Talking Simpsons - Talk To The Audience?!? - February 2025

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

We're heard of dry January, but dry FEBRUARY? That's the state of Simpsons updates this month, but we do our best to provide a few drops of nourishing news from the ol' content well. (Including some never-before-heard audio clips!) And, as always, we read and respond to your questions and comments from the most recent round of episodes. Plus: valuable hints for keeping a bogeyman or bogeymen out of your house!

I heartily endorse this event or product. ["The Last of Us Theme Song"] Ahoy, hoi everybody and welcome to Talk to the Audience, where this is always death. I am one of your hosts, Bob Mackie, currently growing out my sideburns and who is here with me today as always. It's Henry Gilbert presenting his 800th episode script for this podcast. And yes this is talk to the audience. This hits at the end of the month on Patreon. At the beginning of the month on the free feed in this podcast we look at what's happening in the Simpsons world. We

talk about what's happening in our world and then we respond to the questions and comments from the last month's worth of episodes and it is a slow news month for the Simpsons. We're being very busy, but not a lot of new episodes are airing, some would say none, and there's not a lot of news on The Simpsons front, but we've scraped together everything we can for the month of February.

They're winding up for the future. They are seemingly working as hard as ever on the show, but yeah, it's been a quiet month thanks to what we talked about the last couple months of the No broadcasting of new episodes as they make space for all of the new shows on on Fox TV of varying quality And so yeah, there's there's there is only one episode to talk about this month Yes it's an episode that launched with a fun game and and the game is, can you find it on Disney+, because before I looked up how to actually watch

this episode, I had no idea how to find it, because that oh come on all ye faithful thing launched as a separate video content piece on Disney+, whatever you call that. It was not grandfathered into the Simpsons collection when it first launched, so I just typed in Simpsons to see what individual things will pop up. Well, it wasn't there.

By the way, I'm talking about the episode, the past and the furious, which is a new Disney plots exclusive episode, typed in Simpsons, got nothing except for the Simpsons, the movie and the shorts. Then I typed in past and I got nothing related to the Simpsons. And then I found out based on an article you linked me to Henry that you have to go up above season one into the exclusives section of the Simpsons to see oh come on all ye faithful which has been put into that little bottle and Then the past and the furious which is part of that collection too

So if you don't know where this is you have to go to the Simpsons entry on Disney Plus Scroll all the way up past season one and then look at the extras or special episodes. I forget what they call it, but you'll see the two that they have put on Disney Plus for the time being. I think this section is called Exclusives. There you go, that's it. Yeah. I didn't need to search for it myself, but that is because I had already gone through this journey with, during the holiday season, we wanted to watch the Family Guy Christmas special, which was just the Christmas episode that was only put on Hulu and Disney Plus originally,

and it was similarly listed as exclusives above season one in the season, so that's how I was, I was like, oh, they must be doing the family guy thing. And it's also funny that when the episode ends, it's like, well, we'll play the next episode, the first episode of The Simpsons. Yeah, very different style of humor there. So yes, this was called The Past and the Furious,

written by Rob Lzebnik, directed by Mike Pulcino. It's a fun time travel story, very quantum leapy to the point where they actually let everyone know, yes, this is a quantum leap parody, in case you were wondering, where Lisa gains the power to go back in time through hypnotherapy, and through that, she tries to make Mr. Burns a better person

and improve the fate of Springfield. And by the way, young Mr. Burns in this episode not played by Harry Shear, instead played by Joseph Gordon-Lev the way, young Mr. Burns in this episode not played by Harry Shearer, instead played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt doing his best Mr. Burns. It's fine, I kinda wish Harry Shearer was just doing young Mr. Burns who still sounds kind of old. Well, I mean, he can't do old Mr. Burns who sounds

as young old as he did 20 years ago, so I can see what they just, they wanted to go with a famous guy instead. Yeah, and I also don't think Harry Shearer wants to sing as Mr. Burns anymore, so there's a lot of songs in this performed by a young jazzy Monty B, and that's where Joseph Gordon Leavitt comes in. Yeah, as Lisa occupies her younger self in the past via this time travel, which yeah, just is time travel.

This is not a tree house, and it just actually is functional time travel that is not, everybody thinks she's crazy, but she does change the past and make things different. So, yeah, Frank straight up calls out quantum leap, but I like the other ones in there too. Like they do a bit of her when she time travels back while driving a car and she smashes into something like, that's like the back to the future, the first time Marty goes back.

Oh yeah, yeah, they're playing with a bunch of time travel ideas. I'm a sucker for time travel so I did like this one and I must again report that Marge and Mr. Burns sound normal, repeat normal in this episode, so good on them. And Millhouse is in it and he sounds older than them in it. Yes, but I should say this is the second to last appearance of Pamela Hayden as Millhouse is in it and he sounds older than them in it.

Yes, but I should say this is the second to last appearance of Pamela Hayden as Millhouse. There is one more episode that has yet to launch on Disney Plus as an exclusive that is called Yellow Planet and according to Carolyn O'Mene, that is the final performance of Pamela Hayden as Millhouse. We are in pins and needles waiting for the next Millhouse to appear.

I wonder when that exclusive will be on there because it's still not until the end of March, so we still have another month of no Simpsons on Fox broadcasting, so maybe it'll be the March episode. Maybe that will be the next exclusive. It seems like they're trying one-ish a month, though I guess it was more like six weeks in between oh, come on, All You Faithful, and The Past and The Furious.

Yeah, it seems like they don't really want to let you know about these. Oh, come on, All You Faithful was launched with a giant banner. It was a separate content piece on the platform. This, again, just kind of snuck in there, and you had to have known about it to find it, which is a real shame.

I bet a lot of people, I bet most Simpsons viewers have not seen this. No, it was not promoted with any of the zeal that they had for the previous one, because it was also sort of the 35th anniversary special, at least the way they promoted it. They had a screening. I believe Drew Mackey went to that screening

in Los Angeles. That's right. So yeah, check it out. It's The Past and the Furious. It's on Disney Plus. You probably have that. And not a lot of news, but on, I believe, was it Blue Sky or Twitter? Sorry, Henry.

I'm not sure. It was cross-posted. It was Instagram and Twitter. And I actually don't think Yardley is on Blue Sky yet. I could be wrong, but I definitely saw it on Twitter and Instagram. Well, the important thing is Yardley Smith tweeted out a picture from the table reading of the 800th episode.

It's likely a two parter based on the production code. So yet another milestone reached. When they hit a thousand, what will happen? Will the show transform? Will people finally be allowed to die? We're gonna find out in let's say, I guess it'll take 200 episodes. I guess that's like five to 10 years,

five to eight years maybe. I would bet on eight years unless they really start slowing down, which you know, can you gamble on, eight years flies by really fast, but can we gamble on the health and safety of these people for eight more years? But yeah, they weren't, she clearly cropped it to not show, you see the production code, which is for two episodes, but you do not see the production code which is for two episodes but you do not see the name of the episode or the whoever the writer is on it though I did also like

in her picture you see that they did a special cover page for it because you know on the Simpsons scripts that they do a table reads it has been basically the same cover picture of the whole family that they've been using since 1989 Is it except they got one of their artists to draw a new one where instead Homer is reaching for the doughnuts that make up? The number 800 while the rest of the family is in their fixed position So yes looking forward to that whatever that will be will report on it More news there is a nice little piece of the New York Times by Hank Azaria about generative AI threatening the future of an actor like himself. I was surprised the New York Times let me read

this because whenever we talk about an article it's always paywalled. For this, for me at least, it wasn't. And it's a great article. It's telling, it's basically Hank Azaria saying, here is what an actor brings to a performance that AI cannot do, while saying, generative AI can do a lot of amazing things, but what's lacking is the humanity that I can bring, the physicality that an actor brings. And he explains how that informs the choices that make his delivery so special.

There's a lot of videos as part of this piece too. It's very good. Yeah, I liked it too. It took an incognito window for me to be able to read it. Okay. But yeah, I liked how it was, I thought it was, I had seen the headlines first of like, taken from news stories of it,

but when I went to the actual piece, I did like that, he wrote, he didn't just write a good piece about it, but also filmed a ton of original scenes of him doing his craft of voice acting. And I really liked hearing him talk about how his journey as a voice actor and how when he first saw like Dan Casolinetta doing all this physicality that he thought it was like kind of embarrassing almost. And he's like, Oh, I don't know if I could do that.

And now he, he loves it. And the piece is full of a lot of anecdotes that if you're a Simpsons insane person, you've heard before, but I liked hearing him in the context of, and these are things a computer couldn't do. Yeah, and we know from commentaries and from doing the show that Dan and Hank especially

love ad libbing and a lot of those ad libs do become beloved lines. So that's something a computer is not going to do or is going to do a very bad job at. Yeah, so I mean he's right to fear AI, not just because AI's so fucking awesome, I hate it. It's not that it's great, but it is that the corporate overlords will, they like AI

because they can not have to pay an expensive person like Hank Azaria to keep doing his job. So check that out over on the New York Times and our final news story is all about sideburns because now if you're playing on the Yankees I have great news. They have relaxed their grooming rules so you can have a beard, you can have sideburns, a mustache perhaps because it's now run by the son of George Steinbrenner. George Steinbrenner famously played by Larry David on Seinfeld, passed away in 2010. He has finally eased up the grooming rules.

