaid since the day she started on this. Unfortunately, it's great that the six main voice cast Decades ago got together and did the friends thing of we're working together to get a big pay raise that they deserve For it and then it was really great. They did that but then it seemed like Especially we saw with Maggie Roswell like getting fired from the show that if you weren't one of those six voice actors But were a regular it seemed like you already were getting lowballed quite a lot, even when you're somebody like Pamela Hayden who's been there since before season one. Now I wanna go back and clarify something.

Was Maggie Roswell fired? Did she step away because they weren't offering enough? Well, I mean, when they killed Maude, like that, I guess fired comes with, that's a really charged one, but definitely it was like they weren't going to pay her extra for her flying out, so did she quit, did she stop doing it, but you're right, fired does come with a certain level of malice.

That makes it seem like she did something wrong, so she did leave after her pay dispute, so she left of her own free will, but her hand was forced. Yeah, that's right, but it was, okay, but it was an exit based over money that they wouldn't pay her to even, in Maggie Roswell's case, if I remember correctly,

it was that she moved out of Los Angeles and to fly in to record in person because they wouldn't do it remotely back then, that she was having to cover her own flights, and basically, it sounded like she was close to losing money on appearing as a regular voice actor on The Simpsons. Yeah, I think she only wanted them to pay for her flights. Yes.

And Fox refused. Fox also cheap. Yes, they're both, who's cheaper? I guess, that'd be a question we could ask Pamela Hayden off the record perhaps. Well yeah, I mean the show has gone through some big changes. You know, Edna Krabappel, Marsha Wallace passed away and various voices have changed.

This feels like the biggest one in quite some time because it's not quite a big deal when Carl or Dr. Hibbert or Dredric Tatum have different voices. They're not as a high tier of a character as Milhouse. I think Milhouse is the most important non-adult character on the show. Yeah, I'd say so too. Yeah, a truly beloved one.

And Jimbo and Todd Flanders, or Rod, depending on some episodes, also pretty important too. Yeah, I just wonder, is a current voice actor going to step in? Is there going to be a new voice actor? The list of voice actors is only growing as the seasons go on and they need to replace people because they used to have this core group that could do everything and now for certain political reasons they can and I understand that but now other people are stepping away or rudely dying.

Yeah, yeah, and I fact of voices is that just because one person can do 20 voices doesn't mean every, it's the classic Mel Blanc problem. Mel Blanc invents all of these voices and then when he dies you can't find one person who can do all of those voices, unless you're Eric Bowser who actually can do all those things. Yeah, he's magic.

Yeah. You know, on the Pamela Hayden thing too, I wanted to mention, I just love this story that Mike Mitchell told us when we first had him on the podcast. He mentioned that Pamela Hayden was like, I think he said the nicest of all the voice actors he worked with that Mike Mitchell's father passed away

while he worked at the Simpsons, and that he said that Pamela Hayden called him every year on the date of his father's passing to check in on him and make sure he's doing good. He said that he had nothing but nice things to say about Pamela Hayden. Oh, that's very sweet. I totally forgot about that.

Yeah, she seemed like a great lady, and I'm sure she still is. We're talking about her like she's dead, or at least I am. So yeah, looking forward to seeing what Pamela Hayden is doing next. She's in her 70s now, and I guess she's starting

the next phase of her life in terms of creative potential, so that's good to hear. But I will miss her as Milhouse. Again, these are voices we've gotten used to over the past nearly 40 years. Milhouse especially, he's pre-series character. Yeah, actually, you know what? I'll put on the conspiracy hat real quick too. The fact that they didn't have a new voice to present shows you how they did not have the how quick this seems to have been Done because you usually this just happened with one piece They replaced Frankie's voice actor, but they announced like Frankie is stepping down We have a new voice actor right here, and they're meeting each other and this is all a big event

They are that's not what's happening here. Yeah, yeah, that's something that makes me think there's more going on. An NDA was signed, and she has to be positive, perhaps. I feel like they would've introduced us to the new voice actor. It's different in a situation where like, Roosie Taylor dies, and they have to find someone,

but I feel like if she knew she was leaving, and there was enough time, there would have been someone saying, I'm the new Millhouse and everybody don't worry, I'm gonna do just as good a job as Pamela. She gives us her blessing and everything. But that didn't happen and the fact that she leaves a few episodes into a production season

also strikes me as a little strange. Yeah, hopefully this does not come out in some class action lawsuit or whatever. Hopefully it's not an Alf Clausen situation. Yeah, I'm hoping it's not going to leave a dark cloud over the show, but we will really miss Pamela Hayden and we're sorry if in the next month or two, whenever there's a Millhouse line we're going to say, God, I'm going to miss her so much. Yes.

We've already recorded a few and it's like every Millhouse word feels stronger than it did before to me. And we have a lot of Simpsons episodes to cover because we recorded last month's Talk to the Audience a little early, so there's been, I don't know, I guess technically six new episodes if you count the two-parter as two. So we didn't cover the second Treehouse of Horror episode

and that's because it aired like in mid-November, is that correct? Yeah, it wasn't even the first post-election one it was a week after the election like it was in the middle of the month was the second treehouse that is insane to me even by treehouse of horror November standards. And this one was a parody of three Ray Bradbury stories I'm aware of his work although I feel like along with me, most of the audience will only really know Fahrenheit 451 and honestly that was the best parody

in this batch, it was very funny. Instead of burning literature, Homer is tasked with burning low brow entertainments and the cultish future dystopia is now obsessed with Prestige TV. Yeah, it's a funny turnaround of, you know, that it is anti-Prestige TV, where you have to always be paying attention

and you can't just look at your phone while halfway watching something, and that, you know, he meets other people who love the junkiest of junk TV. I just wish they had a joke about watching The Simpsons as like, oh yeah, finally something anti- a joke about watching The Simpsons as like, oh yeah, finally something anti-lowbrow, The Simpsons. I was waiting for that. I did think it was, there was a lot of laugh out loud lines in the show. When Homer is being sentenced to punishment,

he's being forced to watch the series Mozart in the Jungle, which I think was the perfect choice for just bland prestige TV that seemingly no one has seen but it also has like five seasons yeah that's the part of aging is just learning like wait there's six seasons of that there's that many episodes of this like how that happened so that was oh go ahead why did and I did like the framing device of based on the Illustrated Man which is a guy with a ton of tattoos and then the tattoo comes to life and it tells a story. That's another Bradbury classic. It was voiced by Andy Serkis and it had two jokes I like. One was that he was told a man covered in tattoos

was getting fired by the freak show because you have fewer tattoos than a sous chef. Yeah, I did like that. And also that one of his tattoos tells no story other than that he loves the music of Sublime. And it sings Santeria over the credits. Yeah, that was fun. And Lisa kind of liked it in the end. The next episode is one I liked. I just watched this morning called Convenience Airways. And it's kind of a bottle episode in a way, although the

framing device is a hearing about the terrible experience on this airplane, but it really covers everything that can happen to you on a plane in 20 minutes. And as someone who is, I understand travel is a luxury and a privilege, but I'm also very tired of it right now. I did appreciate all of this. It's the first joke I saw about people hitting people in the heads with their bags as they're coming down the aisle I'm an aisle seat guy and I'm always like leaning in 45 degrees until the plane has finished Loading on all the passengers because people just start swinging their bags around and you get these elderly people trying to benchpress their 300-pound bag They brought on to the plane. Oh god It's so that those are the scariest moments on any plane right is the elderly with their their giant

Those are the scariest moments on any plane ride is the elderly with their giant rollers. Though also I hate the, okay we landed, everybody run up right now. It's like you're in row 30, don't stand up yet guys. Or people that will put their suitcase in front of your aisle so you can't get out. Oh god, I hate that too, yeah. I like, of all of the, boy, the kid pooping in the,

the kid pooping in the aisle that was in his toilet training, that was maybe the most disgusting one of the episode of things that'll happen on a plane. Yeah, it really did a good job, and I did enjoy it. As somebody who has now flown a little too much and I'm ready to take a break from it it's it really summed up every single problem with air travel and Especially when you're trying to save money the things they'll make you do the things that are up charges, etc

Etc, so I did like that one on convenience airways I did not like that Maggie talked in it and it was not a big deal that she talked She screams mama in it. I was like wait., whoa, you're dreaming it. Like it's nothing that Maggie just talked. Yeah, I guess it's Nancy Cartwright doing the voice and she usually does babbling, but yeah, it was her actually saying a word mama. Yeah, that just bothered me slightly. I barely noticed it, but if she had said a full sentence,

I would have, my ears would have perked up. So moving on, we have Oh Come On, All Ye Faith. This was a two-parter exclusive to Disney Plus and it was built around the star power of the one and only Darren Brown and in case you're wondering as I was who is this because when I sat down to watch this the entire first part of the episode is all about Darren Brown and I thought is this a celebrity lampooning an existing character? No, it's an existing person playing himself. And Darren Brown was completely new to me.

I don't know about you, Henry. I never heard of this guy before. I was, I'm glad they at least had Sideshow Mel, I believe is the one who said, I've never heard of you. Like I have BBC International. Like I, but seriously, I'd never heard of this guy before ever.

Yeah, and I looked up him on Wikipedia and he has all these specials and I realize I am becoming principal Skinner slightly out of touch the children aren't wrong I am but this guy has been having annual specials since the year 2000 and I his name has never surfaced for me at all yeah and so they they frame the episode like famous TV show. Like it's like the way they framed Oprah comes to town and does an episode of Oprah in the town. It's like, it's Darren Brown.

He set up shop just like he does on his TV show. We all know that part was not great. I'll say that much. I didn't like the entire subplot about Homer being hypnotized into thinking he's Santa and then Homer goes off and he plays Santa for about 20 minutes. Not super interesting, not that funny. The second half was good. It's an idea they explored before. It's another Crisis of Faith episode with Ned, but we were talking about this before Henry and part of his Crisis of Faith and wondering if there's a God is him saying, God has taken two of my wives. If he is real, then why am I buying into this?

