Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart Gets An "F" (Revisited) With KC Green

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

Professional cartoonist KC Green (check out his newest book, He Is A Good Boy!) returns as we begin our renewed exploration of season two! It's the highest rated episode of Simpsons EVER, so we discus...s the battle with The Cosby Show, the move to Thursday, and the first ep that reacted to Bartmania. We dig deep into this very lovely episode this week on the podcast! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Good news everyone, Talking Futurama is coming back for Talking Futurama Season 2 Part 2. Fresher than a summer ham, this podcast comes every Friday and if you sign up at the $5 level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you can hear each episode as it goes live. That's right, sign up today at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for $5 to hear Talking Futurama every Friday throughout the rest of 2020 and also all the previous episodes we've done so far. So head over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons now or we're gonna clamp you! Shut up and take my money! I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, where it's always Big Gorilla Week. I'm your host, successful escapee from Grandma's house, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons.
Starting point is 00:00:57 Who is here with me today, as always? Why, it's Henry Gilbert, and we're two grown men who can't get enough of each other. It's true, and who do we have on the line? My name's Casey Green, but please call me Papa. And today's episode is Bart Gitsen F. You haven't been paying attention to a word I said, have you? Yes, ma'am. Well, then what did I say?
Starting point is 00:01:17 Straighten up and fly right? Well, that was a lucky guess. Today's episode aired on October 11, 1990, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God. Oh, boy, Bobby. Favorite of yours. The Secret of Monkey Island is released on personal computing machines.
Starting point is 00:01:39 Troll 2 is released in theaters. Great. Wow. And Leonard Bernstein dies. The R.E.M. lyric. Yes. And I'm sure he did other things in his life as well. It was the end of the world for him.
Starting point is 00:01:52 I honestly do not know who that is. I mean, no, I could Google and pretend, but I'm not going to. Some composer style man. He was in an R.E.M. song. That's his claim to fame. He invented those famous bears we all love right yeah that's the bernstein bears but uh troll 2 one of the great bad movies of all time
Starting point is 00:02:14 been a while since i've seen that all the way through just as as it is not riffraffs or anything i want to throw this out here as a question for everybody out here uh and i know they're very different movies but what is your better bad movie, Troll 2 or The Room? Oh, boy. All right. My personal pick is The Room because I think the central figure is the most interesting person in those films.
Starting point is 00:02:38 And also, like, I don't have to watch a child go through a bad filming, which I feel that borders more on abuse than adults making a bad film how do you feel casey uh i'm probably in the same boat i've seen the room more times just because it's so wild and tommy was so as a figure as a central figure in himself is just so fascinating but i can't deny that i have that kid's line read of oh my god stuck in my head for the rest of my goddamn life and Nilbog
Starting point is 00:03:10 is goblin spelled backwards as we all know but I don't know for me I think like The Room is more interesting if you know about Tommy Wiseau but going into A Blind I think The Room is a less interesting movie because you forget before you watch that movie there's a lot of sex scenes in that movie and that could be a lot to sex scenes in that movie. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:27 And that could be a lot to sit through if you were a newcomer to the room. And they're all front-loaded, too, in that movie. I will say Troll 2 might have been... The room script is ridiculous. They told me it's definitely cancer. Lines like that. But Troll 2 has even more... Every line a person says to another person is like,
Starting point is 00:03:45 this is impossible. No one would ever write this in English, ever. It's worth a rewatch for me, I think, Troll 2. Our friends at OSW Review actually did just a fun look back at Troll 2 as well. So check that out on the YouTube. And Secret of Monkey Island. Check out, I did a Retronauts about that probably a little over a year ago.
Starting point is 00:04:08 I'm going through all of the LucasArts Adventure Games again for that podcast series, and yes, revisited it recently, and still a fantastic game. Happy 30th birthday. Yeah, you're a monkey islandologist, Bob. You know all about it. Me and my future wife are partners
Starting point is 00:04:24 in our monkey studies. But hey, welcome back to Casey Green. We're here again for us coming back to the second season. Yes, last season on Krusty Gets Busted, which is, it's like the, was it the last production episode of season one? Okay, so we are just like picking up right from there with this episode. The sequel to Krusty Gets Busted, Martin Becomes Cool. That was
Starting point is 00:04:50 the working title for this. I got my busted Krusty right here looking at me. Still my little figure I swore I'd buy and I did. And I got my Martin right next just so I know which ones I'm here at. You must have bought that like six months ago at the time of this recording. Yeah, it was at the time of this recording.
Starting point is 00:05:07 Yeah, it was right at the beginning of fucking 2020. I did want to add a little programming note in case you guys missed our previous podcast update. So in case you missed it, we had a poll. We asked folks out there, do you want us to do season two or season 12? Season two won by a landslide, but we decided to mix things up this year. We're going to be going back and forth between season 2 and season 12 on a weekly basis so uh this week it's going to be obviously barkett's and f then next week it's season 12 triasa 4 11 and then the week after that it's season 2's uh simpson and delilah and so on until we get through both of these seasons probably till the start of 2022 so we we know what we're doing on the talking simpsons podcast until at least then
Starting point is 00:05:46 and uh and i mean because you know i our season two originals they still exist but uh we we didn't do the history the deep dive service that we love to do and and we couldn't talk to cool guys like professional cartoonist casey green about it yeah i love getting f's uhist Casey Green about it. Yeah, I love getting Fs. I'm all about it. So where were you, Casey, on the night of Thursday, October 11th, 1990? 1990. I was three years old. I was probably in the house.
Starting point is 00:06:17 I don't remember. And not paying attention to The Simpsons. Putting things in your mouth, I'm guessing. Putting things in my mouth that I shouldn't be. Don't remember The Simpsons. Putting things in your mouth, I'm guessing. Putting things in my mouth that I shouldn't be. Don't remember the Simpsons. But this one got a lot of play in syndication. I remember this episode a lot.
Starting point is 00:06:34 This is a solid episode. Not to give away what I feel, but this is a really good one. Yeah, I mean, we'll get into it, but there was a six-month drought of Simpsons episodes between the last one and this one. So all of us kids that were not putting things in our mouths, as often as you were, Casey, we were ready for this. I just had to figure out which one was in my mouth, which one could fit.
Starting point is 00:06:54 I was an eight-year-old bouncing off of the walls waiting for more Simpsons. I had been waiting all summer, and it was like the summer of Bartmania. And I look back on it now, and I can see the marketing push towards Christmas is beginning. All of this stuff is starting to show up in toy stores and all the commercials. They couldn't get a video game ready in time for Christmas, but all the other stuff was coming along. They should have given that Space Mutants game another six months to cook. If you can't hit Christmas, then get it out in the next Christmas. But, yeah, it's a big deal for the Simpsons because the Simpsons are going to Thursdays. Yes.
Starting point is 00:07:36 Just as exciting as Delaware. Yeah, this whole week, I guess we should start with the battle with bill cosby yes and question up front about this henry i wasn't quite sure about this but who struck the first blow was it cosby or was it fox because fox uh was really playing it up over the summer yes yeah so i absolutely think it was fox from reading i read like four different news stories for it i signed up for a free subscription to the latimes.com to read their archive story on it uh but yeah the the sense i got from it was that over the summer of 1990 fox executives decide that they are going to go to thursday so in 1990 thursday nights were already this is before seinfeld but thursday night is already mbc's
Starting point is 00:08:27 comedy night anchored by cosby and then cheers cheers has actually started to surpass cosby is the nine o'clock show but the cosby show is the start of the night at eight o'clock and nobody challenged it and on top of that fox didn't have a Thursday night block then like they were looking to expand Sunday was their night and I believe Friday as well so they were looking to expand into Thursday start making even more programming and I think from there from the Barry Diller executive vision of it was you put your biggest hottest show of last year onto your new night of Thursday and make that your big new show and that puts you against Bill Cosby and so they decide we're going to only amplify that and be like this is like definitely the marketing push I got from reading all those articles and seeing the cover stories
Starting point is 00:09:18 was from the start on the Fox side was this is about the changing America. It's not Bill Cosby's anymore as the show enters its eighth season. It's Bart Simpson's now. And then I get the sense that at a certain point, Bill Cosby realized that I can get a bunch of press if I answer this question in interviews. So he was totally going for it as well. So yeah, that's what I think. And the commentary for this episode, which I've heard, I don't know, 80 times in my life at this point these dvds are now like 18 years old but uh like 40 of the commentary is about this yeah and then james l brooke shows up when they start talking about it again and universally everyone on the show hated it they went from a show in the top 10 to a show that was fighting to survive if you go to like any article like what are the 10
Starting point is 00:10:04 most watched simpsons episodes? They're all in the first season and the first three of the second season. After that, they're in the 20s, the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, and so on. This kicked the show out of the top 10. Yeah, it really damaged them at the time. But I guess for Fox and a lot of other folks
Starting point is 00:10:23 in charge of the simpsons i think they thought it was just a fad anyway it's the new alf and after three years it'll be done so let's use it for all we can in the big second season and uh yeah hearing them on the commentary i liked hearing matt graning say i was against it but then i found out what it really sounded like to be against it when james. Brooks was yelling at Barry Tiller that sounds awesome yeah so Simpsons and Delilah was the last one to be in the top 10 the week after that
Starting point is 00:10:51 Trias of Horror 1 was 24th so that's how far the show slid so what Cosby did was this episode was pitted against the episode Period of Adjustment in which the Cosby show added a hip new Roy style character, a teen
Starting point is 00:11:08 character, a hip cousin that would exist for the rest of the series. Cosby knew what he was doing. We were trading articles back and forth where Cosby was like, this show's going to be hipper and newer. We hired more women. There's a more youth oriented angle. We're going to be cool. So here's the summary of
Starting point is 00:11:23 Period of Adjustment by Wikipedia. Only part of it because it goes on too long, frankly. Claire's teenage cousin, Pam Tucker, oriented angle we're going to be cool so here's the summary of period of adjustment by wikipedia only part of it because it goes on too long frankly but uh claire's teenage cousin pam tucker moves into the huxtable home triggering a period of adjustment for all concerned although she appreciates the upscale surroundings cliff and claire's rules really cramp her style it kind of sounds like the fresh prince of bel-air which also debuted that year on nbc well it just feels like his answer to a much more fun show uh pam was played by eric alexander of living single and who who was uh i think her most recent like big role was in get out she was the the cop who wouldn't listen to little rel about his missing friend and yeah so this place number two against
Starting point is 00:12:02 cosby cosby was number one it was so close to a tie it was really close in numbers and uh this is the most watched simpsons episode ever at 33.6 million viewers amazing amazing the light and its entire run ever yeah ever and it probably ever will be because like nothing the super bowl now is excited to get 33 million you know like now i think those get actually like 100 million but uh the game of thrones the big game of thrones finale 18 million and the three factors were the drought over the summer in the early fall the uh you know the intense hype and the fad of the simpsons and also fox playing up this battleground angle between the simpsons and cosby like that all of these factors led to this being the most watched episode of all time in the history of the show.