So Don Mattingly is safe, although I believe he's now in his 60s, might be a little too old to return to the field. I wonder how thick and full his sideburns are at his age now, but yeah. The Yankees were known for a lot of reasons of the no fun league as well. I remember that Ken Griffey Jr. another

guest on that episode. He said he would never play for the Yankees because he felt that George Steinbrenner treated his father differently than he treated other white players. And so there were a lot, there's a lot of negativity on Steinbrenner, not just from like whiny Yankee fans, but to think that it wasn't until 2025 that they still had this ancient rule of no unkempt beards on our baseball team. No disco dancing in the dugouts. Yes.

Yeah, very, very antiquated. And I also wanted to share it because I learned this news because it was retweeted by Al Jean of I think it was the the criminal Simpsons account quote tweeted it with I told you to shave those side burns and Al Jean sharing it. A joke is now no longer relevant then that is our last news item or is it because I have a hot breaking news bulletin in from the surprising Henry department. Now Henry I kept this a secret I want to know does this this sound effect does this sound effect,

does this sound familiar to you? What images does this conjure? Welcome to my world. Now have you heard that before? It's not, I'm not getting anything right now, no. Is that from a video game? How about this one, Henry? Welcome to your grave, suckers.

Oh! Does that sound familiar to you? Yeah, wait. That's from a video game, isn't it? What the hell? Wait, what is it? Well, it's related to our show, so I will let you know. That is from The Simpsons Arcade Game.

And you might be wondering, why does that sound so clear, so distinct? Well, I will explain this to you and all of our great listeners out there, because the Video Game History Foundation's digital library opened up earlier this month, and of course, the first thing everyone searched for was The Simpsons. And they found not only the clean audio samples

for The Simpsons arcade game, but also complete recording sessions from both Bart's Nightmare and Virtual Bart. So what I just played for you is the cleanest possible version of some British guy pretending to be Harry Shearer. And then if you go into the files, which I did, I'm gonna play a lot of clips on this little segment here,

you're gonna find in these very disorganized audio chunks, you're gonna find every sound effect, every clean recording of the characters, and then just the pure recording sessions for Bart's Nightmare and Virtual Bart. A lot of chatter behind the scenes, a lot of multiple takes. It is very fascinating, and all of this was obtained legally by the way.

They were not hacking into computers to get these files. So groundbreaking news if you're on the level of Simpsons nerdery that we are. That is incredible. Wow. I miss this news out there. That is so great because we have a personal attachment, Justin, that we loved the arcade game growing up, and it's the opening theme of our show and other music too.

But now, I've used those sound effects in the past for transitions between segments and stuff. Now I need to see if these are better versions than the sound effects that were clipped out by YouTube channels over a decade ago. Yes, so I did a lot of searching through these files via Audacity, I spent about an hour with them just pulling out what I could.

I mean, a lot of it isn't that exciting because it's just Nancy saying, Whoa man, 15 times in a row or something like that. But I found some cool stuff and I really love the arcade game samples because now you can hear what the original recording was that they worked with so here's a few here's Marge it's never been cleaner folks I'll play a few more from the arcade game here here's Homer here's a few homers and one more of Marge Oh you darn hooligans!

And again, this is all original audio recorded for the arcade game I'm guessing they did this in five minutes the Bart's Nightmare and Virtual Bart recordings are I think about an hour of a recording session with Dan and Nancy and finally One more from whatever British guy they pulled in to do a few lines in the game. Blow up your balloon and go after Maggie. So that's whoever that was who did a very bad Mr. Burns and I guess everyone was okay with that. Man, I don't wanna just keep saying wow

into the microphone over and over again, but this is incredible to hear John Fry like so perfect like that. And man, my, well, my theory on any random voice like that in a Japanese game is like, they found the one, the guy who spoke English best in a building and then recorded that in Tokyo that day. It might be a Japanese man who learned English via British sources,

I'm guessing, who knows, or just some British guy working in marketing, but no one was pulled in to do a great Mr. Burns. So I have a few from Bart's Nightmare and Virtual Bart. I'm not sure if you actually hear Barney in the game, But it seems like they were recording a bunch of dialogue for possible scenarios I know in the Bart man section of Bart's nightmare You do fight Barney and he's riding a pink elephant, but I don't think he's actually he actually makes any noises But you could tell they were saying oh we might need Barney to do this We might need Krusty to do this and we might have some things in mind for cutscenes So here's something that didn't make it into the game from what would have been a possible opening cutscene and a possible different origin for Bart's nightmare. This is Dan again. Bart! Don't eat that! You'll have nightmares! Bart! Don't eat that! You'll have nightmares!

Bart! Don't eat that! You'll have nightmares!" So you get to hear just the many different versions of a line that Dan Castellanetta will give you. And then if you watch, if you play Bart's Nightmare, you know it's not like Bart ate something and he got nightmares. He fell asleep while doing his homework and that's where all the nightmares come from so They they had something different in mind that never made the cut for the final game I mean voice clips were you know at a premium in in those games then like even just for space him saying that would Probably like been the size of one level in the game it tripled the price

My last one from Bart's nightmare is basically when you're in the overworld there are many dangers and one of them is an old lady who will kiss Bart So here's a bit of that. I believe this is Nancy Oh, get off, oh, wet, oh, gross, oh, gross out, oh, bother, oh, ah, fat. And you hear Nancy chuckle at the end. Nancy and Dan just wind them up and let them go. We never hear this kind of thing, so it's so fascinating to hear. They're not even doing the show,

and they're totally on and totally game for everything. Yeah, it's so cool to hear them with their useful energy and the kind of time they're giving to a video game. Then I think the difference in the arcade to that one is like that the arcade was the first Simpsons game, so they couldn't be sure what it was going to be like. And by this point, they know the pricing structure and also they're like, well, we can't afford Yardley and Julie anymore nor do

we want to have women talk in this game anyway who cares yeah and I mean I guess there were recording sessions for the arcade game but we don't have the raw recordings we just have like okay here are the the clips we're sending to Japan here's the clips are sending to Konami the cleanest versions of them which are sampled at a way different rate to get them on the old hardware. So let's move on the virtual Barts and I believe in this one Dan is having trouble with a certain line in the script which I believe he will later change. Let's hear that. Hey post apocalyptic kids!

Hey post apocalyptic kids! Hey post apocalyptic kids! Hey post apop- poc-oc-to-liptic what is it poc-o-liptic poc-poc-o-liptic hey post apocalyptic kids hey post apocalyptic kids and I believe that is for the Mad Max parody level, which either begins or ends with Krusty's post-apocalyptic show. That's a word that Dan was having trouble with.

And then later in the clip package, you can hear him say, hey, surviving kids! So I figured he was like, let's make a change here. I can't really get out apocalyptic in a clean way. There's a lot of poppin' P's and C's there to say the crusty voice. It's, yeah, even see, it happens even to the best voice actors around, they have it trouble.

And here are a bunch of Homer reaction sounds. Oh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Hehehehehe. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe Hehehehehe Ooh! Hehehehehe! Hehehehehehehe! Yes!

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Yes! Uh... Ooh! Ooh! Uh... Hmm! Hmm! And just a note, because these are captured from, uh from I guess 30 plus year old audio tapes

There's a bit of audio ghosting so you're gonna hear like the echoes of the lines when you're hearing the very clean line So that's just Dan just saying here are all the Homer reaction noises. I can make please use some of these Here's another one where it just Homer remarking on virtual reality Bart how many times have I told you to? virtual reality. Bart! How many times have I told you to... Ooh, virtual reality. So that's Homer being intrigued by virtual reality in a way that only worked in 1995. Here's a bunch of noises of Krusty being injured. Ouch!

Yo! What the? Ooh! Whoa! Ow! Ooh! Ouch! Ow! Ooh! Ow! Yo! Ow! Ooh, ouch! Ow, ooh!

Ow! Yo! Oh! Ow! What the? What the? So, there you go. I believe there's some kind of crusty style boss or something in the game.

I forget, maybe in the dinosaur level. It makes sense. Oh, go ahead, sorry. No, I think you're right there. Yeah, Dan is having to put so much into this. I would have thought, I think you're right there. Yeah, Dan is having to put so much into this. I would have thought, oh yeah, Bowmer's not in there that much, right? But boy, he was doing a lot.

