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

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

We've reached the end of the month, which means it's time for another episode of our community podcast! This time around, we discuss the little Simpsons news available in this post-season drought, Seth MacFarlane's new Stewie series, and the untimely end of Smiling Friends. And, as always, we read and respond to your comments and questions from the last round of episodes. It's all happening on Talk to the Audience: the podcast that'll turn you inside-out... with hilarity! 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!

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Get up to 15% off at avocadogreenmatress.com. Avocadogreen mattress.com. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ah, hoi hoi, everybody, and welcome to talk to the audience where this is always death. I am one of your host, Bob Mackey, currently pouring one out for a lost Hibbert. And who is here with me today, as always? Ready to apply for the writer's room for Stewie Season 2, Henry Gilbert. And yes, this is Talk to the Audience.

It is our community podcast. It posts at the end of the month on Patreon, the beginning of the month on the free feed. And in this podcast, we talk about what's happening in the world of The Simpsons, what's happening with us. and then we spend the rest of the podcast going over your questions and comments that you left on our Patreon. And yes, it is a slow news month, which means we're going to be talking about other shows, but they're kind of on the same network or involve the same people. So it's only fair. And we have to release something, right?

Yes, yeah. I guess it's going to be this way going forward with talk to the audiences. The lull between seasons is going to be like half of the year now instead of a quarter of the year with these 15 episode orders per season. Yeah, I feel like if the first season. episode is going to be a Traus of Horror, then it's more like between February and October, which is like eight months. Wow, yes, yeah. We're getting four months of broadcast Simpsons per year.

I guess at some point in that lull, it sounds like there's still going to be a Disney Plus episode here and there. But otherwise, yes, we're just going to have a lot of like Simpson silence throughout the year. It's a different era. But we're going to still do our jobs, damn it. And I guess this is related the first news item in that there's probably going to be an exclusive Disney Plus Simpsons episode. It is likely going to be a talented Mr. Ripley parody named Simpsley.

That's the title of the episode. And that's all we know. But there's a collection, there's a handful of production season 37 episodes that have yet to air. They could be pushed to broadcast season 38. And one or possibly more could be a Disney Plus exclusive. We don't know yet, but we will report on it when we know. It's a really interesting strategy. by the Fox TV channel or network for this year and going forward that they just decided

they wanted to have like instead of X number of episodes per season, they want to take seven episodes from like each regular order of Bob's Burger Simpson's family guy and American Dad and just spread it around to like more shows to put it with. I still believe it's to plan for the day when the ones Disney owns will never be on Fox Network anymore to hopefully have something that they can keep airing without, if they ever were to lose Simpsons Family Guy at all. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about it before. I'm very tired of these very wimpy production orders lately, and we'll talk about it soon,

but what we're covering on what a cartoon next month, the seasons regularly have 26 episodes, and I'm just, oh, the golden age. God, they just had so many ideas, and if they didn't, they thought up some crazy crap to put on TV. They got to film something, and like, yeah, here's the one time I'll mention, I'm limiting myself per episode here. I'm watching The Next Generation and I'm in season three

I'm like 12 episodes in I'm like oh this has to be the halfway point It isn't yet season three is a longer season It's like I think 27 episodes of an hour long program They put those bastards to work Like that was the golden age late 80s early 90s They're trying to get to that syndication magic number Although TNG was already in syndication But they wanted the rerun factory to always be operating

Yes yeah well because they knew how This was back when they wanted to spend enough money to like get to the number of episodes to rerun instead of just like, let's just have eight episodes of something every two years. That counts as a show. That's a TV show. Sure. Yeah, we'll renew it.

Everyone will have aged horribly between seasons and then we'll cancel it like three in when there'll be like 20 episodes to watch. When back then, they knew they had to get to like, well, sure, it's first run syndication. But if we want to get this to 100, we got to get at least 25 a season. And they get two months off, if that, between seasons. to grow beards or cut hair or whatever. Yeah, I really hate when these streaming shows get a begrudging final season. That's like four episodes long.

I was just experiencing that with the Greg Daniels show upload. Every season seemed to get smaller and smaller. And then the last season is four episodes. I'm thinking, just why even bother? Like, I'm happy they got to finish the story, but it just feels so passive-aggressive. Like, yeah, I have four. Get out of here. Yeah, I really think a lot of that is, like, the algorithm tells them that if this at least has a finite

ending instead of left on a cliffhanger this will get more views as a library show. Yeah. People won't say, oh, don't bother watching it. It doesn't have an ending. So I can kind of see that. So yes, we're mad about short episode orders or small episode orders. In our next bit of news here, we are thinking

that possibly a remake of the classic game, the Simpsons hit and run could be coming in the future. So earlier in March, Matt Selman told People magazine, quote, because we know people love it, we know they want it, so that's good. If we know people want it never say never so that's what matt selman had to say which could indicate something is happening

and one week earlier gamers discovered that radical entertainment the developer of this game the veterans from that studio have updated their website for their fresh new studio new radical games and this is a Vancouver based studio so i can go find them and knock on their door and say hey i have a podcast what are you doing break all your indias i need to know just see if they left their window open on one of their dev kids like that's not illegal you're not trespass No, I'm just using my eyes to look at things. And if illegal information has to be on the other end, then, you know, it's not my deal. It's their deal to deal with.

Yeah, if you go to the new Radical Games website, they make no secret of all of the things that they developed before as under a different name, but with a lot of the same leadership, at least, based on the names that are on the website. But they especially have like a whole section on their site for Simpsons Hit and Run. Like, it's the cover of Simpsons Hit and Run, that iconic one of Homer running on it. And, you know, this has been asked for long enough that I remember watching an E3 video of Simpsons writers promoting tapped out and being asked, but what about hit and run? Don't you want to bring back hit and run? And E3 is very dead. Yes. I will say, you know, if this does come out as a remake, adjust your expectations. It's still a licensed game. It's still very good. But watch out for Fireballs, the great video game podcast, put out an episode about this game. And you realize the limitations of this game and that there are really only five kinds of missions.

but the love is there. And it's basically playable to the point where it needs to get out the door in terms of hitting the shelves. So maybe they'll work on gameplay elements. Maybe they'll fine tune some stuff. That would be great to release an improved version out into the wild

that maybe gives you a little more time on those really pain-in-the-ass-time missions where that's where I stopped playing the game when I rented it from Gamefly. Yeah, I have to admit that it came out where us being slightly older gamers, like when it came out, I saw it as like, oh, that's pretty good for a license game,

but it wasn't a be-all end-all to me. I like how you call it slightly older, and I'm thinking, I'm 21 years old. Yes, I mean, it was the next generation of Simpsons fans that were playing that one the most. But, I mean, yes, is it better than the Outs Simpsons games otherwise? Yeah, though the Simpsons game is a more fully featured, bigger budget idea of what if Liberty City was Springfield? But it's less fun, I'd say, or less funny than the hit. Yeah, it's just like electronic arts game loaf. It just, it's very flavorless.

The writing is there, but it just, the gameplay just feels uninspired. And maybe we'll cover that in the future because it is part of our timeline. And it does come out, I believe, alongside the movie or shortly afterwards. I believe it's the November after the movie. Yes, it's November 07. And so, yeah, that will be a multi-episode events, just like our Simpsons movie, which we're in 05 right now. So it's not, the thing we once thought of is like, well, we'll never talk about that, is relatively close in our work order.

We're getting there. And yes, we are really scraping the barrel for news here. There was a recent story about the actor Barry Keogun. By the way, I had to look up how to say his name. I think I was saying Keegan for the longest time, but it's Keogun. Yes, I believe I've said it that way to Keegan until you see interviews with him. And he's a very good young actor. He should be giving me all this attention that Timothy Shalames of the world are getting.

He was, I mean, he's really great in Saltburn, which is kind of, of a crummy movie, but he's great in it. At least as far as, like, if you want to watch a movie that's not predictable, don't watch Saltburn, I would say. I see. I think I've seen something he's been in, but in any case, this interview was about him being a quote-unquote big gamer, and frankly, folks, that don't impress me much, because he was born in 1992.

Guess what? He loves Pokemon. Crazy, right? It's fine, but in this interview, he said that he was playing Simpsons hit and run on a PSP, and everyone went, excuse me, that was never officially released for the PSP, and that's true. Either he was playing another game or he has a hacked PSP. We don't know. We're waiting from a follow-up

from Barry Keegan. He may get canceled over this, and I hope he does. You should not lie to the press. Yes, it's the same as saying you don't respect theater or ballet, is if you say you played hit and run on PSP, when only the Simpsons game was released for the PSP as far as PSP and Simpson's games go.

And I don't know if they ever planned on making a hit and run for, I guess the PSP wasn't out when hit and run hit the shelves. PSPs 2, 2004. Hit and Run 2003. Yeah, yeah. And by that point, like EA, I think had gotten the rights to it. So, yeah, I'm thinking, I mean, look, he's a young actor. He's, how's he's supposed to remember what he, what was in his hands when playing something?

Or it is just like lots of people played hacked PSPs. It could also just be a nerd friend of his had a PS2 emulator on it and put hit and run on it. Could be that. In any case, we pray for his downfall. It's over Kiyogen. Fake gamer, fake actor. He won't be playing Drew. again after this.

I assume he played droog once. I'll off the check of IMDB. Oh, Bob, you've forgotten all your favorite internals. He was Droo, the Eternal, right up there with Fasto. Kinga? Sprite. Are these guys? Kinga, Sprite, and Athena.

That's another one. Okay, shoo. I'm going to say, keep chasing those Oscars, Chloe. We'll talk about Oscars soon. Oh, yes. But I think you mentioned this up front, Henry, that a recent spinoff to family guy was announced, and it is called Stewie. starring of course Stee Griffin.

This will debut in 2027. Fox ordered two seasons up front. And the premise is Stewie will be at a new preschool with a turtle friend and they go on sci-fi adventures. So it's more going back to the roots of Family Guy when Stewie was an evil genius

with inventions and what have you. And it seems like its current order will wrap at the same time as the recent big orders of Simpsons Family Guy and American Dad. I believe that order will push the Simpsons to 40. So this all works out time-wise. Yeah, basically, I wondered

the article that announced it that said it's a two-season order to start with. I mean, one, that's just the safe thing to do for an animated series. If you're going to go in, you got to do it. But also, it times it so, should it be successful, it would be renewed at the same time as Family Guy and American Dad, probably in a package deal with Seth McFarland's Fuzzy Door Entertainment. I did not find this information, but do you know what the episode orders are going to be like? Is it going to be 15 per season like the other renewals?