Starting point is 00:12:48 There were a lot of interesting the two most interesting articles I read in the Bart versus Bill headlines was both in late August because the timeline to think about here was this October 11th episode was the first new one to go against cosby but starting with reruns of the telltale head in august 23rd they'd been on thursday night for almost two months so they're prepping the audience for that yeah i see so that's why the articles started in late august uh and the like the seattle times one uh talked more to the Simpsons folks and the behind the scenes people. I think my favorite was Sam Simon going like, you want to talk about the Cosby thing, don't you? Fine, we'll talk. I think he knew it was just a marketing thing. But then on the August 31st issue of the Entertainment Weekly, that is the one with Bill Cosby on the cover wearing a bart simpson t-shirt
Starting point is 00:13:46 that says yo bill on it and normally we will play the anti-death jingle for celebrities nearing their end but not for him certainly not no he's looking pretty bad in prison oh yeah and i enjoy it it's uh i was that cover supposed to be a burying of the hatchet or something uh well not based on the uh lines here i i have the bill cosby said tv should be moving in a direction from the huxtables forward not backward the mean-spirited and cruel think this is the edge and their excuse is that's the way people are today but why should we be entertained by that god kids don't know what the jazz is all about it's uh well also like his his his moralizing is even worse to hear now uh obviously i think i've ever seen an episode of the cosby show and like i guess i know it's popular but i just didn't i don't i don't quite
Starting point is 00:14:39 comprehend its popularity it was it was season eight by the time this came around how long did that show last completely well this was season seven i believe season eight by the time this came around. How long did that show last completely? Well, this was season seven, I believe, and eight was the last one. So the 91-92 season was the last one. And I'll admit, I love the Cosby show. I watched it. I watched it in reruns up through the early 2000s.
Starting point is 00:14:56 I thought it was a great show. And the people on The Simpsons did as well. They didn't want this to happen. They're like, Cosby is doing his thing. We're doing our thing. And it's really funny to see Cosby attacking the show so much because in this episode, Bart is like the sweetest, most like pure version of Bart who just wants to try. He's not like the character who's in league with Satan in two years from this episode. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:17 Well, this episode also feels like a repudiation of what people thought Bart was. Like it is this, uh, getting uh in our john vd interview about season one and season two is his time on there like he was reflecting on it as as they made bart swear less not because they felt you know moral pressure but because their friends were saying thanks for teaching my kid the word like damn like and now he knows how to say it that part says in there and they so they self-censored because of that so i think that's and i mean too this episode like directly references t-shirts that were being sold by the millions of bart yeah the scandalous t-shirt and yeah more on more on thursday so uh the fall of 94 was a big deal for the simpsons they that's
Starting point is 00:16:00 when they enter syndication and that is when the show went back to sunday nights with bard of darkness the season six premiere so finally it they spent four freaking seasons on there i was so happy when it moved to sundays and i think that's when i started watching seinfeld because i couldn't i wasn't a viewer of seinfeld until the simpsons were off the same night as that you just unlocked something in my brain that's when i started watching seinfeld as well i yeah it's uh well and also uh their last thing about thursday night is i looked up the two shows that debuted with it on their big thursday night launch one was beverly hills 90210 which giant hit lasted a long time and just had a comeback too the other one is the half a season uh wonder babes i i was a babes viewer wendy joe sperber
Starting point is 00:16:48 was never funnier i'm sorry you've never heard of babes well it's about a bunch of uh big-bodied babes who were uh rocking it in the the big city it's what if there were three rosannes yes what if there are three rosannes who live it's it's kind of funny and it was uh produced by dolly parton it was a dolly series i remember my friends and i trading babes quips on the playground i'm not even kidding uh they well they were they were uh you know large bodied ladies who would who would make light of their size i uh sadly i believe two of the three babes are no longer with us and one one last note for me on this episode so uh very smart this is the third production episode it goes uh in order of production it goes uh mr
Starting point is 00:17:30 burns from mayor i'm not saying the entire name of the title until we get to it we have simpson delilah and then this but they knew like we are starting with a bart episode and it's funny to start the fall with an episode about the end of the school year yeah yeah that that also has a winter's the scene in it it doesn't add up in a lot of ways but it's it it could only have been a bart episode that starts the season because this was season two is when they finally by the end of it they're like this isn't the bart show anymore we're figuring out that we want this to be the homer show not the bart show and uh and so uh the writer of this episode i think we've covered him a little bit but david m stern it's his first one yeah i've
Starting point is 00:18:10 got a little bio on him so yes he is the brother of the famous wet bandit daniel stern and also the star of chud and his first role in hollywood was being a terrible production assistant on the movie mystic pizza he admits he did a terrible job uh but thankfully his brother got him a job on the wonder years wonderful nepotism it's some good nepotism and uh so he started as an executive story consultant he'd write eight episodes of the show from 1988 to 1990 and uh one of his wonder years was nominated for an emmy but lost to the wit and sparkle of murphy brown and so, yeah, Daniel Stern, also the voice of adult Kevin Arnold
Starting point is 00:18:47 and a director on the show as well. So he pulled some strings, in other words. Yeah, though, I mean, based on the six episodes Stern, David Stern wrote over the series, like they're some of my all-time favorites. Like he is a great writer who really brought a lot more he's
Starting point is 00:19:07 he is more in the mold of a james l brooks writer i'd say too definitely and yes he did write for sibs briefly the other james l brooks show the couple he made along with the simpsons so yeah he had a real knack for figuring out female characters with three amazing shows so uh homer alone selma's choice and principal charming like he alone brought so much humanity to patty and selma like he made some of their best episodes uh that wasn't seen that humanity was not seen in season one they were like barely in that season but they only appeared to complain about homer i mean when you when you hear they're based on sam simon hating his uh sisters-in-law that's uh there's there's not a ton of room for depth originally with them
Starting point is 00:19:45 but he found it and and he also wrote camp crusty as well that's right and also camp crustier he came back in 2017 to just write one more and i don't think he was full-time on simpsons but he was like credited creator creative consultant from two to four i think he was full-time oh was he yeah yeah all right i just saw him in in one of his imdb things was creative consultant from two to four i think he was full-time oh was he yeah yeah all right i just saw him in in one of his imdb things was creative consultant i wasn't sure but uh yeah he stayed through most of season four uh duffless was his final episode of that era and then he would come back in season nine actually as a creative consultant so then he'd write things like viva ned flanders and screaming yellow honkers while being a creative consultant on the show
Starting point is 00:20:24 probably working like a day a week or something like that sounded like you had a little free time to write on the show then yeah and uh i think that cam crusty or is his most recent credit on imdb or if that was that's i think what i saw yeah i can tell you what else he's done since the simpsons in 2000s he worked for uh monk he worked on monk rather uh he worked on the short-lived malcolm in the middle inspired oliver bean that's that's a the short-lived Malcolm in the Middle-inspired Oliver Bean. That's a show about growing up in the 50s and David Cross as the narrator. It's basically like a different Wonder Years for the 2000s. Okay, that's right.
Starting point is 00:20:54 And we have a current Wonder Years now, the Goldbergs, right? That's right, yeah. About the 80s. So at the beginning of the 2010s, he developed and wrote a few episodes of the cartoon Ugly Americans for Comedy Central. And then we have Camp Crest here. But not a whole lot since then, but he's probably like in his 60s now, so sure. That's fine. Yeah, take your time off.
Starting point is 00:21:13 Just hang out with your brother some more. The Simpsons will be right back. They're back. Oh, what a glorious day. With a brand new show. Take one and pass the rest back. Test. Oh, oh.
Starting point is 00:21:41 Everyone knows you're faking it, Bart. And a whole new season. Bart, did you read the book? This is Krabappel. I am insulted. Is this a book report or a witch hunt? The laughs start all over again. Oh, please, call me Papa. Little ketchup for your buns, Papa.