And then that extrapolates from there and it ends with a parody of the Ocean Gate tragedy, in case you're wondering if they're ever gonna do a joke about that, they did. I wonder if Mike Reiss gave him any helpful pointers on that one. I liked how that episode not just said, you know, said aloud, like, hey, if this is in real time,

then Ned lost two wives in basically a year, which is like that, you'd kill, most people would kill themselves from that grief. But I also like that Carolyn Omene wrote this one, I believe, and it's, I like that it remembered that Lisa is a Buddhist especially at Christmas time like so it it even tied in it was Timed to air on the 35th anniversary of Simpsons roasting on an open fire

Which is what happened and but I like that they pulled in a lot of other Christmas Episodes to it including the Buddhist one. Yeah. Yeah, it was the second half much much stronger I I don't I mean even though I don't really need to know who Darren Brown is to get the joke, I mean, as a kid, I didn't know who a lot of the guest stars were and I thought they were funny. It just felt too built around him and I needed some foot in the door

for this Darren Brown character and I really didn't have it. Yeah, and if we're doing this for a celebrity, a British one, boo. Try a little harder. So up next, we have Homer and her sisters. So this is all about, it starts with a escape room kind of thing that they're doing for Patty and Selma's birthday.

And then it explodes into both Krusty being on a podcast to Marge becoming the bad guy and Homer falling in with Patty and Selma as kind of like a frenemy situation Yeah, it's like built around crusty's aunt Sadie voiced by Suzy Esmond who just is playing herself though She's played it's so weird that like his aunt Sadie is supposed to be older than crusty But it's like no I'm sorry crusty is 80 at the very least and now it's older Aunt should be played like a hundred year old but Suzy Esman plays aunt Sadie like she is Susie Essman's current age of I'm assuming in her 60s Yeah, that character wasn't that great. I did enjoy I love Patty and Salma And I love the angle of Homer actually kind of getting along with them

Although they are annoying each other But it was cool to see them as a trio and that idea had not been explored yet. Like what if Homer actually found some common ground with Patty and Selma? But the big chunk of it was the, the, that I think our listeners were definitely the right after the episode aired, I got, I think we both got some ads of saying, like, you got to watch this week's one and that the framing device of crusty store is that he appears on a recap podcast of his show that's hosted by Mel and two other staff members. It's called Talking Krusty and it's part of a

recap podcast industry that's at Ear Moose Studios. Yeah, I mean, I think it is just a parody of Talking Dead because that is the original recap program The official recap program which started in 2011 and I mean to be completely candid here our Title of our show is kind of based on that because we were thinking of titles Some of them were too clever to indicate what the show was and then we settled on talking Simpsons because it's like well This is what the show is about. It's easy to find It's not too clever by half, etc, etc But we would not have talking Simpsons because it's like well this is what the show is about it's easy to find it's not too clever by half etc etc but we would not have Talking Simpsons without Talking Dead I don't think. And so yeah I don't think Talking Crusty is

named after us at all like I don't think that either. There are some brave writers on that staff who probably are dying to reference us but some some higher-ups some some top brass is saying no do not acknowledge them. Though it does ask the question of like why it is strange again They haven't they haven't done an official Simpsons recap Podcasts yet with all of this this it very least shows you people on the Simpsons know about recap podcast and we pray that they don't Yeah, they stay out it stay in your lane stay rich with what you do I and I didn't like it in the episode either that Aunt Sadie, she is over animated in a lot of ways.

You saw when she points at people, it's like this is the over animation-itis that the Simpsons is, they're doing too much Simpsons Sakuga but needlessly, I'd say. And I don't think it looks good. It just, these flourishes just kinda look funky and a little goopy. I don't know how to explain it It just, these flourishes just kinda look funky and like a little like goopy. I don't know how to explain it, but it just doesn't fit.

Yeah, I'm stealing this I think from Thad Kamarowski, but if it wasn't him then it was somebody else on Twitter that there's the scene in Simpsons Roasting and Asari. There's the scene in the babysitter bandit where it's animated by Dan Haskell and the babysitter bandit is telling Bart to put the tape in the machine and it's animated by Dan Haskell and the babysitter bandit is telling Bart to put the tape in the machine and it's over animated and somebody said like, oh, the current Simpsons animator

seems to think that this is like peak Simpsons animation when it really isn't. Yeah, it's like, it's good animation, like outside of the context of the Simpsons, but within the Simpsons, it just looks kind of weird and it's upsetting. You don't want to see them move that fluidly. I want people, the animators on Simpsons, but within the Simpsons, it just looks kind of weird and it's upsetting. You don't want to see them move that fluidly. I want people, the animators on Simpsons,

check out episodes again like Homer Goes to College or Mars Versus the Monorail. Those have fantastic animation, but are not about being hyper fluid, like Disney feature style. Like it's great animation, but of the Simpsons style not not sure super strong poses with smears and blurs those are

the things I'm not really seeing with this with the goopy fluid modern stuff yeah yeah let's let's get back to those classics folks and Henry can talk about this one this is one I missed because it just went up on Disney Plus this morning for me it's the man who flew too much and yes, it is the third, count them third, Pin Pals episode. What's going on here, Henry? Yes, so the Pin Pals return, but also in classic, it's an Al Jean written and show run one and the Pin Pals return except only Mo is back as the same member of the Pin Pals. It completely forgets why characters were Pin Pals or weren't in other episodes. So it's Homer, Ned, Moe, Carl, and a new character who is there to die, basically,

or seemingly die. But what it actually is, is a parody of Alive. Well, it's about time. I know. It's the play, the way, and I know this because when we did March versus the Monorail like I rewatched a little bit of alive because that was in the history section and they parody the plane crash of alive and Barney is the the pilot of the helicopter and they're trapped on a mountain and they're gonna eat somebody there's only two things I wanna mention that are really interesting. One, Al Jean intentionally referenced

Amazing Spider-Man number 33, my favorite issue of Classic Amazing Spider-Man where Spider-Man's stuck under the heavy thing and he lifts it up. He has that exact scene happen in it. And then on Twitter, Al Jean said, "'Yup, it's Amazing Spider-Man 33, my favorite Spider-Man story.'"

Well, we know he's the real deal. He's a for real. How many collectible Spider-Man comics does he have in his mansion? I wanna see. I gotta see, I gotta see how well they're sealed, if they're framed, if they're hanging on the wall, what's going on there?

And they also get back Glenn Close to make another ghostly appearance as Mona Simpson, and Homer has a vision of her telling him to like walk into the light and be with her and he's like, oh I'll be in heaven with you and then she says, actually they have a bad, they have bad views on leftist political radicals so I'm actually in the other place. But hey, I'm with Che Guevara and she starts listing

people who are in hell. They really killed her too early. They really, her too early. Al Jean regrets it every day. Yeah, they can't stop bringing her back. Though Al Jean also did clarify on Twitter that Homer's vision is that Mona is in hell, but he says that's Homer's vision, not canonically that she is either in hell or heaven.

So he wants people to know that Mona Simpson isn't in hell. It's at Homer. Imagine she was. I see. Well, that was all the new episodes since we last talked to you. It's been a lot of episodes and let's move on to another new story. So Henry, you watch this. It was banned in Canada. It was called the Simpsons Fun Day Football. We reported on this last month. Let us know what's going on here. Yeah, it's a, it it really was a weird, strange thing that was kind of fun to have on in the background. Like, I never watch football games,

but it was a football game on in the background while I looked at my phone or played other video games. But, so, on Disney Plus and on ESPN Plus, and I think Hulu, they basically start the football game with a new Simpson short that Bart and Homer play football. Homer loses to Bart and then he falls asleep listening to Monday Night Football and he imagines the Monday Night Football of this game of the Detroit Tigers versus the Cowboys Dallas Cowboys is played and that they represent each team. It takes place in Adams Stadium. They

keep calling it the A T O M S Adams Stadium. And the commentators have all these camp lines. And I just want to say commentator Mina times a 39 year old woman. So in our age range, she I watched a video of her showing all the notes she took. She had perfect accurate references for everything that happened that were so deep. She's like, I was saying like, Oh man, she should say this or she's to say like, Oh, she really weaseled out of this like that separates us from the animals. And she said it, she said it. It seems like they actually got a fan to do the work here. And that's great. Yeah. And, and Bart won, and then it all turned out

to be Homer's dream, and then it was a dream inside a dream of another commentator. But, and I read a whole, there's a whole article out there explaining how technically they did it. It was very strange. It was basically a minute delay from the live game, and then they were able to take the haptics of all of the players, and then just recreate it

inside a video game like thing and they could replace like, well, this player is now Ralph or Nelson or Lisa. You could, you could see Homer tackle Lisa. I said it last time, but if they did this when I was a kid, I would have watched sports. The end. And, and they, and they've recorded in a huge number of new lines with everybody but Harry Shearer. If you're thinking of,

well I wanted a new original Simpsons content from watching this, I would say you get 20 to 30 minutes of original written Simpsons content for it. That's great. I'm glad it turned out okay. So that was Simpsons Sunday Fun Day Football. I think they'll do it again,

because it seemed like a lot of people were talking about it. It seemed like a pretty big hit. So in case you enjoyed the oral history of Lisa on ice from the website Vulture, the video panel that fueled that oral history is now online. So if you go to Vulture you can now watch the video panel that all of the information came from to feed that oral history. Yeah 90-hole minutes with Cartwright, Yardley, David Silverman, David

Merkin and Mike Scully on it and and believe it or not David Merkin kind of takes over and doesn't let a lot of people else talk a lot of the time. I'm surprised by him and his behavior so yeah if you need more content about Lisa on Ice that's available and there is another Vulture article out there called What the Hell was Bart Mania by Darren King. Now Henry, I tried to read this, but I was over my article count for the month. I have to wait until January 1st.

But I assume this is just to explain to the young out there what Bart Mania was. I think they explained it like, imagine Pickle Rick, but 25 years earlier. Yeah, it was an interesting article timed for for the 35th anniversary of Roasting, Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire. And I mainly got it because they got, I was interested in it because they got new quotes

from Matt Groening and Nancy Cartwright and Mike Reese, and even Craig Bartlett, which was really funny because they were asking Craig Bartlett, Matt Groening's former brother-in-law, I believe, but he was saying, like, oh yeah, Matt collected every possible Simpsons merch and bootleg we could find. It was amazing.

