Talking Simpsons - Talk to the Audience?!? - July 2026

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

We've reached the end of the month, which means it's time for another episode of our community podcast! As usual, we're behind the eight-ball when it comes to Comic Con news, but we still have plenty to talk about, like Fox's fall schedule, Emmy nominations, streaming season premieres, and more. And, as always, we read and respond to your questions and comments from the last round of podcasts. It's all happening on Talk to the Audience: the podcast that paralyzes you with rage... and island rhythms! Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoi, hoe, everybody, and welcome to talk to the audience where this is always death. I am one of your host, missing his 56th Comic-Con in a row, Bob Mackey, and who is here with me today, as always. Still waiting for the Emmy nomination for Best Podcast, Henry Gilbert. And yes, welcome to talk to the audience. This is our community podcast. And on this podcast, we cover what's happening in the Simpsons world, what's happening in our world. And then we respond to your questions and comments from the last round of episodes posted on our Patreon.

and this is another slow news month. More importantly, we are behind the eight ball when it comes to covering Comic-Con because as we record this on Friday, July 24th, it is started, right? The doors are open. It smells horrible in there. It's on day two of it. And tomorrow, when we're recording this, is the Comic-Con of any Simpsons news. So, yeah, there's a lot of fun picks.

Mike Carlson, I've been getting light fomo from Mike Carlson taking picks at all of the silly things. He went to the Paramount Lodge and got to. to go to the Star Trek Cafe and the Dutton Ranch and all that. Interesting. Okay. Well, if there's any huge news, I'm sure we will comment on it at some point. Perhaps within this podcast, we'll drop in a clip or something.

But yeah, I'm just wondering, will there be a movie trailer? What will they say about the new season? But by the time this goes live, all of these questions will be answered. So I'll stop speculating. But yes, it's a dry news period for The Simpsons, but we do have a new episode to talk about.

And that episode is called Simpsley, and this was an exclusive and is an exclusive for all of you Disney Plus people. Although when I watched it yesterday, it was not in the exclusives tab yet, which is very confusing. It's currently like a free floating thumbnail in Disney Plus. If you watch The Simpsons on there,

it will show up. And yes, it feels like an episode made for me in a way because this is a parody of the Patricia Highsmith book, The Talented Mr. Ripley. But more specifically, it is a parody of the newer Netflix series, which, yes, is all in black and white. And I'm mad at myself because Mr. Ripley is one of the my favorite books, probably in the top three.

I have not watched that Netflix series, and I feel like I should have watched that before I watch this, because all I remember are the beats from the book, and I feel like this episode does follow them, although it makes some interesting turns. But yes, I'm just wondering why they did this, because it's an interesting idea, but

I think that Ripley series is very unpopular, probably because it's in black and white. I think people turn that on, they think their TV is broken. Netflix is not trying to serve you that kind of entertainment anymore. That's funny, because Amazon Prime, when they did the Spider-Man Noir series. They just wanted the creators of

Noir only wanted it to be black and white and Amazon made them film it in a way that it could be both. But I had not paid much close attention to the Netflix Ripley series. My only familiarity with it is I did enjoy, I haven't seen it in like 20 years, but the

Matt Damon, Jude Law, Philip Seymour Hoffman and was Gwinnett Paul Trow? Is that the fourth in the group? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, she's in that too. I did like that movie, but I take from the Simpsley parody version of it is that perhaps in the Netflix one, they make the homosexual intrigue of it even more to the surface, I think. I really wonder about that because that's not in the book at all.

That's something the director added to the 97 movie. And I'm wondering if they're borrowing that from the 97 movie. But again, I'm speaking out of ignorance because, like, Ripley has no romantic feelings for anyone throughout the course of the series. He's not gay, he's not straight. He's just sort of like Dexter. He's the original Dexter, everyone. And yeah, in this parody, though, they kind of turn Ripley into two different characters, because in the original story and the Matt Damon movie, Ripley is acting on his own.

There is no accomplice who he sees eye to eye with who they're helping each other to advance in this world of like the lazy rich in Europe. Ripley is just doing this, getting away with it, killing anyone who discovers him. So it's an interesting and strange choice to turn Ripley into both Homer and Marge. Although Marge seems to be more of the Ripley figure in that she is like coming. from a low status, going to Europe, getting very angry at all of the lazy rich, the idol rich she sees around her. And then she finds a common partner in Homer, who is a lazy house guest, let's say. Yeah, and the plot to Marge can't just be the Ripley, though, in it of like then pretending to be Skinner. Homer is better as the pretending to be Skinner character after the murder happens.

But then Homer also is gay for Skinner in this story. like he is in love and seems to be only like slightly in love with Marge in this story too. Yes. Notably both Homer and Marge have orgasms together while screaming the name Skinner, which I found an interesting choice. Again, full of interesting choices. And this episode seems to, I guess it's a parody so it's not canon, but it does state that Skinner wears a toupee. That's right. They did get away with it. That's a plot point.

That's right. I wonder if whoever made that choice knew that that was like, inherent in his design from almost 40 years, getting on 40 years from now. Yeah, so I found the last exclusive episode to be kind of interminable and just not, it was not necessary for it to be a double-length episode. If this was a double-length episode, it would have the same kind of quality to it. So I'm glad it was just 22 minutes, you're in, you're out, and they get to the parody immediately. I guess one of my bigger problems with that last episode, Extreme Makeover Homer Edition, is it takes, I think, at least 10 minutes to get to the point of the episode. Yeah, it's a regular episode longer than I thought it would be that one. This one is, and maybe that should be more of what they do with the Disney Plus exclusives.

If it's going to carry on this way for a few more years, then just pick out the like three to five episodes they'd seemingly do every season that are not real episodes and put those on Disney Plus and have regular episodes be the ones on Fox. Sure. So yeah, that was Simply. I think it's worth watching. I just like Patricia Highsmith being recognized because her books only recently started getting adapted into things in the West because they're so dark and fucked up. So I recommend just reading her books because they're all mostly pretty good and the Ripley series is good for the first three. So I'm just glad there's more High Smith awareness. And the next exclusive episode on Disney Plus will be Yellow Mirror. We've reported on this before, but this goes live on August 26th. And it is a black mirror parody with two stories because nobody knows what the Twilight Zone is. anymore. We now have to make Black Mirror our new Tree House of Horror Fodder. The Simpsons have also parody Twilight Zone so long that now the Netflix version of a Twilight Zone has become

popular enough that they can just directly parody that instead of having to go back to the Twilight Zone well. And as far as I know, I've never heard anyone reported that they successfully watched the Jordan Peel Twilight Zone. I only watched the first episode for podcast

knowledge when we did the Tree House, that parodies the terror it 40,000 feet or whatever the name of that one is. I watched the first episode is a remake of that with Adam Scott in it. I think the problem was it launched on streaming during the pandemic, perhaps, but it was before Paramount Plus existed, it was when it was CBS All Access, that's a hard sell. Paramount Plus is already a hard sell, but when you've got something called CBS All Access,

nobody wants that, even for New Star Trek. And it just sounded like it was not as sexy or as current as Black Mirror. that I've watched like a handful of Black Mirror episodes, and some are cornier than others that I've seen, but they at least feel like they have an interesting edge to them. Plus, I think they had better star power than the Twilight Zone remake seemed to have. So yes, look forward to that and our coverage of it,

probably in September, because I imagine we'll record talk to the audience before August 26. I think so. Yeah, we're a little behind the eight ball on some things based on our recording schedule, but you'll hear about it eventually. Now let's move on to season premieres because believe it or not, season 38 is a coming,

and it will premiere on September 27th, and its new Sunday colleagues are Universal Basic Guy Season 3. Yes, it's in season 3. I have the same comment about Grimsberg. Grimsberg season 3 launches. There's a season 3 of Grimsberg? I barely know what Grimsberg is. And also Animal Control dot, dot, dot, dot, season 5.

And Henry had to tell me this is a live action show with, this is where Joel McHale ended up, and it is sort of like Brooklyn 9-9, but you're in the world of animals, You're not arresting people. It's that kind of a show. It's a show I only hear about when the community fan communities I am a part of say, oh, Jim Rash is in this episode of Animal Control,

and they are kind of playing their old characters again. Or it's people saying, Joel McHale's too busy doing Animal Control to film the movie. Yeah, I didn't know where he was. I guess I don't think of him, but I imagine he's out there working somewhere. Although I just rewatch Spider-Man too, and I have to congratulate him for reversing. his baldness. He's alarmingly bald in that movie. And I think the first time I've ever seen

Joel McHill was on community. So I'm used to that hairline. But if you go back to Spider-Man too, it's shocking. He's been to Turkey. He's gotten the surgery. And I think he is of a normal level of fitness instead of a gigantic man level of fitness. Yes. Like, yes. He's fit enough to be like a bank geek in Spider-Man too. Yeah. And to know that behind the scenes, like he almost got the role of Drax, the green man that Dave Batista plays in Guardians of Galaxy. He almost got that, and yet he just stayed

that giant, but he still never got his Marvel gig yet, unfortunately for him. It'll happen someday, Joel. That Doomsday movie is going to be reshot three times before it goes live. Maybe he can sneak in, right? Yeah, that doomsday trailer did feel almost fake to me.

I was just like, but hey, am I going to like that slop when it comes out? Sure, I'll like it. I bet I will. But it really feels like this is their last move they've got to rekindle interest in Marvel. It's smacked of desperation. We put every kind of superhero in this movie. And my question is, where is Bob's Burgers? Bob's Burgers is losing this slot. It will be a mid-season replacement show, just like Family Guy and American Dad. That's what's happening with Bob's Burgers, if you're worried. That's real rough for Bob's Burgers because one has to assume that they were going to do a Thanksgiving episode this year like

they usually do. They've done tons of holiday episodes and Halloween episodes. And this completely misses that. Now, with Family Guy, they then just made Family Guy's Christmas and Halloween episodes Disney Plus exclusives last year. Will they do similar for Bob's burgers? I'm curious. Also, with Animal Control joining it along with those two newer shows, it's no longer animation domination. That is a live action show joining the Sunday thing. So this is kind of the end of animation domination too. I don't like it. I like that block. It was always a solid block. It's existed for, I think, like 20 years or more at this point.

When they have more cartoons than they can deal with, they're still giving it to the fifth season of animal control instead of a different cartoon. Also, where is Cropopolis? Is that over? I don't think it's been officially canceled, but it's just like they have like eight shows they have to fit in in a mid-season cycling. So I think it's just all going to be mid-season replacements like every three to four months then. Yeah, like I guess there are three seasons. It's renewed through season five.

This is another show. I've never heard anyone report watching. It's quietly doing well. I've never seen a giff of it, a post about it. This could just be my circle that I follow. They're not into Cropopolis. But I'm just curious, this is going on for much longer than I thought it would. It is very confusing what is on Fox TV.