Starting point is 00:21:58 The Simpsons, Thursday at 8 on Fox 5. Cowabunga! When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that
Starting point is 00:22:28 we care? As always, it's Big Gorilla Week on the podcast and we thank you so much for listening. A huge thank you to our guest this week, Casey Green. It is always great to have him back on the show. and we thank you so much for listening a huge thank you to our guest this week casey green it is always great to have him back on the show uh please check out all the great comics he does and also if you enjoy this our start back into our revisit of season two then i think you're
Starting point is 00:22:58 going to really enjoy everything that we do on our patreon patreon.com slash talking simpsons is how me and bob do this full-time every week both on this podcast going through all the simpsons and on our sister podcast what a cartoon where we cover a different animated series each week in the exact same style if you'd like to support me and bob doing this as our full-time jobs please consider signing up for five dollars a month at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Beyond just the knowledge that you're helping us, you also get a ton of exclusives, big bang for your buck going into 2021. You get many Patreon-exclusive podcasts you can only hear there,
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Starting point is 00:24:00 If you support us there at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. And if you want podcasts as fancy as double cappuccino chocolate fudge, then you should really sign up for the $10 premium level of patreon.com. All of the $5 stuff I just mentioned is yours. But that $ bucks also gets you our monthly what a cartoon movie podcast you last week got to hear our four-hour chat about the classic animated feature film the iron giant and we've done over two years of what a cartoon movies with a new one each month this month in january you'll get to hear us talk about the Dexter's Lab film Ego Trip next month the Studio Ghibli classic Whisper of the Heart and there's a giant back catalog over 100 hours of podcasts as diverse as the end of Evangelion Beavis and Butthead do America Spider-Man into
Starting point is 00:24:56 the Spider-Verse Toy Story and a ton ton more please sign up today at that $10 level to get your hands on all of the great Patreon exclusive content that me and Bob are putting out always, and it's going to be even better in 2021. Marge Simpson speaks out on reruns. If you don't mind, I think I'd like to get on with my life. Fox is proud to announce dozens of new original never before seen episodes of the simpsons beginning thursday october 11th on fox and not to preamble anymore but let's talk about arthur rubenstein yes yeah this one came in late for me i think you probably did a lot more research on me but yeah i i had forgotten that
Starting point is 00:25:55 you know we talked so much about the hated richard gibbs yes season one the famous gibb sting that we hate so much uh but but there was another other than alf clausen who wrote for the simpsons uh the music there were actually two so uh he composed music for this and the burns runs for mayor episode there's another guy just on simpson and delilah and with trias of horror one that is when they find and keep alf clausen okay i forgot i so i only i only had seen arthur b rubenstein in my research but wow so he died at age 80 in 2018 no longer with us uh he seems like a real work for hire guy going back to 1971 lots of credits on tv movies for the most part and he also scored the movies uh blue thunder and war games and uh patrick williams is the other composer that worked on the show
Starting point is 00:26:45 super briefly with simpson and delilah we'll talk about him in that episode and what he's done and so they gave richard gibbs the boot but they still haven't figured it out just yet with composers or maybe they're trying out three at a time this is one they never they they seem to treat it as uh like oh it's always alf clausen you know it was always him like but uh but yeah yeah and the director of this episode david silverman who with this episode is now series director officially i in our interview with him he may he said like de facto in season one he was the series director but not making the money not making the money of it he finally got pushed up to that i mean since he saved their bacon with like the season finale i i think they that gave him some extra
Starting point is 00:27:32 credit too and then on top of that was uh swinton o scott is assistant director on this that's how long he's been with the show like i think he's still a director uh on the series there yeah he's a great follow on instagram he posts a lot of like super old drawings and uh layouts and animation things and stuff like that so check him out on instagram and posted somewhat recently uh to not completely date this but he posted like his his layout of homer falling into hell for the first treehouse i think that was uh that looked real good looked real amazing oh i gotta check this out you know i miss i miss out on all this like classic simpson content by not using instagram at all i at the time of this
Starting point is 00:28:10 recording there was this recently wes archer just drew a new thing of bart uh doing horror stuff where he like he's a devil and then a zombie and then he's attacked and he and he does a twister mouth wesley archer drew a new twister mouth in the year i commented to thank him about that and yeah silverman says that you know in season two was when they really figured out the series and the characters he felt the artists at klaski chupo and acom really they finally got it and i mean the even from crusty gets busted to this episode i do think you can tell a production increase. There's a few scenes in this that still make me go like, oh, that looks more like a season
Starting point is 00:28:50 one shot, but not that many. It mostly looks like how the show looks to us. And I guess, before we play another one clip, the start of this show is another major moment for the series. The new opening that would be the opening from 1990 until 2009. And that is the classic Simpsons opening. The weird thing re-watching season one was just to see all the little things that are different in the opening that you've completely erased from your memory. All the weird bus stop people yeah for example uh so yeah to to go majorly through all the big changes they did first off it's 15 seconds shorter they went from being a 90 second opening at its longest to a 75 second opening at its longest and the song is uh reorchestrated as well yes yeah yeah which uh
Starting point is 00:29:42 and uh they they change a lot of stuff especially because over the course of season one they've invented a lot of springfieldians that they can fill in the world with instead of just uh dudes who look like part i do like how uh they landed on people like jacque and bleeding gums to walk through the opening they'll be around forever uh they'll be such big deals yeah they really they really like princess cashmere jock uh jay jay lauren prior uh yes the uh the big major changes are like when homer's at his job you see burns and smithers in the background instead of just random other employees uh the bus stop instead of having random passengers he goes by folks like mo and wigum. Margie's car has now changed to look like how it really is when she's driving home with Maggie.
Starting point is 00:30:29 The Lisa bike ride has been replaced with the famous whip pan over a ton of characters. I remember first chance I got, I was like, pause, pause, pause. What's there? What's there? I know that in an ancient issue of Simpsons Illustrated, and they're all ancient by now, they basically redrew that entire pan in the magazine as like as like a fold out oh that was amazing I love it yeah the there's so I remember 1990 thinking like whoa so many characters and I look at it now it's like there's like a dozen identifiable characters in it most of which no longer exist yes yeah like well that they treated Marvinvin monroe on the same
Starting point is 00:31:06 level as millhouse in that time like the centerpiece of that of that pan is a is a puke joke with wendell that's right yeah uh and also featured in it is uh at the very end before it gets to the simpsons house you see ned and his family outside so maude was even though for a fraction of a second maude was in the opening uh through 2009 despite having died in the year 2000 that's a false promise yeah can we sue fox uh and the opening ends with the first like good couch gag every season one couch gag kind of sucks because they all are just based on the joke of one member of the five people in the family will pop out of the couch or they all are able to fit into it and this was the it instead ending with them dropping through the floor that's the first
Starting point is 00:31:58 time it actually is like a cartoony universe breaking opening instead of just a character just falling out of the seat the one really tiny thing i noticed is that lisa in the original opening uh we get the bike shot of her and she gets home first on her bike before anyone else does in this one uh homer pulls in and then uh the skateboard goes over the car and then lisa zips in and almost hits him except in this in this opening he doesn't say doe yet although he mouths it they don't put the dough in they hadn't caught that yet like it's been a while since i've seen just that uh original or not original but like that good opening that they use for so long that i was just like you know in my head i inserted the dough and i was like he
Starting point is 00:32:38 didn't say it he didn't say it and uh i mean we can't talk about this for too long but that hd sequence is just so bad it is so stiff and bad and other people have broken down much better than me like animators have broken it down but just like if you're if that is going to be uh what you're recreating this this legacy piece of animation i wish they would have worked harder on it yeah yeah like you can not that like this opening is perfection but like they definitely spell spent more than their normal budget on it like it looks like they actually put the money into it and they hired like like greg vanzo and his wife nikki who start rough draft a little after this they're animators on it like it's to me the hd opening just feels like they shoved in as many
Starting point is 00:33:23 jokes as they could and they were just in the the mindset of like well how many other jokes can we like bring out and stuff what if we added three more spaces for couch gags and chalkboard jokes in here yeah i think maybe the modularity of it might uh you know explain why it just kind of looks pretty stiff yeah just maybe they had to make it make some you know uh subtractions in order to make it modular like that i don't know this was my immediate thought watching this episode just just with um you know martin's opening a bit as hemingway i was like man like i know this is early stuff and it's not like you know top tier like you know in the middle of maybe three three
Starting point is 00:34:00 to season three to to seven kind of animation but there's something beautiful and nice about like that quality of human error when it comes to animation and stuff like that especially in that opening too and they just iron that shit out nowadays and it just doesn't feel there's no humanity into it
Starting point is 00:34:20 I don't want to get on too much about this stuff but like I'm no animator but I know what i like and i like this i like like watching this whole episode one thing i like to see now that i've i've had an hgtv for like over a decade now but if you watch the 4x3 version on dvd or disney plus when bart uh you know skateboards out of the school and lands the camera bobs with him and we see the bottom of the background where it cuts off where it's just like there's nothing drawn there so like for a second you see like oh this is just a piece of art the camera's bobbing
Starting point is 00:34:48 up and down next to or on top of a similar thing as i was just watching the original south park episode and there are times uh where you can catch uh one of their hands still in the shot yeah or like the the non-use pieces of characters off to the side. Yeah, yeah. And I'm just like, ah, that's fun. You can see Trey's hand or Matt's or whoever's. I know we're dangerously close to sounding like LP collectors here, but I do like, I like the flaws. I like seeing the flaws here. And like, I especially, I did love hearing on the commentary
Starting point is 00:35:20 them talk about the Thursday Night Move. And I want, for history's sake sake i'm so glad they covered it but david silverman on the commentary came in ready to talk about this episode as a filmmaker basically and he has he has so much to be proud of in this production and he did not have as much space to say it and at times it almost felt like he was embarrassed to say like i worked hard on that drawing or something yeah which is writers take over the room if i could go if i could go back in time from the beginning with these simpsons dvds i just have to be like you seemingly have unlimited space for commentaries do a writer's commentary and an animator commentary when the animators are by themselves they can talk so much freer well henry first warn them about 9-11 and then do your explanation yeah that's right uh okay fine oh yeah they
Starting point is 00:36:10 probably are first recording them before 9-11 but it comes out after 9-11 season one so oh no i can get two birds with one stone there i can uh but but this is the first of the gets episode titles as well. This is Bart gets an F. There'd be followed up in the same season with Bart's dog gets an F. Like Lisa gets stuff. Homer gets stuff. Bart gets hit by a car. Bart gets an elephant. Bart gets an elephant.