I believe it is a 15 order, yes. I'm pretty sure. It's crazy that, like, this is a spinoff where they also make it clear in the article. This is not like old spinoff. Stewie will stay on Family Guy. It's just that he's going to have the old silly adventures he used to have on the show with off-screen with some Turtle guy in like a wannabe Rick and Morty style, I'd say. Well, you know, around 2009, the president of TV said that Seth McFarlane must have three shows at all times. And because the Orville is not coming back and Ted is going to be canceled.

well, God damn it, give him Stewie. It really is insane how much Seth McFarlane is working these days. I had even more than ever, and not just with the Stewie thing. Like, I recently got a dose of Seth MacFarlane because I've started watching Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner have a podcast where they promised to not only talk about Star Trek. It's about being an actor in general. But they had Seth MacFarlane on and they kept going like,

wait, you're working on this too, and this and this. And Jonathan Frakes mentioned he has. had directed an episode of the Orville and never got hired back in Seth McFarlane. Basically, it was because they joked, but the joke was Seth MacFarlane is too controlling to really let Jonathan Frakes direct the show he's hired to direct. Well, it seems like the Orville's not coming back because Seth has got to keep busy with this thing now. Well, now after hearing that interview, I now know that Seth MacFarlane, when he's on the set, like Jonathan Frank said when he was directing the episode, he's a masterful director, like at least he's directed eight million

episodes of TV, Jonathan Frakes in many movies. But he said he was trying to like set up shots and plan out shots before Seth McFarland got there. And everybody else on the set was like nervous. Like, I don't know if you're allowed to do that. And like Seth then told him like, well, yeah, I had to fire you or else I'd stop being your friend because we would have gotten in too many fights over you trying to direct things I want to direct. Well, I'm glad they're on good terms, but he does sound like real pre-Madonna that Seth MacFarlane. And you know what? This Stewie show may sound very cynical and in some ways it is because like why can't we have a new idea no here's stewie a character we met 27 years ago and you're going to like him again damn it but hey

this is an animated show that will likely not be canceled and we need more animation jobs so that is my argument for fine stewie is fine give people animation writing and directing and storyboard jobs sure yeah if you want to keep the people employed on network animated shows sadly like a set f McFarlane show like that is incredibly stable and will keep people employed. I am going to assume this is a WGA show. I'm thinking he's still sticking with that. So if that's the case, it's probably a better job than writing for adults whim, at least, you know, money and benefits-wise. Yeah, or just like getting some Netflix show that they won't promote. It ends in a season and you're sort of like just cast to the wind afterwards. And they still are. I haven't heard much new about it lately. But last year they

announced there's a TED animated series too. So the TED high school show is live action with a CGI Teddy in it, plus the animated series as well. So it's like, how many shows can this guy get on television? It's insane. He has to be a billionaire at this point, right? I don't know. A thousand millions is a lot of millions. And people that make entertainment don't become billionaires. People that make nothing become billionaires. I know. It's very rare. Like, Steven Spielberg to be a billionaire, had to basically like own a piece of a theme park. Like that's how he became a billionaire. Yeah.

Like if you sell a website once in 1996, you're a billionaire. If you've worked on TV for the past 35 years, you're not a billionaire. You could be worth $500 million like the South Park guys. But maybe that's the ceiling. Yeah, I think the fact that we have so many billionaires who just don't do anything makes us all think, well, a billion's not that much, right? Yeah. Well, even now, I just read some other news story where it's like, oh, this guy could only offer $7 billion.

I think there's now a line between like, are you not even worth $10 billion? Well, then you're not really rich. Like, you're not an actual rich person's worth $100 billion, you know. We're looking up Seth, McFarland, net worth. And I'm not finding anything, but perhaps he is now worth $400 million,

according to Yahoo, a recent report. I bet on $400 to $500. Also, you know what, to take this new account, I believe he's never been married, so he doesn't have a divorce pulling him down like, say, Trey Parker does, Multiple divorces on Trey Parker's part. So we're all rooting for Seth to make it to a billion.

One guy who has actually made stuff should make it to the billion dollar mark. And he does actually make things and hire people. And he does employ the same people forever as well. It's good to be a friend of Seth McFarlane. If you're Mike Henry, you're sitting pretty. Oh, God, yes. Man, just how much do you think he makes just from Mike Henry, from American Dad residuals just from being like that one guy, Jacobson or whatever,

who's like the CIA employee? I mean, when Mike Henry lost the Cleveland voice acting job, he was like, I don't care. Yes, yeah. That's one less thing for me to do. Those Cleveland reruns, like, yeah, Harry Shearer should listen to Mike Henry. Like, hey, I don't play Dr. Hibbert anymore, but Mike Henry lost all of those jobs, and he only makes the same money. It's true. So up next, we have a slightly confusing news item.

Allow me to explain. So the namesake for Dr. Hibbert, Steve Hibbert, passed away at age 68. If you've been following our podcast, you know what I'm talking about. but if not, let me explain here. So before Dr. Hibbert was turned into a Cosby parody, a Dr. Huxstable parody from the Cosby show, Julius Hibbert was Julia Hibbert. And Julia Hibbert was named after Jay Cogan's groundling buddy,

Julia Hibbert, who we know best as Julia Sweeney. So the S&L cast member Pat herself, and if Julia Hibbert did not become the Cosby parody, it would have been, I assume, a black female doctor named Julia Hibbert, named after this semi-famous comedian. but now the namesake for Hibbert has passed away. And outside of this little footnote in Hibbert history, he's mostly known for playing the Gimp in Pulp Fiction.

Yes, yeah. It's the answer to trivia questions for movie nerds of like, why is Julius Sweeney, you know, in a one-off scene in Pulp Fiction as, you know, a junkyard operator who knows the wolf? And it's like, well, because she and her husband were friends with Quentin Tarantino, and she didn't have to put on a leather costume to be, the first idea of mainstream America thinks of when they think of BDSM people.

And I'm pretty surely, did Quentin Tarantino do an uncredited rewrite on the It's Pat movie due to his friendship with Julia Sweeney or something like that? I think so. I think he was lightly involved. I mean, he just, it was funny, these guys who were would-be filmmakers, like, were usually on the outside of the LA improv scene. I think they liked hanging out with him. And I mean, reading from the obituary you link to in our notes, Bob, like, to learn how the late Steve Hibbert played the Gimp was because originally it was supposed to be the co-writer of Pulp Fiction, Roger Avery. But then Roger Avery learned that, like, Tarantino was going to, like, try to prank him

and leave him locked in the box all day. And so he asked Steve Hibbert to take the role over so he wouldn't get bullied by Tarantino. And going back to Julia Sweeney, she married Steve Hibbert in 89. They divorced in 94. So right when she was cast on SNL, she was still Julia Sweeney.

I assume she just carried that professional name throughout her career. But for a time she was Julia Hibbert and that's where Julius Hibbert comes from. And based on Steve Hibbert's history and his age, he likely could have been a Simpsons writer if he wanted to be because he came from Letterman.

He's like the same age as Algin and Mike Reese. He traveled in the same circles. So I'm sure he was a friend of the show in a loose capacity. Yeah, I would guess it's possible he was a co-worker with, you know, Jeff Martin and Gamel and Pross and which, you know, naming Dr. Hibbert,

after Steve and Julia Hibbert was similar to like the Gammels were a slightly recurring family in the first season of the Simpsons named after Tom Gamble. And of course, Professor Frank. We all know Professor Frank. Yeah, I don't know if Steve ever commented on the Dr. Hibbert connection, but I'm just curious to know, like, what did he feel about this? Because it is like a very prominent B-level character in The Simpsons that just happens to have his name. And seeing Avery posted about it and the passing and said, last time he saw Steve Hibbert was at some event in Atlanta. It sounded like Hibbert no longer lived in Los Angeles and had moved somewhere else to retire.

So RIPP to Steve Hibbert. And our final news item, not related to The Simpsons either, but Smiling Friends is coming to a surprising end. There are only two episodes left of season three, and then it is out in like 30-ish episodes. And people are wondering, is this a bit? Because as we record this, April 1st is around the corner. So we're not sure what's going on, but I don't think it's a bit at all. I think they are deciding to end the series. And this news comes right after some quotes from the creator saying,

we don't want to go on forever. We think five seasons could be enough for us. And then they decided to announce that it's not going to be five, it's going to be three, and we've already produced the rest of what you're going to see. I take it to be real. And hey, if it's by April 1st, it's revealed that actually they were just goofing on us. They've been renewed for like five more seasons. on Adult Swim for 100 episodes,

then you got me, guys, you got me. But yes, they certainly, well, they mocked The Simpsons in the most recent season, but I also saw after this got announced and people were kind of like, no, it must be a joke, like Zach, the not Australian guy.

People pulled up, like, clips of him when he did like the game grumps, I think, and was doing a quick play and was just talking about it. He was like, man, these shitty new episodes of family guy used to be good. Like, it was being used as an example of like, he doesn't want to be

become like season seven family guy or whatever, you know. I think they legitimately learned from those shows they grew up and turned down money. It doesn't sound like Zach and Mike, the guys aren't retiring. I think they're just going to have new projects is what they'd like to do, either with together or with other people. Yeah, and Michael Cusack, the Australian member of the group of the partnership, he has other shows. He has Yolo Crystal Fantasy and Koala Man.

So if you like his voice in his style of animation, you can watch his other things. And I'm sure these guys are like barely out of their 30s or like in their mid 30s. So there's going to be a lot more of them to come. It's just going to be like the first phase of their career, I guess. Based on Instagram ads, I do wonder if a little of it is that they see the merchandising machine for Adult Swim has begun. Like there's, I am getting multiple different like toy ads for like get by characters from the show, not just the main guys.

but I can't remember his name but the crash bandicoot guy from the season two premiere. Oh, yes, that guy. They're getting all this merch and maybe they're just seeing like, uh-oh, we're becoming the machine now. Is this, is this what we want?

Do we want to be that rich? But also, like, they could easily just hand over season four to somebody else and they'd be voice actors on it. I think they could get away with that and still cash really big checks, but they don't want to do that. Yeah, yeah.

I don't know. It could have something to do with the Skydance deal where they don't want to work for the Ellison's, perhaps. sure about their politics. They seem to be on the up and up, but maybe they're like, we don't want anything to do with this. We're going to do our own thing somewhere else and have fun. Have fun with the spy out, everybody. Yes, it's been a fun, fun month here where the second worst thing that could have happened to Warner, which is getting bought by Netflix, now isn't

going to happen because the worst thing that could happen is, and it's getting bought by Paramount. So a smaller company that has more debt is going to somehow be allowed to buy Warner brothers, and then they become a giant company full of debt that will lay off everybody. they possibly can. Yes. You see, this is how you become a billionaire. You don't make a little

Peter Griffin dance around the screen. You acquire things. Yes. And then sell them. And then sell them. And lay everyone off and then sell them, by the way.

Also, offload all the debt onto one of those things you bought and have it stop making the thing it makes because it has too much debt on it. It makes sure a lot of people, a lot of people are unemployed.

Yes. It's a great system we've got here. Wonderful. Unfortunately, we cannot change it. And yes, that's our final news item. Let's move on to news.

about us. So let's talk about our schedule for the month of April. As you know, I guess for the past seven years probably, we've been doing this live action month for What a Cartoon, which means our TV subject is live action and our movie subject is live action. And for the month of April, our What a Cartoon episode will be about Married with Children, the classic Fox sitcom, Fox's biggest hit right before The Simpsons. The episode will be the season five episode Married with Aliens. Yes, by the time they got to season five, aliens were involved and they're real. And they freak out. It's such an important part.