It's just a really fun time to hear Matt Groening himself reflecting on the bootleg Bart merch and all the controversies, including Barbara Bush and Bill Cosby, both hating on Bart Simpson from a 2024 perspective. It was a really good piece. And I actually, I rewatched Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire with Nina after Oh Come On All Ye Faithful and we still really enjoyed it.

It was fun to not watch it for work, but then we just kind of got hypnotized by it because we had seen it, I don't know, 30 times each at this point, maybe more. You know, I watched Marge Be Not Proud and the Christmas special, Days of Christmas Past, but I should've watched the original one this time. I'll give it a watch before Christmas Day. There's still time, we're two days before Christmas as of this recording. Yes, yeah, which, hey, happy holidays, everybody.

So up next, we have friend of the show news because Drew Mackey attended the Simpsons holiday party in LA, they were screening Oh Come On All Ye Faithful, and at this party he got a picture of two legends meeting for the first time, Hank Azaria and Tony Rodriguez. I believe you can see that on his many socials. He's usually Drew G. Mackey on Instagram, Twitter, et cetera. X, Blue Sky, you name it.

Yeah, was that the historic El Capitan Theater that Disney owns? It wasn't at Universal Studios. It was at a Disney theater. But it looked like a fun time with, Drew also pointed out that in every photo of his, not in every photo, but in multiple photos of his, weird Al Yankovic is in the background

just like being there, and you instantly, your eye is drawn to him no matter where he is. He looks like Weird Al no matter what he's doing, scooping potatoes out of a bowl, standing around at a party aimlessly, it's always Weird Al. But Druid said to us, he was hoping beforehand, he wanted to make that happen,

he wanted Hank Azaria to meet in person Tony Rodriguez, who took over the role of Julio, and he made it happen. His dream came true and he shared it with the world. And I was very happy, I was very happy for all parties involved. It was a very sweet picture. And now I'm just thinking about Weird Al, and you know, he's had his new style for,

I think, 25 years now. I feel like for the rest of his life, he should go back to old Al. The big glasses, the mustache, the poofy hair, I think he should just return to that phase. From the neck down, he's stayed the same in all ways. So, it would just be the neck up kind of change there. I'm one of those return guys,

but only for Weird Al's old look. Make Weird Al weirder again. Yes, exactly, I'm wearing the hat. And we have another news item here, a bit of sad news about someone we haven't really covered yet. So, Simpsons writer William Billy Wright passed away recently.

We won't cover him on Talking Simpsons for I think four or five years, but he was an improv performer who worked with Carolyn Omine and he wrote three episodes with her, Dial End for Nerder, Chief of Hearts, and Blazed and Confused, and he has no other IMDB

credits. And Omini wrote a nice memorial to William on Instagram and he is survived by his husband Hector. So by the time we get to 2008 we will cover some of their episodes, we'll talk more about William, maybe there'll be more information about him and what he was up to for his life. But just a very brief dalliance with television writing with an old pal Carolyn Omini Yeah, it's it's sad a Simpsons writer passed away and it seemed you know We have Carolyn it sounded like she was she was incredibly close with him that she she had performed with him a ton Coming up in the improv scene and clearly they felt so creatively Bonded that they even wrote wrote Simpsons episodes together deep into

her career at the Simpsons. And yeah, I honestly, well, when she made her post about it, I was, I think I've really only seen two of those, I think, and once, but I was sad to hear of his passing and another, and also he's one of the very, I would say probably one of the very few openly gay Simpsons writers too, as well. Or queer, you know what, openly queer, LGBTQ Simpsons writers. Yeah, and we'll talk a lot more about William Wright when we get to 2008, like I said, in five years.

So hopefully there'll be more to say about William. I was just looking up things about him and it seems like a private person, as much as any of us are, who are not constantly working in show business. So maybe there'll be a bit more to say about him, but we do want to mention his passing here. And now it's time to talk about our news. Well, you know what's even better than Christmas everybody? It's listener catch up week. It's great. You get to catch up on all of our podcasts

because we're not putting any out for one week of 2025. Yes, for patrons the week of January 5th, there will be no new content. And for people on the free feed, the week of January 12th, there will also be no new content because we stagger things out here on the network. But I will say we will be putting podcasts in both feeds for people to enjoy during our week off. And though as in previous years, there will be no new what a cartoon for January. So again, you're gonna have a great week of catching up with all of our very long podcasts. They're not gonna be piling up for a week.

You'll get to go through your backlog and then a week later, here come the new podcast and you're gonna be celebrating like it's Christmas all over again. It'll be a wonderful way for you to start 2025 and catch, you know, you could have just listened to our new holiday treat of the Peter Evans, you know, interview if you haven't checked it out yet. Yes please do that just went live not too long ago we had a great chat with Peter Amazino a

guy's been doing some legendary things in the animation industry over the past 30 years so yes again the week of January 5th on Patreon no new content the week of January 12th on the free feed no new content but keep your eyes peeled to those feeds because we are putting things in them that you might not have heard, especially if you're on the free feed. A lot of fun little surprises that might entice you to sign up for the Talking Simpsons Network at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. So now that that's out of the way, let's talk about our other scheduled things for January. Of course, Talking Futurama and Talking the Hill, those still exist. Talking Futurama, we are covering the episode That Darn Cats. It's a very 2010s episode

about people's fascination with cats, mostly due to the internet. Cats had a real renaissance thanks to the mid to late aughts internet, and this episode is really reflecting on that and how they all captured our hearts and brains. If you remember Can I Has Cheeseburger? Then you'll love that darn cat. You'll be saying, can I has podcast? And we'll say yes, but please use proper grammar. And for talking to the hill, we're covering Cotton's plot. That is the third part of the three parter

that started with as old as the hills. It is where we find a little sympathy in Cotton and Peggy finally overcomes her debilitating injuries that she sustained in her skydiving accidents. As I recall that episode is a little anti-physical therapy but I can't remember exactly its stance. Not anti but as an industry it's too soft or something. I have to, I have not rewatched it yet for the recording so that will be coming up soon.

So looking forward to closing out that arc of King of the Hill, a great little arc in that series. And as for What a Cartoon Movie, so by the way, if you subscribe at the $10 level at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, you get the entire What a Cartoon Movie and all the previous ones over 70 to date. If you're on the free feed, you get the free preview of this.

For the month of January, we're going all the way back to basics and covering 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves partially because that rotten remake came out, but also because we traditionally do an early Disney movie in January. And I was putting this off for a while. It's a big hill to climb, but as of now, there are three making of Snow White books waiting

for me at the library. I'm leaving after this to get them. I can't wait to dive into the history of this classic movie. Not the first animated feature, but Disney's first animated feature. It doesn't get any earlier Disney-er than this one. Yeah, it's where it all began. There's so many like firsts in this. I don't... I'm not jealous that Bob is having to do all the research on this one. I was like, yes, have at it, Bob. I've got a good head start on this one, so I'm not jealous that Bob is having to do all the research on this one, I was like, yes, have at it, Bob. I've got a good head start on this one,

so I'm looking forward to it. It's also like a 73 minute movie with mostly songs, so that part of the prep is a lot easier than the history prep. Which hey, when you stack that up against say, the Popeye versus Sinbad the Sailor, it only like 30 minutes, that's a very long movie. It's at 72 How could they do it folks? We're gonna find out at the end of the month

So that is the schedule for our Talking Simpsons Network again. Remember there's that week off. No, you haven't gone crazy We are just posting some old things things you might not have heard and you know, ironically we will be working during that week off We're just doing the week off to build more backlog for us to account for travel and other things, although like I said in the Homer on the plane episode discussion, I'm not traveling again until like June or July or August. I wanna stay in my home, improve it, and just chill out on the couch with my wife.

You got a new couch, you got a new TV, you got a new wife, all these things you need to chill out. That's true, I mean the couch is a year old, I've been married to my wife for four years, but they're all like new yes. Yeah, yeah So now moving on let's talk about what we've been playing and watching potentially unrelated to the podcast as for me I spent a long time in another country so not a lot of video gaming although on my trip to Japan I did start Dragon Quest 3 the 2dD HD remake, which was very fitting, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

It's the best way to play that game. It's very nice looking, and I'm really anticipating the other remakes in that style. I don't have much more to say because it is just a 37-year-old RPG, 36-year-old RPG at this point. But they don't change many mechanics, but it was such a good RPG to start with that it's so playable today. It is one of my favorite Dragon Quest. So having a lot of fun with that.

And unlike another game I'm playing, it's not a hundred hours. I'm at about 50 hours in my play through of it though. I know I am kind of like jury eating in DQ three. It's also though the Bob you took it to Japan. I heard it's illegal to play that game on weekdays in Japan. Oh no. Go back and listen to some of the thousand episodes of RetroNauts and we cover the deal with Dragon Quest being sold, in what days it's allowed to be sold, and whether or not that was the company coordinating with the government, or if it was just them doing them

a favor. We talk all about that. It's a real dokey dokey panic kind of trivia fact. a Stoky Panic kind of trivia fact. Though it is crazy to see that they put it out three before one and two, because I'm really wondering what it's like to, they are all of a piece, and are experienced as a trilogy, but I do wonder what it's like to play three as your first of that trilogy,

if you've never played one and two before, and you're playing three as the first one, there's some stuff in there like, boy, this has to feel weird if you didn't play one or two. Yeah, and I'm wondering how they're going to dress up one because it's so basic and you don't have a party and you only fight one enemy at a time. So I wonder how much they are going to streamline that

to make it tolerable to people in 2025. As a package, one and two should be sold together, I feel like, but I also feel like that Square Enix wants to sell two separate games to maximize profit. Yeah, I'm not sure. So do you think they're gonna be selling them separately? I think they will sell them separate. Well, maybe on a digital storefront, they'll be separate.