Starting point is 00:36:37 Yeah. Does Marge get anything ever? Marge gets a B story. Yeah. And she settles for it. Yeah. And also this episode is very interesting because it is like a complete sequel to Bart the Genius, which even though it was not the first in production order, it's also why I think it's a great season premiere because the first regular episode of The Simpsons that aired was bart the genius uh you know obviously the christmas special is the first episode but the first regular episode that
Starting point is 00:37:11 aired was bart the genius so you start the season with another one about bart in school where it's about him central to it is him and edna and also his relationship with martin as well and you have uh dream sequences in the exact same way too like it follows pretty much all of the beats of bart the genius and it's also a response to bart's popularity it's the as the being the second season produced uh based on their timeline of how quick the production could go this would have started in january i guess as they as i saw the wheels already moving that's the prediction i made like yeah they started in january i guess as they as they saw the wheels already moving that's the prediction i made like yeah they're in january now writing this uh after the first
Starting point is 00:37:50 two episodes probably like within that span of time have aired and they're already seeing the news stories about kids wearing the bart shirt to school also i think there is a mistake i don't know if it was like uh the final edit color correcting or it's an overseas thing bart's shirt color is wrong and it always drives me crazy yeah it's very dingy looking yeah very subtle it's a very subdued orange yeah i i saw a couple wikis that were like it's really a salmon color i was like i guess so yeah sure uh but all right hey why don't we talk about the episode itself here? Oh, must we? All right. So the episode begins with the classroom demonstration. The very first words feel definitely like a Gene and Reese type late ADR of,
Starting point is 00:38:40 Bart, do this, and over an establishing shot. A weirdly static shot of the school with a joke that you don't see any lip sync on yeah i think they decided like martin shouldn't be the first word people hear going in here the first word you hear is bart right yeah you hear bart oh thank god i was gonna i was just about to ask where's that bart but then the show answered it for me uh but the episode begins with an afternoon with ernest hemingway, a reflection by Martin. Bart. There will be no further interruptions during Martin's book report. You're killing me, fish.
Starting point is 00:39:11 Never have I seen a greater or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who. To catch a fish. To kill a bull. To make love to a woman to live i thank you absolutely brilliant there were moments i truly believed you were hemingway bravo martin oh please call me papa a little ketchup for your buns papa that's a. That's a Nickelodeon sound effect there. It is, yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:46 And by the way, looking this up for the first time, Hemingway did prefer to be called Papa because he hated his nickname. I hated his real name, sorry. Yes, yeah. Though to insist, it sounded like he insisted on it like Martin did there, which if, I don't know, if I meet some bearded jerk who's just like, hey, call me Papa. No, I'm'm not gonna do that i'll call you hemi how about that i want to have weird sexual overtones did that have back when ernest hemingway was like call me papa call me daddy call me daddy sir they're like i want to trace when we go through these episodes like when the loud shoes end we're still in the loud shoe era like you can hear i love bart's clomping hooves uh yeah i uh so i definitely did read old man in the sea
Starting point is 00:40:34 in high school on assignment it's not me too yeah i sought it out but i think that's the only hemmingway i've read it's all the rest of it seemed like i don't know it's too jocular his his words i i preferred steinbeck when i was forced to read both of them i i was more of a steinbeck me too i probably read old man in the sea but i do not remember the old man or the sea of that whole book and well and i had a very influential cool guy gifted studies teacher who was he was very anti-hemingway who he was like you kids wearing these no fear shirts you don't even know where that comes from it's ernest hemingway who said it and you know what he did he took his own life because he was full
Starting point is 00:41:15 of shit we didn't say shit but you can see he was full of crap uh also i i just love martin in this episode i think this is the richest portrayal he ever gets in the series like there's they they write him so well and i think the late russie taylor this made me miss her a lot because she really brings a lot to this character yeah i know you guys probably already did a a death jingle for her but just rip to the best yeah a legend yeah legend in the passing uh months since she uh passed away we did episodes of other cartoons she was on like muppet babies and she just had an amazing voice she could do crazy things with that voice that nobody else could do oh god who is she on muppet babies
Starting point is 00:41:55 uh gonzo yeah that's like she does she does like so many good different voices it's like it's like she's just she's in everything without even know without you even knowing like that's wild how many because the the style at the time was to demand her exact type of voice and for her to find all these variations on child voice performance is so good like she's she's sherry and terry in the same episode and you wouldn't even think about it honestly like it makes me wish they'd have written martin better than just uh uh than what they gave him for one-off jokes because she's so good at it here like when she when she has to play martin playing earnest hemingway yeah he's really doing a good job it helps that they gave martin a lot more to do he's very more uh well-defined he's not just an apple-polishing nerd.
Starting point is 00:42:45 He has this, like, flair for showmanship as well, which will eventually become a bunch of gay jokes very shortly in the series. But, yeah, there's a lot more to him. And then he's even, like, and then he's actually in denial about his place in life. Yes, yeah. I think this episode, the character of Bart
Starting point is 00:43:01 and a lot of the specifics that come from his struggles with paying attention, his artistic side coming through in ways that the teacher doesn't appreciate or foster that feels like Matt Groening you know is re-litigating a lot of his childhood and reliving it through Bart I think then Martin is really most of the writers of the show expressing their childhoods yeah all of their fun dress-up games well that's uh well that's also like what's great about martin in here is the way he over talks and over explains things or he he by acting like a good you know adult he's he's being adult around kids and they think he's weird for that like him the reaction shot to the kids after he
Starting point is 00:43:46 says to make love to a woman the way the kids are like what they're just the blank faces on them tells it all yeah no no good joke just like what is he saying and i uh casey on twitter the the day before this recording you you spotlit such a good reaction shot for bart like i love the drawing of his shrugging face yeah just just like that little bit of animation of like oh what's he saying like just millhouse like please help i noticed a lot more also like experimental camera angles before the show get flattened out a little more like some of these poses and uh characters aren't really meant to be looked at from certain angles but like all of the upshots of kerbopple are kind of funky but i love them yes yeah they're great they're great silverman with the the angles he chooses in this are so impressive and i think
Starting point is 00:44:36 it really comes from him deciding this is bart's story and it's from an angle of a child so there's going to be so many shots looking up towards an adult almost in like these monsters or these gods of your life like they're not they're not equal like i feel i feel that even like five years later in an episode that's a bart episode homer's still drawn on the same level he is in any other episode i'm also thinking later in the i drive the school bus scene it's like the fisheye lens on bart where his head is like really close to the camera they'd stop doing that like a lot of faces just right in the camera but i do like what they're doing here in this episode i mean it comes up a lot it comes up later when i talk when i think about it but it does have a very and i'm sure y'all have mentioned before life and hell quality oh with uh with binky or not binky bongo always looking up at the at the shadowed parent looking
Starting point is 00:45:30 at them you know yeah yeah i think in the early days they when they were trying to stick to mac reining's art style they were going with his comic strips but over time mac reining found you know new things he wanted to do with the animated form that he wasn't as into in his comic strip style i guess i i i also caught in this opening here that like the character dynamic that was still constant here but gets lost i think by season three or four is that edna krabappel does not hate life and her job and has given up she actually is incredibly supportive but of only one student martin yeah martin's the only one who gives her anything but but then like to see how much things change this is the 14th episode in the 100th episode in season five when martin demands his geode must be
Starting point is 00:46:20 acknowledged edna's like fine like she doesn't give a shit about martin prince by that i guess a dog is more exciting than martin oh he is a gem uh but uh but yeah so that's martin uh i i think you know in spirit as a child i've said i was more like martin but i have to admit on more than one book report i took bart's stance of don't bother wing it after procrastinating for weeks at a time certainly i was not the over prepare and dress up type in class i'm sure this will make me uh more likable to all of our listeners but i was very good at school and i enjoyed getting praise uh for being good at school which is why I'm a podcaster. I constantly need positive affirmations. So there you have it.
Starting point is 00:47:07 I was definitely middling in school. I didn't wing. I remember there's one book report that I didn't wing, but I just completely screwed the pooch on. I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird. And I do remember it was tough for me then, but I did read it. I just got a lot of the stuff wrong as I was reading it in my head.
Starting point is 00:47:28 Like I thought Scout was a black character. Wow. Like, I don't know. I just missed that. And I never like corrected my head. And I remember seeing the teacher's notes. Like I just somehow got a glimpse of her saying, writing in the notes, Scout is not black. Did not read. and i got like a
Starting point is 00:47:46 d or something i was just like i did read it fuck you but scout wasn't black so oops i remember i remember like a uh almost like a union style action our class took against our teacher where uh just as a class we didn't read the scarlet letter because it was just so bad and i think the teacher eventually gave up. That was the one time that kind of unified action worked. That's amazing. Holy moly. The other time was when in a geometry class, they were trying to teach us proofs and just no one understood it.