And we also have Nancy trying out a squirrel impression. So towards the end of this one recording session, they're having her do a cat, a dog, and she is not asked to do this, but she wants to try out her squirrel impression so we can hear that You don't have any squirrels or any elephants or anything like that you want other animals assorted Here's the squirrel tell me what you think of this squirrel

I mean it's an idea Way to go Jamie you're on the ball, bud So yeah, it's the end of the session and she's like well. We have time left Why don't I just show you all my animal impressions? I was a good that was a good squirrel That's a squirrel and so finally the last one I have is the the various readings of the title screen for Virtual Bart. Virtual Bart. Virtual Bart. Virtual Bart. Virtual Bart.

Virtual Bart. So yes, that's all I have for you folks. I just tried to find the most interesting and varied clips, but if you want to go online, go to the Video Game History Foundation, search their digital archives. I was worried that these would be cease and desist out of existence, so I made sure to download them immediately, but they appear to still be online along with all of the other archival materials for the Simpsons Konami games, including one of the really cool things I found was essentially all of the materials they sent to Japan to make the arcade game So it's a basically a just a giant pack of all the season one characters and backgrounds and props

So you can definitely see what they were working from to make the game. It's great Wow now I well this left me with a few theories, but my first one is I wonder if the if that museum won an auction I had saw. I haven't bought it. My buying spree of Simpson's Sells has ended because they now go for over $1,000 most of the time on that auction site. But I saw when I was looking through some in the last year, they were selling the arcade pack original stuff in there that was the character pack and all the things they had sent Konami.

So I'm wondering if they were the winners of that auction or somebody won that auction and then donated it. I wonder. Yeah, it could be. I mean, whatever the case, they're doing great work and I'm sure all of this is very expensive to get all this online and to track down all these sources and to rip all of these files and to scan all of these magazines. They're doing great work that other people should be

doing and I'm glad they stepped in. The parent companies don't care about these archival materials so I'm glad that they are here to present them to us so we can get more of an idea of how these games were made, what went into them, and what actually the game makers were working with to put these things together. Well, because in the case of, you know, virtual Bart and Bart's nightmare, a claim is long dead nor did they give a shit about anything. Like it was to shove it out the door as much. And then once Fox interactive gets involved, you know, technically they at least like still

own it, but they don't care all that much either. Though it's nice to hear the recordings from back then. Like they once Fox is getting more involved in it, it seems but they don't care all that much either. Though it's nice to hear the recordings from back then. Once Fox is getting more involved in it, it seems like they actually bothered to die. I wouldn't be surprised if Matt Groening, who was the contact for the Konami one, or he's so involved in Arcade, if he was the one who said, can we just get a quick thing at the end of some other recording sessions with the people? I could see that.

I could see that just being added on. And then later they're like, all right, now we're going to book them an hour at this studio in LA and they're going to come in and we'll have a bunch of things for them to say. But that is excellent. I'm going to dig through that archive. I want to take a look for myself too at all these official documents that are being saved for posterity. Yeah, very excited to present that to everybody. Thanks again to everyone who made that happen. Now moving on to our news. So let's talk about the schedule for the Talking Substance Network for the month of March. And we're kicking things off with

us what I would call a sister episode to what we covered in February, the Powerpuff Girls, because thanks to our patron Toonjay, we are covering the cartoon Wander Over Yonder and the episodes the cartoon and the bot. And in case you don't know, Wander Over Yonder and the episodes The Cartoon and The Bot. And in case you don't know, Wander Over Yonder is a Craig McCracken show. It's what he made after Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. So there's a direct connection between that episode and the Powerpuff Girls episode and the Dexter's Lab episode,

and of course the Foster's episode. It's the latest in our line of Craig McCracken bios, but it was a great show for us to experience for the first time and it is our final patron pick for now So excited to work out of our comfort zone Yeah, it was it fit very well with with what we had just done and it was also fun To re-explore now with some distance the the late aughts early 2010s Now with some distance, the late aughts, early 2010s, era of US animation as Cartoon Network is canceling programs and losing Craig McCracken and Disney television animation

is picking up Craig McCracken and his team. And I really had not given Wander Over Yonder a chance before and I really, really did enjoy it. And we both had a lot of fun talking about it on the episode, just coming out very soon. Yeah, and that show's on Disney Plus as well, all of it. So it's very easy to find. And as for our mini series available to patrons

at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, we have, of course, Talking Futurama, our regular monthly Talking Futurama. We're in the middle of the Comedy Central era, and this month's episode is going to be called The Prisoner of Benda. and in case you're not sure what that is, or the very obscure novel it's referencing, it is a episode that is full of very complicated

mind swaps and a mathematical theorem that will get everyone's mind back in the correct bodies. It's a very big stunt, comedic stunt in other words. It's an extremely Ken Keilery episode of the show and you know it's a very good one of the season that also is, it feels like classic Futurama in that it is needlessly complicated and leaves you going like wait I just have to assume this math is correct, I gotta trust him. The writers have diagrams somewhere and of course we have Talking of the Hill for patrons

as well and we're covering the season four episode, Little Horrors of Shop, in which Hank outdoes Peggy as a substitute teacher. Gasp! It's a great episode. I love this one. Oh yeah, it's really great too. We haven't recorded yet, but I just watched it. And yeah, it is much, I remembered it, it's better than I remembered.

And for our What a Cartoon Movie podcast for $10 and up patrons at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, we are going back to Don Bluth Recovering an American Tale a big movie for Bluth and I believe the first Animated movie that Steven Spielberg produced. Oh, yes. Yeah, this was a very hot streak for Spielberg We talked a little about this era for him in our what a cartoon on who framed Roger Rabbit and that he really wanted to Get into the animation world. And then, you know, before Disney opens the checkbook to him for Roger Rabbit, he's able to work with the best people who quit Disney. And, you know, we've we it's been a while since we did The Secret of Nymphs. So I'm looking forward to hearing more of the great history

you did continue that you did on Don Bluth all those years ago. Yeah, I was going through all of our old episodes for something I'll tell everyone about next and I noticed that the Secret of Nim is maybe our sixth episode of What a Cartoon and that was back when we did not have editors so I remember it was a Sunday where we recorded for like four or five hours and then I immediately went home and edited that podcast for the rest of the day. I'm glad our schedules aren't as tight and it went live like at 9 p.m. that same day.

So I'm glad our schedules aren't as tight anymore. But now we have a little more time, we can take it a little easier, and we can learn a little bit more about Don Bluth. And this is like one of the first animated movies I remember being new as like a very, very little kid. Like who is Fievel? Why is he on things that are being given to me?

I don't know what's going on. Yeah, no, I think it was one of the first cartoons I saw in theaters, though. I think I've said before that it might just be the first animated feature I saw in theater was The Song of the South. It might have been, and I hate to say it. Hey, that was not your fault.

Yeah, but the 1986 re-release, this is a much better 1986 release of a film. At least as I recall, it's been a while, but hey, I will always treasure the Linda Ronstadt, Peebo Bryson song. And that reminded me, I wanted to make a note for patrons, so if you want some additional help in finding all the content we've made over the last eight years on Patreon. I would suggest everyone go over to the Collections tab on the Patreon page that is right next to the Home tab on the header of our Patreon site and in that you will find that I have organized all of our

exclusive content into different categories so if you want to look up let's say what all of our interviews were you just click on the Talking Simpsons interviews collection you can find them all there or let's say what all of our interviews were you just click on the talking simpsons interviews collection You can find them all there or let's say you never heard talking critic. Well, it's all in one great location. So Uh, it's the there's actually just podcast playlists that work within the website interface But in case you miss something and that's entirely possible because we have like over 1000 pieces of audio posted to our patreon Go to the collections tab on our patreon site and you can find most of it very easily now. Seeing it all together in a collection did make me swell with pride for everything we've made. I mean, I know we we always talk about how productive we are and how we've, you know, been doing this for years now.

But yeah, just seeing the just the sheer numbers just seeing it as just like numbers in different collections of seasons or projects or interviews and just all together I was like wow we've done a lot like I seriously had forgotten like four of the Interviews we had done when I saw them all there Yeah, and I think now we have like 75 or 76 what a cartoon movie episode There's a lot to go over there And yeah, just check it out on the collections tab on our patreon page patreon.com Slash talking Simpsons and now we can talk about what we've been playing and watching that's not necessarily related to podcasting or at least this podcast and I've been having a very nice relaxing February just

doubling down on work and also doubling down on relaxing and watching stuff and playing stuff and reading stuff and I've finished a few games. I did finish Ace Attorney Investigations 2. That is the final Ace Attorney game I had to finish. So now I have finished all 13 of them. I can legally practice law in many American states. And in case you're not familiar with the series, that game is the one that came out in Japan in 2011. It was a DS game in 2011. So Capcom said, we're not going to bring that to America. So it finally came to America in 2024. It was a DS game in 2011. So Capcom said, we're not going to bring that to America. So it finally came to America in 2024 and most people had not played it. So I was very happy to finally play that and to finally put every Ace Attorney game behind me. Now Capcom needs to make

a new one. It's been far too long. So I really enjoyed playing that. And I was really getting into my first racing game I have played since Burnout Paradise, the last racing game I really got into. And this one, I just bought it on a whim over the holidays, Forza Horizon 5. And it is a very fun and very simple racing game. If you want to be a car lunatic, and I am not, they have all of these little things you can fiddle with, all of these options, all of these real cars that I can't recognize. But if you like vroom vroom beep beep, go fast, the game uses two buttons, break and

go. And that's it. There's nothing that complicated about playing the game. Frankly, there's too much content. I'm just going through like the core stuff and I'm kind of at the end, but I am really enjoying it and I don't need to tell people out there because it's an acclaimed series, but I'm not a racing guy. I just thought I've not played a racing game in a while and I jumped into that and I'm having a good time. Yeah when I saw that one on your list there Bob I was like wait this has to be a typo Bob doesn't play racing games like I've never heard you talk about the Forza series before like and I I mean I'd only know to pronounce it as Fortza because of covering it in the video game world before.