But then again, I don't watch broadcast TV. Anyway, it's that I'm part of the problem. of not knowing. This podcast is now two old men confused by television. I turned it on and there was a Universal Basic guy. I did see part of that show at a pizza place. It was just on because they were just showing something on TV and it does look like an

animated greeting card. It's appalling how bad that show looks. Maybe it's funny, I don't know. It could be funny but yes, that the complaints I had about shows like Big Mouth that the Universal Basic guys look so much uglier than that. It's not an appealing visually show. That will not be a future what a cartoon. So The Simpsons is again Emmy nominated this time for I believe

this is the broadcast season finale. It is called Homer a Cracker Bro. And this is the episode where Kirk starts his own cracker business he's revealed to have bipolar disorder and the episode is about that exploring the many hilarious things that can happen if you're Kirk with this disorder.

And it's up against other shows like Rick and Morty Bob's Burgers, South Park, Star Wars Visions, and smiling friends for the third Mr. Frog episode. And I personally think it would be great if the Emmys decided to be hip and give it to the new cool show

that just self-canceled itself, smiling friends. It'd be great. A smiling friends posthumously won a Emmy. That'd be great. It'd be a great legacy for the show where three seasons we won the Emmy were done.

Let's see what these guys do next. It would rule to do it like that they got it on their last chance. If the Emmy voters were aware of it and why it's so special that it's the last season of it ever and that they chose to go out on a high spot. That would be really great, though the Emmy voters usually seem to have only

heard of The Simpsons and especially not have heard of cable shows when it comes to awarding outstanding animation. And there are a few notable actors nominated for our outstanding character voiceover performance like Hank Azaria, specifically for Gary Chalmers. He's up against Padmeline Adlon for King of the Hill, Julie Andrews for Bridgeton, Tray Parker for South Park, Matt Vogel for The Muppet Show, and Stephen Yun for Invincible. And yes, yes, I guess I'm most surprised by Matt Vogel because everyone seems to hate that man. Everybody has their critiques for his Kermit. It's not the best Kermit. I like that Kermit is attached to a guy who seemingly like plays ball more, but I don't know if you

watched Matt Vogel's Kermit interact with Tom Cruise in a viral video recently, but... I've only seen him interact with Elmo. They were both at the World Cup finals, and Tom Cruise was trying to improv with him, and I don't know, I wanted Kermit to be a little sharper with a Tom Cruise. Well, you know what? I feel a little kinder towards Matt Vogel after seeing a few statements by Steve Whitmire, who was the previous Kermit voice, who has really gone off the deep end. His career

is now axe grinding against Disney, which I understand. Disney stinks. But it seems like he wasn't fun to work with, Steve Wittler, the second Kermit. But his main stance on Matt Vogel was, you can't just give someone a new Kermit. It's like, well, you were the second Kermit. Did you forget this? He would be such a

sympathetic character, and he's like his own worst enemy with his many negative jerky things. He's not the fact that he complains this much does make you go like, well, I can kind of see why Disney didn't want to keep working with you anymore. You seem really difficult.

Yes, but hey, it'd be great to see Hank win, I think. Pamela Adelon, I wonder if she's ever won for voice acting. She's still doing such a great job as Bobby on King of the Hill. She's still killing it with the brand new version of Bobby, too. Yeah, because her voice has naturally aged a bit,

it's not strange to hear a woman invoicing a 27-whatever-year-old Bobby Hill in that new series. Though it also would be funny if Julie Andrews all of a sudden just won this Emmy out of nowhere for just doing like narration in Bridgetton, I'm assuming is what that is for. Yeah, I should have asked, this is the Julie Andrews, right? Yes, you go to the Emmy website. They use, you know, official stills that they're supplied with. And her photo looks like it's from like 1973, which, hey, we all love the Julian Andrews. She's the greatest.

But it's just funny of like, it's not a particularly recent photo, her. And we have to offer congrats to a friend of the show, Eva Anderson, because Margot's Got Money Troubles has been nominated in the Outstanding Comedy Series category. That's one of eight Emmys it's nominated for. So way to go, Eva. Hopefully you guys win a bunch of Emmys.

But don't, hey, and be sure to thank us on the stage. Yes. First of all, Bob and Henry, we couldn't do this without you. To steal Drew Mackey's bit, I'm asking you, where's the monkey? The show's called Margo's Got Monkey Troubles. Are they introducing the monkey in season two? What's going on? I have heard Eva

talk about season two that they're working on because it was one of those like I'll put this on Apple that Apple promotes it as like a limited series engagement they did not act like they were not calling it the first season and then when it was a success they're like it's been renewed for a second season like hey wait a minute

yeah it's like that scam they pool when they order 20 episodes of a show and they call the first 10 the first season and then when everyone loves it oh season two's coming soon we just renewed it like no you didn't I look forward to what Eva is going to do on it though It sounds like she's the showrunner of the show and doing great work with Catwoman and Dr. Chase Meridian

in the same television show. Those are their names. They're not people. And yes, we reported earlier, but San Diego Comic Con started yesterday as of this recording on July 23rd. And on July 25th, The Simpsons has a panel. And so does Futurama, American Dad, Family Guy, Bob's Burgers. And we'll keep an out for huge news.

And we'll report on that. A little bit after it happens, maybe next month, maybe we'll find a way to report on it before them. But we are going to be keeping our ears open for upcoming news about renewals or cancellations perhaps when it comes to some shows. And yes, speaking of shows, just a reminder out there for people, there are lots of things happening on various streaming platforms right now. We reported on this last month, but just a reminder, King of the Hill, season 15, dropped

10 episodes on July 20th. I've watched a few of those. I find them to be very good, even better than the first order. And season 14 of Futurama will launch with two episodes titled Beef and Catfish Hunter on August 3rd. And I feel like people could be sleeping more on Futurama. then on King of the Hill, and I understand why, because Futurama has kept coming back. But I will say, and I've said this on other podcasts, apologies for being a broken record,

the most recent order of Futurama's, the 10 that went live in September of 2025, they're some of the best they've done post-Fox. I've been really into them. And especially that season finale or whatever you want to call it, it has an amazing premise where they have to go on a mission that will take them 15 million years. So while they're in cold sleep, whenever anything needs to be done on the ship, it will 3D print a clone that lives for five minutes and then does their task and crumbles into a pile of dust. So they go into some funny and strange and great interesting places with that premise.

So if you are not sold in Futurama, at least watch the White Hole episode and then watch the rest of the most recent order because like my wife and I, we put it off and like we were just commenting on each other. Like these are very funny. These are great. I still am behind any to check out. I'd only watched the election episode from the most recent season that we've, We had the writer on. I'm about halfway through the new season of King of the Hill, and I've been enjoying it as well.

I wish they were doing weekly like they are going to do with Futurama. I think it's a mistake of Hulu to just dump it all. Though it's also funny, they have a, the characters go to Comic Con episode timed for the release, like around a release of Comic Con week. So that seems a little intentional too of the timing of like the full season drop, I think. I think so. And also I got to say Toby Huss is doing a great day.

on this season. I mean, it's not Johnny Hardwick, but I feel like because Johnny Hardwick passed so suddenly, Toby Huss was imitating what he was laying down before he passed away, which was very uneven, very shaky. And I feel like with this new order, he has developed a new Dale voice that feels like, okay, this is what Dale would have naturally aged into. And I'm not distracted by how off it sounds. And I love Dale. There is a Dale standee behind me as I speak. There's also some really fun new stuff with Bill this season that I really like. I do feel, I told this to my husband, I felt, even more personally attacked on the father-son things than last season of the geekier they make Bobby in this season and his father not understanding it. I'm like, man, they got to stop attacking me with this stuff here. I don't like this. This new reboot's all about taking Henry down. So yes, Disney Plus, it's great, everybody. Hulu still exists, right, Henry? So are you watching these on Hulu or what?

Every Hulu thing I've watched in the last, like, over a year has just been Disney Plus. They're fully integrated here if you subscribe to both. So, yeah, the Hulu technically still exists. exist and they're the ones marketing all of these shows at Comic Con right now. Like there's a giant inflatable Planet Express building as part of one of many photo ops at San Diego Comic Con this weekend. Yeah. And I feel like, again, this will be answered by the time this goes live. This is when we will know if there will be more Futurama because it's been a very long time since the last renewal.

And I feel like they're either will not answer questions, which means they're canceled or they'll say we're renewed. So I'm looking forward to seeing what happens because, again, I really like the new Futurama's. I like other shows that take its place if they have to go away, but I'll take more good Futurama's if I can get them. And finally, former TV executive Harris Cattleman passed away at 97. So this is the guy who signed on James Lough Brooks with his amazing deal for Fox back in the 80s. Henry, you're the one who cracked the books on this.

I didn't even know the man died or who he was. So his obituary from the Hollywood reporter popped up when I was searching Simpsons news. and it says like TV executive who greenlit all of these shows, including The Simpsons, passes away at 97, which is quite a life. In the histories of Simpsons, like, if you hear about executives, it's really more just Barry Diller you hear about. But I looked into this Harris Kettleman, and he's a very interesting guy who, like,

he was old in his career when he took over 20th century Fox television in 1980. Like, he had already been doing it for a long time. And he was the guy who, He talks about it. I was able to get a copy of his book and that he barely talks about The Simpsons, like eight pages of Simpsons tops in it. But he mentions that he was able to convince Fox to just open up the checkbook after terms of endearment was such a huge hit.

It's like, we hand James L. Brooks, the biggest check he's ever seen in his life. And he will go back to TV for us and we'll let him make whatever he wants. And so the reason Brooks was even in place to make the Tracy Oman show, which cattleman partially was the reason it got greenlit was because of this deal that he's spearheaded. Yeah, Barry Diller, I also found out with my Married with Children research,

he did not want Ed O'Neill to play Al Bundy. Right, right, that's right. They had to work against that, too. And so the most interesting story I could find in his memoir is a kind of similar one to that no Ed O'Neill story, that this is Cattleman's side of it. I have not ever heard this story. I don't think in any other histories of how The Simpsons got made.

but after he signed Brooks to the $50 million contract, and then Brooks puts the Simpsons on as an interstitial for Tracy O'Mon, in his book, Cattleman takes credit for overseeing the test screenings of the shorts. Like he talks about being at the test screenings of putting together the shorts into like a 21-minute group and showing them to an audience and then agreeing, oh, this could be a TV show. And then he also says that he didn't expect Barry Diller to approve it. and he says that behind his back,

Kettleman quietly pitched it to Bob Iger at ABC, and Bob Iger told him unofficially, if Fox passes on this because Fox gets first right of refusal on it, if they pass, I will order 13 episodes of the Simpsons. And so when Cattleman showed it to Barry Diller, and Barry Diller said he did not want to commit millions to 13 episodes of the Simpsons, Cattleman says that he then told Diller, well, that I'm taking it to Bob Iger,

and Barry Diller's like, Fine. I will okay it, but it's going to fail. Ooh, delightfully devilish. It was a good trick on his part. Now, how true that really is, or if it's just a TV executive remembering, like, actually, I did it. But it does, stories like that do show you that a good executive who believes in something can make a real show happen. And you get the commitment and the opportunity to exist. Despite the fact that these guys are probably cigar-chomping assholes, they actually wanted to make entertainments.

They weren't like, what are we a bus? They said, oh, let's make hit shows. We want people to watch these shows. Not like, who can we lay off? What things do we have we can burn for tax money? Could you imagine today's executives like being at a test screening and hearing laughter and thinking, people will like this and that would be a good reason to make something? That wouldn't happen today.