Starting point is 00:48:15 So we just, you don't need to know proofs. Let's move on. And I still say proofs are stupid. I know what a triangle is. I can see it. It's got three sides. Let's move on. I'm not a triangle is. I can see it. It's got three sides. Let's move on. I'm not building a bridge.
Starting point is 00:48:26 Honestly, I think I learned bad lessons growing up, maybe even from The Simpsons partially, but I had the feeling of like, if I can procrastinate and get a B, I would prefer that to not to working hard and getting an A. And I definitely fell back on my natural giftedness, as I was told I had. So I was like, well, I'm gifted. Why study? I'll just don't get it on the day. Who cares?
Starting point is 00:48:51 It helped to be conditioned with pizza as a reward. Us kids of the 80s and 90s, like the book club, you read these books, you get pizza every week. Every month. Sorry, every month. I get pizza every week. We get pizza on Fridays. I didn't need to read books. But that was school pizza. That's cafeteria pizza. That's not the same. We're talking pizza every week. We get pizza on Fridays. I didn't need to read books. But that was school pizza.
Starting point is 00:49:06 That's cafeteria pizza. That's not the same. We're talking Pizza Hut, buddy. My family would get me pizza. Not some shitty cafeteria pizza. Fridays were pizza night for my family, too. Not to brag about my... Got some rich boys on this podcast.
Starting point is 00:49:22 We get Pizza Hut every week. It's Bart's turn to give a report. Got some rich boys on this podcast. We get Pizza Hut every week. Yeah, okay. So it's Bart's turn to give a report, and clearly he's unprepared. Well, as Mrs. Krabappel already mentioned, the name of the book that I read was Treasure Island. It's about these pirates. Pirates with patches over their eyes and shiny gold teeth and green birds on their shoulders. Did I mention this book was written by a guy named Robert Louis Stevenson and published by the good people at McGraw Hill?
Starting point is 00:49:57 So, in conclusion, on the Simpson scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, 1 being the lowest, and 5 being average, I give this book a nine. Any questions? No? Then I'll just sit down. Bart, did you read the book? Mrs. Krabappel, I am insulted. Is this a book
Starting point is 00:50:15 report or a witch hunt? Then perhaps you'd like to tell us the name of the pirate. Blackbeard. Captain Nemo. Captain Hook. Long John Silver. Bluebeard. Bluebeard? Sit down captain long john silver bluebeard bluebeard sit down bart i'll see you after class bluebeard is quite a uh a reach by bart yeah and and of course he says the right one in his memory there of long john silver but he goes with bluebeard there's like great little moments of uh just insecure acting on his
Starting point is 00:50:45 part i like when he like stumbles should i grab the chalk from behind him there's like a nice little move there yeah when he does a little bit of the nine at the end he makes the nine but then it goes down as he's putting the chalk down yeah there's a real lack of confidence and uh the vamping the part of the vamping i love the most is when he explains what the scale is it's just like the most obvious scale he's using but he's still explaining it to just like kill time i know it's sort of like like in this paper i will blank blank and blank like just uh that kind of vamping it's all the the classic filler for a uh book report kind of thing if bart had put a slight amount of effort into it he would have like one quote he googled or whatever but obviously you can't in 1990 you
Starting point is 00:51:26 couldn't cram in that way i i also i googled back then i i feel like was bart's bad luck too that he didn't get a paperback with it had like teaser text on the back that he could at least read while he's up there it feels like a library book yeah there's no spark notes for poor bards uh the how do kids be given book reports now in the age of like you can just every you can find 800 book reports and your teacher would never find out unless they could like do a google search for specific sentences and maybe they could well when i was teaching uh college in the late aughts there was this system that was coming into being we didn't use it uh but it basically students submitted their papers through it and it would scan the text and look for existing like parts of their text on the internet okay so uh i'm sure like you know more than just
Starting point is 00:52:19 colleges do it now because it's impossible to just look at a student's writing and think like well did they write this unless you know the student personally and most classes are too big you're never gonna know right yeah it seems like more work for the teacher to have to make sure like these kids aren't just fucking with them uh the treasure island just feels like such a hokey old book to read like i i've never read it no i i i feel like in even 1990 it was all to assign it also it's though it's something like for a certain generation they love it or they at least remember it like there's the there's the story of the two directors at disney who for years were like please let us make a treasure island we want to make a space treasure island please and that became
Starting point is 00:53:02 treasure planets became treasure planet and then the muppets yeah they already fixed it with the muppets exactly that's the best telling of it you know and that in the long john silver and that is played by tim curry which like ruled it was great i i think it was that i think that is the best post jim henson muppet thing that ever got made oh not christmas carol boy that's come on if i yeah carol's very good but wasn't henson still a part of that or did he just die he that came out in 92 and he died in 90s so i don't think he had any part of that i think if if uh if at all it would have been in the earliest of production probably had more production involvement with uh treasure island i bet but i okay i will say uh christ say Christmas Carol does have better songs and everything.
Starting point is 00:53:47 Yeah. Okay. But, and I love Bart's defense of, is this a book report or a witch hunt? I think in general, this does show Edna's failure as a teacher is that she can't recognize that Bart, Bart throughout this shows he is more creative than an actual normal kid would be like the stereotypical dumb kid bart would be playing would not be this smart at coming up with an excuse or this good at presenting his bullshit he'd just be like um i didn't do it like they just stare at their feet and then just be in shame yeah the ultimate lesson i learned at the very end of this was like, the onus is on Bart, the student, not not not the grand scheme of things like why is this important to him as a human being to know
Starting point is 00:54:49 who the pirate was and if he could name the pirate what what difference would it make anyway it's pretty obvious that bart doesn't know but uh yeah i mean all of us were educated uh to be to exist as adults in a world without the internet like all of our education was like well yeah there's no such thing as the internet here is the information you need to know to exist as adults in a world without the internet. Like all of our education was like, well, yeah, there's no such thing as the internet. Here is the information you need to know to exist in the world. And then everything changes and now we're adults and we are just educated to exist in a different world.
Starting point is 00:55:15 We're lucky we grew up with the start of the internet. But even then, like we went so much wasted time. You won't always have a calculator in your pocket, young man. I can't even imagine what that kind of pressure is like now for students. Like, not even in the age of COVID, just in the age of the internet and, like, where you can just look up everything at the little computer in your pocket you know a couple months ago i saw a video of like of one teacher teaching a class remotely of like you know i think first graders but it was just her holding up a sign that that indicated she couldn't hear and then saying like i think your microphone's off i think your microphone's off i think you could turn on your microphone if you could turn on your microphone
Starting point is 00:56:02 if you could she had to say it over and over as friendly as possible because these are children so she can't just yell them like turn on your microphone uh the answer was pepsi in case you don't know partial credit and uh and so yeah bart is for the first time outside of the opening has to do a chalkboard assignment uh i will not fake my way through life is what he writes and uh that's where the opening scene where he's uh bart again bart is actually kind of smart by guessing that edna said straighten up and fly right like that but but it is not ready to admit that bart's good at anything i and the blah blah blah's joke is kind of funny but it's
Starting point is 00:56:46 just it's used better as a callback for homer and in a couple scenes later uh and so yes uh this absolutely felt like me in my childhood of i'll just do it later kind of thing like just one more video game then i'll do it oh yeah especially recognizing that video games are are the start of the problem of just uh though bart should just be playing a video game at home but i guess they only have one tv they can't they can't bart can't be the gamer that he should have been in these early days when they just have one tv and there's a pretty good console port of slugfest but not escape from grandma's house it's arcade only for now does bart know what uh mame roms are does he have a mame on his computer
Starting point is 00:57:27 oh boy i don't know if there was a mame in 1990 uh the uh streamer that that's an episode uh you know uh bob you uh you had a great observation about uh these when we talked about escape from grandma's house and the other early video games at our pax panel but like just have a game jam challenging people to make like a single screen two minute video game of these concepts you know yeah i want to escape from death row escape from grandma's house i want to see robert goulet destroyer in action we see it in the background of this uh this arcade right noiseland for the second or third time probably an escape from grandma's house was another joke drawn into the background in in moaning lisa that's right but we didn't actually see it here getting to see the the
Starting point is 00:58:15 fake pixelated blood fly off grandma as she shot with a shotgun night that did give me a good laugh there's there's several drawings in here that i'm just this is just david silverman drawing a funny thing or or other people in his group not not always him though definitely all the the apes i see later make me go like no that's that's a david silverman drawing if i ever see one so yes i also another little character movement i like is once bart fails and gets the rank of ungrateful grandchild uh the way he walks away from the machine and flicks the joystick yeah that's very nice and what i noticed about this in season two uh so far i want to see how this changes over time but they're still using the very soft like fades to another scene not hard cuts yeah that kind of falls apart towards the end of this episode they start using
Starting point is 00:59:01 more hard cuts but it just shows you like how much energy that sucks out of the show you just gently fade to the next scene it's just god i hate it i'm glad they stopped doing that yeah you're right there's some harder cuts later in this i i'm gonna be watching a lot closer in our other season two redos of like how tight the editing is and once they really figure it out it's also weird to cut from uh the interior of one place that has so noiseland establishing shot and then interior shot of bart then we fade from the interior shot of noiseland to the interior of the living room there's no establishing shot of the house which i found odd you're right there usually is when you're changing locations like that yeah maybe they felt like this is too many establishing shots in a row or something or they just forgot but it's all part of the same idea of bart just wasting his time you know like
Starting point is 00:59:49 he's gonna play more games now he's watching the next itchy and scratchy which is a great one oh it's a great inc on here the uh our ins on here the also with a clever title but this this feels like a parody of or i think the artists were taking inspiration from the tom and jerry classic the two musketeers yeah yeah is their musketeer one is toughy in that i think toughy is in that yeah yeah he is a little gray rat uh but yeah i love that it comes to a guillotine gag too i always love that but uh and then another my just favorite drawings this episode because it looks so shortsy in a good way is the is the bart and lisa laughing thing god they it looks straight from a third year of the shorts tracy olman thing you can see gums right yeah oh yeah big gummy
Starting point is 01:00:39 laughs the more you can see the kids gums the funnier it is to me uh but yes as after we watch a quick itchy and scratchy that i think is definitely better than the you know there's more to it than the itchy and scratchy we saw in crusty gets busted then it's time for dinner and uh lisa it's lisa's time to shine hurry up we'll get that icky skin on the top. Ew, I hate that icky soup skin. Okay, right after dinner, it's down to business. Marge, could you get me another beer, please? In a second, Homer. Lisa has some good news. He doesn't care, Mom.