Like, they always looked pretty and I always heard that they were more approachable, especially the Horizon series, than say, Gran Turismo. Yeah, yeah, Gran Turismo got too fiddly for me. It got too punishing for me. So I kind of tapped out after the second game, but jumping back into it now, into the world of racing games, there's a lot of accessibility and like I said, you don't really need to be a gearhead to world of racing games. There's a lot of accessibility and like I said you don't really need to be a gear head to get into these games so having a lot of fun with that and I also played the Monster Hunter Wilds beta Monster Hunter Wilds is coming out at the end of this week as of this recording very excited for that. I did enjoy the beta although I think I might like Rise

a little more that's the one that came out before although I played 200 hours of Rise I played three hours of Monster Hunter Wild, so we'll see. But it does feel more like a direct sequel to World, the 2018 game, than building off of what Rise did. And Rise was a very, very good game. And I think to date that has been my favorite Monster Hunter game. You know, Worlds is the only one I really played, so I was waiting for Wilds to come out to give it another shot. I'd heard your praise for Rise as well, but it just, you know, I had other 100-hour plus

RPGs to play that time instead. Or to become a Souls guy. I became a Souls guy in the intermediary years. That's true. That's true. So you have to pick your 100-hour games carefully, and this is my next one. So I'm clearing the intermediary years. That's true, that's true. So you have to pick your 100 hour games carefully and this is my next one. So I'm clearing the schedule for that. And I also wanted to point out, this is for basically three people listening, but if you

like the Danganronpa series, if you like the works of the guy who made that and the Zero Escape games, there is a new game coming out in April. There is a playable demo for this on Steam and I believe on Switch. It is called The hundred line last Defense Academy It is essentially a fire emblem that meets danganronpa where it's all the social stuff from danganronpa But now it feeds into a tactical RPG. That's a lot like fire emblem But the big twist is fire emblem says if you let a character die, we're gonna jam bamboo shoots under your fingernails It's the worst thing that can happen to you in a game. But in this game, it's like go ahead

let people die. In fact, it makes you get stronger in the battles if characters die. And then when the battle's over, they come back to life! So it's a little twist on the Fire Emblem formula where they're having fun with the idea of death empowering you in battle. And so far I did enjoy the demo. It's four hours long and your progress does carry over into the main game. So I am looking forward to that. And it does sound like it is a last ditch effort by this developer to stay in business. And it sounds pretty dire for them. So I am going to be a day one purchaser of this just to keep them in their

weird games as part of our strange gaming fabric. I guess it seems like they had some trouble since leaving Spike, right? The ongoing independent, that's too bad. Yeah, and I guess this is the first time they've made a game where they own the IP, so they really wanna make this into a thing, and they want this to become popular.

So I'm rooting for them, and even though it looks like a PS2 game, I understand it's a low-budget indie game, but I really like the visual styling and I like the tactical battles. I was really getting into them. And it's a fun new twist on a kind of game I played a lot. I'm gonna give this a shot.

I'm booting up the Steam Deck tonight. I'm giving this a shot based on your description of it. Like, yeah, I love, I, cause I only finished the first Danganronpa, but I did really enjoy it. And I, you know, I'm a freak for Fire Emblem. So, and Fire Emblem style games. It's definitely, they're doing something worthwhile with it.

And in terms of watching stuff, now I watch like six movies a week, so I don't know what to talk about. But I've been watching a lot of early Spielberg because Blank Check is doing their early Spielberg series, or at least Spielberg up to, I believe, Jurassic Park. I think that's where the cutoff point is. I think, or Schindler's List,

whichever was theatrically released last out of those two in 93. Yeah, so Spielberg to 93, but it made me realize, oh, I had not seen a lot of early Spielberg. Of course, I've seen ET and the Indiana Jones films and so on, but I had not seen Duel. I had not seen the Sugarland Express and I had not seen 1941.

And now I can proudly say I have seen them and two of the three are worth watching. You can guess which ones. No, I haven't. If I ever saw Duel, it would have been like played on TV million years ago. I've never seen the Sugarland Express and same with like 1941. I've never seen the Sugarland Express and same with like

1941 I had only seen like clips out there and it's you know, it's it's funny to hear that that's the weakest one cuz well, I I'd heard that before but that you know, I I've been thinking a lot There was all the Saturday Night Live retrospective stuff and this it's a piece of that I mean who was like a front row or like third row from the front in all of the crowd reaction shots at the SNL 50? Steven Spielberg right there in the center shot.

So he's still friendly with all the Saturday Night Live people who, you know, Ackroyd and Belouche are in this. Yeah, he's been making movies and directing things longer than SNL's been around, which is insane. Yeah, I think it's just that the 50th anniversary special there was like maybe four people there who were doing things before SNL became a thing, who actually could like do stuff and participate in it.

So yeah, Duel is great. These are all very easy to find, by the way. They made it into a proper theatrical release, I believe, in other territories, but the version I watch is a theatrical version. It's essentially a bloated Twilight Zone episode where they do everything possible they can do with one car going after another car. And it's very good, obviously directed by Spielberg. I don't need to tell you this. Sugarland Express is basically Spielberg saying, I'll make one of these movies that's popular in the 70s. So it's a movie about flawed characters and their journey, and it's a fugitive movie.

It's a little rough around the edges, but it is his first collaboration with John Williams. I did enjoy it. It's not one of my favorites, but it's him working out of his comfort zone before he firmly really finds his comfort zone and understands like, oh, I should make the things I wanna make, not the things that are popular right now.

And I haven't seen Close Encounters in a long time. I mean, I also know there's multiple cuts of it. Which cut did you watch? I think the director's cut is the one that is the most available, and they're not that different. They only add, and actually they take away some of the footage where in the theatrical version you see inside of the spaceship,

but he takes that out because it's something he never wanted to do. And I saw a 70 millimeter print of the 4K restoration of that way back in 2017 in Oakland. So that's the first time I saw it and I watched it again, still really loved it, got to show it to Nina for the first time too. And I did want to mention 1941,

which is Spielberg's Folly. That's where he really learned his lesson. He went too big. And I did watch it in two sessions on an elliptical machine, which is the best place to watch it because you could not escape. It is the most boring, brilliant looking movie you've ever seen. It is absolutely like peak Spielberg in terms of visuals, in terms of, you know, special effects, in terms of miniatures, but it is just the most telegraphed jokes you've ever seen over and over and over again. And maybe like a few things that are worth pulling out

and just watching on their own, but absolutely not worth it. And the director's cut is two and a half hours long. So get ready for that. If you're gonna sit down to watch 1941, but now I can say I have done it. I wonder, I don't think you've seen it before, Bob. Will this make you, all this early Spielberg stuff,

will this make you want to check out the Fablemans? Yes, now I want to because it does help you unlock the key to why Spielberg is the way he is and why all of his issues find their way into his movies. Like, of course, because I know about the Fablemen's now, I'm watching Close Encounters, like, oh, it's about a broken family and the dead leaves and everything.