His grandson, who he co-wrote the memoir with, also in the forward does mention that his father only has like two pieces of merchandise from his entire career in his home office. and one of them is the Simpsons pinball machine. So it sounded like he actually gave a shit about the Simpsons, or at least maybe that his grandkids liked that he worked on the Simpsons. Very nice. So RIP to Mr. Kettleman, and now I have a segment, a secret segment, Henry, I'm bringing this on you.

I have a little bit of music to play here to work us into this segment, and this means our editor can't edit because there's music playing under me, so I have to make sure this all goes according to plan. So this is, hey, everybody, welcome to Bob Soap Corner. This is a new segment on Talk to the Odyssey. audience. Henry is raising his eyebrows. Henry, all will be explained in a second here because I didn't tell you this, but I have a new doctor. And this doctor was really worried about me. And he's like, I've got a prescription for you, Bob, and it's soap. And of course, the doctor I'm talking about is a little guy named Dr. Squatch. Because he's a big foot. And he knows how to keep clean, apparently. Even though he's really sninking up the Pacific Northwest, he knows what's right for your skin. So it was Sunday. And I was just, you know, sitting around, maybe I had three beers. Maybe this is what influenced my decision, but I'm on Instagram, and I see that, oh, there's a new bundle of Simpson's soap out there.

And Dr. Squatch says, I'm prescribing you the cure for your rough skin and the fact that you don't smell like a squishy or a donut. So I went for it. Okay, this music is very distracting now, so I have to turn it off. Okay, the soap corner has been established. And so I ordered the pack of four soaps, and I did want to report on it because you're not the only one who makes bad choice. choices, Henry, when it comes to buying merch. Okay? I can do this too. And I will be writing this off of my taxes. No, I was feeling alone in that. That's very nice. Yes. See, this is all about solidarity. So, yes, I ordered soap from Dr. Squatch, despite how many times I have made fun of their

products for just being very pandering to men, especially with the Sydney-Sweeney bathwater soap and stuff. I thought, this could be a funny bit. I pray to God it is, because this cost me like $50, a Canadian, by the way. So I've only tried out one of these. But I'll talk about the soap that I tried out here. This is not promoted at all. This is not sponsored at all. I just wanted to talk about this. So I tried the donut delirium soap, this very pink soap.

I'm holding on a camera here, Henry, and it's supposed to smell like warm donuts. Now, here's the thing. When I open this, this stuff reeks. I've had this stuff in the podcast room while I'm talking to you. And I'm kind of getting sick because it smells so fragrant. And when it arrived, like the bag stunk. I mean, not a bad smell, just like a very powerful smell. So I thought, am I going to be walking around smelling like a donut?

Are there going to be clothes chasing after me? And honestly, no. It doesn't leave a lingering, powerful scent. I can smell it a little bit on my body. But I will say, now many of you listeners have peg me as this, and it's correct, I am a ragman. I use a washcloth to wash my body. And I find that to be very effective, good at exfoliating. But I tried to do the bear soap on the skin with the Homer's soap, the donut delirium.

And I have to say that never did it before because I just like the control of the washcloth. Who doesn't? but this is very exfoliating. This is a sugar scrub. So I'm going to say, don't give it a lick to test it, but they're telling me this is a sugar scrub. And I did notice my skin had a different texture

that was pleasing to my hands. So I will say, if you want to spend $10 for a bar of soap and you want Homer's face to be on it briefly until you throw out the packaging, Dr. Squatch could be the soap for you. But also, because I bought these bars of soap, they won't stop advertising to me.

And the last ad I got was made with AI. And I thought, Dr. Squatch, you're dead to me. I'm having them destroy your medical license. We're not a real doctor. Oh, that's terrible. That is my soap journey. Do you have any questions, Henry? Because this is donut delirium.

And frankly, I'm surprised that you don't have this product, unless you're about to surprise me now. No, no, I have not. Well, I am more of a body wash liquid type guy. But also, I have not seen it. I saw it at the Safeway or whatever. I would have picked up. That are squishy.

I think I'd have gone with the donut, though. I do love smelling like fruity candy stuff as well. So yeah, I have never enjoyed the bear, you know, this is a difference. My husband actually does like the bar of soap on the body thing, but I have not been like that either. So you rub it against yourself, though. That's interesting. Yes. So, yeah, find that it's nice.

It is very overpriced. And again, they dabble with AI. But I think this is encouraging me to get better soap because I usually just get a bar of dove. And it's more expensive than the cheapest soap. And that's just what I've used for like my entire life. But maybe I will just go up one step higher on the soap ladder to clean myself. because I found that like, oh, there's a difference here when it comes to buying soap. It's the one thing where I'm sort of like in the lower rungs in terms of like my regular products I use as part of my life.

So yeah, that was Dona Delirium. There's also a second bar of soap called Squishy Supreme. And I do like the art on these. I'm showing Henry. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is Bart from which episode was that, the boy who knew too much or. Oh, no, Boy Scouts in the hood, right? Boy Scouts in the hood, yes.

When he has the super squishy and his eyes are going crazy. And I've not used this yet. So maybe next month I'll check him with another soap corner. And this one is more of a citrusy smell. So, yeah, the downside is they're very pungent in terms of their smell. So ever since using this Homer soap, the donut delirium, my bathroom has smelled like a bakery. And maybe that's good. Maybe that's just the pleasing aroma you can have in your bathroom.

But I'm not used to lighting candles like Henry. So I'm not used to just constantly smelling like pastry gas, wafting through the air. Though, yeah, like I said, it could be worth it. But I would not support Dr. Squatch because he loves AI. I do appreciate, too, looking at the logos or the title. I like that the donut del, Lerium, it's like, it could just be D-O-N-U-T, but it is D-O-N-U-T, right? Yeah, I appreciate good packaging and the packaging is nice, especially because I bought it from

their Canadian store and they have to include French on the packaging, too. So, yes, you get used to it. Although, Squishy Supreme, you probably can't see this on camera, Henry, but it's basically the same thing in French, except there's one accent over the second E, sorry, the first E in Supreme. So it's like in American, or sorry, English. as they call it. It's squishy Supreme, but in French it's squishy supreme. Supreme. The Instagram did get me to buy recently Nicktoons. They were like half price.

That was how I convinced myself. It was Nicktoons candles. I haven't lit them yet, but... Here's the thing. I saw that on Facebook. I showed it to my wife and I said Henry's buying these. Yes. You know me too well, Bob. You really do. Yes. And I have to assume you bought the Rocco's Modern Life candle. I got the Rocko's Modern Life and the one that's all the Nicktoons, like the orange splat one. Yes. Yeah, they're really targeting the back half of Nicktoons with that brand because it's like, who is buying the cat dog candle? That one, I was like, why am I getting that? And same with like, we know Doug's not going to be as part of it either.

Oh, yeah, they had a Hey Arnold one. I limited myself to just those two. Though then while I was in there checkout, I also said, oh, you know what? The thing that smells like a blueberry cobbler or whatever, I also bought one of those. Honestly, it's tough having an apartment smell like baked goods you want to like eat too much of. It drives you crazy if you're trying to. I'm not used to just smelling pastries, just emanating from a room in my home. It is very strange to me.

So it's something I'll have to get used to. But yeah, I did see those and I thought they got Henry, hook line and sinker with this. It shows you that meta really does know how to, their algorithm can at least catch our demo correctly with what we want. They can catch us. It's true. Yeah, ultimately, I will say it did teach me, like I said, I should upgrade my soap because I use nicer shampoo, I use nicer moisturizer. I'm very prissy, as you know. So I feel like soap is next on the agenda.

I'm going to get nicer soap. So the next time you see me, touch me with my consent. Rub your hand across my arm. And you'll notice the difference. That was Bob Soap Corner. Now we're going to move on to the schedule for us, for our entire network here. And we've got what a cartoon back.

It's coming back, folks. We took July off, and we've got a biggie for August because we're covering Mighty Mouse, the new adventures, the episode Mighty's Benefit Plan. And in case you haven't heard of Mighty Mouse, the New Adventures, This is secretly the most important cartoon of all time, perhaps, that ever aired on television, just based on the sheer amount of people that sprung from it and went on to create many different things and work on many different things.

So it all basically starts here. And then we get Renan Stimpy, The Simpsons, SpongeBob, all the big shows of the 90s and beyond. Yeah, that like the sixth or seventh most important person on it is the guy who is Ron Huggard, who has been the series director of the entire run of American Dad. And like, that's actually I should say the eighth most important person on it. And that's a very important person. Like, it's full of future directors, series creators, and the most important people, Oscar winners. The entire next 40 years of American animation springs out of Ralph Bakshi getting the rights to make postmodern Mighty Mouse cartoon for CBS in 1987. Yeah, and the episode that we're covering is a very mean-spirited and deeply personal parody of the Alvin and Chip

show from the 80s and the movie from the 80s. Yeah, we sure had a lot of fun talking about that. And even though we only covered one 11 minute segment of it, it's one of our longer ones because there's just so much cool history involved in it. And for Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill, those are for patrons, by

the way, at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Talking Futurama, we're covering the bots and the Bs, the broadcast season 7 premiere on Comedy Central. And in this episode, we find out that robots can indeed have sex with each other and produce children, and Bender has a little bastard named Ben. and it's a great episode.

I did like this one. And it introduces a lot of elements into the show I don't think are ever followed up upon. Yes. And a lot of filthy conversation for us on that one too. But only because is justified in a highly sexual episode of drama. Bad influence on us. And then for talking to the hill, we're covering Meet the Propaniacs,

which is really the first major exploration of Bobby attempting to have a comedy career. He's put on like some little bits and skits for his friends, but here he's trying to put together an improv troupe and trying to get Hank on board. with his antics. We haven't recorded it yet, but I remember it is one of my favorites that stuck with me for a long time. And I can't wait for us to chat about that one.

And for what a cartoon movie, we are ending our Disney 2010 series with Big Hero 6, a movie, I have not seen yet, Henry, but I'm relying on you for this because you are the Marvel Man, and this is a Marvel property. Yes, the original comic was not in the same universe

as regular Marvel Comics, nor is the movie set in the MCU, but it is Marvel adjacent and a very interesting one that stars Mr. Show Scott Adtsid. I know he's 30 Rock Scott Adtsid, but he's a lot of places. I remember like in this movie in theaters

and also all of the Big Hero Six related stuff at the parks is also pretty cool. I enjoy the San Frins Sokio setup that's in Disneyland these days. And of course I will watch this for the podcast, but I played the Kingdom Hearts 3 level. The sound was off, but I got the gist of it. If you see people who wear, nobody recognizes the armor version.

Nobody recognizes the armor version of the superhero in it. Everybody just sees him Baymax in his white version. If you wear the armor of it, people don't recognize it. When I was at Disneyland with my mom two years ago, we're walking by a dad who's wearing a Baymax like hoodie. And my mom's like, what is that? She's just talking out loud to be like, oh, what's that one? Is that a Spider-Man one?