Well, for one through six of Final Fantasy, those were sold as a total package together in a physical release, right? Eventually, they all had to come out individually at like 15 to $20 a pop. Ooh, well, maybe that's the future for, though Dragon Quest III sold so well, even in Japan, that I feel like they will release them separately

for maximum profit. I think it immediately became the highest selling game in Japan that that I feel like they will release them separately for maximum profit. I think it immediately became the highest selling game in Japan that year, as soon as it released. But that's because nobody buys console games in Japan anymore, unfortunately. They still love Dragon Quest, though. And also, in terms of playing stuff, I'm playing something Henry is playing, I'll talk about that when Henry brings it up, but I'm at the end of metaphor refontasios, nearly 100 hours,

I'm ready for it to end, but I know if I was playing a Persona game it would be 150 hours, and I'd be tearing my hair out and being very bored. It is my game of the year, and it did win RPG of the Year at the Game Awards. They only count when I actually like the winner, by the way. That's my own philosophy. So if you haven't played it, it's going on sale.

It's very, very good, but keep in mind, it is a Persona game. They eliminate a lot of Persona problems, but it's still very very long But it's a tiny bit shorter than from what I hear persona five is so I I've been playing that for two months Just really loving it really addicted to it having a great time with it That's a 2025 title for me, but I'll get to it I'll get to it and it's in terms of watching stuff I was mostly too busy traveling to watch things,

but I will recommend a few things. One of them might sound surprising because I normally don't recommend documentaries on here, but I watched the Half-Life 2 20th anniversary documentary in Fits and Starts in Japan. There was some downtime here and there where I was able to open YouTube and like, you know, piece by piece go through this two hour documentary.

It is so great. They get so many people on the record and it really brings me back to that era of gaming where even though the culture was poisonous and awful, it was the G4 era of gaming, there were so many new breakthroughs happening and just seeing what Valve would do next was so exciting. Valve's period from Half-Life 1 until Portal 2 was just so amazing. And I, and I'm so wistful for that time, it really drops you right into the middle of that. And it made me want to replay Half-Life

2 and yes, I did reinstall it on Steam. So I could be wasting 20 hours on a 20-year-old game I've already played through twice. Nice, man. I'll give that one. I played, that was the only era from Half-Life 2 to Portal 2, that's when I played all of the Valve games I ever played, I didn't keep up with Team Fortress, and despite the fact that Team Fortress is bigger than ever thanks to Skibity Toilet, right, I'm assuming? Yeah, I mean, I feel like assets from Skibity are found in Team Fortress, but it's mostly

just like Garry's Mod stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's great, by the way. And I recommend checking that out. It's free on YouTube. So just watch it. It's great. And I had the pleasure yesterday. It's not going to be on Netflix until January 3rd. I saw Wallace and Gromit, Vengeance Most Foul with an audience.

I loved it. They loved it. It is great. That's a real return to form for Aardman. Although, to be fair, they only had one mediocre movie recently, and that was Chicken Run 2, a movie I think I might have given two stars on Letterboxd just for the animation. It really let me down. I was worried about the company's future, but this is a great Wallace and Gromit movie on par with Curse of the Were Rabbit. I'm not sure if I like Curse of the Were Rabbit more. It's kind of a bigger story, but this was everything I want from Wallace and Gromit and the formula has not grown stale,

even though there is a different Wallace because Peter Salas died in 2017 at age 96. He was quite old when the series began. Yeah, he was 70 when they started making these shorts. I wish, I saw multiple people log it on Twitter and in letterbox and I Look to see where it is. It's about an hour from where I live It's not even playing at a theater in Seattle proper like it's like in the northern Seattle area Like that is more like the college town area

So I don't know if I'm gonna go that far out of my way to see it Since it's gonna be on Netflix soon, but your description of seeing it in theaters, really, with an audience, it does sound pretty attractive. Yeah, we had to go to this upscale, independent theater in Vancouver, and you know it's for an elderly, rich audience when there is an ad for Rolex watches

before your Wallace and Gromit film, I'm not kidding. Oh my, wow. Yeah, it was incredible, but really, really liked it. Lots of great Aardman stuff in there. I was talking to my wife during the movie, and she brought up the fact that during the movie, she has to keep reminding herself that this is animation, this is stop motion, and I was like,

oh, I had the same thing where every 10 minutes I have to catch myself and say, this is not real, this is a lot of people moving these things a frame at a time over the course of years to make this happen. And I'm wondering what are the people in the audience who don't know about this process? What do they think is happening in front of them?

Do they think it's CGI? Do they think it's actual puppets? I wish I knew it. I wish I could get inside their heads and figure it out. Yeah. Oh, that sounds awesome. Like I could, I, I really liked their Robin Robin special, but then I skipped the, Run 2,

so I'm glad to hear that Walsh and Gromit are still the top of the line when it comes to stop motion. It just shows the state of the industry in that the only way Aardman, an independent studio, can make a movie is to make a Walsh and Gromit movie that's also a sequel to their most popular short. It's the only way that is possible, but in terms of what people said three years ago, they understood the assignment Yes, check please

So there you have it like it's gonna be on Netflix January 3rd. If you don't watch it, I'm gonna think you're a pig Okay, I know you've got Netflix. You better watch it. I will, I will, and you will too. Just watch Chicken Run 2 with the sound off and look at the amazing masterful stop motion animation. I just saw a trailer for the next movie from the Chicken Run, from Shazam in it, and it looks gross. Zachary Levi?

Yeah, Zachary Levi's next movie is about like being of, it's an autistic kid movie It's it sounds but through the power of Christ they overcome Yeah, it doesn't look oh don't like this. Well, yeah, we won't be seeing this and because of my wife We watched the HUD sucker proxy. There's a lot of Coen Brothers movies on Criterion channel right now. This is one I watched when I was going through all the movies back in the Disc Netflix days and I thought oh that's pretty good and now that I watched it in HD and I watched it in our current era of cinema

I thought this is one of the most amazing films I've seen in my life and it's fun to go back in time 30 years and see how dismissive everyone was about it the critics because they said oh this is all style over substance well guess what guys now we don't even have style anymore So when you finally see it in your face all of these shots that are dreamed up by Sam Raimi and the Coen brothers You're like, oh my god, everything about this movie is so designed and wonderful. And yeah, it's on criterion I think it is one of their more ignored movies, but it is so so good Then well that shows you that now something

that was viewed as mid-Cohen Brothers a long time ago is now feels like the best movie ever, Auntie, compared to most movies. And I think there's a lot of substance there. It has a lot to say about capitalism, and the style is just not there for no reason. It's to inform the general sensibility of the film. I got mad at Roger Ebert after reading his two-star review.

Then I remembered he was dead. I'm gonna give this a watch very soon. I always had skipped it, even though I love The Coen Brothers, it's one of the very few I haven't seen of theirs. And it also came up, because I did watch a Bruce Campbell career retrospective interview, which was like, can you remember the lines, these lines you said in movies?

And he remembered virtually all of them, and he was like, oh, and it's amazing to hear he remembers it, but when he gets to the Hudsucker proxy line, he has so many funny stories. If you love hearing Bruce Campbell tell funny stories, that the quiz of Bruce Campbell trying to remember all of his old lines is a really great one. Yeah, he's great in it,

and it's kind of secretly a holiday film. That jumped out at me at the end. I was like, oh, I forgot about, there's a holiday element to it too. But yeah, I think as a kid, as a dumb 12 year old, when this hit theaters, I thought, what's this a movie about? The Guy Who Made the Hula Hoop?

That sounds stupid. Then you realize, well, it's not that. And also shut up, 12 year old. Go back to watching Ran and Stimpypy you'll get this when you're older Any anyways other stuff? I just went to Japan for 17 days. No big deal Yeah, and it's irritating to hear people talk about their fun vacations on podcasts. I understand that So I'm gonna say head on over to my Instagram at real Bob servo You can see a ton of pictures you can hear about the many things I did

It was a great great trip and it was a multi-city trip where I believe we stayed in at least five or six different cities. Thank God for luggage shipping companies that will ship your gigantic luggage to your next hotel for you. We could not survive with that, but we were exhausted for a week afterwards. So instead of letting you know everything that happened, there's too much, I will highlight a few things I did on my trip that I thought were very special. So we went to Kyoto, we stayed there for some days, and I went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, popularized by the video game Star Fox. It's not why I was there, but it is not the biggest shrine, surprisingly, but it is an amazing spectacle because it has, I believe, 10,000 of those beautiful red gates and I think it is sorry there's like a thousand of those red gates but

it is like a 12 or 13,000 step journey up the side of this giant hill you're climbing up thousands of stairs you're taking in all this beauty all this nature all of these very old shrines and carvings and statues it is magical it's wonderful it's beautiful if you are fit enough to make it to the top, it is absolutely recommended. And if you think it's too touristy, the tourists really clear out around the halfway point I found. I did it in, I went there in 2014 when I visited Japan that year. And I want to say I made it like 50% of the way there was like wherever in a middish point, there's a big, there's a resting spot

and like a building and that overlooks it. I couldn't make it. I don't believe I made it to the top. And I would like to, I mean, I'm work out and do a lot more walking than I did 10 years ago. So I want, I am going to feel, I told my husband, when we eventually go to the the

Fushimi Inari shrine, we're going to do the whole thing. We're doing it too. We're getting to the top. Absolutely. It's a great test of your fitness. It's not the for most people, it's going to be rough. But if you're doing like cardio like you and I do, I felt like, oh, all the cardio paid off. And the next day, I don't need to lay in bed. I'm not aching my feet don't hurt. I was surprised by how well I could handle it, but there are some people on the journey with us, I thought like this person could die or just roll down a thousand stairs.

Ooh, man. Now that's, yeah, it is amazing just to see all of the, just the orange, the gates, and you're just seeing all of them in front of you, it's amazing. Your photos from it looked gorgeous. And we like to go to Japanese zoos and our first stop in terms of going to Japanese zoos

was Kobe Animal Kingdom, mostly because they had shoebill birds there, shoebill storks. They are about the size of chocobos and they are both scary and adorable. And when you go into their lair, they're just around you. One was standing directly over us, it flew over us.