It is a huge part of Simpson's history in that it, lots of times, air alongside the Simpsons or at least on the same night. Simpsons episodes are referencing Married with Children history and the style of married with children as a sitcom that is attacking the format of family sitcoms. Created an environment where the Simpsons could exist and get a show made. Yeah, nothing was like it before. Nothing has been like it since. It's so uniquely mean and funny. and I've been watching a bunch of these to decide on an episode to choose. And no other live action show has the father figure threatening to kill his children,

his wife, and himself for most of the jokes. That is the kind of dark humor we're going for in Married with Children. But there's some inventive stuff going on. There's some crazy stuff going on. And it is, I guess, Fox's longest running live action sitcom at 11 seasons. So Married with Children, a lot of episodes, a lot of history. I'm looking forward to digging into it. I was a big fan as a kid.

And every time I dip back in as an adult, I'm like, man, this show is funny, very, very funny. and everybody gets it. Yeah, I look forward to giving it another watch. I remember seeing this one as a kid. I haven't watched it in a while, but I enjoy Mary. I'm looking forward to finally covering this one. And for our miniseries episodes,

we have Talking Futurama, the episode All the President's Heads. From what I remember, this is a time travel adventure that involves a lot of U.S. history. I have not watched this yet because we have not recorded the episode yet, but I'm sure it's very good.

We are heading towards the end of production season six. There's some big ones coming before we move on to the next order of Comedy Central. Yeah, it's a Josh Weinstein written one that is in his specialty of presidential history. It runs into fun, colonial presidential history. And, yes, time travel and brings up real. I just did the commentary watch of it yesterday with some notes.

And yeah, there's some interesting history I had not heard before. And my mind kept thinking like, oh, this is like about the Hamilton musical. It's like, wait, no, this is like five years before the Hamilton musical. Why am I thinking this is related to Hamilton? Was Hamilton referencing this episode? We're going to find out. And then for talking to The Hill, we have the episode moving on up, which is a sort of farewell to Luann, or at least getting Luan outside of the house for news stories and giving Britney and Murphy a chance to shine in Hollywood.

She had her a little brief period when she was a big movie star. So Luan won't disappear from the show, but she'll be used in a limited capacity at this point. So this episode says, let's get Luanne out of the house. Let's move her in with a bunch of news radio character actors and see what happens. It almost feels like a parody or perhaps an actual version of those like Married with Children had episodes of this that are like, this is a fake episode of the sitcom that is actually a pilot for a spinoff as an episode of the sitcom that could star all the people in it.

All of these people could have been regulars on this show. Of course. It is true. This is a good episode though. And like I mentioned before, it is Live Action Month on the network. So we are covering a live action movie in April. and for what a cartoon movie, we are covering

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Secret of the Ouse. We had such a great time covering the first live-action movie. I think at this point, it was like a couple of years ago. And we're returning for the sequel, which is, I guess, slightly more fun, but a lot more stupid. And it's not a good movie, but it's a movie that'll be fun to talk about.

I think we'll have a lot of fun talking about it, too. It's 35th anniversary. It actually just was. Fathma events in the U.S. played it in theaters this last weekend. and I went and saw it partially to, you know, it's like, oh, I know this is coming. Let's see this again. I can replay the secret of the youths in my mind without ever watching it again.

I watched it that much as a kid. But it's interesting to be in a theater full of, I'd say, about a dozen other, mostly childless men in their 40s. So a couple of guys brought their kids to it. They forced their kids to see it. One kid there was talking during it and seemed to enjoy it. I want to say that. I'm not complaining. I'm glad a kid enjoyed a Turtles movie.

This isn't Minecraft You lied to me Yeah so that's going to be our live action movie For that month Remember if you want to get access to these exclusives You got to go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons Sign for five bucks a month You get the TV episodes like Talking Futurama

And Talking to the Hill 10 bucks a month gets you the movie episode About TMNT2 Secret of Views and of course Access to the entire back catalog And as a reminder in the month of February We put together a charity episode About the Family Guy episode The Simpsons Guy

that is the Family Guy Simpsons Crossover episode, with all the proceeds going towards the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. So that is still available on our shop. When you pay for it, that money will still go towards the immigrant law center of Minnesota. And at the beginning of March, we donated a little bit of $3,300 USD, and soon we'll be donating an initial $1,500.

We have to wait for Patreon to release those funds first. And yes, please listen to it. We're proud of the episode. We're proud of where the money is going to. But if you do buy it, do not buy it with the iOS app, because they will charge you extra money. That money does not go to us. It goes to make the Apple executives even richer,

so don't give it to them. If you want to use your iPhone, just use Safari, the browser and buy it that way, but just don't use the iOS Patreon app. The Android Patreon app, I'm sure it's fine. Any kind of web interface, I'm sure it's fine, but iOS, they want to charge you extra money, those bastards. Yeah, I mean, the Apple iOS app,

it works fine for listening to things or voting in polls or all that stuff, but you never conduct any business in it. Sign up for things on a browser, or the Android or other apps. Just don't, don't bother to give money through it because Apple just like, it's always about those extra fees from Apple.

It's why you can't buy like Kindle books with your iPhone using official apps because they're like, we're not going to sell these to you because Apple wants to charge us extra money to charge you. So go online, use a browser instead. And everything, it has a browser now. But yes, I mean, a thousand of the money that is currently locked up is Apple funds

that also Patreon, I think, because of Apple, has to sit on for longer. But regardless, every time you buy an episode of Our Simpsons Guy, one, if you haven't gotten it yet, that goes to another donation we'll make in the future. It will keep doing that as it keeps going. So, yes, please keep checking that out. Me and Bob worked very hard on that one. It is a mega episode with tons of history and chat about Family Guy and Simpsons on it.

It's over three hours long. So if you enjoy hearing us talk about cartoons, I assume you do, then you can hear us talk about Family Guy for a very long time and The Simpsons. So yes, check that out at our Patreon shop, very easy to find. And now let's talk about our own stuff, what we've been playing and watching that's not related to our podcast. I've got a few games. One big game I was playing throughout the last month is called the Seance of Blake Manor. It's a very, very cool mystery game.

It took me about 20 hours to finish. It's unlike any other mystery game I've ever seen before. I won't go into the details because it's very complex. but if you go to my backlogged accounts, I'm Bob Servo on there, you can read my review of that and many other games. So I will limit my time

talking about the Seance of Blake Manor, but it was robbed at the Keelies. Oh. Totally robbed. It's an amazing game. It's one of the best mystery games I've played in my entire life. So that is my heartily recommended game

of this month. And then I'm also going to talk again about Monster Hunter Stories 3. I like the demo. I think I talked about that last month, and now I'm playing the full version of the game. It's really got its claws into me, no pun intended.

And this is like, Pokemon for adults. And by that I mean Pokemon for 14 year olds and older. Everything I dislike about Pokemon is fixed in this game and I think the monsters are better. That's just my own personal opinion. But I'm really, really enjoying this turn-based take on Monster Hunter. Check out the

demo if you haven't, if you're into this sort of idea because the demo will let you play for a very long time. You can probably sync like 10 plus hours into the demo alone. That will let you know, like am I ready for this very complicated battle system? Do I want to interface with the world of Monster Hunter like this? And I think I'm enjoying it more than last year's

Monster Hunter Wild, which is a slight disappointment for me as a big Monster Hunter fan. So please check it out, Monster Hunter Stories 3. Yeah, I see it when I open up Discord in the evening sometimes for work communications. I'm like, wow, Bob's playing Monster Hunter 3 again. I think I've spotted you playing that a lot of nights this week. You've been playing it a good deal. Every time I've tried to play a Pokemon game, the turn-based ones, I realize, like, well, I had my Pokemon experience and they're not changing the things about the game

that I personally want to see change. That doesn't stop them from selling a big. billion copies of course. It's just my own personal taste. But this does suit my personal taste and the way they make things a lot easier or a lot more user-friendly for me. And as someone who likes Monster more than Pokemon, it's exactly where I want to be. So please check that out. Also, I'll limit my time talking about movies. I watched Hoppers, the new Pixar movie. We rolled into it, my wife and I thinking, well, there's nothing else playing. And I was thinking, oh, this looks kind of cute. And I wasn't expecting it to be that great. I gave it a 3.5 on Letterbox. I might bump it up to a four

because as I think about it more, I'm liking it more and more. And it is one of those movies where when they show you the concept art, you're like, man, this could have been an even better 2D movie. It looks pretty good as a Pixar CGI movie. But what they start with is much better than what they ended up with the CGI characters. But I do like it. It's a nice little environmentalist fable with really cute beavers.

And it really, if anything, it's a tribute to the beaver, an animal we take for granted. So after this viewing, my wife had me watch this document. about beavers that's like 15 minutes long and I was like man the beaver is really god's chosen mammal we need to bow to the beaver and it's amazing construction skills but hoppers I will give it a recommend especially because Pixar is like we make movies for shareholders screw you audience you're going to be seeing buzz and woody until we recast them 30 times yeah after the last few well I guess actually the Pixar movie before this was also original ilio it was nominated for animated

feature. But yeah, Hoppers, I have been happy to see it has, I think, been doing good in theaters as an original one. It's not making the like $8 billion that Inside Out 2 or whatever somehow makes. But it's nice to see an original one and directed by, you know, not just somebody who's been at Pixar for a million years, but the We Bear Bears creator, like getting to make a film outside of the Cartoon Network system. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, yeah, Elio or I whatever it's called, it did get an Oscar nom. It didn't win. But Pete Doctor essentially was saying, well, that was a mistake.

Yes. Enough of these personal stories. That quote, I mean, I'll just say what I said again on Blue Sky, but it really did bug me because, like, Pixar, he said like, you know, we're here to entertain. Paraphrasing, we're here to entertain people, not be your therapy. You're not spending hundreds of millions of dollars on being your therapist. And I was just like, well, okay, it's fine to take that, or it's not fine, to take that stance as a dodge of like not doing. queer stories, but especially for Pete Doctor included, who

directed up, that movie is full of, like, therapy speak. It's meant to make you, they're all about like, let's move on from grief. It's all therapy bullshit. But Bud, when it's queer stuff, we're like, hey, I'm not your fucking therapist. Get out of here, fag. Like, that bugs me. Yeah, I mean, there was a period of Pixar movies that

I got into, but they kind of annoyed me where everyone felt specifically engineered to make you cry. Like, we launched the make you cry missile in this scene. And like, we spent years building that missile. And this is going to be the moment that just fires into your heart. I feel like they've kind of backed off from that a little bit as their mission statement. But yeah, for like the longest time, these movies were meant to make you like think about loss and grief.

So, yeah, it does feel a little hypocritical to me. And I think he's really, I know, put his foot in his mouth with those statements. Maybe he'll walk a few back in the future. But I didn't like the recent Pete Doctor dissertation. I mean, the best defense I've seen from it is people mainly just saying like, well, what do you expect him to do? He's a major executive at Disney. and the guys above him are saying, I'm like, hey, no more of this gay stuff right now.