Because she knows I recognize Spider-Man. And I said, oh, no, Mom, that's Baymax's. costume from Big Hero 6, and the dad went, thank you! No, everybody thinks it's Spider-Man. Weird, okay, yeah, yeah. Like, Baymax is like completely white, though, right? Yes, but see, when they become a superhero

team, he puts on armor, but they never sell stuff of the armored version. Okay, okay, yeah, sorry, I totally missed the armor part. Yes, okay. You know what Baymax looks like. That gives us an advantage so far in doing this podcast. So, yes, again, that's our schedule for the month of August. Check it out on the Patreon. Even if you're

not a patron, you can see the schedule, and if you want to be a and re-recrement it because then you can get Talking of the Hill, talking Futurama, and also if you go to the $10 level, you can hear the entire Big Hero Six podcast. So now it's time to talk about what we've been playing and watching that isn't related to our podcasting. And I had a mildly busy month in terms of watching and playing stuff because I was sick for about a week. I have what could have been COVID. I'm not quite sure, but I'm not going to look into it because I'm better now. I don't need to ask any questions.

And a couple months ago, I played a demo for an upcoming game called Akiba Lost, which is a Japanese adventure game where the entire story is told through text and photographs and I thought, oh, the inspiration for this is the game 428 Shibuya Scramble. And I've had this for a very long time on many different platforms. It's time to sit down and finally play this. And this is really for like three people in our audience, by the way. So I'm going to keep this brief. Because it is essentially 30 hours of reading. And the entire story is told through multiple pictures that are taken across many different places within Shibiya with real actors. And like I said, all of the story is told. through text and you make different choices at different times.

And it's all about getting all the characters through the day. You're switching perspectives. It's a very, very well done adventure games slash visual novel, but it is for guys like me and, like I said, three other listeners. But I'm happy I finally got this under my belt because it's one of those games. It released in 2008 for the Wii. Never came out here. But it was one of those legendary games that it got a perfect score in the video game

magazine Famitsu, which doesn't really mean a lot because they are like a little bit well, I'd say there's some bias there, let's say. But it was notable for that, and I thought, like, God, if I only can I play this. And I did buy a new copy when it came out for the PS4. But I believe that's the same day that Dragon Quest 11 came out, which is why I'd never played 428. Yeah, that's been sitting on my shame pile for a while. If you'd asked me, oh, is Bob played this game? I would have said, yeah, he must have played it before.

But it seemed very cool. It's also just that one of those games that I buy just to support, like, oh, these types of games don't often or sometimes get, skip, over the U.S. I want to support it. Even if I think I might never play it, I'm glad it gets to be released and that the people who localized it got paid to do it. Yeah, I just want to shine a spotlight on it here because it came out

in 2018, didn't get a ton of attention. There's a port on Steam. And if you want to play it, there's a demo for PS4 and Steam to let you know what kind of game it is, but I had a really good time with it. And I've returned to Mina the Hollower, and I had the exact same experience everyone else had where, for some reason, I assume my

experience would be different because I kept throwing myself at the game in the first three hours, and I thought, like, when's this going to get approachable? When am I going to finally understand how to play this game? When I'm going to stop feeling so underpowered? And yes, at that three hour mark, I did what everyone else did. I finally jumped the hurdle, and now, I won't say it's an easy game, but it's a game where all of the death mechanics don't really matter anymore because I'm not really dying. So you do have to put in your time with this game. And there are various options within different menus where you can make it easier on yourself if you want to. But I want to play the designed difficulty, and that's what I've

been doing, and I found this to be very rewardable, very enjoyable. And yeah, it is a really good, like, souls-like, that controls like Link's Awakening, kind of. It's a mishmash of so many different ideas, but I'm a little over halfway through the game and I'm really, really liking it.

I did get past the skill check first boss guarding the entrance to the town thing. I haven't touched it much since then, so I definitely am not at that three-hour mark yet that you mentioned. It will happen with you.

If you keep at it, it will happen. It just, it takes longer than you think. And I kind of honestly wish they would have started you off at that level, just in terms of strength and defense and everything, because I would have had more motivation to keep plugging away. I had to return to it after putting it on the back burner for a bit. But yes, I had the exact same experience as everyone else. And one other game I wanted to shout out, it just came out.

I believe it's on Steam, at least, but it might not be out for other platforms. It is called Densh Attack. And it is very, very cool because this is a game that essentially, says what if we took the rail grinding segments from Sonic Adventure and other games like Ratchin and Clayk and made that the entire game and then like really really focused on what you can do with that kind of rail grinding gameplay and make like very cool levels where very inventive things happen but here's a thing you play as a train and there are only so many things that train can do on these tracks but you will be doing them all and you'll be doing them very quickly it's one

of the fastest games I've ever played and I am like barely keeping up with it but As I keep playing, I am getting better and better and better. And this is like a $20 game. And there's a lot of material in the game. There's a lot of, like, challenges. And I feel like I have not seen this kind of game yet. So I always like to try new kinds of games. I bought this site unseen.

I just thought the trailer looks neat. I want to support this. And it ended up being like a very, very well-made game that I'm just like a one hour into. But I did want to shout it out because I think it's definitely unique and it deserves more attention. When I saw it on your list, right, as we were starting to record, I was like, wait, that came out. because I remembered it had a really cool trailer on a Nintendo Direct this year, and I had not paid attention to when it was coming out. I know it's on Switch 2, but I like games.

I like the skating down rails segments of Jet Set Radio and even some Sonic Adventure games. So a game that's entirely that that also is, it's like not a Japanese developer, right, but it just has kind of a fan of Japanese games feel to it. Yeah, I'm not sure if the developer is Japanese or not. I didn't look into it, but it feels like a Western take on a Japanese aesthetic, but it's very, very cool.

So yeah, definitely check out Denschatak. Oh, they're Spanish. I just looked it up. The developers are written Spain, so there you go. Yeah, so Denshattac, very, very cool. In terms of watching stuff, I do want to throw out that I saw Jurassic Park in concert. And you might have heard what this kind of event is. You go to see the movie, but instead of hearing the soundtrack and orchestra plays it,

amazing experience. It was so good. It lets you focus in on some of the non-famous themes in Jurassic. Park. And then two days later, Sam Neal dies. Oh, that was so shocking. I didn't do anything wrong. Yeah. That was very, very shocking, unfortunate news that made it even probably much more poignant to have seen it than I watched. My husband and I watched Jurassic Park that night of when the news, or maybe it was the Monday night after the news had spread. But yeah,

like to get to see, I cannot even imagine how amazing it is like for when dinosaurs rule the earth banner drops and you're hearing live orchestra doing it, that's, just sounds incredible. Yeah, it was a great experience. I mean, these are, like, you're paying to hear an orchestra, so they are like orchestra level tickets in terms of price. But if you have a favorite movie and you want to get the, like, the best experience, this is totally worth it.

I had a great time, even though it's a movie I've seen a lot, and I've seen it a lot recently. So that was great. I don't want to throw out a few other recommendations here. I saw the drama. I had never heard of this movie. It's a movie my wife put on, but it is a movie. I think the poster betrays what kind of movie it is, because,

you see Robert Pattinson, you see Zendaya, and you think this is going to be like, oh, it's a romantic comedy or whatever, but no, it's funny, my wife and I both had the exact same thoughts. We turned to each other after the movie was over, and we both said, this is just like a Seinfeld movie.

It's like, what if you took a Seinfeld episode idea and exploded into a movie where like everything goes wrong, people are just awful to each other, and like all of these circumstances are aligned to make their lives a living hell, and it did really feel like it has the spirit of a Seinfeld episode,

but in movie form. It is a really, really great dark comedy that goes some places. I have not seen comedies go. And I gave it a really high review on Letterbox, really high score. Check out the drama. Like the title and the poster does not really indicate like what kind of movie it is. And I didn't know what I was getting into, but it is so worth it. And it's one of those movies where it's like 90 minutes.

And the entire thing works and everything is just very enjoyable. I stayed unspoiled when the trailers were trying to spoil it for me. I haven't yet seen it, though. if I'm going to see the other two films that star that feature Robert Pattinson and Zendaya this year, then I may as well see the drama just to make it complete. One of the real movies. It's weird that like a year or two ago,

seven actors decided they'd all acted like 21 movies combined. They all come out this year. We're going to get so sick of Anne Hathaway by the end of the year. Oh, I would never get sick of her. She's a queen of cinema. Sure, sure. And also I wanted to shout out another movie because my wife, a big Charlie Kaufman fan,

I'm becoming more of a fan. And I go on Letterbox and I see, I ask myself, what movies of his haven't I seen? There's a movie out there called Human Nature. And I always want to think it's his first movie because I've never heard anyone talk about this movie. I've never seen it on a store shelf.

But no, this is the movie he made between being John Malkovich and adaptation. So it was like prime Kaufman territory. And we had to get this out of the library. I guess there was a newish Blu-ray release by like Heino Lorber or something. I think of maybe like 2021, but this is a very underseen movie and very underrated movie. And yes, if you know what a Charlie Coffin movie is, yes, there's a guy like him that is one of the main characters.

And yes, he is a despicable wretch who is driven by base desires and makes every wrong decision in every turn. But I will say, it's hard to describe a Charlie Coffin movie without underselling it. But it's about a scientist who is trying to teach table manners to mice. And he encounters a man, like a Magli-style man who was just like brought up in the wild. sort of like a wild man. And the other character is played by Patricia Arquette, who is essentially like just covered in body hair and naked for about half of the movie. And all of these characters combined to make a Charlie Kaufman movie directed by Michel Gondry,

which was his first collaboration with Kaufman before Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You may end up painting this movie because it's very off-putting. It's kind of gross. But it's weird that there is this like, I'll call it a hidden gem in this very productive period of his life when a lot of cool movie guys couldn't stop talking about Charlie Kaufman. And the Mowgli type guy, is that Risi Fons? I know he's in it.

And he does an amazing job at a role that could be very, very embarrassing because he's mostly naked most of the time and having to act like a monkey and that could easily make you want to turn it off or say like, I can't this is just too embarrassing for the actor, but he commits. That's also funny because

I just watched Spider-Man No Way Home, which he is technically in. Mostly is just a digital man. But when he gets unchanged from being the lizard in both of the movies, he's the lizard. He also ends up naked and in Notting Hill. There's comedy scenes of him in his underwear. A lot of his big roles are like, I don't care if you see my body type thing. He's an interesting actor there.

I think with this movie, he's great in it. I think with this movie, though, it was kind of screwed by 9-11 because it was made like right before and it had to be distributed after. And I feel like people were saying, we don't want to see this movie right now. So it just got like crapped into a few theaters. in like 2002, like the middle of 2002. Nobody saw it. It barely got released.