They're weird, they're cool, they are basically living dinosaurs and it was an incredible treat just to be like a few inches from one. It was great. They're not as popular in American zoos. I'm not even sure if I've seen one in an American zoo, but Shubill Storks, amazing. Again, real dinosaurs.

And the merch at the gift shop there looks pretty cool too. Yeah, if you think like, Japan has good Nintendo stores or Capcom stores, they have good zoo stores. You can sometimes buy merch of specific animals at the zoo, not just like, oh, I can buy merch of a panda. No, you can buy merch of Jazz the Red Panda or Agya the Red Panda.

They know freaks come there because they like one animal and they have merch made for you. And we actually went to a Shoebill pop-up store at a Japanese department store. We bought a bunch of Shoebill merch there, like t-shirts and postcards and pins. So that's one element of Japanese shopping I love, is all these little pop-up shops

that are like laser targeted at your interests. Oh yeah, those collect all my money when I go to Japan too. And one of our stays, because we wanted to stay in a fun hotel in Kobe, we stayed at the Peanuts Hotel. It is the only peanuts themed hotel in existence and it's in Kobe, Japan and it was a very small room, but each room is decorated to a certain theme. We were in the Joe Cool room and I guess part of the appeal of the Peanuts Hotel is you can take home mostly everything

except for like the sheets so you take home the towels, the cups, etc etc. They encourage it saying this is part of what you're paying for but it was it was cute enough to stay in for a few nights and I did enjoy it. That had its own gift shop. I went to a few peanuts shops in Japan and it completely blows any peanuts merch in America completely out of the water. Japan loves peanuts and they have such specific merch. I could have stayed in some of the peanut stores for a very long time, but I didn't want to bring home too many peanuts things. So that was fun. I never really stayed in a themed hotel. And if you're in Kobe, Japan, the peanuts hotel is very charming when I went to

Anaheim while you were in Japan, I went to The Knott's Berry Farm, which has its own peanuts gift shop Couldn't compare to the photos. I was seeing from just one of the the Charlie Brown gift shops you went to like I I was seeing from just one of the Charlie Brown gift shops you went to, I found maybe one piece of merch with Gus on it. I felt like there was an entire Gus wall of things in Japan. Yeah, well Olaf is very popular.

I'm not sure who Gus is. I was thinking of Olaf. I meant to say Olaf. You invented a new Snoopy sibling, but they love the Snoopy siblings. I was seeing all of the Snoopy siblings there. It was great. And yeah, they blow us out of the water in terms of merch.

They even have special merch of characters doing very Japanese things, which I'm sure Charles Schwarz will be like, if it makes money, yes, thumbs up. And because next year is the year of the snake, there's a lot of snake-themed merchandise. Ooh, that's cool. Yeah, so yeah, if you wanna learn more

about my trip to Japan, real bobserve on Instagram. I just wanted to highlight a few of the things that I thought were personally interesting. And we did do nerd stuff, but this time around it was not just nerd stuff. And it was like a lot of culture, a lot of going to shrines and zoos and walking around and checking out other things. I went to the Nintendo Museum. You can hear Retronauts podcast about that.

I went to a lot of Nintendo stores and did a lot of nerdy shopping, but we wanted to focus a little less on that and more on like culture and eating and drinking and stuff. Oh man, those little, you had so many great, yeah. Look at Bob's Instagram. The pictures of just all of your bar hopping look so much fun too.

And I went to Seattle, and Henry Rudely did not come and see me, so I'm just calling him out here on the podcast. I was waiting for you to message me that you wanted to hang out. I thought I was waiting for you to send me a message. Henry fell into a real bee hole, and by that I mean Bellatro.

So I understand why he was distracted. Oh, okay. I'm kidding. I'm sorry. We didn't have a lot of time and we were very, very tired. So we came into Seattle one night, stayed for the day and left the next morning.

And the day, there wasn't a lot going on because we were there to see a show, the same show that Henry saw, the Back to the Future musical at the Paramount Theater in Seattle. So I did see that. I talked about that musical last year when I saw it on Broadway, but I had never seen a show at the Paramount. I think the one thing I saw at the Paramount Theater, this historic, gorgeous theater, was David Jaffe doing the keynote for PACS 2012 or 2011. I forget which one it was. So my first time at the Paramount Theater was wasted on a man

who has now been thoroughly disgraced. So I was happy to go back in and see an actual show and Henry can talk about his experiences. I've talked about mine, but I enjoyed it then this time and it was definitely worth going to Seattle for. That's it for me. I'm going to be staying in my condo for the next eight months. Please leave me alone. Well you know what, since you're mentioning the Active Future Musical, yes I saw that too and had a really good time with it. Because after you'd seen it twice I was like alright I gotta see it while it's in town here. And my husband was up for it too. We went on a Tuesday night and got rush tickets,

which I had not heard of this practice before, of like, if it's a not sold out show and you show up, they wanna fill seats and like you get, we got $30 floor seats each, which was very cheap compared to normal prices. Absolutely, yeah. I didn't know about that idea, that practice of getting the rush tickets.

Yeah, it taught me a lesson, but yes. Other than Dragon Quest III, which I talked about, yes, Bob mentioned it, I fell down a Bellatro hole. I have become, like, Bellatro, if you haven't heard of it, I hadn't heard of it until the Game of the Year talk this year, so I had been kind of out of it myself. It is like a rogue-like, but poker, and it is like, I guess guess you call it a puzzle game

in a card game where you put together poker hands with different variables of uh increasing multipliers or additions to your hand to keep uh going up higher levels of chips and so it's it's just you chill out with chill music while making poker hands. And it is such a chill, relaxing game, and the music is perfect for it. I just, yeah, I love it. It is turn-based math, but also Hades, which is like everything I love in a relaxing video game.

Yeah, actually, it's funny because before you started playing it, I was about to leave for Seattle, and I thought, oh, should I download Bellatro? Because I finally looked into what it was. For a long time I thought it was, oh this is just you know a super solitaire or some kind of variant of solitaire. No, it's it's video poker where between rounds you're buying jokers that add different effects to different hands, you're leveling up how much different hands will earn you, and then when I got back after you started playing it, I started playing it and I actually I beat

the game for the first time last night. Nice. By that, you mean you got to like the ninth ante or something or the? Yeah, I got to where they make you stop playing. It's like, OK, you've got you've beaten the last boss. Now we're going to kick you back to the title screen. So it took about five hours.

But I have really been enjoying the game. I didn't think I would because I don't like traditional card like your traditional suits in King, Queen, Jack, Ace, whatever. I like other card games, but I really got into this. It is such an addictive game. I don't know if it would be, if we're saying what our game of the years is and now, you know, everybody is, uh, everybody who played metaphor is saying it's metaphor, which I haven't touched yet.

I think it's boy, if you can call Hades to a game because I would call it half a game cause it, it just makes you stop playing Hades 2 a game, because I would call it half a game, because it just makes you stop playing it even though you haven't beat it yet. If that counted as a game, maybe I'd call that as my favorite game of the year. But it'd be between Bellatro or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Those are my top two of the year.

And I think probably Bellatro edges it out in just pure addictiveness. Yeah, I did enjoy FF7 Rebirth, we did a retronauts about that as well and I assumed it would be my game of the year but if I could do a comparison, like a food comparison here, if Final Fantasy VII Rebirth feels like a buffet

where it's like here are just slop buckets full of every kind of food and that's good, that could be fulfilling well as well but I feel like Metaphoric Fantasio is like a delicately designed seven course meal where everything just is like perfectly designed for your taste and like no element is wasted. I remember going back to Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth

and thinking like, why am I playing soccer with Red 13? What's going on here? Like, why am I doing this right now? This feels like a separate game you could sell me for like 10 bucks on Steam. It was a lot more like a Like a Dragon or slash Yakuza game. I was just like, here's 8,000 side games

because we don't sell these as their own games anymore. So that's how huge it is. And now I need to go play the last year's Like a Dragon game, which I didn't get around to because I only had room for, I don't know, two 100 hour games this year, and now there's another one coming out in February, the Pirates of the Caribbean, one starring Majima.

Yeah, which unfortunately comes out a week before the new Monster Hunter, which kind of is, it's a rough time if you're a wee gamer. I've made my choice. Well, thankfully, Ray from Star Wars is here to introduce me to the Monster Hunter universe. Have you seen this? That's right.

I did, I saw the, I saw a from it, but I did not watch Daisy Ridley. I know her name Yeah, well, it's funny cuz Samoa Joe is the pro wrestler Samoa Joe He's in the new like a dragon so you got you pick your choice here. Do you want Star Wars or pro wrestling? Oh, what if I want neither and just want to play Monster Hunter? Well, I guess you can just ignore the video. I don't think Daisy Ridley is in Monster Hunter, although maybe she's doing this because she does a voice of one of the characters or something. Nah, I betcha at best she would read like one set of lines

for a voiceover. I bet it's not that, no. And then meanwhile, I was Mr. Movies this month watching a ton of new movies because I had a bunch of Cinemark passes that stacked up. So I was like, you know, I'm going to see new movies. I saw Wicked Part One, which I thought was really good. It was a good adaptation.

I've seen a lot of bad movie musical adaptations, but it is helped by having the two leads and several of the side characters are played by real singers who are not like a famous actor who can't sing, which again, I love Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum, they aren't singers. They're not Broadway singers and they don't sing in their roles really, though they have to talk sing.