It gets us in trouble or people don't. There's a section of America that doesn't like it. Or also, like, literally, they might be punished by the FCC as political punishment these days if they do it. So they're cowards, is what I'm saying, like, obviously. I mean, like, I like Toppers, and it is a kid's movie. This does sound crazy, but I feel like I wish this movie met the moment in a way that things like one battle after another did.

And, yes, I know I sound crazy. But, like, part of the message not to be. give anything away is like, oh, you have to like work with billionaires to change things. You know, the people who are like occupying and destroying your life? Well, we need to work with them, unfortunately. And here's how we do it. And I'm like, I kind of like the other plan in the movie that I won't talk about here because it is a spoiler. I'm like, it's weird to come down against that plan when it's what we all want.

I will give this a weekday watch. I'm going to give this a watch this week. Hey, give it a weekend watch. Okay, maybe this weekend. Maybe I'll give it a week. Bring the hubby. We'll go to the dine-in theater and make a night of it. If you like, hey, there's nice chubby animals.

I know one of you is a borderline furry. I can't tell which one yet. Maybe that's in my secret Ted enjoyment has been. Yes. Just come out of the closet, Henry. You've already come out of one of them. It was entered into another closet of furiness, yes. And anyhow, and recently out of the library I rented or borrowed, rather,

the classic Bill Plimpton movie The Tune. And I had seen this on VHS when it was new as just a mystified, child who kind of like Bill Plimpton, but only had seen his shorts on MTV. And they recently put this out on Blu-ray, I think just a few years ago. And you've never seen Bill Plimpton shorts look this good. And what the tune is, it essentially collects all of the classic Bill Plimpton shorts from the first, basically, decade of his career, and stitches them together with a framing device. And the framing device is kind of weak, but he found a way to make all of these shorts work together as a whole story.

But essentially, it is a very fun and hypnotizing way to take in some of the best Bill Plimpton animation from up to 1992. And then on the disc that I rented, he is talking about his new movie, which came out in 2023. I think it's called Sliders or something like that, or slide. And I thought, like, oh, he made another movie.

It turns out Bill Plimpton made six movies before that, and they're just kind of unavailable. So there's a lot of Bill Plimpton features out there if you're willing to look them up. And I'm like, hmm, I should see another. one of these because he's the only one who's kind of doing that style. He kind of trademarked it in a way. So I do want to see, like, what does a real Plimpton feature look like? That's not just, here are all my shorts that I put together in one hole. I should give this a watch too someday.

I barely seen much of his work usually just comes into my life as like a Simpsons couch gag or a commercial or a short that gets played on like an animation special or something. Like, I should know more about Plimpton's work because he is like a, such a unique one-of-one type independent artist who's been independently animating for decades and decades now doing something that is still very hard to do for many people who would love to make independent animation projects but you know the money is really difficult to make it work and he should be viewed as like an inspiration to so many yes there are eight bill plinthin features by the way I don't know where you watch them I'm sure they're available in fiscal media in some way

maybe digitally, but yeah, if you want to find these, they're all out there. So yeah, and in terms of TV, this is related to something that Henry is watching, actually. I have been watching a lot of One Piece at the gym. I am nearly up to episode 500 as an on and off watcher of One Piece, which means I'm at the pivotal Marine Ford arc, which means we're about to do the time jump, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens after that, because that's all everybody talks about when you're watching the first half of One's piece, like, wait until you get to the second half. So that's exactly where I am right now. And hopefully I'll have the stamina to keep going because I really am enjoying it.

This lead up to a big moment in the series that kind of changes everything and gives everyone new outfits. Oh man, Marineford is so big. Like, watching live action this week. Like, that was one of the thoughts I was talking about with my husband, too. Like, I know this looks like a big budget show. But to make Marineford to do it the way it looks in the animated series would take like an Avengers level budget for the number of special effects characters that would all be

running around. I mean, like, they're struggling on a TV budget to make it work sometimes in the Marineford episodes. Yeah, I'm very impressed by what I'm watching. I watch the anime and then I read the manga to see like, okay, what's the original version? But yeah, really enjoying it. And I only 600 more to go. So I'll keep checking back in with everybody if I don't get worn out. And I probably will and like stop watching for a year and then jump back in. But that's it. Like, not a lot of other things to talk about. Just enjoying working on a lot of podcasts and working on taxes, which is also great. Yeah, it's nice that we finished. I need to get moving on to my personal taxes. Our other taxes dealt

with for business-wise, so everything went pretty good this year. It's, uh, you won't need to pay our bill, everybody. Don't worry. Yes, yeah. That'll be a go-fund me later someday, but not now. Well, as far as video game playing, I jumped hard on the zeitgeist, you know, as it was compared to,

remember in 2020 when everybody was either playing, it felt like everybody was either playing a Doom game or an Animal Crossing game. Well, for a couple weeks in March this year, it felt like everybody was either playing a Resident Evil game or a Pokemon game. And I did both. I did both.

Now, Henry, I got to say, playing RE9 feels out of character for you as someone who doesn't like horror movies. In fact, I've heard you call them scary movies before. And I didn't hear you talk a lot about seven and eight. So I was like, wow, Henry's playing this. And I'm saying this because this is a game that I want to play,

but I am psyching myself up to play because seven and eight, folks, way too spooky for me. I really can't do first person horror. I don't like horror games. I love horror movies. But maybe it's because I have too much anxiety in my brain. I cannot handle horror games. I love RE4, like the more action-focused ones.

This one seems like just as terrifying, at least with the half of the story that you're playing in first person as a different character than Leon in his 50s hunk with all the firepower. Yes, so I am with you there, Bob first on, I will say at horror movies, I love a prestige horror movie

or a major one like, I love Evil Dead 2, I love the thing, I am a huge scream fanatic, Like I've seen, though, listeners, I did not see Scream 7. Don't worry. Nobody needs to see Scream 7. But my point is just that I do like horror, but yes, if it gets too scary, it can be too much for me and I skip it. Everybody, I've heard Henry scream on the jaws ride at Universal.

And also with 7 and 8, yes, because I had beaten every numbered Resident Evil up to 7 and 8. I played seven and yes, it got to be just two, like three, four hours into seven. It was just too intense for me. And I did the same with eight. I got up to the giantess that everybody loves. And then also my friends were telling me like, you know, that's just one section of it. So if you like her, even, it's not going to, you're, it loses steam after that. So I was like, all right, maybe I don't want to keep being that scared.

But Resident Evil Requiem, it really is the best of both worlds. It's like the Grace sections of it are very scary, but they are paced in a way that makes me able to, like basically it is like, Krusty is coming, Krusty is coming, like, okay, the Leon section's coming. The Leon section's coming. Question for you,

and then I'll reveal something about myself. Were you playing them in first person and were you listening to a podcast? No and no. I play Grace and Leon in the camera angle that was decided by the company. You can't play Grace in third person. It probably does make it less scary.

but I was like, no, I'm doing this. I'm doing this first person, Grace. And I also like, you need to hear sounds so well with it. I was like, I'm not doing podcasts with it either. So, yes. Because, like, I've been thinking about playing this game. And I told my wife, like, you have to be next to me on the couch. Let's have a fun time playing this together because I don't want to be alone.

And I'll reveal something about myself. During my final months in the games press, before we left for this job, they were previewing Resident Evil 7. And it's a VR game, too. It was actually made to work with the PSVR. and I went to an appointment and they're like, okay, now it's time to put the VR helmet on and I lied. I said, actually, I have a bad sinus headache right now,

so it's probably a bad idea. Because I was scared, and I'm revealing this here for the first time. I lied to Stephanie Palermo of Capcom, a very nice lady. Yeah, she is nice. Now I think she's at Nintendo. I think she's at Sony now, so I'm sorry, Stephanie. Yeah, that's right. Perhaps. I don't unfollow her career or anything,

but I'm just saying, like, I had to lie instead of saying, I'm a chicken shit coward, and I will cry like a baby probably in front of you if you put this VR helmet on me and I get scared. I took that VR demo probably the same one or one similar to it for seven. And yes, it was one of the most stressful things I've had playing. I don't play games to like scream. You know, when you say that, Bob, I should also say I was playing with the lights on and my husband sitting next to me the whole time too. I also was playing that way. You need to be like holding hands with somebody while you're piloting grace.

around. But yeah, I just want to know how scary is the grace stuff in terms of like, how do you handle it? I heard some of it not to spoil anything. I was just trying to like learn more about it to sort of psych myself up. I heard there's a lot of like comedy with the zombies in it too. There is. There is some nice comedy. I also, yeah, I don't want to spoil too much, but also in the grace sections. They pace it well that like you do check in with Leon from time to time, almost is like your dessert at the end of like a two hour stretch of being scared as Grace. And also I think too, like grace is kind of a fun. character to be scared with.

I like her. She has so much more going for her than the, like, faceless guy, Ethan from 7 and 8. She's much more interesting to be around. Ethan's mostly like a floating arm. Yes, yeah, yeah. Grace has a real story to her, and she's connected to, well, an obscure Resident Evil game, but a Reson game all the same. And then, and yeah, the Leon sections are like,

oh, these feel like Resident Evil 4, and I miss playing as Leah. I didn't like the Leon stuff in Six as all that much compared to Leon stuff at Requiem. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, I'm going to try to give it an honest chance and overcome my fear. It will start you with the biggest scares at first. So that's when you got to steal yourself the most in the opening hours. Yes. Well, I also think it's funny that you stop playing RE8 when the giant woman disappear, which tells me something about you. I saw that the giant woman's motion capture was done by a man. And that also was like, huh, that's kind of, it's, is it. Is this awakening something in me? Well, I know when they revealed that woman, nobody could type on their keyboards for

like at least three days. They had to get them cleaned off. Yes. To catch my drift. I forget which came first. That or Bousetta that people were the most. Oh, it might have been Bousetta. I'm just thinking of like the things that everyone got too horny about all at the same time.

It was like a shared horniness. So the game's about 12 hours long. It was a great 12 hours. I had a really good time with it. People who want Resident Evil to be scarier might not like. like it as much, perhaps, because it's not as scary as seven and eight, but it felt like a really nice celebration of 30 friggin years of Biohazard Resident Evil. I like that too. But the other game I played was Pocopia, the best reviewed Pokemon game ever, unlike Letterbox, not

letterbox, sorry, a Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah. And I got it because as soon as I learned, when I saw the reviews coming out that said, this is Dragon Quest Builders 3, I said, I am there. I am there for this. That's cool. Yeah, I still have to play Dragon Quest Builders, too, so this is not on my radar. It will never go down in value and price because it's a Nintendo game. So if I play it nine years from now, it's going to be $70. But it does look interesting. I first assumed it was like a Starry Valley or a Minecraft kind of game,

but it is sort of like building within the prescribed rules of a Dragon Quest Builders game. Yes, it's all voxily, just like Dragon Quest Builders. It also, the story kind of is like Dragon Quest Builders as well, where in Builders 1 and 2, I'm not going to spoil those, but they exist within the context of the first Dragon Quest game is then like reflected in Dragon Quest Builders the first game. Like it sort of remakes or redos the story. And this is kind of like that too,

of like, oh, you have to rebuild a world that kind of remind you of the first Pokemon games and there's a weird mystery to it. What's going on that kind of their thing? Plus, I love the design of a mime trying to look like a human. Like it is a cute, weird, derpy-looking character. That's a ditto, not a Mr. Mime. Sorry, a ditto trying to look like that. Yeah, I was going to say, like, from context, it seems like, oh, everyone is playing as a ditto.