But yeah, if you like Charlie Kaufman, if you like Being John Malkovich and Senecte, New York, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mine, it's not at that level, but it is also very good. I have not seen it. I remember putting it back on video store sales at two different jobs and the cover. So when you logged it, I instantly recognized the box art from,

it was the same as the DVDs of just like, there's the scientist in the middle, and then it's Patricia Arquette and Reese Sifton's just like covering themselves with like grass or something because as you said a lot of nudity in the film and the cover does not look like it would be a Charlie Coffin movie at all. It just feels like it's like a boner comedy from

the early odds. That I think is why I overlooked it. They need to put on the cover that back then if they had put from the team of Eternal Sunshine and Spotless Mind and being John Malcovic and all these things I think people would have paid more attention. And the last thing I want to mention is I'm catching up with a spring anime or like late May anime

because I just started watching and I'm mostly through the show Witch Had Atelier, which is Japan loves Harry Potter, and there are so many Japanese manga and anime that essentially take the magic school idea and run with it. This is an interesting interpretation of that kind of story, and I'm mostly in it for the arts,

which has this gorgeous art nouveau style that comes from the manga and is adapted pretty well in the anime, at least as best they can do. It is a very, very good-looking show that will often just, like, cut out the ending song just so they can animate more stuff. There's an entire

episode where there's no intro, there's no ending song, it's just wall-to-wall animation. I'm thinking, this is expensive. You guys spent an extra three minutes worth of animation just because you had this story to tell. And I've also been reading the manga because my friends bought me the giant omnibus of the first three volumes. So I really like this. And I say, if your kids like Harry Potter, take it away from them and give them which had a tillier because you're not supporting J.K. Rowling. And I think it's better. I have heard tons of acclaim for that. And yes, you're right. As a weeb who loves every second that I'm in Tokyo, the rare times when I do have to see. like ads for Harry Potter pop-ups or other things that are Harry Potter related there.

It makes me like roll my eyes. I'm like, I thought you guys had better. Why must this culture also like this trash? Not enough people care that she's the turf. It sucks. Yeah, I think it's like every culture, including ours, they love Harry Potter. So she's doing evil things with that money. I don't like it.

And that's it. I mean, you've played and watched a few things that I've played and watched. And I might jump in on that comment. But that's it for me for the month of July. Well, I was mainly playing. I did a lot of Magic to Gathering for the new Marvel Superhero set. There is a ton of cool stuff in it, like both in the arena app. But also my husband went to a local MagicCon around here, which not the biggest, but honestly, it was kind of quaint that I got to play with a bunch of other people there. It was really cool, like, to meet other dudes my age, some of them with their kids.

And then also, like, playing against 17-year-olds and feeling, old and weird and then also there it felt like 10% of the people there were trans as well. It's a very trans audience for Magic the Gathering too. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. The small cons are great because they're just more intimate. It's easy to kind of see everything and meet everyone. I do love going to

those when I can. The best conversation I had was with my opponent in one of the drafts was this trans woman who her and her girlfriend were up from Portland and we were both drawn to playing the Marvel deck and then she was telling me how, you know, she

loves Venom and she collects all this venom stuff and I was like oh that's funny because I collect all these Spider-Man and we had a fun time talking about our similar collections of stuff and then you said we're enemies now oh you picked Venom over Spider-Man you're evil but for game

games it was a real dusting off the switch two month for me because well it was also on the switch but rhythm heaven groove rhythm heaven's finally back I've only been playing it here and there but I'm into the sixth set of levels and There is some delay on the TV, or I'm just bad and have no rhythm.

But I feel like I need to go back to handheld mode, playing it off the TV. It feels, I can barely get a good sometimes, it feels like on the song. Yeah, yeah. Boy, with the Wii version, With the Peven Fever, it was like a game without a corded controller. And also it was HD, too. So I don't recall having an issue with that one. But this one, I am a little rusty, and I think it might be age, because they have a way for you to calibrate your controller, too. But I've never tried it in handheld.

But yeah, I played an hour of this just to get some experience. with it to talk about it on the podcast. And I'm just glad it's back. Technically this is a Switch One game. I'm not sure if you knew that. It surprised me. Yes. It was like one of the last, I think on the last Nintendo Direct, it's one of the first things

they show because then they say like, okay, now everything after this is only on Switch 2, but we have to show you the Switch 1 game first off here. And the songs are great. The creative team like that I don't want to see a new rhythm heaven without the musician and the artist back. doing it again. And they're both involved in it. The songs are great. I think of the early ones or of the first rounds I've played, I really enjoy the flipping frogs off the lily pad one. That was really fun. And the cutting vegetables in the kitchen one with the cats. That's also a really fun one,

too. Maybe you can tell me if I'm wrong about this, but it feels like they didn't localize any of the songs this time around. Oh yeah. No, they actually keep the J-pop as J-pop. Every song I've encountered so far that has lyrics is in Japanese. Yes. Yeah, that's very strange to see in a Nintendo game, but I think they realize the audience that plays Rhythm Heaven heaven is not going to freak out if they hear Japanese and we don't want to spend the extra money to localize all the songs. Although I will say in the Wii Rhythm Heaven game, they were all localized very well. They spent a lot of time on them and they're not too different from their Japanese counterparts. But I did notice this time around like, oh, you guys are just showing like you're just playing

these songs as they exist without having to rework them into English. And as somebody who is a fan of Elite Beat agents. I don't need it to be the Japanese versions. Oh, and Don is really cool too, but I liked elite beat agents having all these hit pop songs in it. But in this case, Rhythm Heaven, I think they realized that

the visual appeal of it already has the markings of Japanese culture that why not just keep the music Japanese too? Also, maybe they finally, at Nintendo of America, they got the message that people actually, weaves are your

main audience here. They're not going to mind. Absolutely. And also speaking of the niche audience who was very pleased with this. Well, actually, no, I think they kind of hated it some. Star Fox. Some people didn't like that redesign of Star Fox. Yeah, but I think people are mostly against the redesigns, but I played a bit of this too, Henry. And I thought like, okay, this is the best this game is ever going to look and play. And good. I'm a lot more people can play Star Fox 64. And I like the amount of work that went into making this two-hour game the prettiest it could look and developing the characters a little more. You don't have to make any other Star Fox games. This is fine. This is the ideal version of it.

I like that the cutscenes in between worlds are expanded upon and the characters are still themselves, but they just say more things now. And they talk up the reason they are agreeing to go to this zone or that zone. And it also, I guess like Rhythm Heaven, there is a bit of feeling old of, well, I feel like I used to be able to get to, oh, hey, I remember how to get to the secret exit of this stage. And then it takes me like eight tries to do. and I'm like, I think I was better at this. Yeah, yeah, I'm noticing, like, I'm not as good as I used to be. I still have all of the secret routes memorized from playing this so much in the late 90s.

I will say, like, this is a great time to dust off your Switch, too, because there are three Nintendo Published games launch in the past month. There's Rhythm Heaven. What is it, Groove? Groove, yeah, yeah. Star Fox, whatever it's called, just Star Fox, and also Splatoon Raiders, which is a new Splatoon game. It is not, like, a arena and combat game, like Splatoon.

They're taking the salmon run. mode turning it into an action RPG. I played an hour of this too, and it's really cool, and I can't wait to get Mena off my plate so I can dig into these Nintendo games. But it's another big game. Like, where were these games for the past year? I feel like it was Donkey Kong Bonanza and then like kind of nothing. Yeah, well, there was Metroid Prime 4, but nobody cared.

Yeah, that's also, yeah, nobody cared about that. As for movies, I've seen a lot this month. I'll just focus on the biggies, and I saw the moviest movie of the year, which is The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. I first want to say, I had 70mm tickets. They finally were bringing 70 millimeter back to Seattle at one theater. The SIF Theater, which I've said very nice things about in the past, which was then made it 10 times more disappointing that the day before my tickets,

the SIF Cinema Workers Union made it public that the SIF has not been dealing with them in good faith and has been delaying and delaying and not listening to their reasonable demands. And so they did a walkout on the Friday and Saturday there and publicized it. And they said, you can choose to come or not if you want, but we're going to be here all day. They're not, because I do know with labor actions, if unions, it is a different step. Sometimes they say, we do not want you to cross the picket line. But they said, do what you want with this. But I thought of going to, I was like, this feels just gross now.

made what I liked as a good theater that I've said so many nice things about. Feel bad. And I did send an email to their management that a union had shared to let them know I was not satisfied. And I tried to spread as best as possible. So listen about it here too. And hopefully SIF listens to their workers and gives them the hours and raises they need. But you like this film, though? Yes, I was.

When you went to the other screening. I had to hurriedly find every screening is sold out, even now, if you're want to see it in iMacs but we found an hour away by train we found one iMacs that had two seats together that were not in the front row that were actually in a good space to see it and yeah it is a really good movie it feels like a mega event to know then after you see it and you see all of the physical things they did that did not have to be in green screen that it denies green screen they make giant puppets they hire huge actors they use force perspective they do all the old movie tricks and instead of doing it the easy way of like,

ah, we can fix it and post it green screen. No, it's entirely about not doing that. And it has every movie star in it. Like every movie star is in the movie. That's true. Yeah, I respect the filmmaking techniques, but I will say, Henry, I'm not seeing this because the cashed all be Greek people. And I can't believe he cast all of those non-Greeks.

Of course, no, I'm not insane. I don't believe that. It would have been nice to have one Greek in it, like Jason Manzukas. That would have been nice. Yeah, get him in there. I didn't see this movie. I'll eventually see it. But I had the misfortune of watching Batman Begins,

which is so boring. And it really put a bad Nolini taste in my mouth, and I know this is good. I'll get around to seeing it at some point, but I'm just so on the fence about him. Like, he leaves me so cold, and I need to see more of his movies,

but I did not want to sign up for three hours of this. I can understand that, and I actually did normally. I can take it. I rarely even need to use the bathroom, but we actually had enough time in the trailers that I drank my zero-calorie emcee freestyle drink and then went back and refilled it.

So with about 36 ounces of liquid in me, I actually did at the two-hour point have to leave and go to the bathroom and come back. I just could not make it. So I missed five whole minutes of it. But Darren, who watched the whole thing, my husband, he told me, like, if you get a missed any five minutes, you pick the right five minutes to miss, which is how it felt at the time. They should just give you diapers in that movie theater.

Honestly, that's one thing. Nolan is trying to be old school with this like, oh, this is like a big event film, movies used to feel like, you know what Ben Hur has a goddamn intermission in it, you know? Yeah, like, we're going to make a movie this long. I mean, especially as you get older, how long can you hold your pee?

And it's a movie. You want to have your popcorn, you want to have your drink. Do you want to be uncomfortable for like the last hour and 45 minutes of it? Just like, okay, this has to end soon, right? If you saw Oppenheimer, it also does follow similar themes of Oppenheimer, like it is about an aging great man

who is trying to figure out what it means in the world that he is wrought. And I gave it four and a half stars. I stand by it. I had a great time at the movies. Will Minnicar, our podcast, guest, and pal who reviewed it and did not care for it as much. He said, I think he gave it a three.

I will admit that when he says that Christopher Nolan, after all this years, how great he is at so many things, he can still not edit a fight scene in a cool way. And that's kind of true in The Odyssey as well. It's its weakest point is editing fight scenes, just like Batman fight scenes, kind of week. Yes, I have heard that. Although I had a question for you, Henry,

I think you reviewed another Nolan movie this month, too, not just The Odyssey. What was that? It was Interstellar. We watched it in the same day. Like that evening, my husband said, you know, you've never seen Interstellar, which I haven't, and he had. So he said, hey, let's watch that tonight, too. It was

kind of crazy to watch it the same day because they are kind of the same movie. They actually are about a man on an an Odyssey who takes a long time to come home, too. I was going to ask, is there something about Nolan, I don't know because you seem to be implying that he's cheating on his wife. Look, I have no proof of this. He is a very private man.