And of course, of course, this is just therapy for him. Everything is not like, we don't need to be Freud about everything, but it's really clear to see, like, when he's filtering his trauma through his arts. Not, yeah, I mean, not every filmmaker is, you know, surface level in that way, nor all of his films like that,

but I mean, it is pretty easy to, he can be surface level red in some points, like, oh, that's your mom, right? Like, he goes like, yeah, that's my mom. Especially knowing what I know about the Fable Moons and then watching AI, which I'm not sure if I talked about on here a few months ago, but the ending of AI is like the perfect day

is a date with mommy where you go to bed with her at the end. Yep, yeah. And you're a little boy forever with mommy in bed. The end. That's what Fable Moons is all about too, so yep, yeah. I'm glad he was willing to be so confessional. And then other stuff, I have not really done anything

or gone anywhere, it's been so great. Although I will say, I did purchase the first cell, my first cell in 24 years. Henry has purchased me cells in the past before, and I still need to frame those and do something with those. But on my own, this is the first cell I have purchased since the year 2001. And because of a great person on Twitter,

they clued me into this eBay auction. It was for a Duckman's duckman cell and background and Whenever I search for duck man I cannot find any production materials, but this was a fantastic cell featuring the entire family And it was an unrelated background It's from a different episode, but the background matched the cell and it was it was so perfect And I got it for just a little over $200 So thank you person on Twitter for letting me know about like basically the one

duckman cell I've ever seen on sale and now I'm gonna get that framed and now I'm finally getting things framed because I've realized like oh I've had posters and tubes forever I've had art press between cardboard forever I'm just gonna let someone else handle that so I got two two things framed recently. One is my great commission by Ren and Snippy co-creator Bob Camp. Another one is something that Bill Morrison did for a video release that featured the Simpson segment, Time and Punishment.

Those are both professionally framed now and I recommend that because some people say, oh framing's a ripoff, but I'm so happy that I didn't have to touch anything or pick anything out. It was just let them handle it, please. Yeah, no, that cell looked amazing. That was so cool to see.

Yeah, my White Whale of Simpson Cells now is a cell of the itchy and scratchy cell Bart bought. And I've seen it once only. And of course, it went for $4,000 or something. Yeah, I should point out that a Duckman sell costs about a fifth of what a Simpson sell costs, which makes sense because the budget of Duckman was about a fifth of a step to the Simpsons so it all works out in the end. So yeah, thank you to the person on Twitter who clued me into that. That is the only reason I'm

on Twitter now because I'm getting all the Duckman scoops. See, my DMs are just the same picture of a woman soliciting me in DMs over and over again with different names, but it must be the same woman. It wouldn't just be that Twitter DMs are just like full of spam now. Well, the only way to make her go away is to buy her Apple gift cards. Okay, I'll get on that. Yeah, but yeah, that is it for my February. Not going anywhere for a while.

I also won't be going to Midwest Gaming Classic this year for RetroNauts, so taking that off this year just because we want to travel less. So sorry if you're heading out there and you wanted to see me or say hi or go to my panel. Will not be happening for me, but RetroNauts will still be there. Well as for me, on the video game front in February, I did a good chunk of games as I wrote it down, but three major ones. So I did have two, I flew, I was in an airplane for about 20 total hours and 10 of those hours I spent playing more Ballet Row on my phone. And there is just something about that music plus a podcast. Like I enter a trance and time flies by. Like it really

did do it. Yeah. I brought this up on another episode But I was just wondering like what did Henry do on the flight because I didn't see you report on like watching anything or reading Anything your letterbox was like a tumbleweed was rolling through it And then you told me you fell into a real b-hole on your flight. Yeah, you know I did I I have now logged it on letterbox, but I did forget to log Tangled. I finally watched Tangled. Oh, that was a flight watch, okay. Yes, yeah, it just took me a minute to remember to do it. Honestly, I was kind of in a haze.

But, and then other games I played, I would not have paid for it, but because it was on Game Pass, I completed Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. You know, it starts good, but I remembered what was, uh, repetitive and crummy about Ninja guide and two. And the, the, the black update did not make it that much better. Like it's, it's a fa it's, I'd give it a seven out of 10 at best. Is that

why you wouldn't have paid for it? Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, Oh, they've really, cause I had heard and the first level I think is kind of promising. I'm like, Oh, they did because basically they didn't need to ninja gotten to then they said they Tecmo Koei had said oh we lost the source thing So we had to start over from the beginning with Sigma and Sigma wasn't Ninja into Sigma was not balanced the same and it had crummy new levels to it And then they said they'd never redo it again, and then they surprised everybody like, Oh, here's Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. We've we balanced out between Sigma and original and it starts promising like, okay, they did.

They took the right notes and it doesn't have all the problems of Sigma. And then at about the 40% mark I was like, I didn't feel like the problems I had with Sigma here. But I finished it. I was like, ah, this is easy. It is a pointless story. It is kind of fun to play a game with a pointless story that is not worth paying attention to sometimes. Yeah, I'm really hungry for another character action game. Well, I guess I played Hi-Fi

Rush last month and that was good, but that game's a few years old now because Devil May Cry, there hasn't been a new one of those since 2019 and the last one was really good. Bayonetta appears to be on ice for a while after Bayonetta 3 and Bayonetta Origins. I'm waiting for a new character action game. They seem to be like, we're getting one of those a year now. Well, Platinum's making Ninja Gaiden 4 this year, so I'm hopeful for that.

And a no-commy sequel, too. That's right, that's right, man. It's a good year. But, okay, and so also I've now started up and I'm about 10 hours into like a dragon pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, which is they're really clever. They basically start with the first five to seven hours is like, it's a pirate game. All this new stuff isn't this cool. And now I'm two hours into, Hey, you're in Honolulu. Everything's same except there's like like some new stories but

it's all of the same side characters and everything and it does it feels more like DLC than a real game it's more like the the man who erased his name that that game but it's very much it's it's more like DLC but it's still going to be a 40-hour game but that's instead of being 115 hour game, like a Yakuza game normally is. If I certainly small by comparison like a dragon, but it the first two chapters are just have been just so charming like Majima is funny.

And this is because this is Majima's game, they find a good conceit for him to basically like be bugs buddy and talk to the camera sometimes or have like a full musical montage in it. There's a lot of cleverness to it and I actually do like the ship to ship combat. It's really good. I like it a lot. So yeah, the thumbs up on Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. I'll see how far I can get in it before Mon-hun Wilds comes out. Don't call it that. Mon-hun.

If you start saying Mon-hun and Drak-Way, we're going to get the real Jims in here. Well, I just came from Japan, Bob. It's what everybody calls it there. No, no, I'm sorry. Okay, but as for watching stuff, I did see, I've been doing a little slow perusal of the Mission Impossible films because my husband's like, you know, and I heard these were good, let's finally watch them. So we watched Ghost Protocol together and then we, and before that we watched three, now we've watched five at Rogue Nation. And it is full of amazing stunts and then predictable Obama era espionage stories. It really does rip off the plot

from the three years earlier James Bond movie Skyfall where it's just like, bureaucrats think that this spy is too cool, we have to fire him kind of story. And it's just, it's very repetitive. Yeah, I guess we've been crawling our way through these movies because I have never seen any of them. And I think my wife has not seen too many of them,

but she showed me one, we watched two together. I think we're gonna slowly be going through them as the years pass. There's a lot of these. I'm wondering if we just need to now watch six and seven. And if we can do that before I think may is When the the final reckoning comes out it's said to be the last film in in the Tom Cruise franchise We shall see but it is I mean there

You don't watch it for the story or Tom Cruise is acting you watch him to like run fast and do his and do a bunch of crazy stunts like it's and fast and do his and do a bunch of crazy stunts. Like it's, if you are sick of the green screen of all of like expensive movies now, his feel like the one expensive movie that wants to be real. And then when I was in Japan, I also watched a very exclusive film. You can only watch if you're in Japan

when the Ghibli Museum is slotted. This in is one of its shorts, debuted in 2002, and they play it like once a month a year at it, and it's May and the Kitten Bus, which is the only official sequel that Hayao Miyazaki ever wrote and directed, though it is a 15-minute short film, not a full movie. But it was really great, It was really, really great.

I thought- Are there any remaining short films you still would go back to see? That I would go back to see? No, I mean, there's still, so I believe it is 12 total, and I think there are seven I have not seen, and they all look good, and I would love to watch them, but they would not be ones I would make a plan to visit.

But when I first heard of, when I heard of May and the Kitten Bus, when it debuted in 2002, it had been one I'd been wanting to see for the longest time. And it being part of the reason we did our quick one week trip to Tokyo was that we learned it was coming back to play at the Ghibli Museum in February.