But you get to choose what it looks like. Yes, yeah, you pick the gender and all that for your ditto and make your specific-looking human character. And it has, like, the tragedy of the ditto is imitating the human that used to, boy, saying own and master, sounds weird. But you get what I mean. His old friend, his human friend, that kept him in a polka-ball. Yeah, I guess we weren't thinking too much when we called them Pokemon masters. Not if you play as a Pokemon, but it is, yes, it's fun of like, just like in... I think we stopped saying HM slave, though, right?

In Pokemon lingo? I hope they have, actually, yes. I think... Well, actually, like, Ditto is also, like, famous for... You get a lot of eggs with Dittoes back in Pokemon. Remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah. You send Ditto to the farm with another Pokemon and you're going to end up with an egg somehow, wink, wink.

Oh, yeah, sorry, HM. Slave is now HMewel. So we've updated the terminology. That's just cruel to animals there. That's fine. Yes. Screw them. If you enjoy the Dragon Quest Builders games, then it's totally there. Dragon Quest Builders 3 will apparently never happen

because the director who worked at Square Annex on it quit the company. It seemed like he worked very hard on those Builders games. And so it seems like Game Freak or the Pokemon company or somebody saw the availability of the developers for Dragon Quest Builders who weren't working on a third one. And they're like, can you just do that for Pokemon for us?

And they did. And it's like the game that's been like selling which twos, it's a Switch 2 exclusive for the first one I've played in months. So it's been nice to be playing a Switch 2 game again too. So cool, cool. As far as movies, other ones we mentioned, I did go to theaters and saw, I saw old movies and theaters this month.

Other than TMNT, I also watched A Better Tomorrow. This is the second John Wu in 4K re-release that's been doing in Favim events. It's been really great. those have been very crowded at my local theaters, lots of either movie bros or Chinese Americans watching these class of films. Hey, there could be Chinese American movie bros too. That's true, yes, yeah. I say this just because I was sitting next to a man and his wife in their 60s who were Asian American,

but they were really enjoying it. I had not seen the first A Better Tomorrow in a million years. That's the one that made John Wu huge in Hong Kong. And same for Chow Yun-Fat, the star of the film. Well, actually, he's not the start of the film. He's the breakout supporting character in the film. Yeah, these are playing around me, too. And I wanted to see Hard Boiled, and I figure, like,

it'll probably be out again at some point. But I'm glad these are being reissued. Yeah, a better tomorrow is, I think it's a really good one to watch first, maybe. Though also it's fun to watch back because I saw Hard Boiled in theaters a month earlier. And that's like him at his biggest budget and most powerful in Hong Kong, John Wu. And then A Better Tomorrow is like him with like a fratheller. action of the budget of Harboiled. So he's forced to make the action like matter more with less money.

And basically Chai and Fatt's character, it's adapting a movie story about like, one brother is a gangster, one brother's a cop, how will they work together? And then Chai and Fad is like the friend of a gangster. And then he just takes over the movie. By the end of the movie, he's like standing between the brothers and saying like, hey, here's what you guys should be doing. Like he just takes over the film. Well, this is going to break your heart, Henry.

But I'm looking at John Wu's filmography. I've only seen his American stuff. So Hard Target. Incredible. Face Off. Incredible. Mission Impossible, too. Not that great. But I do like his 90s American stuff for the most part. So I really need to dip back into where he came from because he went back there.

Yes. His Broken Arrow film also is a great one. That was, I think, actually, the first John Wu movie. You know, I rented Hard Target in my Jean-Claude Van Damned childhood phase after seeing Street Fighter. I want to say I then saw Broken Arrow in theaters. I definitely saw that in theaters and then saw Face Off next. And that's when I saw face off at 97, my friends told me, you know this is like the guy who directed all the best action films from Hong Kong ever.

And then I started like 97 watching all of his classics. I would say that Bob, maybe hard-boiled is great, really, really great. And so is the killer. I would suggest maybe starting with a better tomorrow just to have like a grounding in his first big work, I'd say. Okay. But yeah, fucking hard target I watched for the first time and forever, the 4K version. it is so funny to see the Jean-Claude Van Damme

School of Action meet the John Wu School of Action. Like he double guns somebody and then does a spin kick, needlessly, to a guy he's already shot dead. Yes. Yes, he should stop kicking people when he has guns, but he's JCVD. And on the other side of foreign films, I

watched Felini, the first Fellini big hit, I think, or at least internationally, La Strata, which means the road. And I was like, I have several of his films I've not seen before. I've only really seen eight and a half before, which is like starting with somebody's last movie.

I've watched Lestrada. I now see all of the references to it in many other things. Anthony Quinn is the star and Richard Bayshart, Gypsy's favorite actor, character actor for Mystery Science Theater. Oh yeah, I guess he is in there. Yeah, it really is great. It's about life. It's about

being in an abusive relationship and what the world wants out of that and about being a clown or an entertainer. And also it's a nice like just 90 minutes. Like it's a really good, really good little film. Yeah.

After watching a lot of Oscar movies, I respect the 90 minute film more than ever. I'm looking at you, The Secret Agent. Oh man, that did, that did look very long. Well, I guess...

240. Wow, that's as long as like once upon a time in America, which is like, I feel like he earned the right to make a film that long, Sergio Leone. Well, it wasn't a fan,

and I was kind of glad I got shut out. But anyways, we could talk more about Oscars later. All my Oscar commentary is, like, a vengeful, like, good, I'm glad you lost. Well, I did.

watch the One Piece Live Action Season 2. It was good. I wanted a little more, but it was fun to watch. The first two episodes were like, we saw it in theaters with some friends, co-workers of my husband, who were also One Piece fans. And we were in the theater. I just wore like, you know, a One Piece hoodie

that I bought in New York. My husband wore one. He wore in Japan. But we were surrounded by cosplayers. Like there were, and I got to say, especially compliments, like, if you're a young lady who wants to cosplay as a One Piece character, you have to have a lot of confidence. Thumbs up to you ladies

who cosplay is say Nico Robin or an Orenobie. Now, what does this adapt? Because it seems like it's adapting the Baroque Works arc, and weirdly enough, that is my favorite arc so far. I just like the idea of, like, suddenly, here are a dozen villains and they all have crazy

unique powers. I just love, like, the maximalism of that art. Yeah, no, it's a ton of the Baroque Works stuff, yes. It starts with, and they add some extra flavor in there, but it starts with the Laboon story as they enter the grand line, and then it ends at the end of Drum Island, when Chopper has joined them.

And just, yeah, yeah. Now here's the thing, this series. I've been watching and reading One Piece on and off for, I think, now 24 years. Like 2002 is when I first got, like, bootleg DVDs of the series and started getting into it. And when I see the actors in footage, I just think, well, this is not what I think of One Piece. So there's a big disconnect for me in that, like, Luffy is not like a reality. regular human being. No human being could be Luffy and when he talks he has to sound like

a scratchy voice, old grandma. So there is like a huge mental block for me getting into this series, but I honestly think like it's not for everybody. I don't think it's for people who have watched the anime or the manga. I think it's for people who want the story told them as efficiently as possible via

the Netflix model and I think that's fine. But I personally like have a real problem whenever I see a picture or video, I'm like, oh, okay. I just don't imagine these people as being made out of meat who exist in space. I've come to accept them as their own universe, and the cast has grown on me a lot.

I really love the main cast, especially Usopp's actor is really fun, though, meanwhile, though, I do feel for, like, the guy playing Sanji, like, he does have to be very good at kicking, but it's actually really hard to, like, no, seriously, your choreography can only be kicks. You cannot use your hands. But they, occasionally, there's MCU-style quipage,

or also everybody's, says the word shit so much in it. That's that hard TV 14. And they say one F word in it. Also, Katie Seagall, since we mentioned her before, like, yes. I like her in it. She's very good this season, I'd say. Yes, playing Dr. Cureha,

who everybody wanted Jamie Lee Curtis to be in that role, but I guess she had to be in Borderlands instead. So Katie Seagal, she's good in that role then. I think she is maybe the best of the actors in the season, I think, actually. Yeah. I'd say, actually, that, since you mentioned the Jamie the Curtis thing,

I saw Jamie Lee Curtis in an interview. They were asked like, oh, why aren't you playing that character? You'd said you wanted to play her forever. And she joked like, yeah, then Katie stole it for me. But then she just says, no, she's apparently Jamie Lee Curtis and Katie Segal. She says they've been friends for decades and that she's happy for her. And she also joked that like, it's better that Katie Seagall is playing this role because she can actually just show her stomach as in the role and that Jamie Lee says she doesn't have as taught a stomach as Katie Seagal does.

They really should have found a role for Ed O'Neill to play very briefly. He could have been Dr. Hurley Hook, Hurley, I always read these names. I don't say them out loud. Oh, the chopper's initial mentor, right? Yeah, yeah. He'd have been good for. Where was he being 80 years old and relaxing? Get him on a soundstage.

I liked it. I didn't love it, but it is now I've read up to date with the comic. And so when they drop in Marvel-style teases of, ooh, that character wasn't there in the comic but now look who's in the background of this shot somebody in a black overcoat in a top hat who could this be stuff like that yeah the anime does that sometimes too when it's made with some hindsight so they can just say okay what if ace hung out with them at this section when he wasn't there before because we want to make him a bigger character knowing where the story is leading things like that and i did watch the on cinema Oscar special this year was a lot of fun the

introduction of the doodle dots and the michael phenomenon these are all silly things for and i also did it It's like, well, on April 11th, they're in Seattle doing it on Cinema Live here. So I'm going to be checking it out. They're doing a tour. Now, I watched the real Oscars with my wife for the first time, probably since the mid to late 90s, that I sit down and watch the entire ceremony, all four hours of it. And it's because we were genuinely interested this year. We have watched a ton of Oscar movies, eight out of the ten best picture noms.

And Henry, what were your thoughts on some of the wins? Oh, yeah. I also did watch the regular Oscars very closely, too. And I thought it was an overall very good show. Basically, of the ones I cared about to see who won, I think pretty much everybody won that I wanted to win other than Delroy Lindo. I haven't wanted Delroy Lindo to win since I was a kid and watched Malcolm X. And he got fucking, he lost again to a three-time win of a guy who doesn't need it.

And it's kind of a jerk. I recognize the fact that he doesn't need another Oscar, but that lockjaw performance was insane. I know. And I kind of got to give it to him, Sean Penn for one battle after another. but in terms of like animation, a little Amelian or the character of rain,

whatever it was called, that was my pick. But I'm still really glad K-pop Demon Hunters won, that and best song. And it seemed like people in the audience didn't know how to deal with it

that win. Right. Because they don't care about best animated picture to begin with a lot of the people there. Let's say most of them in attendance.