But every movie of his, I mean like the last Oppenheimer, the Odyssey and this one, well, Interstellar is more about my wife is dead and then I'm going to abandon my family, which to that I think is him talking about. He is sad that filming movies means he is away from his family the whole time. But Oppenheimer and Odyssey are the great man at the center of it. has prolonged long love affairs away from his wife. And his wife has to then deal with that and re-accept him back after he apologizes. And it's just like, I don't want to project that upon him, but it's like, boy, you really...

And his wife is his producing partner on all of his movies, too, I should say. They work on all of his films. So to me, it reads like he is dealing with infidelities and working through them with his wife in his movies. That is how it feels to me. That's all. Well, I don't know. I mean, these are stories that, existed in the past and I guess he just has to adapt them the things that happened in them.

Well, but why is he attracted to these stories specifically too? I wonder. We're going to find out. And I find that interesting. I'm not trying to cancel him like, oh, I think Prish R. Nolan cheated on his wife and is saying that through his movies. Like, I just... I mean, some people make movies about crime because they just find crime fascinating. They're not criminals, you know. No, I know. I know. Look, I am the opposite of the artist is dead. I like learning, you know, it's fun for me to learn like, oh, Orson Wells. Oh, a film I just Watch 2, Possession, the Sam Neal movie, which you saw somewhat recently, too. I then read about how, like, the director just went through a horrendous divorce.

This is all about how much his divorce sucked and he hated his ex. I was like, oh, that totally is in this movie. I can see that. But if you keep looking for messages and movies, you will become a QAnon guy. I get that. But it's fun to know that the creators are saying things, like, that aren't his... Nolan literally has said in interviews, he never talks about his personal life because he doesn't want people to read everything into his movies for that.

And to that I say, fa, fa, fa, I defy you. He's left too many clues. Another movie I did really enjoy that I saw in theaters this week was Maddie's Secret, or I saw it this month, the John Early film, Maddie's Secret. It's really good. I even saw it with John Early, did a Q&A afterwards, and it was a really fun, 430 screening of John Early, if you don't know him, him in Capeland, do a ton of comedy stuff.

You've seen him in tons of your favorite comedies. A very gay, campy dude in his late 30s. This Maddie's Secret is a super queer movie where he plays Maddie, a drag-a-character. Well, a cis woman in the story, but it's him playing her with a bit of drag on it. And he is highly influenced by Strangersers' Candy. You can totally see that in the movie like it feels.

It's parodying the same type of after-school special that Strangers of Candy does. but here's the real amazing trick of it. It actually cares about the character, Maddie, so much. And when it could be meaner or darker, like it's crazy that it is, I totally feel the Stranger Candy to feel, but it also is sensitive to the portrayal

of Maddie's secret in it and the after-school special qualities to it. It's an interesting balance. So unlike Strangers with Candy, it has compassion for its lead character. Very much so. She's no Jerry Blank. Her and Jerry Blank, Maddie and Jerry Blank,

Maddie and Jerry Blank are very similarly cut characters. Like, Jerry Blank is Amy Sedaris also in a drag persona. But Maddie is also a drag persona for John Early. But he loves Maddie so much and makes her like this perfect angel in this world that she can't function in it. Like, I don't know. It really, you actually, by the end of it, I was like, oh, has this seemed like not a joke anymore? Like, I actually don't, I'm feeling the real things this wanted the parody to feel. It's very interesting for a comedy movie.

I really like it. And hey, Mike Mitchell is in four seconds of it. So that's another quality to it. And it was Criterion 50% off month at Barnes & Noble. So I bought a few Criterians, and that also pushed me to go back through my backlog. I've watched like eight this month and watched a lot of great movies. It's why I'm feeling like I'm overrating things on my letterbox. Everything's like a three and a half at the lowest.

But I need to remind myself, I am watching like Criterion films are usually chosen because they are good films. Yeah, usually. Yeah. Alice doesn't live here anymore. That was the most recent one I just watched. And I also watched If, which I only bring up if dot, dot, dot, dot, the Malcolm McDowell film because it inspired the persona series. Like, it's so strange.

I don't know why. I rented that through Netflix a very long time ago. All I remember is there was a kid in that movie who was from the big book of British smiles. Yes. Oh, yeah. In 4K, you can really. appreciate these British smiles on these poor children in it. Yeah. And lastly, I'm about halfway

through the new season of X-Men 97, though I haven't watched this week's episode. And it's been fun, but also, yeah, why does it take two years to make nine episodes of a cartoon? Yeah, it's very well done. I have no idea, like, what they're adapting or the significance of this storyline. But I kind of wish they would slow down a bit. That was my complaint about the first season that I loved. I thought, like, okay, you guys are moving too fast, but maybe it's because they don't have the time to spend. Oh, yeah, they're having to, I do know where they're going or what things they are indicating that they will do. And I was like, wow, this was 50 issues of comics in this episode is what I know they're dealing with. And I wonder how they're going to, they're approaching one big crossover that I'm really curious how they're going to deal with that one.

Because it involves many comics that are not X-Men comics. And while they do tease the other characters in it in the Marvel universe in this world, they don't touch on them that much. for one of them they're going to have to. And also I love that there's three sneaky TNG voices in the first three episodes. Well, not sneaky, they're credited, but well-cast use of TNG of Star Trek the Next Generation. Okay, I didn't catch those.

I'm enjoying it. I think it still looks very good. It just kind of lost, a tiny bit loss, as someone doesn't really know the source material that well. Well, the one TNG regular, I want to shout out that I think was the smartest casting was they got John Delancey, Q, to play. Ramah Tutt, who has basically a Q versus Picard type scene with Charles Xavier in the show. And it was like, that's clever.

That is clever to have it be a Picard Patrick Stewart type scene with John Delancey. And it was very clever. And you know what? Some people think I heard people complaining that the Wolverine episode was filler. When I love that episode, it's a more, if I finally got a goddamn episode and people call it filler. I haven't seen that one yet. Whenever I see more, if I think of Roger from American Dead. Do you wish he still had his white guy ugly face that he used to have in the original?

I like his white guy. I like his weird alien head. Yeah. Or their weird alien head. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot about that. I apologize. And finally, speaking of gender, I did see a screening with a mini concert for the 25th anniversary of Headwig and the Angry Inch at a theater in Seattle, which was really fun.

The star writer, director, John Cameron Mitchell, was. in attendance and even did a mini concert of several of the songs afterwards, which was really nice to see. Yeah, that was playing here, and it did it sell out. It was very popular. Though he kind of dissed, well, I don't want to say kind of dist us, but somebody came up and asked, what about the movie Shortbus? That's its 20th anniversary this year. And he said, yeah, you know, it's too sexy for Gen Z right now. We're only doing a few screenings of it in really cool cities. And I was like, damn, he's saying Seattle's not cool enough to take his short bus release. Too many broccoli boys.

You saw a short bus related film recently. The Much Music VJ. There was not a biographical movie about the comic artist who dates the Much Music VJ and it's about there. Yeah, paying for it. Right, yes. And she's in short bus. So that's how I had heard of that actress before because she's in short bus as well. Yeah, she directs the Paying For It film.

She's not in it. A much younger actress plays her because it's a period piece. Yes, right. I need to see that just as a short bus fan. But Headwig was really fun to see with an audience. is the sing-along part. And also because I don't want to speak for trans people on this. When I've logged it, I like it as it is a drag film.

The headway character is a drag performance, I would say, more than a portrayal of a trans person. And I have heard from other trans friends that they're like, is that movie actually good? I heard because people think that it misrepresents the trans experience, certainly, if that's what you're trying to go for it. But at this screening, it was a very, it was a lot of trans people in the audience who really liked a character that I was wondering, the Yitzhak character in it, which I was wondering, like, oh, how do people feel about that character? If you've seen the movie, you know, and it was

really interesting to see that, like, that's where the biggest cheers were were for that character's arc in the film. So I mainly say to say, that's what's nice about seeing a cult film like that with a big audience of, and a very diverse audience, too, at it, to understand it better than just watching it at home. Yeah, I have not seen it yet, but I feel like that's not a great kind of context to see it for the first time. Oh, no. No, I was sitting next to the typical boyfriend bringing his girlfriend there to see it for her first time kind of thing. Although I think they had a good time at it. So I wouldn't say seeing it theatrically is the right way to see it either.

Though it also bug me with a crowd who like knows everything, you know, and it's cheering at certain moments. It just would be distracting because I've never, never seen it. I don't know like why anyone should be cheered for like what the context is. Well, you know, I will say it was run by the same promoter who, did the Mission Hill tour. I recognized him from that. And he is a very good emcee of the events because just like at Mission Hill, he said, and look, this is a lot of people's first time.

Please don't just sing along with every line or talk over it or giggle too much. Let people experience this for their first time. And he told people like, except for the one part that sing along in the movie, please don't sing along. I mean, I see a lot of screenings of older movies and I feel like everyone needs to hear that. We don't need you to say the line when the character does. That doesn't help anyone but you. It's okay. It was handled well.

The film has its flaws for being a 2001 movie. Of course. And also John Cameron Mitchell is, you know, he's a white gay guy. Comes from a privileged background. He's in his 50s. I'm happy he has not become a J.K. Rowling type. But he occasionally says thing, even at the Q&A, I was like, ah, why did you say that?

And by that I just mean he goes, like, maybe we cancel people too fast kind of way of talking. Like you've experienced it with Scott Thompson where you're like, oh, Scott Thompson, please don't say these things. Like that kind of feeling. It's a certain generation. It'll happen to us. Yes. Yeah, I know.

But Hedwig and the Angry Inch Live gets a thumbs up for me. And if you've never seen it, the songs rule. The songs are the best part of it and still are. Anyway, that's what I saw this month. And I'll talk about questions and comments that are left on the Patreon. We're going to start with Homer the Great, the Stonecutter's episode. And Farton Lawrence says, by the way, I love the name. That's like a mad magazine name.

And he says, proud A&E employee here, delighted by the accurate history channel and Lifetime mentions, also part of the network family. Pardon the shameless shilling. May I suggest Lifetime's deadly dilf or my daughter's trapped in a thruple? I equally await your letterbox reviews. And yes, thank you, Farton Lawrence. I really rely on the We Hate Movies sideshow once in a lifetime for their lifetime movie coverage. And of course, Eric Sisko has been on a show several times. He worked at Lifetime.