Starting point is 01:01:13 Sure I do. I just want to have a beer while I'm caring. Marge? Go ahead, Lisa. Okay. I got an A on my vocabulary test. What? You did?
Starting point is 01:01:28 Well, that's just... Oh, what a glorious day. Lisa, hand me your paper. I'm just going to take this over to the refrigerator and... Hmm. Well, as long as I'm here, I might as well kill two birds with one stone. What's the big idea? You covered up my paper. Look at those funny little whiskers. That reminds me.
Starting point is 01:01:46 It's Big Gorilla Week on Million Dollar Movie. Come million dollar movie come on boy i know dad i should really uh there's a lot in this scene yeah i love i want to zero in on one thing this drawing of lisa so uh before five years ago when we were doing this frankie act did not exist frankie act did not exist until we did uh bart's dog it's an f for the first time so in that time period this one frame of lisa bent over her plate staring off into nothing has become like one of the memes second only to like lisa's coffee mug being filled up yeah yeah that's the i think that's the top lisa simpsons meme but i have seen i've seen the lisa mouth open look down one because so many teens love disassociating it's the newest coolest thing uh i mean that picture i'll just go frame by frame just to be like which was the right one and then there it is uh yeah the uh it works is the perfect reply to somebody tweeting something that makes no sense and you're like what
Starting point is 01:02:46 the fuck it's it's an awkward drawing i don't know what's meant to convey to the to the uh viewer like that's like reluctant she's just talking going like well okay yeah but like just that you can like find they can like they can feel that meaning out of it is like it's just it's just like it's so funny like you can't you won't get that drawing you won't get that like um that that good in between drawing anymore nowadays you know yeah it's it because it goes from a pose that lisa's it's not a stock lisa pose of the the moment is that lisa is sad thinking that hom Homer doesn't give a crap about her news. When Homer asks her to do it, she then perks up and goes, okay. So it's her looking down sad and then looking up to see her dad and say,
Starting point is 01:03:35 okay, and deliver her news. But it is in like, oh, like her saying of, oh, of, okay. That is the moment of her still looking down, but her head is raised up just a little bit i laughed like the second i saw that frame watching the episode i'm like oh my god that's it yeah yeah it just snuck up on me i had no clues in this episode i would have guessed it was a season three or four scene like i i just did not know the source of it the coffee one is such a specific that i'm like oh yeah that's uh that's when they convinced grandpa to give him coffee that's the joke this season as well so this season is full of those classic like in between frames i i just
Starting point is 01:04:17 found a good beardless homer that i'm sending you guys oh good that's a quick moment where he doesn't have his little muzzle cut Cut off the presses. I think, too. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care?
Starting point is 01:04:56 Another. He looks like Wallace from Wallace and Gromit. Wow, that is insane. Yeah, he does. But yeah, those in-between moments are something you get in these wilder days as they're just figuring it out and and then on top of that like one of the earliest simpsons memes and by that i mean a thing used in every commercial was homer going oh what a glorious day the simpsons are now on five days a week
Starting point is 01:05:21 i mean it's such a great delivery. Silverman, he talks very specifically on the commentary of like, that was a great line read by Dan, so I wanted to present it. And it's an exciting just solo shot of Homer. And it works so good removed from context. It can be in any commercial for The Simpsons ever. And another great shot of just like looking up at a character from the ground. Yeah well this scene's all about bart's perspective on it too even though you for a moment get to feel bad for lisa that she's like i have good news and my dad never gives a shit but then it once there is good news for lisa then it has to focus back on bart of
Starting point is 01:06:01 like how does lisa's success make feel like that's that's what you're supposed to feel I really wonder how much of this was like Brad Bird's like storyboard notes and guy just because the camera is in so many interesting places in this episode I really noticed it yeah and it's all the stuff that went away when Brad Bird left the show too yeah and there was another little tick in this scene that I love too like when marge walks into frame to say lisa's got some news her hair bounces just a little bit because there's there's actually more of an idea of gravity to this giant pile of hair moving in a way hair would instead of just standing at attention all the time in a very static uh pose and uh who does anybody like icky soup skin
Starting point is 01:06:46 i i sometimes i like it you know what sometimes pro soup skin i don't know what kind of skin grows uh what kind of soup grows skin i make soup all the time it often sits for a bit uh never any skin on it maybe just because i don't have meat in my soup that could be it is does the meat caught like the fat from the meat caused the skin is that what's happening maybe it's like the grease kind of congealing on the top or something, probably. Yeah, yeah. We need to ask Beekman and Beekman's World for this. Tomato soup will grow skin on it, but you've got to let it sit for a while. I just mix it in because it just goes away.
Starting point is 01:07:18 It's not like it's its own food product now suddenly and uh yeah i do love part two that he has he has only one thing on the fridge that lisa is taking over with her stuff and homer has to just rip off the band-aid he's like you know what this has been here too long and i also love that he goes funny little whiskers hey that reminds me an apes thing on tv like wait what apes with their funny little whiskers and so then it goes to gorilla week and i i love that homer they're casting him just like he's the guy who loves marmaduke he's also the idiot who this stuff these shows are filler like the people showing 60 year old gorilla uh movies in syndication at night on network, that's a bad network with cheap filler stuff.
Starting point is 01:08:10 Like it's Gamera reruns or whatever, you know? Yeah, we are so far beyond the dreary movie showing on Saturday afternoon on just like the Independence Station. We've evolved beyond that. Now all of these are like on Tubi or whatever, if you want to look them up. Or just on YouTube for free. them out but at the very least they're like well restored and not the terrible chopped up version you saw on tv but yeah it's it feels like a real knock on homer's taste that he's like oh boy all of the awful gorilla movies nobody ever wants to watch yeah i feel like there's a good story somewhere in um homer discovering mystery science theater because he loves those old movies and then he sees them making fun of them and he's like, no.
Starting point is 01:08:50 And he tries to do his own. That's supposed to be nice. These deserve compliments. Gorilla the Conqueror. If anyone from Fox is listening, you have that one. Gorilla the Conqueror. There's a bit of a story there where we see the gorilla throwing a giant, I i don't know tree at a bunch of people and then crushes up the time cut is like uh homer crying at the end of the movie and he's like floating away in a cage and homer's just like it's not
Starting point is 01:09:13 fair just because he's different it's like we just saw him kill a ton of people on the screen but but you can tell from homer's delivery that he fully associates with the ape, but he doesn't realize that, that that's why he loves the ape. And Bart, like all the children forced to watch Star Wars movies, are held it, like basically held next to their father to be like, watch the things I like. Watch these right now. And so Bart heads up to bed. And I like that Homer doesn't understand that he that he you know screwed over bart and that he made it so bart has no more time to study and then as bart opens the book there's some really good david solerman finger twiddles as he opens it i i always love that and then bart just falls
Starting point is 01:09:56 asleep in his book and it's it's a sweet but sad scene of just homer and marge looking at him and they're just like oh he's so pitiful we they they just feel bad for him and was this just stolen for bart's nightmare the video game absolutely yeah that's exactly what i wrote i was like big bart's nightmare vibes from this whole sequence and just everything i mean that's literally what the game's about yeah and like the importance of putting the grade on the fridge too yeah the the parting shot of this episode they just redrew in as your game over screen at different levels of uh success uh for it yeah no bart's nightmare is fully an adaptation of this episode of the simpsons and into one frustrating video it's what happens in
Starting point is 01:10:39 between the scenes when he's sleeping you're right yeah that looks exactly like the the the scene from the game where he's sleeping on the on the thing whenever exactly like the the the scene from the game where he's sleeping on the on the thing whenever homer and marge are looking in on him that looks like just completely like traced or just redrawn from that angle i they got away with that more in the first few games i think eventually they were told like you can't just draw the thing that's in the show like it's get bill morrison in here who cares know, despite all of these great animation touches, you still have Matt Groening on the commentary complaining about pupil size.