We're like, well, our anniversary is the first week of February, they're showing May and the Kitten Bus, and I seriously had been wanting to see it since I was like 20. Oh yeah, it was an anniversary trip. What kind of couples thing did you plan? Was there any big anniversary deal? Yeah, no. We went out to dinner at a really cool unagi place, an eel place, though we didn't do the fancy. Next time, we were too intimidated

by the multi-stage bowl of rice. We didn't learn about it beforehand. We only saw it on the menu when we got there. Hittsu mabushi, the pro tip is it's a regular meal that you just pour green tea on at the end and have the rest. It seemed the couple next to us, well also it was one of those nice feelings of,

nice but also intimidating of, oh, we're the only non-Japanese people in this restaurant. This feels like we're at a real place. Every time I went to a place like I went to this, oh man, let me tell you, I went to my favorite ramen place or one of my favorite ramen places, Jiro style ramen, which means a giant pile of noodles. It's like more noodles than broth and bamboo shoots over the thing and huge chunks of meat. It's like a giant bowl that kills you for the day. And, and I have trouble finishing

the regular size bowl, which is a big bowl by other things. That meanwhile, there is this cute girl, the only woman at the stalls, it's all guys, all other Japanese guys, and then this cute young Japanese woman, she orders the giant cartoonishly big you only eat this for the grand bowl, and I swear, I didn't even see her photographing it or filming it, she was just going to town

on this huge bowl of noodles, I couldn't believe it. We call that going Goku mode. It was, it really was. On a bowl of noodles. But the only other thing, I don't wanna spoil May and the Kitten Bus for such an exclusive film, but I swear the only reason Miyazaki wanted to do it

is because there is an early scene where May, the youngest daughter in the Totoro films, has to complicatedly unwrap a single serving caramel out of cellophane and it is so meticulously animated, the opening of the cellophane. Who's life did he destroy to make that scene happen? And I watch some other stuff too, a lot of TV, but the only other thing I want to talk about for my trip,

other animation stuff we did in Japan, we went to... we got to see the big Miyazaki clock chime. It's by the Nete building and it's a free thing to see. It happens like about four or five times a day and you just stop by the nearby station and just wait and film it and it goes off and he made it. It's just, it basically is like a almost the Howl's Moving Castle house sized thing that just goes off and rings the bell.

I posted the video for it, it was so cool. It looks very cool. And I also went to, I'd never been to a miniature museum before and no, I'm not Hank Hill's mother. It was, it was because they hosted a whole Evangelion wing of the place where they have a full, and I mean full, recreation of Tokyo 3. Like every building, like here is Misato's apartment complex. Here is the school. Here is the building where Rei Iyanami lived. And you have to like look in the windows like wow look there's like a two

centimeter big ray in the window here that you can see yeah the pictures look great and it fully transformed to it was like you know how Tokyo 3's buildings go up and down it goes through a full day night cycle and they had a launchpad for the Ava's like so yeah and that's that's in the Odaiba area so that's another one for animation fans out there if you find yourself in Odaiba Don't just get your picture with that Gundam by the Gundam base building head over to small worlds Miniature Museum But but that's basically those are all the big things. I wanted to talk about the Tokyo I wanted to ask what is the coolest thing you bought?

Because I saw that you got a spider-man I'm glad you limited yourself to one because I think you need to do a Spider-Man head count in your apartment and maybe do a spreadsheet because every holiday, birthday, anniversary I see, you're getting new Spider-Men. And I think you might have an army at this point. If we're talking full action figures, I would bet it's more than 12.

Oh, I would bet it's more than 50, but let's continue this conversation. But yes, I got the, well, it was really cool where we stayed in Akihabara. You've stayed there too. It's right by the official or an official Tamashi Nation store, which they make those very cool SH Figures Arts characters and toys.

And they have exclusive store exclusives there, and they had a store exclusive Spider-Man and an Ava Unit 1, and I got both of those. So that was the Spider-Man. But the best thing, boy, it's really tough, but no, I don't have it. I've already shelved it. But it was, I got a really cool new published

in dual language English Japanese collection of background art from the Hayao Miyazaki films, from the Ghibli films. This was sold only at the Ghibli Museum, and it was like $100. It was a very fancy, huge glossy print, and again, dual language, so that's another reason I wanted to get it.

It was actually in English. That sounds great. Yeah, I didn't see this. Oh, and I did get some cool new pens, too. I did to get it. Like it was actually in English. That sounds great. Yeah, I didn't see this. Oh, and I did get some cool new pens too. I did get this one that's like, it's this display up there. You can't really see it in the video here, Bob. But it's like, it's a me as a, it's a Ghibli museum based on the display

of the robot there that I really love. There's, yeah, those, oh, and of course I got Nintendo buttons as well. Oh yeah, we were showing off our Nintendo buttons from the vending machines at the Nintendo store, or the gacha machines at the Nintendo store. Yeah, though when I went there, they wouldn't even let you touch the gacha machines.

They were like, no, you have to buy this at the counter, and we limit you to three. Oh wow, I guess there was a, like, tourists were destroying the experience, not like me. Yeah, no, that was honestly the general vibe. Well, so this was a funny thing about being in Tokyo was that I read this after the fact that you know that you see people from everywhere visit a major city like Tokyo But the timing of the first week was Lunar New Year

for especially for for China and Korea, so there were actually a ton of Chinese and Korean Tourists around there too. I actually felt like oh,, there's fewer like English speakers around here and it's mostly Koreans and Chinese talking. But there, there was a little bit of a vibe of all you've seen are these headlines like from Japanese press of saying like, are there too many tourists? Are we making it too friendly? There's I fear there is like an over-tourism vibe there,

a little bit in a major city like Tokyo. Well, next time I definitely want to go to northern Japan where it's nice and cold and there's less tourism, I guess. Unless you're doing winter sports, which I don't think we'll really be doing that, but maybe. I'm looking forward to my next visit. We've done Tokyo twice now, and this one was just for a week. Next visit is the Kansai region,

and we got some real plans to Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka, all the cool places. Awesome, a good trip, and look forward to us reporting back on more Japan trips, listeners. You can't fast forward through this, we know. Hey, next year, we've got Europe plans, we've got Europe plans. We've got non-Japan plans, finally.

But it's Japan again next, though, is the next big plan. Check in every once in a while. Make sure everything's okay. So moving on to questions and comments for Talking Simpsons, the first episode was, the last temptation of Homer. And we had a lot of lazy eye chats in the comments. A lot of people weighing in.

We appreciate all of it. I just pulled out the one, no pun intended. I yanked it out, shot it with a laser, and now we're gonna read it. And Joe Hodgson says, my wife has had troubles with a lazy eye, so she can certainly attest how difficult that condition is to correct.

She had eye surgery as a kid to correct it, but apparently that sort of thing can wear off and she had to get it done again while we were dating, hopefully for the last time. Per her, the surgery isn't bad, and the recovery time was basically taking it easy for a weekend. As someone who wears glasses and could get that fixed with laser surgery and chooses not to,

I would have a hard time getting corrective surgery for a lazy eye. Something about eyes just freaks me out, and I can't even do contacts. On the plus side, neither of our children appears to have inherited her condition." And that is from Joe Hudson. Thanks for sharing your story. I said staring because I'm thinking about eyeballs. No, thanks Joe for that. I, as a lazy eye-habber, you know, I should look to your

wife's confidence in getting that surgery done because I am you know as as Joe describes himself here I am more of that like oh boy I don't want to put in like contacts like I I stuff really does you know It it skews me out more than other people who can put in contacts or get eye surgery, but hearing that it's like This the one she got done As an adult and that it's like basically taking it easy for a weekend It gives me that gives me some confidence. Now I don't think she'd mind if we shared this

because I think I've talked about it before, but a friend of the show, Maddie Kopp, had to get eye surgery maybe like five or six years ago and when we first met her she had very, very thick, thick eye classes to the point where I made the joke from I believe Bart on the Road about the anti-coke bottle bottoms, whatever that joke was

But she got like very intense eye surgery to correct her vision problems that she didn't have a lazy eye that she had like very intense vision problems and Basically, it was yeah like just for a weekend It seems you just take it easy and I was surprised based on how invasive it sounded she bounced back incredibly quickly So I guess things have really come a long way in the terms of eye surgery, correcting issues, things like that. And maybe if Maddie's listening, you can weigh in

and let us know what the logistics were behind that if you're comfortable with it. But I know she's talked about it before. The Simpsons prediction of eyeballs falling out after 10 years has not come true. No, Weird Al is living proof. He's like one of the first celebrities that I ever knew of to get a LASIK.

He turned his back on the glasses life, just like his mustache and poofy hair. And Hawaiian shirts. And also on that episode, Matthew Hughes says, I love when an episode has a joke in it in plain sight, particularly a sign gag. The spelling of Madame Chow's gets me every time and also totally appropriate for the chaos going on in Homer's brain this whole episode.

And yes, totally flew over my head as well. At first I thought like, is this an edge case? But then I realized, well, the restaurant does not have a inherently funny name unless you apply this meaning to it. So I'm gonna say I buy it. I had assumed the reason they went to a Chinese restaurant was to get the fortune cookie joke in there, which I wonder which came first, that,

or oh, if it is a Chinese place, chow, possessive S, chow's, is spelled the same way as chaos. That's also, or I wonder which came first, the fortune cookie or that it spells chaos. I wanna say fortune cookie, but we need to peer into the mind of, who wrote that episode? Oh, Frank Mueller? Yeah, oh boy, we're gonna have to get a seance together

for that one. Yes, we're gonna contact the ghost of Frank Mueller. We'll report back after next month. And up next we have iDobot and Tyler Rampley says, actually that culturally insensitive name for Bart's Robot is a reference to a culturally insensitive former mascot Chief Nakahoma was the Atlanta Braves mascot from the year they arrived in the city 1996 or sorry 1966 Until the mid 80s as a lifelong Braves fan I had to learn about him from older relatives because they didn't really have a mascot when I was growing up in the Nazis. And I don't know if either of the writers are sportsmen and it certainly

could just be a play on Homer's name, but it feels too specific to not be a reference. And I believe this is a reference, Tyler. I think Tyler is correct too. I mean, at the very least Al Jean we know is a big baseball guy. And so I could definitely see it as a rev. I mean, mean they the number of times they've also had like Chief Wahoo just drawn into the show as a way to make fun of that specific you know insensitive baseball mascot. I'm not surprised it would be another one and yeah I also despite being a Braves fan at the same time Tyler was in in the well I actually know, earlier than him in the early 90s, then as a little kid,

Nakahoma had also been shoved into the memory hole. I had not heard about it either when I was a kid. We were doing the not at all insensitive Tomahawk Chops back then. Which I learned about from I think Duke Phillips. As a kid. The sound he makes when imitating it is a very funny sound.