It's not good, but the rest of people, awesome singers. It seems Wicked fans would enjoy, this is not a movie I would ever watch with an audience. I feel like I would commit murder. You would have to find a replacement on Talk to the Audience and Talking Simpsons. I had a good audience for it. I did not have any teens singing, thankfully. Though after watching it, I then watched All That Jazz and I was like, oh wait, this is what an actual great film musical is comparatively. Then also I saw Gladiator 2, okay, it's alright. It's the main guy, Paul Maskell. I don't care for him much, but the side people are, hey, if you just like Denzel

Washington, it's been a while since you've seen Denzel Washington be like awesome and have fun in a movie and just like not be directed and just be like, no, I do what I do. I'm an awesome actor. He is great in Gladiator 2. So if you missed seeing Denzel Washington in Good Start. Here's the thing, I need to see Gladiator 1, or maybe I don't. No, actually you do. As I was watching it, I was like, oh wait,

they really expected me to remember these plot points from the first Gladiator. This is so many plot points from the first Gladiator. I mean, this is just because I was weird and not seeing movies then, but I might be the only straight white elder millennial who did not see Gladiator in the year 2000. It was my first DVD, along with Fight Club, purchased on the same day. And also I watched, speaking of 2000's core sequels, I watched Lord of the Rings, The

War of the Rohirrim, the anime from the, I believe the head of Stand Alone Complex, the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex series, he directed this. It was pretty good, it's pretty good. But it is like fanfic in that it's not based on any particular thing in Tolkien history, but it is like the prequel to Helm's Deep, basically, in the two towers of the Lord of the Rings.

But it's good, it's good. Well, as a special Christmas surprise, and to break in our new TV, I bought the 4Ks of Lord of the Rings, and I don't normally buy 4Ks, I only want them for like special experiences, and I have not seen the third Lord of the Rings still to this day.

I'm looking forward to watching all the extended editions, not in one day, I'm not crazy, but I'm looking forward to seeing them again. I haven't seen these movies since theaters. Wow, wow, man, I just showed them to my husband, he had never seen any of them before. I showed him all the extended editions over a period of a month in, I want to say 2021,

or maybe it was 2020, but yeah. I haven't seen these 4K editions though. And the last thing of TV I watched, I watched the last season of What We Do in the Shadows up to the finale. I thought it did a good finale. Though a plot of this season was that the last season, that the previous season should have been their last season.

It's kind of, is a plot point, but it is a good season. Well, we have a lot of catching up to do on that series. I think we have like three or four seasons to watch over here. So I'm well we have a lot of catching up to do on that series I think we have like three or four seasons to watch over here so I'm glad there's a lot waiting for us yeah no I think it's a good it wraps up well I think it's a good final episode and and also I've been watching a ton of Christmas specials too it's sort of started doing my research for tis the 15th season because I you know put in the Mr. Magoo special.

But I was like, you know what, I haven't watched the Pee Wee special in a million years. And so I watched that one, because there's an HD release of it. And I also watched the Alan Partridge Knowing Me, Knowing Yule special, which is a great, mean, bleak British Christmas comedy. We talked about that character.

It seems daunting, all of the lore and the many pieces of content you have to sift through for him. You'll come to love him so quickly though, Bob. It'll be worth it, it'll be worth it. Now that you mentioned it, I was watching a few Christmas specials with my wife, ones I had not seen before.

So I did watch Muppets, sorry, John Denver and the Muppets, A Christmas Together, a 1979 Christmas special, I believe never has been released on home media, but it is fairly popular. I have no experience with John Denver. I don't like him very much after seeing this special. And my issue with it, I think the album version of this is also very popular, or it was for Gen Xers

who were growing up. My issue with it is John Denver keeps bringing it back to the Bible, and the Muppets, I don't associate them with them trying to teach us about religion. And it's so weird when John Denver and the Muppets are all sitting around, he's singing about the birth of Christ and because they can't reenact the birth of Christ with fun Muppets, we get like sincere human

Muppets performing all of the actions of the nativity. It's very, very strange. Well, you know, Jim Henson, he's a very religious guy too, very Christian man. He never dragged the Muppets into it. To see these explicit Bible stories told with Muppets in the foreground, I thought, this just seems off to me. Yeah, that's true. The only two things I remember from that album, I listen to the album more than, I don't know if I ever watched the whole special on its own, the album played a lot at Christmas as a kid, but I remember they do the 12 days of Christmas in that,

right, I remember that one. Oh yeah, and then you realize that if somebody performs the entire 12 days of Christmas, you're gonna be sitting there for about eight minutes. That was the joke in the Pee Wee special, that Pee Wee leaves the woman who starts it because it's too long. Yeah, I mean it's fun to sing when you're a kid

because of the repetition, you know, and how just how crazy it gets by the end. But when you're just watching, you're like, god damn it, how many days do we have left? And what Robin and John Denver sing When the River Meets the Sea, which is one of my all time favorite, I want, that's a funeral song for me I wanna have.

But it's not as good as the Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas version of it, I'd say. He doesn't do that song in the special. Maybe that's just an extra track. And Henry is thinking about music played for his funeral. I think Henry, you need to be cheered up this holiday season. I just, I love that song.

You know, what am I doing on the holidays? I'm watching specials, I'm doing my funeral playlist. Well, the, well that, okay. John Denver sings it with Robin. It must just be for the album. I've heard that version. I've just watched this a few days ago. I do not remember this at all.

Okay, then it's just for the album. I was just listening to it. So, okay, there you go. Oh, and while last thing, I had a magical time at Disneyland. I took my mom there for her birthday. They there were so many wonderful little Christmas moments though, though my mom is a little shy. It's why I didn't share pics of it online though. I did share a picture of me getting to meet Max Goof, which I was very excited about. But like my mom was wearing her birthday pin, like as in, it's my birthday at Disneyland.

And then we passed by a band, like one of the live music bands there. My mom has played in, you know, community bands my entire life. And she passed by these guys and I'm like, oh, it's your birthday. And then they all start playing Happy Birthday to her. And it was like, God, it's that Disney magic.

It was so special. That's very sweet. And then on our way back, we stayed for a couple days in San Francisco and saw Cyndi Lauper there. She came to Seattle, but Trixie Mattel, the drag queen, was DJing at the San Francisco one and we wanted to see that. And it was fun and Cyndi Lauper, she sang so many of her, you forget how many great songs she did and she also has, she wrote a beautiful song in the 90s about you know, abortion and abortion rights and now

she's a big part of her concert is speaking to the you know, the horrible rollbacks of rights in America when it comes to abortion and abortion access and she has a whole charity for it that is very special and she's saying Goonies are good enough, a song she used to never sing live and hates. I didn't think she was gonna sing that but then bam, second encore. Actually the final song at the encore is Girls Just Wanna

Have Fun, they make you wait for it. When she sings Goonies, she basically, she doesn't say I used to hate this song, but she did say, you know what, this was my mom's favorite music video and she's in it. And I met one of the actors recently and he said, I'm a Goonies, Goonies never say die. And I'm a Goonie forever. And she's like, so everybody loves Goonies. So here I'll sing the song. It was, was the spirit of it. Well, I'm glad you had a good time, Henry, but I'm currently applying for a restraining order

to keep you and Disney parks apart for the next eight months. It'll be a little while. It'll be a little while. If it hadn't been, we would have just gone once this year if it wasn't for the long delayed trip for my mom and stepdad. But you went five times. Yes, that is true. Yes, your fifth trip.

Well, who's counting? I am counting. Our listeners are counting. Well, I'm glad you had a good time. It seemed like a very sweet time for your mom, and I know you're trying to bring your mom and your Step Dad to Disneyland for a very long time. Yes, yeah, I was very happy to finally do that.

So we're gonna move on to the questions and comments. And just a note, we're gonna reduce the amount we're reading because we have to get through some things we missed last month because we recorded early last month. So we're gonna just read one comment for each Talking Simpsons. I selected the best comment. So if it's your comment, you're a special boy and or girl

or they, them, however you wanna be called. So let's move on to Talking Simpsons. The first episode is the fat and the furriest. And Jonathan says, my favorite reference to quote, only your hairdresser knows for sure is in 1989's Batman. When the Joker takes over the TV broadcast to advertise the poison he's added to everything, he says, with hair color so natural,

only your undertaker knows for sure. The reference went over my head as a kid, but it's still a funny enough joke that I think it works on its own. And this is Bob speaking. Yeah, I assume he was trying to do just like his own tagline, but I didn't know it was a reference to that classic,

I believe, Clairol tagline. Yeah, that one, I totally forgot that reference happens in the movie, though. As a kid, it was more of the, I was just distracted by the horrible injuries that were happening to people in the head. Or I was laughing at the funny visual of the telecasters not being able to put on their own makeup, the broadcast news people. Looking very greasy.

Yeah. But thanks for bringing up that reference Jonathan Then on Marge on the Lamb Joe Hodgson says gonna have to disagree with the characterization of Pamela Reed's performance as Ruth I think she brings the perfect tone to the character She's low energy because she's a single mom getting screwed over by her ex when she cuts loose with Marge There is a slight uptick in her energy, but it's in the form of a cool energy, nothing manic. I think Bob put it well when he described her as a real person amongst a bunch of cartoon characters. I actually wish she was included more,

as I always wanted another glimpse of the Marge Ruth dynamic. Marge and Lisa need friends! Yeah, 36 years into the show, and they yet to have a friend. A real friend that lasts for more than an episode. It was such a clever idea. I think it's a positive of James L. Brooks

that he said Marge needs, they need a next door neighbor who's a single mom and her and Marge can do stuff together. It'd be just like on the Mary Tyler Moore show, or Rhoda, these female friends for the characters. But they just kind of stopped caring about giving Marge a friend for stories, even though this one was such a good one. Yeah, we talked about it, which she's so underused

in that reappearance, and we talked about it, obviously, but why bother, why did you do this then? It's just funny how Ruth is kind of almost in every background shot now, and has been for the past 30 years. Yeah, I mean, in the last couple years, they did a joke where Pamela Reid returned to say, you never talked to me in decades, but it's like, well, guys, Hey, you can fix this right now.