So they're actually, oh, the Disney thing's going to win, the Pixar thing's going to win. But when the words K-pop demon show up, they're just like, what does this mean? Should I ask my kids?

Yeah, they need to ask their children who they, like, the animated section is often overlooked a lot. I actually appreciated this year for once. The presenters of the animated award didn't go like, yeah, this is what our kids make us watch, isn't it, guys, right? Will Arnett and other guy. Channing Tatum, I believe, right? Channing Tatum, yeah. They actually had like a good, the joke was really about pandering for applause, but they actually had a good

line about like, this is made by people, not AI. I prefer that to jokes about nobody watches cartoons, right? I like the win because, you know, Studio Jibli has won before. for Spirited Away and The Boy in the Haren. I like one of those movies. The other one has a lot of craft behind it. Don't love it that much. But at the same time, it was sort of like the snobbish view of anime. Like, well, we like Jibli and that's it.

So I like that an Asian animated movie that's not trying to be like, oh, the art, the craft, the storytelling, a 90-year-old man brought this to you. It's all about Asian pop culture. And that's really cool that that won. Yeah, yeah. Also that it was such a big hit that it got to like, get the recognition it deserved when it was treated so poorly by Sony

to just be tossed off to Netflix like, yeah, you can have it. We're not putting this in theaters when it probably would have made a billion dollars in theaters. Yeah. I was really happy with a lot of the wins and like a lot of my picks won. We weren't like gambling but we had our like little list down and we were marking off who we thought would win. Very happy

Amy Madigan won for weapons. The first thing announced and I was like, yes. And it was funny because it went from the Conan sketch where Conan, they're basically doing the of weapons and Conan is playing the same character in a way to her winning the award. I also love how the author just spoiled everything. Like the beginning is the end of weapons. The end is the end of one battle after another.

Like you have to have kind of seen the movies because if not, you probably just got massively spoiled. I also wondered, did they, I would think they would just air it all the same. But if sinners had won best picture, would they have still just played a Conan sketch about the ending of one battle after another, right? Well, we should ask friend of the show Scott Gertner, who was a director. on the Oscar segments. There, we said it. We dropped the name. A friend. Don't trip over it. He has two things he can brag about now, being on Talking

Simpsons and directing things seen by billions of people on the Oscars. Yeah, I, he'll only mention one of those, but you know he's thinking about the second one. Bob, if you were rooting for Sean Penn, that means you approve of all the things his character did in that movie. You shouldn't I did. He was right to do it, and I'm sad that he lost his racist We Work Office. No, look, I have to admit to. He is perfect in that role, too, though also Benicio del Toro, I kind was rooting for, he was my second place in that group of movies I'd seen. I can't speak for movies I didn't see. But I just, I wanted, Delroy Linda was so sad he didn't win it. You could tell that made me sad for him as well. Even, well, you know, he's only 70. There's still chance.

I'll admit in sinners, I also felt like he's doing great, but in a way that's just like, well, yeah, he's awesome. It didn't, it felt like, uh, Michael B. Jordan was asking him to play the hits. Like Michael B. Jordan says, I think one of the very first movies, saw in a movie theater was Malcolm X. And Del Rey-Ry Lindo is playing a character similar to West Indian Archie who he plays Malcolm X, which was very affecting to me as a kid too, so which was why

I remember it that Michael B. Jordan mentioned the same, which he should have fucking won an Oscar for that one, but obviously that wasn't going to happen back then. Yeah, I think the issue is that probably the role was a bit understated in Cinners and it wasn't a big character, a big memorable character, like in

one battle after another, that you are thinking about when you leave. Like, I kind of forgot Delroy Lindo was in centers because you're basically thinking about two Michael B. Jordan's. I'm seeing double here. Yes, yeah. And he, well, and he's not as impactful in the second half of the movie either, comparatively, I'd say. Yeah. And lastly, hey, I wanted to brag. But if you went to hate everybody in Seattle and went to the doughboys show at the Neptune, I was a surprise guest in the last third of it. Got to came out and share my thoughts on Taco Time as well. Oh, yeah. You know what? I haven't heard that one yet. Can you spoil what your meal was at Taco Time? Yeah, so, well, nobody's certain. If you weren't there, you haven't heard it yet, though, I think it's coming out in, like, April on their Patreon feed.

So look forward to it there. But, yes, I had never even eaten at Taco Time before, which is a chain in the Pacific Northwest that is like Taco Bell. And honestly, it was delicious. I gave it four and a half forks out of five. What was your taco, like, what time was it at Taco Time? Was it chicken time? Let's see. It was a mix.

Carnitas time. Well, when I say the proper names of food at Taco Time, I'm going to have to clarify what they are. because what they call a taco, a soft taco is what you would call a burrito. But then they also have a burrito that's not the same. But so I had basically what everybody else ordered at it. We each tried the crispy burrito, which is a tequito, basically. And that, the chicken and bean ones of those were so good. Man, they were so good.

And same with, I had a chicken and bean soft taco, which really just means a burrito with sour cream in it, too. And also their version of tater tots, I forget what the name for that is, but they had very tasty tater tots. So yeah. And the thing putting them over the edge on the four stars for me is that they had the good pellet ice from their machines, which that's the right type of ice you get at a fast food place.

Well, we do have a taco time up here, so maybe I'll give it a chance, although not a lot of vegetarian-friendly stuff from what the menu is telling me. You're pretty much just stuck with beans, I feel like, I think. It's just, that's the... Beans are a good friend of mine. Though I guess I've heard, I learned this from the podcast appearance, if it's the green logo type, there's two Taco Time franchises.

Orange one is apparently less liked than the green one that it used to be known as Taco Time Northwest. So I don't know if you've got a green or an orange logo up there. Well, I'll have to investigate that logo before I sit down to eat. And you know what? I also read, I want to just say, I read Hamish Steel's Go Man Champion of Earth, his recent comic, because I read his previous series Dead India. but now after guesting on a Retro Nauts with Hamish, I wanted to give GOMAN and read and I give it a big thumbs up. I hope it someday could be an animated series.

It's a really good. It's autistic child Ultraman, and it's really fun. I liked it a lot. Yeah, Hamish and Henry and Drew Mackey were on an episode of Retronauts I put together about the original Super Mario anime movie from 1986, so that's on the Patreon if you want to listen to that at Retronauts. Patreon.com slash Retronauts. Another Patreon.

What am I made of $5? But geez. I feel like I went on so long there, but that's everything I did this month. And now it's time for questions and comments from the last round of episodes. We're going to start with Talking Simpsons. The episode Midnight RX and Graham Reed says, The line about having enough drugs to make Regina look like Saskatoon was a big hit for 12-year-old me and my brothers growing up in Regina.

For the unaware, Regina is the capital city of Saskatchewan and is a very boring mid-sized by Canadian Standard City. Saskatoon is the cooler, bigger brother that is nicer, but still just a prairie city at the end of the day. I've since moved to Saskatoon, and the people that live here love to put down Regina. Meanwhile, Regina people acknowledge that Saskatoon is a superior city, if only just slightly.

It's a very one-sided rivalry. Anyway, it was always fun to see little old Saskatchewan referenced in The Simpsons. Well, thank you, Graham Reed. When I go to Saskatoon, I will slander Regina. I was glad to see somebody could speak on Regina versus Saskatoon.

in their particular rivalry. It sounds a little like how San Francisco people thought that they were in a rivalry with Los Angeles, and Los Angeles never really thought much about San Francisco. That sounds likely. Hey, you know what? I want to go to Toronto. I haven't made it there yet. But Bruce McCullough is coming to Vancouver, so in a way, a little piece of Toronto is coming to me.

Oh, that's nice. That's nice. Bruce McCullough. It'll be, you know, I think we're getting close to 10 years since we saw the brain candy thing at Sketchfest. I had to tell you it was 10 years ago. in January. Okay, I must have been thinking of it because we both probably got the same Facebook like 10 years ago thing, right? Yeah, because what marks that day in history is we went to New York City for a switch event. That's right. That's right. Yeah, we saw the switch and then flew back that day

and went straight to the theater and left our luggage someplace precarious. Everything was fine. So we had like travel stress, but trying to calm down because we could not miss brain candy. No, no, no. But yeah, great nights. And hopefully Bruce, so put on a show for me. Dan Vincent also said on that episode, since Gimley was mentioned in an episode full of aviation scenes, it seems appropriate to mention a Gimley claim to fame.

The Gimley Glider, on July 22nd, 1983, a new Air Canada Boeing 767 registered C-Gwan, departed Montreal to fly to Edmonton. Unfortunately, it didn't make it to Edmonton because it ran out of fuel. One of the fuel quantity indicator sensors

was defective, and Captain Robert Pearson used a formula based on imperial units to calculate how much fuel they needed to fly to Edmonton. That's a problem because the 767 uses metric units are for everything. Captain Pearson accidentally underfueled the plane and ran out of fuel mid-flight. Since they wouldn't have enough altitude to glide to Winnipeg, the crew began to make an emergency landing at a decommissioned royal Canadian Air Force base, Gimley, instead.

unbeknownst to them, the runway had been converted into an active racetrack. The landing was difficult but successful with the pilots avoiding the crowd and race cars. Nobody on the ground or on the aircraft died and only a few passengers suffered minor injuries. Wow. Back to Winnipeg and back to land on a racetrack? That sounds like the end of a movie or a Simpsons episode of like running out of it and landing having to land in Gimley, the Gimley glider gliding onto a converted race. racetrack and barely missing the crowd or the other drivers.

That's a... Where's our Gimley Glider film? Yeah, you would think that the very least the Canadian film board would want to have that to brag about something so culturally Canadian. And also, I got several comments from this month correcting me on things that I felt I was like, you know what, I need to share this, so people, so I'm staying honest. But I wanted to let somebody tried to correct me saying like, oh, the spruce moose wasn't in Burns' thing in Springfield.

That's from tailspin. Wrong, buddy. It's spruce moose and both of them. So better luck next time on that correction. They both landed on the same joke, I guess. So I guess tailspin must have done it first. Oh, yeah. But they're both the spruce moose as a parody of the spruce goose.

So I just wanted to, since I'm going to talk about a few things I got wrong, I wanted to at least say, like, you know what, I actually got this right. You couldn't correct me. No one ever talks about the things we got right. It's a real shame. There's those compliments. They just silently appreciate them. Moving on, the Treyhouse of 4 or 5,

Garrett K. Larson says, My son is almost 10, and he's gotten way into the Simpsons, which is a real joy. I'm very grateful I get to enjoy it with him and see his own little sense of humor forming. And, of course, I get to regale him with fun facts I learn on this podcast.