I guess within the past 10 years, he has worked there. So not there anymore, but he has told plenty of stories about that network on his show. Those titles are great because they sound like they are built to try to explain to our parents what millennials are doing. And they're like, you maybe don't know what a deal for a thruple is, but they're bad things. And we need to explain them to you. Yeah, I guess this is the first time I've heard of Dilfs. Oh, I mean, you know, contextually you can figure it out. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess we can extend that terminology to other gender. too. I may have been called that by a person at Pride function last month, actually. A function. It's like a black party thing. This is this very nice little guy who I did not. Okay. This is a job. So a leprechaun. Yeah, it's a lepericon. Oh, there's me deadly d'il. Well, it's what happens when I wore my Eagle Tokyo hat there and he was wearing his Eagle Beijing shirt, which the Eagle is a big chain of gay bars that are also in both China and Japan right now. So you weren't a dad, but you were daddy. Yes, I was complimented as a daddy there, which I'm trying to embrace better instead of feeling old by that.

How do you become a daddy? Well, I mean, it's the beard and size help. But it's also, I've heard from real daddies that it's like it's an energy. It's an energy. Interesting. Okay. Well, I'm nowhere near becoming a daddy, so everyone can calm down. Kat Rebar says about the episode,

My dad was very briefly in Knights of Columbus, and my family, dad included, always referred to it as the stone cutters to make it seem less boring. My understanding of the Knights of Columbus is that back when Catholics weren't allowed in other lodges, they made their own lodge with blackjack and hookers, but it was basically the same thing, but named for the outstanding Catholic man whom everybody loves Christopher Columbus. I went with my dad a few times as a little kid in those, if you're going out, take the kids with you situations, and their lodge slash building was just a bar with a pool table and most definitely no girls allowed except for the lady bartender and girl children that my dad and a few other members had to bring along. I remember getting

in trouble with the other kids for hogging the pool table and sitting on the bar stools, but there were no iPads in the 90s and nothing else to do. My dad quit after a few months and the only reason my parents have ever given is they were very sexist, but I also think my dad was just as bored as I was. He did tell us that he had stayed long enough, he would have gotten a hat and a sword, and I was disappointed. I never got to play with the stone cutter sword, but I was happy that my dad resumed

taking us to the arcade and video store instead of a sad, boring bar. That's interesting, yeah. A recent Chapo Trappos episode covered the Availed Prophist Society, which is a similar organization to the United of Columbus or, I think, like Lions Club, J.C., like all of these

very fraternal organizations, Elks Club, odd fellows, Freemasons. They're all like Again, I think they underlined in that episode that it really is about getting together and drinking beer and playing ping pong. The big plan is just to be away from your wife to drink beer long enough. I didn't know if I had heard that before that the Knights of Columbus was a answer to anti-Catholic bigotry in the olden times of America. I can see that they are very big in my hometown. You would see their emblem everywhere and it was a very Catholic city. So that does make sense.

And also in the comments, our pal Thad, we had asked in it, he has supervised a, Restoration of Bimbo's Initiation, the cartoon that inspired the We Do song. But it's not the one that's on YouTube right now. Keep a lookout for it to be released officially. Let's move on to Gugu Guy Pan. And Jeremy Hawkins says, I appreciate the trepidation to dig into Chinese politics because as Westerners, we all have oops, all skewed perspectives. There's far right who say they're communist trying to destroy America. The weirder part of the far left who say they're communist trying to destroy America, but that's good.

The center whose general vibe can be felt in this episode and broader left who just kind of throw their hands in the air and say, it doesn't seem great, but I mainly don't want to go to war with them over Taiwan. I'd say generally the thing with China and the U.S. is that they're the two global superpowers, but they're both in decline in fighting to remain dominant despite that. The U.S. has this cycle of boom and busts that we're all familiar with, but with China, they spent the last period with construction as the engine of their economy. That has collapsed, and they've tried to fill that hole with AI, electric cars, and solar, but they can't quite fill that hole in their economy is in a downward spiral that under

capitalism can only be filled with imperialism. And yeah, while I'd say both the U.S. and China are bad, I want to point out that I'm in an organization of international socialists and our Chinese, Taiwan, and Hong Kong branch has to operate underground. Generally speaking, the project of the Chinese working class is the same as the American and Swedish and Palestinian, and we need to find ways to link the struggle together in a true international struggle. Yes, thank you for these thoughtful comments.

Jeremy really appreciate these. And we are humble Simpsons podcasters who are observing the world as everyone is around us, and we can only offer our thoughts and thank you for taking them in good faith. It was helpful as well. There were several good comments on this just from the viewpoint. That was one of my favorites to, Jeremy's,

on, you know, the political view on China from an American viewpoint. It's also been funny that we did that one. And then I know lately there has been, when I go and check politics news feeds and stuff for me, Mao has come up again recently because Hassan Piker, dressed like Mao for a stream

and people were like, did you know Mao killed 40 million people? I was like, oh, so that's the number now that they say that I've already researched for the joke in the episode two. And they were successfully trolled. Yes. On that episode two with an interesting insight is RVG who says

I'm adopted, as were each of my siblings, though only one was international. My parents didn't have to go to Korea to get my brother, though. He was flown in from an orphanage. Growing up, we celebrated airplane day, the day he arrived, and I thought for the longest time it was

just a minor holiday like Arbor Day or something. I have a lot more thoughts about the topic of adoption, especially international adoption, and what is ethical or not, but it's too big a topic for here. Suffice it to say, Gould's attitude towards it doesn't feel great, even if he

was well-meaning. Hope things worked out well for the kids. Yeah, thank you for this comment, R.B.G. Y'all say that somebody had a good comment. I don't have the comments in front of me, but they said essentially, in a non- consulting way that Dana Gould is not really equipped to understand China. He is the most like mid-century America human on the planet in terms of like his interests, what he talks about, what he jokes about. So yeah, I feel like he is not an international guy. So if he goes to China

and sees things being very different, he's going to react poorly. Because like we said on the podcast, he seemed to not enjoy anything about China. It was like we have to get in and get out as soon as possible. Like, oh, this part is cool. The food is good. It was beautiful here. I like this place. I like that place. It was all just like here. Here is a. the silly things I saw that I disliked. And I'm certain that it, like we said on the episode, like that if he is feeling watched the entire time, if he'll be approved to get to have a baby or not,

then I understand how that can weigh on your viewpoint of there. Though also, as the classic Garfield meme, who is that for, means? Like, none of us are immune to propaganda. And he grew up in a highly propagandized America that told him a lot of things about China. that he probably baggage he brought with him to the place that he got his three children from. And yet, it at best sounds complicated for him.

Yeah, yeah. So up next we have in Maggie Makes Three, and Scott Lowe says, As someone who spent three years of college working at the desk of a bowling alley, I'd assume the joke about the pants was just because there's so much grease slash oil involved in being behind the scenes in the machinery, and Homer wouldn't want to ruin his nice dress pants. I still love the ambiguity of his delivery in either way. This is Bob speaking, by the way.

Scott, yes, I guessed it was the grease, just because everything needs grease to move in the bowling alley. I like it as the vagueness of when it happens, you know, and it lets you just imagine whatever you want. But Scott's insight from behind the counter at a bowling alley, that sounds like a good reading on it. You know, I walk by a bowling alley fairly frequently, maybe even like once per day based on its location. Don't try to find out where I live. And I will say, I am always intrigued. And every time I walk by, if my wife is with me, I think, oh, we have to go bowling at some point. because if a bowling scene is filmed in Vancouver,

it's usually filmed in that bowling alley. Oh, yeah, man. It's probably been in like 80 different movies. There are very few bowling alleys left, period, but especially in Vancouver. Like, a huge one just closed not too long ago, like I think last month. Dennis Kaye says about the same episode,

I was a huge fan of Knight Rider when I discovered it at age seven and was then hugely let down when the DVDs came out in the early aughts, and I got to revisit the series only discover nearly every episode had the same plot. Michael goes to a town, meets a cute girl and her son slash little brother slash nephew, leaves town, learns he has to go back to stop some bad guys, rescues the girl from

danger, and then Kit does a turbo boost and jumps over something to save the day. Not a great series to binge. On the subject of TV set memories, my family had one of those TVs with the big wooden frames and the magnetic spot you could put the remote into when it wasn't being used. our second TV was bought specifically so I could have something to play my NES on without interfering with my parents' shows. Yeah, I didn't know that there's always a highway on Knight Rider. The Knight Rider sounds a lot like the Incredible Hulk

or other of the drama shows that are just guy comes to town and meets new people every week. I guess they saves you on regular cast members that are, it's really limited to just a car and David Hasseloff. So he's kind of like the Incredible Hulk. but he drives a car. And I saw several comments of this, and I didn't want to respond to it.

Now, I think we correctly identified that it jams together, Night Rider, and Baywatch, the two most famous David Hasselhoff shows. Now, a couple people pointed out that they think it's a reference to Thunder in Paradise, the terrible Hulk Hogan TV show.

It's from the creators of Baywatch, and he is constantly driving around in like a computerized boat, but it doesn't talk. It's black. The boat is black, too. Yes. Yeah. No, you're right. It is a black boat. That's another similarity. It aired as a TV movie in September 1993. And then it's a full season of a syndicated show for one year, a year before this aired, or it March 94. I know about it because it is a pro wrestling curio and related to Hulk Hogan's professional wrestling history. But I feel like if the Simpsons were meaning to reference it, they would have said it on the commentary. Yeah, it was like too recent. And again, Baywatch was the most popular syndicated show on television for a time.

And this one, yeah, I was surprised it only lasted a year. I only know about it because there's a very bad full motion video game based on this series. I'm surprised it had to be bad because there was just so much of a TV landscape to make your syndicated show. And they only did one season of this. Yeah, that it could only be that one season shows you how poorly it must have done, that it couldn't get enough to keep going. And it had all of the tie-ins of popular pro wrestling too. But yes, in the history of the Hulk Hogan career and the wrestling war,

The reason he quits WWF to then go to WCW is because of Thunder and Paradise. So that's why I am aware of the terrible show, Thunder and Paradise. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen an episode of it, although I recall like it just being on in like the six months it all aired. If you've run out of every episode of Baywatch and Baywatch nights to watch and you want some other bad thing that's like Baywatch, I guess he can go to Thunder and Paradise next, but it should be your third tier of that.

And up next we have our Toy Story 5 spoiler cast because when Toy Story 5 came out, we recorded like literally the next day, put it out that same day. So if you have finally gotten around to seeing the movie, check it out because it was like right hot off the presses. So let's talk about the comments on that. T.J. Gaines says, damn, that is fast. We saw it Saturday morning. It was much better than I expected. It's better than four.

But most importantly, my son loved it and watched it with his Woody and Buzz. I really want a high-tech buzz and the name of the pet hidden for spoilers was hilarious. That pet's name is Jimmy Dean and you can imagine what kind of pet that is. Yeah, I love the little detail of like seeing it with your child and that they have a Woody and Buzz Toy with them to watch in the movie theater. And also that detail just made me think of like, wow, that's probably been like,

this is now the third or fourth generation of little kids brought to the movie theater to watch Toy Story with their toys in hand. That's true. Now, I have a little Woody who watches me while I podcast. He's got the Mr. Microphone. He's got the creepy look on his face and he's pointing. And when I finally get the new curtains installed in here, I will do a podcast room video tour on Instagram, I think,

because people don't really know the space that's around me here. Maybe that'll push me to tidy up and match one with you. That chair pile is going to fall. It needs to be addressed with it, I know. Can you tell me what's on the very bottom? I'm just curious. This chair, oh, wait, which chair pile? Okay.