Writers on this TV show. Moving on to today, I am a clown and Eric Schuman says the person who inspects kitchens or manufacturing plants to deem them kosher is called a moshkiak. I looked up the pronunciation of that by thekiach and they don't have to be a rabbi themselves, though many are. In the case of what may keep a soda from being kosher, it could be any number of small things that have nothing to do with the actual ingredients, shared equipment with non-kosher products, or the manufacturer not wanting to pay for a contract for ongoing

certification. A good time to stock up on Coca-Cola is around Passover, when many Jewish families observe a stricter form of keeping kosher. You might see bottles of Coca-Cola especially marked as kosher for Passover, which indicates they are made with sugar instead of corn syrup. And this is Bob speaking. Yeah, I'm sure I saw kosher friendly,

kosher blank, kosher that. And as a kid, I think I assumed, I've heard the word kosher meaning is it kosher? Is everything kosher friendly, kosher blank, kosher that. And as a kid, I think I assumed, I've heard the word kosher meaning is it kosher? Is everything kosher? It's like, oh, this has been approved by someone, it's kosher. I didn't know the dietary things involved until much later in life.

Yeah, and I appreciate Eric for explaining this. And I also, I wasn't aware that apparently corn syrup isn't kosher, to quote Krusty from the episode. Yeah, I did not know this. So thank you for the update, Eric Schuman. And I'm gonna take over here because we are now back to having two comments, so we're gonna go back and forth like we normally do.

And we have tis the 15th season where Kat Hegberg says, regarding the Grove, the holiday decorations are really something, and they're a quick hack for getting into the holiday spirit, but also a PSA. Last year my husband and I didn't have anything to do on Christmas Day, so I checked to see if the Grove was open and it was! But by open they meant the parking lot and the lone coffee bean. It's maybe the one place where the message of Beavis and Butthead do Christmas still rings true.

So we, like everyone there, got into an hour-long line at the coffee bean stand so we could validate our parking, stared at the giant tree for a bit, and left. And all of the bathrooms were locked, and after the coffees, the 30 minute drive home to Santa Monica sounded unbearable, so we stopped at another Rick Caruso property, West Fifth Century City, I believe, to sneak into the AMC bathrooms.

Ultimately, as someone who always has to work holidays, including that one, I'm just glad most small employees had a day off, but don't go to the Grove on Christmas Day unless you really, really love the big tree and have a bladder of steel, or just live in Beverly Hills, I guess. Thanks for the update, Kat. I don't like going places on Christmas Day

because I know people don't wanna work that day and I understand. So even though Nosferatu opens Christmas Day, I'm going on the 27th or the 26th. That's nice. I hope they get time and a half at most movie theaters. I did over 20 years ago, but I fear in America that's not happening as much.

Also this talk of the Christmas at the Grove or Grove style ritzy malls, outdoor malls, that I just watched. Another thing I had not seen until this holiday season was there's an American Dad Christmas episode that is a parody of Live Die Repeat. Edge of Tomorrow, Edge of Tomorrow. Yes, Edge of Tomorrow. That's it's actual name.

Hey, you tell that to the 4K Blu-ray box. I don't let 4Ks tell me what to do. But it all takes place at a Grove style area too. Yeah, I mean, I love going to different stores during the holidays just to see all of the decorations. I think yesterday, that was the first time we were in downtown Vancouver, just like taking in all of the lights

and all of the Taylor Swift related signage because she was just here for the first time. Oh, okay. Wow. The Swifties took over. We stayed bunker down until they were gone. And Joshua Marchand also says on that episode, excited to be the Trekkie to let you know that while the franchise hasn't done a Christmas Carol riff, they did the next best thing with one of Bob's favorites. It's a wonderful life.

In the next generation episode, Tapestry, Picard's artificial heart fails. And while on his deathbed, the trickster God Q offers him a chance to change the events that led to him needing one and getting trapped in a future where he never became the measured diplomatic captain we all knew. Mr. Data, it truly was a wonderful trick. I remember that episode, it's great. It's about how he's like still, oh, at your age, you're not at this level yet, you're not a captain.

Like he is shocked to find out he's not a captain after, because he is a wuss, he never tried. Yeah, sometimes when we don't know what to watch, we wanna put on something cozy and fun, we put on Next Generation, and Nina put this one on for me, and I really, really liked it. I haven't watched that in forever.

The other, I just remembered the scene of him being reminded, like, you're not a captain. Hey, you're out of line here. So thank you for that update, Joshua Marchant. And what a cartoon. We covered a Beavis and Butt-Head Christmas, a great Christmas special last month. Check it out, or wait until next holiday season

if you missed it. And Thad Komorowski Christmas, a great Christmas special last month, check it out or wait until next holiday season if you missed it. And Thad Komorowski says, regarding It's a Wonderful Life, it's technically public domain, but not really thanks to corporate thuggery from an article on the Library of Congress website. Quote, while Republic Pictures had failed to renew the copyright over the film in 1974, they still retained the rights to the original story, the greatest gift, and also purchased rights to the original story, the greatest gift, and also purchased rights to the film's music.

Relying on the 1990 Supreme Court case Stewart v. Aband, Republic Pictures notified all television networks to stop playing It's a Wonderful Life without the payment of royalties. Republic Pictures then entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with NBC where It's a Wonderful Life can be seen twice a year. Republic got absorbed by Paramount,

so they will continue to make sure no one gets to see It's a Wonderful Life for free. Now this is Bob speaking. I first found out about this because Riff Tracks did a riff of It's a Wonderful Life, but they also had to include a very long explanation as to saying this is the portion of the film we are riffing and why. The other portion of the film is not considered in the public domain. Wow. Okay. I've never seen there.

It's a wonderful life one. That's funny. I, they have to get all of this legal clearance of it, but that is why in the nineties, like it became a thing of that it is only on NBC and you can only watch it on NBC and they would play it like twice a year tops. Like on, I think it was, I remember watching it on NBC after the Thanksgiving parade as their way of saying Christmas has begun and then they'd play it like Christmas Eve as well.

Yeah, we talked about this on the Beavis and Butthead thing, but for Boomers, It's a Wonderful Life was made fun of just because it was on TV so much, but apparently it would cut off at a certain point. That's why like there are so many jokes about It's a Wonderful Life and when you watch Home Alone, when the family gets to Paris, they're about It's a Wonderful Life and when you watch Home Alone, when the family gets to Paris, they're watching It's a Wonderful Life in French on TV. Like, oh, even here it's on TV all the time. And I just watched The Wizard of Oz again

for the first time in, I don't know, 30 years. For the first time in HD, it's great. I don't need to tell you this. But I was thinking, there was a holiday tradition of showing this on Thanksgiving. And I remember that happening throughout my childhood. I remember my mom excitedly sitting me down for the first time to watch the Wizard of Oz and watching it year after year and I was like when did that end?

That ended in 1991 that was the final year that tradition ended so it was like 1958 to 1991 the Wizard of Oz on every Thanksgiving. And what I recall was it that like Turner got the rights to it and only wanted to put it on their networks? Yeah it was some some rights thing, of course, it's not in public domain or anything, but yeah, I feel like somebody wanted the rights more than NBC or, I think it was CBS was the one who was airing that every Thanksgiving.

Thanks to the popularity of Wicked, the renewed popularity of Wicked, there has been a ton of TikTok content my husband has showed me of just explaining old Wizard of Oz facts that I knew of like, did you know the red slippers are only for that type of, the new kids are learning disproven things about hanging munchkins in the back.

Yeah, I didn't look for the hanging munchkin this time. I wondered, 4K, how clear is that thing that's totally there? Yeah, it's really there. It's like the ghost in three men and a baby Joe Hodgson also says in a rare example of beavis and butthead predicted it in 1998 RoboCop received his own Christmas episode via the cartoon series RoboCop alpha commando The episode is titled Oh tannin bomb Whoa tannin bomb and it does not contain any references to Joey Lawrence that I picked up on. It's instead about a vilness woman named Tannenbaum who is shockingly horny for a kids cartoon.

It is neither good nor bad, just one of many cartoons that showed up for a time and then was mostly forgotten. It received an unusual episode order of 40, but if we consider that the late 80s Robocop had 12 episodes, it famously losing one episode so Marvel could make an X-Men pilot, then that brings the total to the syndication friendly 52, which may or may not have helped get it to air. Yeah, I was not aware of this other Robocop cartoon from the late 90s. Yeah, I had not, I wasn't aware of it either, despite being a Robocop super fan

who watched all of the Robocop syndicated live action show, which was pretty corny, but I did not watch this animated series. I'm gonna at least look up this Christmas one, because Robocop Christmas special sounds like perfection to me. It's exactly what Paul Verhoeven wanted with this IP. To celebrate the meaning of Christmas.

Let's move on to what a cartoon movie. November, we covered eight crazy nights. It was fun, it was torturous, and I wanna remind everyone, we recorded that on election day before we found out anything that was gonna happen. So covering that nightmare of a movie really helped ease us into a new era, I think.

Oh God, yes. I mean, hey, that came out at the start of the, or in the first couple years of George W. Bush administration. It turned out to be a great time to remember feeling awful about a Republican president. So Sean Ryan says, "'One of my earliest jobs was as the assistant manager

of a Spencer's at the time this movie was released. While I have no love for that company, this movie and our beloved podcast host does something that is often grating to me, mispronouncing the brand name. It's not Spencer's Gifts and Spencer's Gift makes no sense. It's Spencer Gifts. Spencer Gifts. When the paid product placement in a movie gets the name wrong, it was no surprise to me that the company rebranded to the simpler, less confusing Spencer's just a couple of

years later. This is Bob speaking. Thank you, Sean Ryan. I want to say that since I've read this message, I've heard other people say Spencer's gifts and I realize now we're all speaking lies. That's not the name of the store. I am embarrassed too, because I've had friends who worked at Spencer gifts And they I'm sure they said it correctly But even then with all the reason to talk about it and visit it I always called it the I think the possessive Spencer's gifts now I think I've talked about this before but back in the day like 20 plus years ago. I worked at a store called software

Etcetera. Software E-T-C period. Number one, you should not include Latin in your store's name, just as a rule. People have a problem with it. But I was the only person at my store who said Software Etcetera. Everybody I worked with said Software Etcetera. Etcetera. You don't even want to know what people were writing on their checks when they were buying things. Every creative spelling of et cetera was employed on the check. And I think to the point where we had to slide over

a little card saying, this is how you spell et cetera. Yeah. Well, because legal tender, it would probably, I mean, would it cause you problems of even getting the checks accepted if they wrote it wrong? That wasn't my responsibility, but I just didn't wanna get yelled at. But yeah, the software, et cetera, is no more. But I think as a rule, people stopped including that in their

store names. I mean, hey, that's smart. I want to making it just Spencer's, just clean it up to, maybe that's also like getting rid of the in Facebook. Instead of the Facebook or Spencer Gifts, it's Spencer's possessive, just like Whitey says. In the feed. Make it easier to say. And Adam Azzolino also said, "'Man, Bob and Henry are so on the money "'that 14 is the age you get really into Sandler.'