And all that to say, should you ever get married, I will 100% be incorporating Grandpa's wedding advice during the toast. Thank you, Garrett. Although I have to imagine that probably 10,000 Simpsons fans beat you to that with that toast. But it'll be extra special for Garrett and his side.

then. That's so touching. Man, will I ever be at another wedding where I'll be able to give that toast? I just was at a wedding in November, but I didn't really know that it was my husband's childhood friend that was getting married, so I don't think I was close enough to even give him the speech had I thought of it. This could be

revealing too much. Is your brother married? Oh, sorry, I meant my husband. I said husband why I meant brother. Whoops. Okay, wait. Oh, oh, whoa. Don't investigate that. Oh, it's not Freudian in any way. Sorry, your brother, though, who you're not married to. Is he married?

My brother is not married, no. So maybe. Ladies. Okay. Well, we'll see. If you're looking for another Gilbert, there's one on the market. As far as I know, he could have a girlfriend. Or boyfriend.

He never talks to me about any of these things. So I'll know, honestly, I feel like I'll learn that he has a wedding after it happens. I feel like. Oh, geez. Well, we're getting him on the show at some point. We've got to learn more about... He has a lot of Simpsons watching with me stories to tell. I'm sure he does.

More importantly, we need his side of the story. though this will not be a live podcast. Okay. We're not putting this on Twitch. So Jonathan says on Treyhouse 5, I have seen a Sound of Thunder, the adaptation of the Ray Bradbury. Short story we mentioned the episode.

I recently saw it while visiting my parents and knew nothing about it. It's very cheap looking and filmed primarily on green screen. Even simple outdoor shots of walking on the street are CG, which is really weird. It's almost like they wanted to do a sky

Captain in the world of tomorrow thing, but couldn't pull it off. I have not read the story, so I can't comment on how effective Bradbury's writing is, but the film is somewhat enjoyable as a bad movie. I see. I have not seen this. I've seen like trailers for Sky Captain, and I think Sky Captain was ahead of its time by saying, what if just everything was a green screen and nothing was real? I remember liking Sky Captain all right back in the day, though I also knew it was like, I just liked the Fleischer cartoons it was inspired by. Though this description of everything being CG, It sounds like the stuff that's on Red Letter Media is best of the worst. They call those black tank top movies, I think they call them, right? Perhaps, yeah. Where every element is CG, and it's just like a rich guy on a green screen, just making his own insane passion projects. Like Neil Breen or something, right? Basically, Neil Breen is the king of the black tank top movies, I think, yes.

He's really feeling out that tank top. What are we on now? Are we on Mommy Beard's? Okay, so Mommy Bearest. Mike Mariana. says. On the commentary while discussing the card segment, someone asked if the previous Gravy and Jobriath segment was also CGI, but Gene confirms it was stop motion. So that means there are Gravy and Gibriath figures out there. If the prices for original cells are

getting out of hand, I think Henry should try to acquire the original Joe Briath instead. And this is Bob speaking in case our listeners don't remember. Gravy and Jovieth was a parody of Davy and Goliath, the Christian Stop Motion thing made by Ark Clokey. And in the parody, they're about to blow up an abortion clip. They build a pipe bomb in it. I feel like they made that joke like right before, right before Columbine, I think. Although it was obviously stop motion,

so I forget who was asking if it was CGI, but it definitely wasn't CGI. I don't want to put it on our great guess that episode, Stuart, but we knew it was... No, it was somebody on the commentary, not on our show, who said it was CGI. Yeah, no, that's right. Graving Jibrieth, I mean, you and I both know

it was by the Kyoto brothers, the killer clowns from outer space guys, who before Shadow Machine came around, I think Kyoto Brothers were the guys in the late 90s early odds that you go to of like, can you imitate stop motions, rank and bass specials for us please? Like they did it for Elf, not too long after they did Graveen and Gibriott. And they also did the parodies, you know, Tis the 15th season. Santa Claus is coming to town in the California races.

Yes, right, right, yeah. They use the Kyoto Brothers a lot. I think the Kyoto brothers are still at it. Also, Steve R says about that episode, Glad Henry noted what I also took to be a liar, liar reference. It was my most frequently watched Jim Carrey movie as a family house had the VHS. At some point in my life, I grew cold and stopped enjoying any films blooper reel, but I have great memories of my sister and I's kids,

rewinding the credits to watch Liar Liar Blupers. I never got as far as the VHS with Liar Liar, I saw it in the theater, but I think it was too old. I think kids of that era have a lot more funness for that movie than we do. Do you like that movie, Henry? I remember liking it all right. I liked him in the, I mean, it felt like, oh, Jim Carrey's back kind of thing, because he's given like basically a magical problem to solve because his kid wishes that he can't lie anymore.

I think it was, I was like 15 when this movie came out, though, so I thought like, maybe this is over for me. I'm an adult man now. If I remember the ending, the blooper reel, the one I remember from it is that during the court case, he's yelling at his opponent legal counsel, and she then riffs in his, face over actor. They laugh-hearted it, but it felt like the only blooper that was a person makes fun of Jim Carrey, not the other way around.

Those might have been part of the original movie theatrical release. I don't remember. That sounds vaguely familiar, and I've only seen it once. I think that, yeah, the bloopers must have just been on the end credits, both for theatrical and the VHS release then. Yeah. What was the liar liar reference in Mommy Beers? Do we remember it?

Oh, it was that Homer was riding the stair car to try to catch up with the plane, which is the Oh, yes, sorry. I was only thinking of Rest of Development. Yeah. Yeah. Which was airing right after that episode of Simpsons.

Moving on, we have our Whata Cartoon for the month of March. Ha ha you clowns, the episode Bomber Jacket and Silky PJ says Joe Kappa, the creator of Haha You Clowns, was recently on an episode

of Jesse Thorne's bullseye where he talked about a split in the audience between those who really like the wholesomeness and others who were on your side, more of seeing the dark underbelly of America and the facile nature of sitcoms.

Kappa has said that it's both things. He does enjoy wholesome medium like sitcom and movies like the Buttercream Gang, but also intentionally made the family careless and awkward like they were exposed to too much TV. The dad is based on Joe's real dad, who he and his brother get along with. I think it helps Joe started making

this series in his 40s with a more worldly experienced outlook that gives it this particular tone, especially on Adult Swim. It's a very fitting show for right now because people crave sincerity and authenticity. I'm hoping Adults Swim can follow through with this show, and more shows in the vein of Joe Paratox with these mix of Off Kiltor,

yet uplifting. And yes, thank you very much, Silky PJ. I didn't know if our audience would be into this, but it seems like most people were, and most people had already seen it and were fans and the people who had just tuned in, like, really got into it after they watched the episode we covered for this podcast. Yeah, I think it was really energizing to talk about like a current show. Also, another reason I put the smiling friends bit in there was that it just felt like, oh, well, if you're sad that smiling friends is going away, you know, there is a brand new, even newer Swim show that I think has would appeal to the similar audience even though it is tonally pretty it feels very different from Smiling Friends in a way yeah yeah I mean

this could be like a sea change at adult swim whatever adult swim is going to be in the future who knows yeah Ian Jones Cordy are guest on Trias of our 5 he just posted about how the special for Adult Swim that he animated or directed a third of the elephant just got taken off of HBO Max but it is still on the adult swim dot com So if you still haven't seen it, give the elephant to watch folks. Norman Benford also says about ha-ha, you clowns, I can't be the only one who can see Jesse Plemans playing the brothers in a live-action adaptation. I could see that if he does a sinners.

Yes. And splits himself into three. And then he's definitely going to get an Oscar. If you get an Oscar for playing two guys, if you play three at once, come on. You know, after Bologna, I'm really appreciating the work of Jesse Plemons. In fact, you could say I'm having a real Plemons party over here. That's a reference to Lemon Party. We're old.

I learned about those on Oprah. Yeah, no. What, Oprah? She had, like, a special about, like, these are the sex parties. Your teenagers are having type deals. I remember seeing them. I'm talking about the famous old picture of old men having sex. Oh, okay, sure, yes.

I was thinking of the lipstick party when, yes. I know Lemon Party now. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So I want to make sure my joke got through. No, it did. I got viral sex things of the 90s mixed up.

Sorry. But Plemans, it was cool seeing him at the Oscars. When Michael B. Jordan won. the camera caught them like locking eyes and looking at each other because they were both on Friday Night Lights when they were young actors. And now they're both top actors in the field these days. I mostly like Bologonia. I don't think I should have gotten the best picture non. But whenever I think of Bagonia, I also think, a land I didn't make up.

It's, yeah, unfortunately, I've had it spoiled for me what can be spoiled about it. Who spoiled it? Name them. Well, I mean, you know, it's a person we've had on our podcast before on Chapo, trap house. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I still would like to see it. But I love Plymins and Kirsten Dunst basically being like acting power couple.

They're really great together. Well, now Kirsten Dunst has signed up for the next Minecraft movie. So I think Plymondsworth has risen. Look, I understand. Dunst wants to make some money for, she was in a lot of like small budget things for years now. I think she wants to cash in, I think. Dunston wants to check in if you catch my drift. Well, they have.

I don't think that was a Dunstan's. checks and reference. All my references are just sliding off the screen here. Will she also cash in on like having, oh, all the Mary Jane's meet each other in the next Spider-Man movie or something. Who knows? Right. Oh, let's see. Let's find out about that. Up next, we have Shrek 2. Now, I want to say a few things. Let's get serious about Shrek 2. This is a controversial podcast for a lot of people, and I don't understand why, but I feel like I'm now noticing the elder millennial versus younger millennial splits in our audience. And it's okay to disagree with us. I wish it wasn't, because it upsets me. But it's okay to

disagree with us. I just would like people to be diplomatic for the most part they were. But what I noticed about this is that in my estimation, the people who were upset about our treatment of Shrek 2, it was a very emotional response, and that's a valid response. But I was combing over so many comments and so many

Discord messages. I did not ever see anyone call out something that we said specifically. It was more like they were too mean, they were too nitpicky. But I'm honestly curious, like, what do you think we were wrong about compared to our coverage of other movies that we view as lesser? because I didn't see anything pulled out, like any examples pulled out.

And I'm really curious about that because all I'm seeing is that the reaction was emotional. And if you're attached to something, I understand. But I just want to see, like, what did you disagree with? That's really what I'm curious about. And we probably won't cover any more Shrek's. I'm guessing. It might be a while until our next Shrek, though. Maybe for the people who hate Shrek 4, maybe we did.

We can all be in agreement. Yeah, hating Shrek 4. And I'd want to cover something else because a lot of people on the podcast, I said, oh, people told me Shrek 2 is the worst one. And then I saw people on Discord and comments saying, well, who told Bob this? This is crazy. No one thinks this.

People think Shrek 2 is the best one. I don't know who told me this. I don't know where I got this information. It just was in my head. I just have heard this over time. I cannot actually give you a citation, but it is something that I've heard. So that's all I can say.