Starting point is 01:11:09 I fucking hate that. I don't like those pupils. It's like, let them be big. They're fine. Shut up. Doesn't matter, Matt. Matt is weird. He has certain picadillos about stuff that I'm just like,
Starting point is 01:11:20 and same with like at the end of the episode, he has a note on crying that I'm just like, give it a break, Matt. Appreciate the good crying on the screen. And same with like at the end of the episode, he has a note on crying that I'm just like, give it a break, Matt. Appreciate the good crying on the screen. But yeah, I guess in this scene is as Homer and Marge are checking in on Bart in his head, he's playing the Bartzilla level or the or the the flying Bartman stage or the pink elephant. Poor child. And it also I really love, again, great framing of this like a shot they never do on the show which is the the written scene is homer and march check in on bart and kind of fawn over him the directorial choice by david silverman is that the camera stays in the hallway and so
Starting point is 01:11:59 you're kind of this observer looking in on this world and it's it's a really like you know gutsy choice i i like that and it's the kind of thing you don't see anymore there's several times in this episode where bart's room just has no door it just looks like it's another it's another room in the house like the living it's like a nook yeah look and and uh when it comes back to bart sleeping that's just another iconic drawing of bart like him with his nose on top uh sticking out of the pillow as he's squished into it like i think they've reused that posed a number of times to express sleeping and and it totally looks like a silverman drawing as well bart wakes up realizes he is completely unprepared he gets on the bus and and auto is definitely in his
Starting point is 01:12:46 season one mode of being the only adult bart likes and he's like hey auto man i gotta tell you my problems and yeah he says he can't crash the bus on purpose but he might get lucky uh then bart really should have asked lisa for help but i guess he's above that still the amount of uh like lisa doesn't get enough in this episode i like the episode but it feels like that is the missing element here yeah being part of it overlooking of the whole thing when when she finally inserts herself into the story to be the moral guardian for bart it does feel more like you could have just been this the whole episode like or especially the middle of the i think it's funnier that martin tries to be his tutor but it could totally work with lisa being
Starting point is 01:13:31 his tutor in the show too uh but instead bart turns to sherry and terry also voiced by the late russie taylor uh i just watched one of the new ones where uh gray griffin has replaced her voice and she's she's good she's good but it you know it's she's very hard to replace ain't no russie taylor this bit here of them giving him the wrong answers i don't feel like they're funny enough no no like giant rats uh the the bart comment like oh history is coming alive i like that but it feels like uh there could have been a better run of jokes. It's no boner land. The exchange, though, does feel like a very life-in-hell exchange, though.
Starting point is 01:14:20 And I do really, though, love the way Martin over-explains how they're wrong about it. I like that a lot. Look at him. I bet he didn't study again. And now he's going to try to kiss up and get answers from us. I like that a lot. The spirit of St. Louis. And where'd they land? Sunny Acapulco. And why'd they leave England? Giant rats. Cool. History's coming alive. As a natural enemy, I don't know why I should care, but the information pertaining to America's colonial period
Starting point is 01:15:00 that you just received is erroneous. So you're saying... A blindfolded chimp with a pencil and his teeth has a better chance of passing this test than you do thanks for the pep talk i love that martin says too many words for stuff he should have said those let those answers were wrong but he says we're erroneous and he should i'm surprised barton goes uh too erroneous that's right he she's not as stupid as he'll be in a couple seasons think again then though when martin has speeches like that it does remind me of how i talked as a kid of just over saying things to say to be smart instead of just
Starting point is 01:15:39 being direct with people as bart challenges himself to come up with a brilliant idea it ultimately is like i'm sick like just the the oldest trick in the book of faking being sick but i do love his the animation of his fall out of the chair is really great i also just love every every child in this is grazed again just straight out of life and hell the way it looks not even just like windows sherry terry everyone you don't see anymore the kid with the glasses the huge frode kid next to him yeah they wanted to make every kid like very like hideous but they realized how distracting it was yeah it's a little ackbar and jeff looking kid in the back row yeah eventually over time they took they took the remaining
Starting point is 01:16:21 you'll still see some season one kids but they have been morphed so much to be like they basically aren't the klasky chupo giant headed children i'm looking at it now like they still keep they still keep the kid that's like the young doc brown from back to the future with like the white jacket and the glasses and the crazy hair and also the girl with the green glasses they kept her around too green glasses yeah i love that kid that kid is so the the pink pink glasses doc brown kid is like the coolest kid in the whole thing uh and so bart goes to the uh the nurse the rarely seen character mrs phipps only named in lisa sacks when they're uh sort of doing a welcome to school thing with
Starting point is 01:17:00 skinner and he introduces people like jay lauren prior it's a weird like season one throwback but yeah mrs phipps uh the school nurse before it was funnier to just have uh lunch lady doris do it yeah i get two paychecks this way i i think the big choice by gene and reese when they took over was to collapse characters and function they actually were kind of uh thinning the cast more because characters like mrs phipps she's not funnier than lunch lady doris so just give lunch lady doris her job and same with what do you need a dr jay lauren prior for when skinner can say and do everything he does and not sound like mr burns and not and or look like his son either that's true i it's a cute little joke how bart starts whistling as he's walking down and then goes back
Starting point is 01:17:45 to it like this this shows he's got smarts but for misbehavior like it's uh and they they note on the commentary that the joke of her the phipps picking up the tongue depressors is from the storyboard like that i i think they were almost um crapping on the joke a little bit just like that's too that's too over the top. I was about to say, I just thought that I wrote that down. That's funny. It's just like a little throwaway kind of like, oh, what's the nurse like? Oh, she's literally picking up tongue depressors, not cleaning them, just putting them back.
Starting point is 01:18:17 Yeah, they gave her more to do than the writing really did. They gave her more of a character, I think, than just being like a hypochondriac i guess there's her character uh according to the wiki she only makes nine appearances in episodes uh at least in any like you know this doesn't mean like a crowd shot in the movie or whatever but is in like on stage and waving or for example in cramp in camp crusty during the countdown sequence she says like don't don, like, don't open your mouth as Milhouse has nine. Like, little bits like that is where she appears. Probably like her second and only, like, last speaking appearance. They could have done more with old Phipps.
Starting point is 01:18:58 I think she could have been. But especially because they give her the character of hypochondriac who believes anything a kid tells her which that's great i i like that season 33 return of phipps is that joanne harris i think it is joanne harris yeah i think you're right uh but yes uh bart is diagnosed what's the matter son sharp stabbing pains in my stomach oh dear i've heard of this do you feel the shooting pain in your arm both arms ma'am temporary loss of vision oh who said that come closer yes dear maybe one more dish make a double cappuccino chocolate fudge. Ooh, your third bowl.
Starting point is 01:19:45 I think you may be on the mend. Is there anything else I can get you? Hmm. Perhaps the TV? Of course. Homer! What? Bring the television up.
Starting point is 01:19:56 Bart's got his vision back. Oh! I wish I had him more, you phlebitis. Everyone knows you're faking it, Bart. Well, everyone better keep their mouth shut knows you're faking it, Bart. Well, everyone better keep their mouth shut. You're going to have to fail that history test sooner or later. I've got my bases covered.
Starting point is 01:20:14 Yeah, that was Joanne Harris. And I think they got rid of Phipps because she left the show in like 1992. Oh, Harris. Yeah, that's right. I like when Mart says he's got his vision back. That means Mart has been pretending to be blind for days at this point. I love the ape thing Homer's watching again. Tap dancing a little ape. Funky little animation there.
Starting point is 01:20:34 It's important to point out as 30 years have passed, what were jokes then but aren't now. That double cappuccino chocolate fudge, that was a joke. Could you imagine an ice cream flavor that insane but now we've evolved in terms of snacks like that's just like that's the past so in the past like yeah now now i feel like it's almost in the past to have just like the the comedy names for a thing like uh ben and jerry's parody names for things like that feels uh like too plain of a shot of ice cream name and another cute touch that is
Starting point is 01:21:06 not like not like a good joke but just like a good touch is maggie and lisa and and the cat just all hanging out with bart while watching the only tv in the house yeah yeah you're right i i didn't even take it as that but it is lisa maggie can't sit on the couch to watch tv right now because it's in bart's room that's why they're there oh that's great yeah it's cute especially when the cat starts pawing at like him writing down millhouse's wrong answers oh yeah i love that little touch i i don't know if that was in the script but it's really nice to see the cat claw come in and just hit the paper yeah when would snowball 2 ever get to be on screen, let alone act like a cat?
Starting point is 01:21:45 Like, that doesn't happen. It's like the writers took over the show too much. Yeah, I feel like, you know, the animators got to be like, well, it'd just be natural in the scene to have this little business. And then I feel like over time they were just told, that's not your decision to make. If we wanted that cat doing stuff, it'd say in the script, cat does stuff. And we get a twister mouth in this scene as well. Yeah. I think on the word mouth.
Starting point is 01:22:11 Yes, yeah. It's a twister mouth on mouth when he says, well, everyone better keep their mouth shut. You can hear me moving my head as I say it. I'm trying to force my own body to do a twister mouth as I say it. It will kill you. You can do it once. That's how I'll go out, do a twister mouth as i say it it will kill you you can do it once that's how i'll go out doing a twister mouth uh i also like that bart is kind of like an agent calling millhouse where he's like hey how's it going anyway how was that test last week
Starting point is 01:22:36 a good setup is millhouse is bart's best friend too like who's he called millhouse and we're hearing him by name at this point like millhouse is getting built up quite a lot on the show. After this, then, there's a good joke that Bart completely fails. It seemingly gets a zero until this is even worse than Millhouse is, which is a funny line. And we get the squeaky pen from Kerboppel. There's even a great little glisten as she pulls it out. It felt like an after effect, but it's really great.