Meanwhile on that episode, Matt Quintilia also says, BattleBots on Comedy Central was like ECW on sci-fi. It was two great flavors of television ruining each other. When it came back in 2015, the wedge flipper meta quickly gave way to the new meta of building some sort of absurdly powerful spinner that doesn't allow anything near it without sending shrapnel so fast it pierces the lexon walls. The problem, however, is that, unlike in the 2004 episodes, a working-class family can't

really enter these competitions. Long gone are the days when some proles would basically make a remote-controlled lawnmower with a large blade and have a puncher's chance at victory. They are now dominated by teams who have tens of thousands of dollars to spare on custom machined parts that were made from the same materials NASA uses to build rockets. I see even in BattleBots, the rich get richer. This is what Bernie Sanders warned us about. We refused to listen to him.

Every American should have their own BattleBot. You know, when that reboot started in 2015, that's when we should have been listening to him the most. Yes, I agree. Man, that's so sad to learn that, because I had mentioned that the video on current BattleBots I had watched to learn, or the last 10 years of BattleBots

that I learned for this episode, I'm so sad to hear that it's not a mom and pop like, oh we all built it in the basement thing like that. Though I also liked hearing that BattleBots has changed, like yeah, no, it's the spinning things that sends shrapnel everywhere. The wedge flipper, that's so in the past now. Nobody does a wedge flipper anymore.

Yeah, I'm so out of it. I only knew about the flipper. But thank you for the information, Matt. And now moving on to Springfield with a dollar sign. And Zeffiel says, I actually worked on the Simpsons slot machine, and I wanted to share some behind the scenes about that. It was supposed to be a seven, I think, game contract, but for reasons I'll get to, it was the only one. We wanted to start

with a classic Simpsons themed one, but Gracie Films insisted on the casino themed one. They also kept rejecting every submission of the game, kept giving us pages of notes, at which point we would change nothing and submit it again next month only to get completely different notes. When we threatened to sue Gracie because they wouldn't let us release the game, the contract for multiple games was dissolved and they let us release the one that was done. It was such an ordeal and because of it, there will probably never be another one.

Thank you for the behind the scenes on that, Zephiel. We mentioned that there was at least one Simpsons slot machine in recent memory and I guess Zephiel worked on that. Yeah, I really appreciate that insight into it. It was crazy watching videos of it to see, you know, this fully featured, like, episode-level quality animation for all of the adult characters having their, you know,

Rat Pack style adventures as, I think, Nick Weiger, our guest on that one, said he had actually played it in person, but here I had chalked it up to Disney canceling contracts because they wouldn't want it anymore, but I guess I'm not surprised that Gracie films can have a lot of strange notes that are difficult to work with. We've heard that at times. Also on that episode, Ever See a Sandwich Take a Butt out of you user says I've seen this episode many many times and I just noticed on this rewatch that when Homer is dealing blackjack his card count is 1827 and then 35 there's no card in

blackjack worth 12 so Homer is being a terrible dealer to himself also Arnold dropped out of the Hans and Franz movie because, after the last action hero flop, he didn't want to attach himself to another meta-film. Conan did a script reading on his podcast with Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, and Robert Smigel as Arnold. Arnold would have done the podcast reading, but sadly he was busy. Oh, that's too bad. So I guess if you want to know what this movie was, there's an entire reading of it online somewhere. I need to check this out.

I'd only seen the clips of Arnold on Conan's podcast talking about it, not this reading with Neelan and Carvey. Maybe, though here, I'm a bad podcast listener here because with Conan, I should be looking at his RSS feed of the audio podcast, not just seeing the YouTube suggestions for the clips he puts out there. I should be listening to the full thing. Yes, you need the entire experience. That's why we're not on YouTube except for we put our audio stuff on YouTube, but we refuse to do a video podcast. You'll be too

distracted by our beauty. Not and though also the only yes, you can listen to these. This one probably did actually get on YouTube, but a lot of our ones don't because of that darn, that Disney, they're no fun. Those penny pinchers, they won't let simple podcasters like us steal audio and post it online. What jerks. Moving on to what a cartoon, we covered the Powerpuff Girls in February,

and Thad Komorowski says, "'I have no insightful commentary other than "'that this is the best CN show, "'and Craig McCracken is the most underappreciated of all showrunners. I will say that the 2016 reboot is an utter embarrassment and incompetent mess that everyone involved from the top down should be thoroughly ashamed of. Don't want to be telling tales out of school, but I said as much publicly and one of their friends took me inside to say, quote, Craig and Lauren agree with you, unquote.

No guys, the 90s really was the golden age of TV cartoons. You had to be there to believe it and anyone born after that cannot fully appreciate it. Thank you Thad. By the way, Thad is like 10 years younger than us. So he's not speaking from the same bias we speak from. Yeah, no, I appreciate Thad's insight into this. I mean, I had heard McCracken, you know,

in public statements when I was doing my research was being as nice as possible to all the people who worked hard to animate that show, but he definitely felt it was done for only the reasons to sell more toys and had no creative thing behind it. But yeah, I mean, after covering Wander Over Yonder, we maybe speak to that on that one too, but it just feels like the 90s was when they, the cable networks let animators animate some and gave them some actual leeway, and in the 30 years since,

we've slowly been seeing that snuffed out and smothered to death, and the last bits of it are drawing breath right now. Absolutely, but yeah, Thad Komorowski agrees with us, so it's true, the 90s really were the best. And then on Powerpuff Girls as well, Dashmon Dimps says, after finally giving the show a shot as a young adult, it's shocking to me how much DNA this shares with OK KO,

my personal favorite Cartoon Network show. Both cartoons are hyperactive action fests with funny drawings and a kitchen sink approach to pulling out artistic inspiration. Craig and the crew really had something special going on here, and it's sad that even though we are literally getting more Powerpuff Girls from him, the industry conditions that got us this show in the first place have all but evaporated. So, Henry, you could speak to this. Do you see a lot of similarities between Powerpuff Girls and OKKO? I would totally agree except for like, OKKO cannot revel in the violence because it's a different time

entirely. Yeah, yeah. They're not allowed to be as violent but they get, I mean Ian and Toby and all our pals, they do their best on OKKO with that stuff. And I definitely think the colorfulness of it too is there and as well you know they there are some wonderfully indulgent episodes of OK K.O. that are like just take you know one classic cartoon or comic book and and recreate it for a full length one just just as much as the Power puff Girls did with say the Beatles or a Trix commercial. And we have at least two OKKO episodes in the archives,

ready for What a Cartoon? Yeah, listeners can hear us talk about the show when it was on the air, and then also go through the entire final episode with Toby and Ian as they are talking through the unfortunate early end of their series and how hard they worked on making the perfect finale, which I think they did a very good finale.

And up next we have comments for What A Cartoon Movie. The movie in February was Snow White, or sorry, January was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And Nita Matsumoto says, so number one, as a sneezy person, this is Bob, it's true folks, it's actually true. I have to say, touching the underside of your nose does work to suppress a sneeze. I use this trick often.

If it doesn't work for you, you may not be pressing hard enough or pulling away too soon. It's not just a cartoon thing. There's a science behind it. Something about nerve endings. Number two, to be pedantic. There's no mention of true love in this at all, or the concept of one love. The antidote is listed as love's first kiss. So the kiss working doesn't necessarily mean

the prince is her one true love. It just means he loves her and it's their first kiss, or it's the first kiss she's received from someone she's in love with. In any case, there's no implication that they're destined to be together, and first seems to be an important qualifier here. If Snow White and Prince Charming had kissed

when they met earlier, he may not have been able to revive her later. I think the antidote's been misquoted to the point where people don't remember this. And that is from Nina Matsumoto, my wife. That's on the True Love's, the True Love first kiss, Love's first kiss. That bit, I do partially blame like Disney's own myth making on that. I mean, they in frozen, they definitely are saying true love. Like they, they keep bringing up true love and for, and it's, it's roasting these love at first sight thing. But, but she's right on that. It

was just loves first kiss. And it does make me think of how I saw some of the deleted scenes we talked about in that one, how in some of their early scenes for the Prince and Snow White, he actually does steal a kiss from her at the well, and perhaps it wasn't the intention, but that they cut, by cutting that, it does make their first kiss the one that reawakens it. Yeah, I think we were just frozen-pilled

going into the Snow White podcast, because we had just recorded, I don't know, five hours on Frozen the month before, so we were just thinking of the device from that movie. And what they call it true, true love. Yes. I need to, I, and maybe I am not pushing hard enough on, on under my nose either. When I'm trying to suppress a sneeze. Blake R's comment on Snow White, CS Lewis's review of the movie, which he saw with his buddy Tolkien, always makes me laugh. Quoted here, Dwarfs ought to be ugly, of course, but not in that way. And the Dwarfs' jazz party was pretty bad.