Like, I'm just a guy telling you things I've heard sometimes. And that's, that could not be fulfilling for you, but I just had to communicate that to the audience. But Shrek 2, at the end of the day, it is the highest grossing movie of 2004. We cannot take that away from it. When I shared that, and it was in the podcast, too,

but I used it for the Blue Sky Post promoting the episode, that commercial of like Shrek and Donkey selling the Walmart exclusive version of the Shrek 2 DVD, and they're singing Disco Inferno together with a Walmart character. I was just like, doesn't this, to me, it just spoke to like,

this is how empty reality and life was in 2004. Yes. And hey, like Shrek 5 coming out this summer in 2004, War of the Rock. Biggest movie the year, 2006, War of Iran, this could be the biggest movie of the year. We need something to get us over

Pain at the Pump. Yes. Shrek can get us through this one more time. He can get us through it. Anyhow, Alex Irish says on Shrek 2, maybe I'm amazed at the way you weren't fans of the sequel when the popular Contrexis

is that 2 is the peak and best of the series, though I can see why it wouldn't be someone's favorite three or justified criticisms. Puss and Boots, The Last Wish, is indeed the actual best

Shrek-adjacent movie in part because it solves one of the critiques I have of Shrek in general. It fixed the character designs by making them visually appealing and by caring about the stakes of the story and the characters. And yes, thank you, Alex. I don't know if I'll see Shrek 5. The answer is probably no, but I do appreciate their efforts

to make the characters look more appealing. They're kind of stuck in some ways with some aspects of the characters I don't like physically and visually, but I like that there is an effort to make them more appealing now that they have technology in hindsight and everything working for them. After I watched The Last Wish, which I did enjoy, to go back to the first Puss appearance

where I feel like he is written with so much more shallow, they don't even know if he's a good fighter or not. And I also feel like a lot of the jokes that they have about him are just about what if he said something in Spanish? Like, it really felt that really turned me off after seeing such a great Puss and Boots movie that I think took all of those. ideas and concepts much more seriously. Also, Joshua Marchant

says on that Shrek 2, as a 10-year-old boy in 2004, I immediately recognize the Shrek, Harold, Fiona, donkey bit from a season 2 SpongeBob cartoon, imitation crabs, where Plankton and Crabs shout each other's names back and forth

until SpongeBob cheerfully adds his own. And one of the writers of that SpongeBob episode, Shrek 2 story artist Walt Dorn, so maybe we could generously assume this was him reworking a joke he used before. Also, speaking as a Kiwi, I never tire of people trying to approximate our subtly bland accent and ending up in an Australian South African hybrid. Thinks again. There's like a Venn diagram between Australian accents,

South African accent and New Zealand. And they're all kind of the same to me. I kind of got to do Crocodile Dundee to lapse until Australian. I'm going to try to read it as Joshua typed it in the accent. Like, think again for the Pudkiste Fullers. That's good. I like it. And yeah, this Walter Doran guy, I'm looking at his credits, well, what's he doing these days?

Oh, he's director of Shrek 5. There you go. Well, there you go. That just shows you got to steal to get ahead in this world. At least it sounds like he stole for himself, but I appreciate that. I got that one, Joshua, because that one, when I saw it in the movie, I was like, I know I saw this in a cartoon before

this was in Shrek 2, but where was it? And to pull up that SpongeBob one with the same, with staff overlap, I do think is kind of telling not, it doesn't definitely mean that's where they got it from. But I also, I, one person did, I saw a couple people mentioned, oh, Henry is going overboard here with the mission saying that they ripped off Mission Hill with one of the opening jokes of them chasing, of the people with pitchforks chasing them during the love montage at the opening. I was like, I stand by, one of the main screenwriters of the movie was a writer on the only,

season of Mission Hill. I feel like that matters when I'm trying to say that this is very similar to a Mission Hill joke. I also don't think they're saying like, I'm going to steal this joke and nobody's going to find out. They're just, their brains function in certain ways. And when they have to think of jokes about certain scenarios, they might fall back in the same territory without checking their old work. It can happen. Yeah, yeah. I don't see something malevolent there. It's more just like, if you've heard a podcast where, not ours, of course, but where somebody tells a story again that they've told before, like they forgot they've told before. That's like probably being in a writer's room.

They're coming up with a similar joke again that you think you've come up with for the first time. So that is the final statement on Trek 2 for now. Look forward to us torturing you more about Trek in the future, potentially. We don't know. Up next we have our Talking Futurama episode about Frye and the Eggman. And Maverick says, my temple of doom gripe, the airplane they escape in is a Ford Trimotor, which has a fuel range of roughly 550 miles. they take off from Shanghai and their first stop, according to the map, is Chong Ying.

Chongqing? I don't know how to say this when it's spelled out in front of me. This is Bob Mackie speaking. That is 1,000 miles away. Are you telling me they managed to fly twice the distance it was able to? I surely hope someone got fired for that blunderer. Yes, thank you, Maverick. That just proves, like I said, once they get in the plane, you turn that movie off.

You pop in Last Crusade, you're fine. For where the story is going in for the plane inaccuracies. Just so you're not bothering anymore. Once you hear Dan Aykroyd speak, you know it's time to turn off. the movie in his unnamed cameo. And then meanwhile, Seth says on Fry in the Eggman, it's fun hearing John DiMaggio doing his Scotsman voice. I cannot help but think of him in Samurai Jack.

It's even more fun hearing his Samurai Jack co-star, Phil Lamar, doing a Scottish accent as well. And I appreciate that, Seth, despite being a regular view of Samurai Jack back in the day, I did not make the connection of like, oh, yeah, John DiMaggio's big a character on Samurai Jack was a huge Scotsman with a sword. Yeah. I forgot about that. By the way, it's Chung King.

I don't like how Chinese is transliterated. Same thing with Korean. I apologize. No, I appreciate that you look that up. I was not going to give it a shot. Now, also here, I'll say another thing that's hard to say. I was successfully corrected by several that there's a joke where the Scottish guy is just exclaiming things and they're all similar stuff. And on one of them, he says, Yo Jimbo Rashomon, but he says something before it that I'm like, man, that doesn't even sound like a Curisala film. I don't know what that is.

The words he says are Dersu Uzzala, which is a Curisawa film. It's the only Russian-language film he made and co-produced with the Soviets. And I was unaware of this film. Well, a fine Dersu Uzzala to you, sir. So thank you, listeners, for pointing that out. And I haven't seen every Curisala film I've been working on through. I just watched Ron last year for the first time. Dersu Uzala is on my list now to be a,

Curasawa Completionist. Now, he has directed a lot of movies, I guess 30, so you've got quite a road ahead of you. It's true, there's the, okay, everything from 195 onward completionist of Curisela. That's probably a little easier, I think. Sure, sure. Yeah, you're going to cut out like 10 movies, I guess, so you're good. I've watched, I think, at least half of his post-55 stuff. From Ashemont onwards, I've watched about half of that at least.

So moving on, final comments about Talking of the Hill, Naked Ambe. And Graham Reed says, regarding the yard verse films, Bob, you're thinking of the longest yard. There's a Bert Reynolds 70s version and a 2000 Adam Sandler remake where a football player goes to prison and joins the prisonals football team and a game against the guards. Not worth watching. Thank you, Graham. It's my rule that new rule. If you have a movie with the word yard in it, then it has to be about football.

I'm sorry. Yes, apparently somebody else I pointed out that like the whole nine yards, I didn't know the idiom This person said referred to was a wartime term because like a magazine of bullets from, you know, a machine gun was nine yards long. So if you fired all of it, you did the whole nine yards of shooting. I think that's where it comes from, which would fit more with the whole nine yards film being about like people shooting guns as part of it, for instance. 10 yards, we don't know what that means. That's a sequel, right? Yes, yeah.

Now, the longest yard, I haven't seen either of those. I have seen clips from the Adam Sandler one because. many several pro wrestlers are in that movie and so I've seen clips of pro wrestlers and movie things so and then our final comment the month on naked ambition is from dan vincent who says please forget my computer pedantry henry windows 2000 had anything but a lackluster reception it's one of the most beloved releases of windows but you probably don't remember it because windows 2k was the latest release of windows nt which was Microsoft's OS designed for servers in high-end workstations. Unless someone worked in the software development or business IT at the time,

they probably missed out on Windows 2K. Henry is probably thinking of the later and confusingly named Windows Millennium Edition, M.E. The last gasp of the Windows 95-based operating systems. M.E. was a short-lived turkey that nobody liked. Both Windows 2000 and Windows M.E were replaced by Windows XP, the first release of a Windows 8.5. NT-based OS design to serve both the consumer and professional markets.

And also, the Bill Gates blue screen of death was related to Windows 98, which came up in the South Park movie, What a Cartoon podcast. So I assume Henry got his computer information from a Mac source. Yes, I mean, I was doing my research on the Mac, so it must have been lying to me. They lie to you. Or was the evil AI overview? Oh, God. Did you see that new thing recently, Bob, where like, obviously I've learned to scroll past AI overview and search results and not even look at it. But I saw a thing today about how like AI, Google results are now AI rewriting headlines. It's like SEOify the headlines for you.

Yes, I did see that. You know, as somebody who has written for the internet for a very long time and kind of still does, I demand a check for some of this stuff. All this training I've done. Yeah, like we both had to be severely trained in SEO to like, no, no, no, you have to put the name of the game. What's this clever title all about? You need to put the name of the game as the first three words in it so people find it.

Well, in terms of training, I mean like all of the training my work has been used to train the AI. Like here's a bunch of scrape all this, learn how the words work. You've probably been scraped more than I, though we both have work out there that can be scraped from. But like you are often on a lot of video games like one of the cited sources in them. And so, Wikipedia, so yes, the AI is stealing from us and now renaming the headlines on whatever articles of ours still happen to. exist that have survived this long to be a search result still. Those bastards better not have scraped my book. Oh, God, it's bad out there, guys.

I'd rather remember Windows 2000 stuff from Dan Vincent, who was another correcting of Henry person. So there, I kept it honest, several corrections of me, not just people who say, Henry, you're always right. You never get things wrong. A simpler time when Windows was good and Bill Gates was having fun on islands. He was on island time. He was on island time.

Man, the other guy, the wrong billionaire. died. The other guy, as far as I know, he never went to any islands, and he built a cool museum in Seattle. The other creator of windows. The other creator of Windows who's passed away from, like, cancer a few years back, yeah. I believe he was a confirmed bachelor, in quotes, according

to his Wikipedia page. Well, on that note, we're going to end this podcast. Thanks for listening, everybody, to talk to the audience. And as a reminder, next month, April is live action month. We will be covering Married with Children for our TV episode and Teenage Meat Ninja Turtles to

the secret of the ooze for our movie. And of course, we have normal episodes of Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill for everyone that is a member of Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Anything else, Henry?

Oh, and always remember that you get the early and ad-free podcast there of our regular ones too. So if you want to hear this without ads a week early or all the cool stuff we got coming in April without ads

for Talking Simpsons too, sign up for the $5 level of Patreon just for that. And also, yeah, you know, Talking Simpsons, another great month. We just had a great month of great guests. And we got a lot of great guests coming up now.

We've been planning. We have several great guests planned. Some new and old coming back for the upcoming episodes too. So really excited. So thanks for listening, everybody. We will see you again next week for a new episode of Talking Simpsons. And next month for another episode of Talk to the Audience. Take care.