"'I watched this a bunch when I was about 12 or so, "'mostly because I think it's always on some channel "'like HBO or something around Hanukkah. "'I watched it because because all the guys in school or summer camp thought Adam Sandler was hilarious My teenage brain probably thought it was excellent because cartoons shit in screaming or edgy I guess but I bet it had two comedic beats like most 2000s comedies what's the cruelest thing we can do and what's the grossest thing we can do? Thanks for reflecting on this for me and thousands of comedies. What's the cruelest thing we can do, and what's the grossest thing we can do? Thanks for reflecting on this for me,

so I don't have to revisit how unfun to watch it likely is. Happy holidays, Bob and Henry. Yeah, it was fun to finally see this holiday movie that really did not want anything to do with the holidays, and if only to take in the 2D animation. And it was animated before 9-11, so it's all of the mostly conceived and animated before 9-11, so it's all of the mostly conceived and animated before 9-11.

So you end up with a lot of the mean, mean-spirited animation or comedy that was in live action that started to get toned down a little after 9-11, still intact for this 2002 release. Oh, also about that, we should mention on this that we did a post on the Patreon about it, but Nina did some incredible art for our What a Cartoon movie. You may think it's insulting that my wife drew Henry as the character of Whitey, but keep in mind Whitey is the most pure and wholesome character in the movie. She made me into Davey Stone and that says a lot. We're going gonna have to talk about this after the recording. Yes, I was a little surprised to be whitey at first,

but also it fits the format of it as well. But you know what, she added a beard and a fantastic forehead to him beautifully. Hey, she's in it as well as Louis as a giant bird instead of being a small boy. So moving on, we have Talking Futurama, the late Philip J. Fry, and Ron Sterling says, Unfortunately for our heroes,

if time travel is possible only going forwards, they'd probably be doomed. The current working theory for a cyclical universe relies on a big contraction or big crunch that follows the heat death of the universe resulting in a new Big Bang. All evidence is heavily against that happening as galaxies are accelerating away from one another

rather than being slowed down by gravity as we'd initially predicted. Don't just give up yet though, if Homer is right and we are in a donut-shaped universe, which is a real possibility still, then it may be the cause that the reason galaxies appear to be accelerating away from each other is that they're actually being pulled back together

at the donut center. In that case, it should create just the collision Farnsworth and the crew need to make it back to the future themselves. Food for thought. Thank you Ron Sterling for piecing this together. My first reaction is, zeh. My second reaction when it comes to big questions like this,

for as much as I'm interested in how this will all play out, I'm also thinking I will be a, the skeleton that I will become will be gone at this point. So it's none of my business. Now I'm sad to hear that the big crunch is like less less likely now, but at least the the donut the donut theory is is in it's inspiring to think like maybe maybe two back reigning creations could predict this. Meanwhile Andrew Bouvier says on that episode something mildly interesting about the big bounce universe reset in this episode

Is that there is technically a second set of fry and Bender and Farnsworth living? Presumably a parallel life is our prime fry Bender and Farnsworth because Farnsworth Accidentally missed the second timeline the trio from that timeline Therefore went on to do the same thing our trio did. They saw the end of the universe, then attempted to stop at the time they left, which ironically would have killed our trio. But they missed it and went into an unseen fourth timeline and crushed that timeline's trio. So therefore from here on out, we could technically be watching a second set of Frye, Benner and Farnsworth in a fourth universe. We need

to draw out a diagram actually Peter Avanzino behind the scenes sent us the diagram of the different time travel paths that they used internally for this episode so even they needed a chart to map this all out. Yeah it was so cool to see the the chart he had made that was was, I mean, to know, again, if you're gonna direct those things, you have to figure it out. We have the benefit of trying to piece it together from a completed story.

He, as the director, has to pull it together as they're writing it to make sure there aren't any mistakes. And that seems so complicated. It was so cool that Peter has sent us several really cool things. We talked about it a little on Tis the 15th season, some of his storyboards he shared with us.

But that diagram was great. Again, listen to that interview. Peter has so many awesome things to tell us. Remember, Peter Avanzino is listening. He has left comments on many posts, so you watch what you say about that man. So moving on, we got two episodes of Talking to the Hill to cover.

Let's cover as old as the hills first. And Saia Clark says, Dallasite here, I know rotating restaurants are fairly common, but there might be a bit of extra Texas storytelling in this episode because Reunion Tower, large building with ball top and Dallas skyline, famously rotates. So the joke might be that a Texas viewer

would assume the restaurant guide was referring Hank and Peggy to a reunion tower But instead was a crappy place that only rotates for lunch as a kid I remember learning about reunion tower and how my parents would go there for their anniversary and thought based purely off the novelty alone It was the coolest thing I'd ever heard and yes I I would not put this past them to make it an actual reference although many cities have Rotating restaurants I could see them drilling down into a specific one, although thankfully the reunion tower rotates all the

time, not just for one period of the day. It definitely feels like a Greg Daniels kind of joke that somebody is getting suggested to go to like the crappier local closer by version of the really great thing. And hey, if you want to see Vancouver's rotating restaurant top of Vancouver, you play the Vancouver track in Mario Kart 8. It's one of several landmarks that's in the Vancouver track, which weirdly enough belongs to Wario.

That's very strange, I did not know this. Chris Dobson says, y'all didn't mention it, but there's clearly an additional joke in Hank's I Guess I'll Be the Designated Driver line. Hank is 220 pounds and plans to let Peggy drive him home after two Alamos, probably at 4% alcohol at his weight. And after 90 minutes of dinner, a blood alcohol calculator estimates he would be likely at 0.01% and eighth of the legal limit of two beers. So meaning he'd be fine. and he didn't, he could have let Peggy have her drink. Yeah, I think I didn't mention this because it's just,

Hank's squareness is just permeating everything he says and does, but yeah, they could easily both have a drink and dinner and be perfectly fine to drive home, but Hank is that square where that is not even permissible. One crappy beer and a full dinner is still too excessive of drinking for him. If he is going to have his two beers and he wants to have his two beers, then Peggy has to be the designated driver. He is not going to risk driving home on two beers. And finally we have Talking of the Hill, Peggy Hill, The Decline and Fall.

Anna Mansager says, besides the two people surviving shoot failures that Henry mentioned, there is also Victoria Silliers, a skydiver whose shoot failed to deploy properly because her husband tampered with it in hopes of killing her. Bob speaking. That sounds like the movie Skydivers, the Mystery Science Theater movie. Do you recall Henry when they bought acid to burn the parachutes in the packs? I forgot about that one. Yes.

Yeah. That's another that's also that's from the Coleman Francis trilogy. about that one. Yes, yeah, that's another, that's also, that's from the Coleman Francis trilogy. It is, it's one of my favorites. It might be my favorite of that trilogy. And then Anna goes on to say, she survived because she fell back first into a freshly plowed field that was soft, just like Peggy.

Well, there you have it, folks. I hope she survived to see that man fry. I'm glad that Anna brought this up because yeah, it seems so specific And even with the guilt that Hank feels that he thinks he made her jump and it nearly killed her That it makes it more comparable to the guy who tried to kill his wife and failed and she survived in the same way I I would bet they were pulling some from that that real-life story, too And echo Cimarron says in our final comment of the year, I think the Helen Keller line was Hank mixing her up

with Helen Hayes, the First Lady of American theater and they linked to the Helen Hayes wiki page. Hank has sort of a recurring gag of him not quite remembering showbiz stuff like when he said Weird Al killed himself in the 80s but that was a different parody singer Dickie Goodman. Yeah I think the Helen Keller was largely useless. I think that quote was Hank actually thinking of the real Helen Keller, but then he assumed she went on to become a great stage actress, and that's when he was thinking of Helen Hayes. So thank you, Echo Cimron, for pointing that out.

Yeah, no, I was not aware of who Helen Hayes was, so him getting it confused with Helen Keller is a, that's a good, that's a good lack of any Hollywood knowledge. Hank is displaying there. So thank you for explaining that joke to us. And that's been another episode of talk to the audience. It's been a really, really great 2024. We thank you so much for joining us throughout this entire year. So many great things have happened. I'm trying to like sort them all out in my mind. We were on doughboys. We were on We Hate Movies again.

We were on Brian Quimby's guys, we were on all of these guest podcasts, so many opportunities. We did SketchFest, we did a live show with Bill Oakley and having all of these new guests on the show. It has been a fantastic 2024 and frankly folks, there is no end in sight. So thank you for joining us on this great year. Yeah, thanks so much everybody for listening all year. Any new folks or people who have been with us this whole time, you know, and we're getting close to our 10th anniversary. If you've been there since the beginning, we really appreciate that. Or if you're new. And yeah, we went to Springfield together in Los Angeles. That was such a fun time too. Like we had so many great things this year and

I'm looking forward to even more great stuff in the new year as well and yeah I hope I hope everybody out there has has a happy holidays as you know no matter how how 2025 treats us will be there we don't know what the future will hold we don't have that power but we can talk to you about Simpsons episodes we can at least do that to get you through the next four years and beyond so yes happy holidays whether you're Christian Christian or Jewish and to quote Crotea Robot, maybe you just worship a guy whose name is Greg. It's possible. But as long as you have a Patrick Swayze Christmas, that's the most important thing. Yes, yes, a secular Patrick Swayze Christmas. But thank you once again everybody. This has been another episode

Talk to the Audience. We will see you again very soon. Take care and have a pleasant end of 2024. Should old acquaintance be forgot, And days of lang syne? My dear for all Langsine We'll take a cup of kindness yet For all Langsine Our old lang syne