I suppose it never occurred to the poor boob, Walt Disney, that you could give them any other kind of music. But all the terrifying bits were good and the animals really most moving what might not have come of it if this man had been educated or even brought up in a decent society. What a burn I'm surprised he didn't add and where was the Christ figure in this movie? See the Snow White is resurrected but it's not Christ like enough for that old CS Lewis. I would have loved to have been in the audience with CS Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and he's like, oh boy, this is nothing like my new book, The Hobbit, in bookstores now. When Tolkien's seeing the title on screen, that's when it hits him like, ah, F, F for dwarfs, no, it's too late.

I need to call my publisher. I do love that quote that C.S. Lewis being like a fancy pants and just like, oh, this uneducated Missouri loser, Walt Disney, he had him put in all this jazz. He's looking down upon Walt Disney. I wanna see where he went to college. Oh, he didn't, did he?

So moving on to Taki Futurama, a clockwork origin in Tash Mon Dimps is back to say, I think it might be a modern rite of passage for nerdy men to briefly get sucked down the rabbit hole of weird esoteric online bigot movements. I know I was inundated with Gamergate shit in high school and totally bought into the ethics and game journalism propaganda. Watched a ton of anti-SJW content when that was all their age too. Really it was the fact that I'm black that snapped me out of how hateful and wrong that whole side of the internet was, that and you know, meeting tons of cool women and LGBT people in art college. I was glad to hear your stories of breaking free of the lameness before it corrupted you or hearts

like it does so many young men these days and that was Tashmone. And yes, thank you Tashmone. On that episode I talked about how I was part of getting into online internet atheism before Reddit. And then once it hit Reddit, it like became a really weird and gross pipeline. And I responded to this comment on Patreon. I think the difference between like elder millennials and millennials and Zoomers and folks who are younger now

is that before, like when I was doing online atheism in the early aughts, at some point you had to get away from the computer. The internet was only on the computer, so if you wanted to be online, you had to go in a chair, a special chair, sit down at a special desk, and then go onto the internet. And then once you walked away from the computer, you were no longer on the internet, you were around regular people. But now you can constantly be surrounded by the internet

and always be around weirdos that are corrupting you So I think we had that benefit of not always being on the internet and that is what saved a lot of people now a lot Of people are becoming corrupted because again, you can just never log off Yeah, yeah, I think yeah well I also I do think as he mentioned in the comment of the the of the Gamergate movement, but these things have been happening so much for the last 15 years especially. It just seems like the reactionary forces view those spaces as places to set traps or indoctrinate or pull people in. And it's a sad,

and we have had to, just by liking video games or nerdy things, we end up having to try to work as like deprogramming agents. That was not what I wanted to do in my life, but you try to tell these people like, no, this person's lying to you, they just want you to like hate women or be conservative. And yeah, I feel like we're going through the same cycle again where this happened a few weeks ago

and it doesn't even, doesn't really matter, but it's like the world's richest man just tweets out Oh games journalism is a joke and then it's like we're doing we're doing this again And then people rightfully were tweeting there's like 19 games journalists left. What are they doing? You won you killed games journalism or well, they didn't do it But like the the market well actually I guess by him being a rich guy in tech, he did kill it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, threw it around about way. And then like the negative toxic environment

made a lot of people like say, I'll do something else with my life. I don't wanna write about these games for an audience that wants to take apart everything I say, possibly find me and blow up my house. Yes, yeah, there's better subjects to talk about than that. Also on that episode, Tyler M. says, the Manfred Mann song surprisingly not mentioned

in the episode or comment section is their cover of Blinded by the Light, definitely in the realm of the Hendrix all along the watchtower, where the cover is likely more famous than the original. Yeah, this was news to me, so thank you for the comments. I still, when they said Manfred Mann, I thought that's the reference, looked it up,

and I thought, okay, I'll take your word for it, but now this is additional Manfred Man info. I didn't dig enough into their Blinding by the Light cover and only found like the, I watched the first, you know, result of their most recent song, or their biggest song, according to the YouTube algorithm, what it spat out to me. And up next, we have Talking of the Hill,

the episode was Bills are Made to be Broken, and Dudes on Movies podcast says, one other possible inspiration for this episode was college basketball star, Nikeisha Sales, from the University of Connecticut. In her senior season of 1998, she was on her way to breaking the school's career point record, and was one point short when she suffered a season and career

ending injury. UConn's coach Gino Ariema felt it fallout for her falling short of the record because he had pulled her from earlier games when the team had a big lead. So he made arrangements with the conference commissioner and the school's next opponent Villanova to stage a Ricky Sugg style event. After the opening tip the ball was thrown to Nikesha, who was standing underneath the basket, and with her leg in a cache, she was granted an uncontested layup. Villanova then took possession and was given the same chance, tying the score at 2-2. This was a big controversy at the time, and as you can imagine, it elicited a lot of hot ticks. And yes, thank you dudes on Movies Podcast. Unfortunately, there are no King of the Hill

commentaries. There are very few interviews with writers, but I assume if there was a commentary, they would have probably cited this, which I imagine happened far enough before the writing of the episode to inform it. It feels like a direct connection there based on when it happened. Yeah, the positioning of things, the timing of it,

it being a knee injury and a given away point at the beginning, yes. And I wonder now looking back on this, if part of the anger or what exacerbated the anger was that this was not in this real life news story, it was not a white man but a black woman doing it, who they then turn, they can turn on and hate easier in these sports.

There's a lot more baggage attached to a story like this when it is not a white guy doing the sports. There's a lot more baggage attached to a story like this when it is not a white guy doing the event. And our final comment also on that the King of the Hill episode is from Ian Stratton saying, life would imitate art three years later when NFL defensive lineman Michael Strahan set the single season at sack record. On the record-breaking sack, quarterback Brett Favre would passively slide to the ground allowing Strahan to get an easy sack. Many fans felt that Favre was just giving Strahan the record unfairly. It's now one of those records where there's at least someone who will always say asterix not fully legitimate anytime it's mentioned. However, there are also those that

will defend Favre saying that he was just protecting himself by not looking to take a big hit during A tackle can't really blame him. So this is a life imitating art, which is also imitating life Though this is I didn't know that television host Michael Strahan played football. This is news to me I just know him for hanging out with Kelly Ripa. Breaking news along with Simpson sound clips from 35 years ago. So this episode is full of exclusives. I'm learning so much here.

And that Brett Farr was known for things other than unsolicited photographs he sends people. Oh, I forgot about that. Okay. I just remember him from, there's something about Mary, right? Yeah, he was nice. Yeah, he was the other her high school boyfriend,

I think it was. But yeah, but I would bet I think it sounds more likely having just heard about this. I'm now feeling my gut reaction is Brett Favre did just like, hey, I'm the quarterback. I don't want to be hit by the hugest, biggest running tackle on the field today. I'll just slide. Hey, I'm the quarterback. I don't want to be hit by the hugest biggest running bat It's tackle on the field today. I'll just slide. Hey fair enough. But yeah, that was another episode to talk to the audience Thanks for joining us everybody. It's was a kind of just slow Fabric we've been keeping our heads down. We've been working ahead on stuff

Now that we are settled into a groove of not really traveling for a bit We are like a month ahead on stuff, so we're really happy to be working so far ahead. We got a lot of great surprises for you, a lot of great returning guests, and of course, please look forward to your regular episodes of Talking Futurama, Talking to the Hill, and us going back

to the Don Bluth world with our look at an American tale at the end of this month. Yeah, we have some really great stuff planned for March. You can see all the dates for all the Simpsons coming up to in our regularly posted schedule that we have on the Patreon, free for everybody to view. And don't forget, Bob mentioned it earlier, but now it's easy to find so many of our previously special content

that we have done on the Patreon in our collections tab on patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. So please explore that a little, and I you'll find a couple of things that you haven't listened to. Yes. Thanks again for listening folks. We'll see you next week for a new episode of Talking Simpsons and the next month for another episode of Talk to the Audience and we will see you then. Wow, infotainment.