There are two chair piles. Confirmed. The one to you're right. Oh, okay. Okay. Henry is searching. We're going to leave all this in because. there's a chair turned away from the camera with a big pile of stuff on it.

I just was curious, like, what's the fossil record? How deep does it go? It's a T-Tor-Roe T-shirt I've meant to wash, and I totally forgot I had around here. Oh, so dirty laundry? Yes, dirty laundry. Okay, he's still digging around. His microphone cannot pick him up right now, and it's very exciting. One of my favorite Spider-Man hats is right here.

I totally forgot about that. Have you been looking for it? Yes, I had forgotten where I put it. What amazing discoveries you can find when you clean up your room. So there you're grounded for the weekend. Clean up that room. You know what? Also, I didn't want to pick it up because it's like, I might mess up, but it's the book half of my Ingmar Bergman box set is over there too. Okay, you know what? I have a freer weekend. I think I'll do a little tidying up tomorrow.

We're going to have dueling podcast room tour videos at some point in the future. Manic Rainbow says the co-director and writer, Kenna Harris, went to high school with me in Yakaiba, California. The farm setting of the film feels incredibly familiar to me to the inland empire setting, I grew up in, and I wouldn't doubt that it influenced Kenna. So my head canon is that Blaze lives in Yuciba or somewhere near it. This then led me to read a few interesting interviews with the co-director and writer of the film, Kenna Harris. They're also non-binary, which that's interesting to learn too.

Could be the first non-binary writer director in Disney film history. As far as I know, not laid off in the culling, the Picksar culling that took place, just like, I think within the past week. I think they survived. There's a really good article about how, like, this shows how long Toy Story has been around. Andrew Stanton, who's been on it since the beginning, he's directing it with a person who, in their childhood, saw Toy Story 2 and was inspired when coming up with the story for this movie.

Oh, how nice. Yes, we really enjoyed that movie. Please check out our hour-long podcast about it on the Patreon, if you have it yet. And now it's time to talk about Rickett Ralph for our What a Cartoon movie for that month. and Dennis Kay says, The symbols that appear when Kuber talks have a name. They're called Grawlix's, and the term was coined by beetle-Bailey author Mort Walker

in his book, The Lexicon of Comicana. Also, Super Mario Sunshine, better than Sonic Adventure 2? I respectfully disagree. Thank you, Dennis Kaye. I think someone actually agreed with my sentiment there in the comments. Would I play one level of Sonic Adventure 2 right now

or one level of Mario Sunshine? I might pick Sonic Adventure 2 for one level, but as a whole game, that I'm going to roll credits on, I still want to play Sunshine over Sonic Adventure, too. You know, I've only played one hour of Densh Attack, but so far it's better than every 3D Sonic game. Although, there are a few that I haven't played, and we'll get around to playing Sonic Colors in Sonic Shadow Generations or whatever the hell it's called, but I really am impressed by that game. Aren't there like half of the Sonic games got delisted or something too, right? Not that

many. Oh, no, they were just a Steam sale. They're all up there, all the ones that were just for sale digitally, so yeah. Okay. And Blake R. said about Reckett Ralph. I will admit the Rekker Ralph is probably the film I saw the most in theaters in its initial release coming in at seven viewings. The reason why might surprise you. I just started college where I was very lonely and very depressed. I still remember it feeling very surreal that a film like this could have come from a Disney that had only just put out Winnie the Pooh and I found myself deeply endeared to its characters. Now older and wiser, I do recognize some of the cracks and imperfections. Subway product placement in Rihanna Needle Drop do have me wishing that the film could have just fully committed to its world

and the storytelling at hand. Subway would still have one more obnoxious cameo to make in 2014's Muppets Most Wanted, where Fuzzy is visibly eating a subway sandwich on a train traveling through the European countryside.

How sad, you can confirm this, Henry, because you went through a Muppet phase recently. Yes, yes. Partially from being on the Doughboys and doing a Muppets episode with them. But yeah, the Muppets Most Wanted. Yes, that happens. I kind of forgot that because also on that train was Puff Daddy in one scene, which was far more distractly.

Yes. Yeah. Oh, I hope they didn't go to any freakoffs, those little guys. He's only on screen for seven seconds, I think. It tops like that you directly see him. But you know what? He's hanging out with Pepe, the shrimp, and I think Pepe needs to have some questions I want to hear answered.

His friendship with Diddy. I have some questions, too. We're going to move on to Talking Futurama, the episode Reincarnation. and Van 404 says In regard to Matt Graney's fascination with old Fleischer cartoons, I think Thad Kamarowski previously mentioned that Graining occasionally attends

the Fleischer Restoration screenings around here in L.A. While I went to one last month showcasing Popeye and sure as heck, Matt was indeed there in the audience. Other notables in the audience include David X. Cohen, Phil Lamar, Dave Herman and Tom Kenny

and the host for the Q&A, Billy West, Maurice Lamar and animation historian Ray Pointer. Quite a lot of Futurama in the house that night celebrating over 90 years, of our favorite sailor man. Well, that's awesome. I would have forced an interview on one of them.

Probably David X. Cohen. He's the most elusive. But he'd also be excited to be recognized, I think. As for Matt Graney, who would just be like, please leave me alone. I know you're right. I've signed so many things. I'm just glad nothing happened to that theater

because there'd be no Futurama. It's true. Man, all of the get. And SpongeBob, too, would suffer from that. No, that sounds awesome. In my several travels to Los Angeles in the last couple of years, I don't think it's ever lined up

with a screening there of, the Fleischer Shorts, that sounds like it would be amazing. I should look for the next time it's going there just because it sounds like a very likely thing that I, at least two of those people listed, will be at the next one, I think. And Steve Watts says about that episode, very possibly the least important correction ever,

but Bob mentioned that modern babies probably don't wear sweet pea-style onesies, and actually, yes, they do. Parents get it drilled into our heads from hospitals in a million baby books that babies shouldn't sleep with blankets. but obviously you want your baby to be cozy and warm and hopefully sleep. So there are lots of wearable blankets that look very similar to Sweet Peas outfit. The most popular one I'm aware of is the Halo Sleep Sack, but there's probably a million of them.

All of our kids wore them well into toddlerhood, so when they got out of bed, they'd shuffle along like Maggie and Sweet Pete. The ones for infants also have little wings with Velcro that you can use to swaddle because manually swaddling a baby is honestly kind of a pain. But if you don't swaddle them, their little arms will jerk around and wake them up. I guess I don't see what babies are wearing because they're usually in strollers. And then once they hit two, I'm sorry, Henry, but they all put on Spider-Man shirts. Spidey and his amazing friends is like the most, my friend who just had a baby turn two.

His thing was, it was bluey everywhere, but he said, yeah, every other party I've gone to for his friend's birthday parties. been Spidey man. They've all been Spitey. Yeah, yeah. That thumbnail came up on Disney Plus. My wife asked, what is that? And I said, oh, every baby goes Gago over this. Literally, they love it. I didn't realize in the show that Miles Morales in that is called Spin. Like, that's his official name if you buy the toy. I'm hearing this for the first time. I'm happy to hear that Sweepee style onesies are around. The only awareness I had of that, like, don't put blankets with your baby thing was because that was a joke in a later, the hill we haven't covered yet where like Peggy learns that everything she did with Bobby was wrong

when he was a baby. We'll get around to that in like 2040 I think. We'll cover it by that. Oh man. Yeah, that's right. It's after Luann has a baby, right? Or she's about to have a baby. Yeah. So thank you, Steve Watts. And moving on to the last set of comments for talking of the hill, Hank's bad hair day. And Eden Stratton says, comparing the actual real life Roger Staubach throughout his playing days. Rookie Stoback was a straight military crew cut. While for his mid-care, he let the top grow out more in his side burgers to get longer. By the late 70s, it was almost like a bouffant. At a certain point, I think Roger Stauback's hair would be too shaggy and hippie-ish for Hank. Thank you, Ian. I guess Hank preferred the modern Staubach, not his 70s look. Although if you go to King of the Hill flashbacks

were Hank's in high school, he's got kind of like a puffy buffont a bit. It seemed like he probably literally followed Stauback's hair in the 70s, and just asked for it. In the universe of the show, it sounds like that is what he asked for his longtime barber to just cut it to 70s Staubeck. He always followed Staubeck. I appreciate Ian for the history of Staubeck's hair. Meanwhile, Cody C. says that name is important. Oh man, Kathy Lee Gifford. Well, despite the fact I was born before her son, it was often asked of my mother if she named me because Kathy Lee did for her son. It was the late 80s, early 90s, and it was Cody Mania, along with the turtles and Bart. And yet, now almost no one names their child Cody any longer. So with this, I have created the International

Council of Cody's. We don't have a telepathic link, but we do feel each other's pain and our backs now hurt. Love this show. Awesome. Yeah, Cody, I'm glad you're healing. It's funny, though, because names like Cody and Tyler, to borrow a term from We Hate Movies, these were the disgusting shit boys of the 90s. They all had bull haircuts. They all had like stained Kool-Aid on their superhero t-shirts, up to no good. But now that they're adults, I can accept Cody's. into my heart. Yeah, our kids, our parents today calling anybody Cody, is anybody, people

are calling their kids more fun things these days than just our boring names. When we did the minions, I mentioned that every minion has a name like us or the we hate movies guys because they're boring white guy, white American names are the names of minions. Although Bob is so rare

that even though there's Bob's Burgers and SpongeBob, if I tell like a barista or a server like, oh, what's your name so we can call it your name? When I say Bob, I'm often hit with like a deer in headlights expression. Then I'd have to spell it out, B-O-B. And then they kind of get it. But I don't think people hear the name Bob very often. Do you mention like in Japan that like it just sounds like up, like just like a noise. Like it doesn't sound like an name, right? Japan would be like Babu. But over here, yeah, it's like a loud like coffee shop or

bar. It just sounds like when I say my name. So I'd say Bob. And it sounds like I have problems if I would say my name like that. It sucks for this Cody that Kathy Lee Gifford made my son I mean Cody sound like a very annoying brat, and it already gets you labeled as a brat being Cody. Watch out she could sue you. Yes. Yes. No, actually, Cody is not a brat at all?

Leave me alone, Kathy. But is Cody Brett? We've learned about Daddy, but is Cody Brett? He was for the summer of 2024, along with Kamala Harris, but not anymore. Oh, it's too bad. Well, thanks for joining us, folks. We're talk to the audience. We're both on our journey to become Daddy, and we hope you join us for the future.

We also have some great podcasts coming up, including new episodes of Talking Futurama, talking to the Hill, the return of what a cartoon covering one of the most important cartoons of our lifetimes. And also we're covering Big Hero 6 to close out our whole summer series of Disney 2010's movies. So it's going to be a great way to end the summer. And we've got some cool talking Simpsons coming too with a couple of fun returning guests as well in August. And we're working on cool stuff there too. So look forward to all of the awesome stuff in August and tell your friends, too, get them to sign up and see all the awesome stuff that we've got going on. They deserve it. But as for us, see you again next week for a new Talking Simpsons

and next month for another episode of Talk to the audience. See you then.