Starting point is 01:23:03 The way she pulls out old red and then the specifics of her movements i like that yeah and so yes the return of dr j lauren prior probably the second to last appearance of his that has any importance in the show i i third he's in separate vocations too i hate him i don't like this character. I feel like there should be a joke to him, but there's not. I guess he's kind of callous a bit. I guess. He's too normal for The Simpsons. I wrote
Starting point is 01:23:33 that. I was like, yeah, I remember he was a used figure, but if they kept him, what kind of character could he have been? He's too normal to be funny. He has no little things about him you're right all the good lines that he could say can be given by can be given to anyone else including skinner or kerbopple you know yeah his his role is just to either tell bart where he's
Starting point is 01:23:54 going or where he won't be going you know maybe that's the behind the scenes story here is that prior is so mad at looking like a fool from part that that's why he's trying to damn him to uh to repeating the fourth grade but he's yeah he's just too natural you're right he just acts like a i maybe that's because he's pulled from like greening in others childhood of this is a crappy teacher somewhere in school who decided instead of helping me that i was a lost cause and would just crap all over me and not give me any chances like just he's uh but his speeches they're not they're not particularly funny they're just like negative like i i think it's kind of funny that he goes like and as emotionally crippling as it is like he recognizes it's one he's recognizing the scarring he's doing
Starting point is 01:24:41 to a child as he says it but then still does it yeah i mean you could see why they got rid of him he kind of drags down whatever scene he's in because there's like nothing to him really the underachiever i'm proud of it line did that predate the shirt no it has to i think it's referencing the shirt yeah on the commentary they said it's a reaction to the shirt okay okay i remember hearing that and going like wait a minute that was a shirt did they turn that into a shirt i got confused i think that shirt was sold out i don't i i had the bart with his slingshot shirt but i if that's the one that said underachiever proud of it i guess i did have it but i don't i don't remember i mean i never got in trouble for a bart shirt yeah i'm just thinking like uh back to our season one revisit,
Starting point is 01:25:25 they had merchandise on store shelves before the show had aired. Yeah. So like they were gearing that stuff up because the show was going to premiere in the fall, but didn't. So things were available like well before the airing of season one. Oh yeah. By,
Starting point is 01:25:38 by February they were, it had already hit the news of like Bart shirts are everywhere, but is it good? And, uh, Oh, I mean, we, we talked to the, the bill cop about his time on the, already hit the news of like bart shirts are everywhere but is it good and uh oh i mean we we talked to the the bill kopp about his time on the on the shorts in like 88 and he he knew then it was coming like the simpsons was not gonna be nothing on the on the tracy ullman show like the all the merchandise plans were made ahead of time like in 89 you can hear graining do an npr
Starting point is 01:26:04 interview about like oh yeah we met with all the merch people they wanted x y or z like yeah i think i think from like late 88 they knew they knew what was gonna be happening with or at least what they hoped to happen with simpsons merchandise and uh as as prior describes the problems i like that homer shuts down and just hears blah blah blah like the he the the argument that yeah like homer is actually probably worse at all of these attention deficit problems that bart has and uh and then another moment that feels very well observed is how these teachers who seemingly are supposed to be helping bart they put him on trial like it's an interrogation
Starting point is 01:26:42 of of a child here yeah like what's wrong with you why can't you do this i know and just this again it's like it's the onus is on the child and like i can understand bart's frustration at the end and he does he barely like sure he gets the d and passes you know spoilers but it just feels like that's it feels like there's still an overlying like it's always going to be on you my dude yeah. And it's a well-observed frustration that a child has of like, what do you want from me? I don't, I'm 10. I don't know anything about myself. Why are you asking?
Starting point is 01:27:13 But yes, Bart gets some bad news in this next clip. Bart has failed his last four exams in history. Is there anything you're not telling us? No. Every other student in the class has shown at least some form of improvement And yet you continue to struggle Why is that? I don't know
Starting point is 01:27:29 Look at these results 55, 42, 26, a 12 on state capitals Okay, okay Why are we dancing around the obvious? I know it, you know it, I am dumb, okay? Dumb as a post Think I'm happy about it? There, there, Bart
Starting point is 01:27:44 You're just a light bloomer oh i wish it were that simple as shameful and as emotionally crippling as it may be i'm afraid my recommendation is for bart simpson to repeat the fourth grade what you can't hold me back i'll do better i promise sure that'll be the day maybe it would help him to be left back. It won't be so bad, Bart. No, I mean it. He can't hold me back. I swear I'm going to do better. Look at my eyes.
Starting point is 01:28:10 See the sincerity? See the conviction? See the fear? As God is my witness, I can pass the fourth grade. And if you don't, at least you'll be bigger than the other kids. It is fun to see this different Bart who is not excited about getting the flintstone phone in kindergarten yes you're right he was totally fine with being held back then this this is more of a natural child response of like when you're the the threat of having to be held
Starting point is 01:28:37 back like it is this it can be emotionally crippling for a kid for sure because you are just told like oh all of my friends are going to a different class like it's i'm not gonna know them anymore and everyone will know i'm the dumb kid who got held back like it's it's like a child death sentence or it can feel like when you're a little kid yeah because when you're a kid a year is like a lifetime if you've only lived 10 years uh and bart knows he's screwed like if it happens so he has like a real kid reaction to it though he does they love this on on they loved quoting the gone with the wind thing like as god is my witness i'll they they did it so many times they do it much more specifically with skinner and at the end of this season with with when he swears to become the principal again.
Starting point is 01:29:26 And this act is 11 minutes long. It's so long. Yeah. I was like, wow, how are we only at the end of act one at this point in the podcast? But it's because it's it's half of the episode. I feel like I feel like the actual planned commercial break would have been when she says, like, I warned you, Bart. And like, that would be the end of like
Starting point is 01:29:46 that danger but uh yes then we come back from break bart turns to auto i just love that it's such a very cute drawing of not only just bart's like giant head from that angle but also in a very childlike way he's pulling at his fingers just super nervous i love that little bit of animation there it's they never get to be cute kids anymore you know yeah uh but yes auto has some words of wisdom get off the bus forever hold your peace little dudes auto you know i respect you i mean you always let us throw stuff at cars and try to tip the bus on sharp turns. The damn thing never goes over, does it? So what's in your head, little man? Well, I've been failing a lot of tests recently.
Starting point is 01:30:32 Yeah? And now they're talking about holding me back in the fourth grade if I don't shape up. That's it? Hey, relax, man. It could end up being the best thing that ever happened to you. I got held back in the fourth grade myself. Twice. Look at me, man.
Starting point is 01:30:48 Now I drive the school bus. I love the hot mics and just the tiny rooms they're in. You can just hear the sound bouncing off that. And oh, what a glorious day. You can just hear the shitty recording studio they're in. Bart's blank expression after he says now i drive the bus is like as good as lisa's stare you know again like not what i wanted man different bart i mean how many bart you know episodes have had him seeing a dark future for himself cutting back to
Starting point is 01:31:19 him saying cool like he would love to be auto he would think that was awesome the uh i i also like how you know everybody gets old we're all getting older but just listening to a recent one where harry shearer i i was watching a recent episode along with my husband who doesn't watch it as regularly as i do and he hears a burns line and he's just like well wait who's playing burns now no no that's still harry he he just sounds that way now and comparing that to you know 30 years earlier when he just screams now i drive like god he was a young man of 47 playing auto in this in this scene probably heard his voice too at that time and he's doing doing that for like 30,000 an episode, like kind of a pittance for how much money Simpsons was making at that time. Then comes the thing I did not notice our first time watching it, I think.
Starting point is 01:32:12 But after Bart reacts to Otto, you see a shot from above of Bart entering the school and then a pan across the room of him thinking. Those two shots in the sequence even are taken directly from the bart the general episode oh really okay yeah even the the tracking shot on bart i was like oh this is the it's all the stuff that precedes bart being attacked by the giant nelson in his dream i'm looking at it now that is definitely like that episode's bart yeah funky bart it's it's a much funkier part but it's also the overhead shot of him entering the school is even taken from it so i wonder if you know it was one of those things like they needed a retake
Starting point is 01:32:55 and it was too late so they just reused the similar shot but it uh this is another of those things where it's like oh yeah just like part of the genius and bart the general bart gets an f leans on daydreams to fill out the thing too like there's no time for a b story it's just all right what does bart fantasize a couple times in this as he's going to school and uh in this fantasy though is a a dark and very specific future for part. We print the fourth grade. All right, class. The topic is world literature. What was the pirate's name in Treasure Island? Bart Simpson? Look, lady,
Starting point is 01:33:34 I got a peptic ulcer. A wife hawked me for a new car and I need a root canal. Will you quit bugging me about the stupid pirate? Psst. Long John Silver, Dad. I heard that, Bart Jr. I want to see both of you after class today. Oh, thanks a lot, son.
Starting point is 01:33:52 He's got a Homer proto-doe and sort of like the Jackie Gleason delivery. You're right. What I noticed about this is obviously, you know, Matt Groening, Futurama creator. They're in the future, but no, like, future touches in this scene. Like, Krabappel's head not in a jar. No, like, interesting things happening out the window. Like, you wouldn't know this was the future outside of, like, the purple desks that have, like, a light pen kind of chained to them. And, like, the touchscreens, which could just be, like, a piece of paper if you're not reading it the right way, right?
Starting point is 01:34:23 Yeah, yeah, you're right. They could have featured it up a bit more, like they do in the future classroom and Lisa's wedding. I like that the Bart Jr. in his dreams actually does know the right answer, which is like, did Bart learn the right answer at some point? And he knows it for his dreams. That begs the question, did Bart actually know that? I will say any flash forward to show old Edna reminds me of the sad fact in universe that the character of Edna Krabappel's dead.
Starting point is 01:34:53 And if you take the, obviously this is not ever how the show is meant to be read, but in the canonicity of Bart never leaving the fourth grade, it would mean that all the adventures he has with Edna is also accompanied by his teacher dying while he's in that same class. And so it's a lot to put on poor Bart. Jesus. I do like Edna's older design. Like, it's no head in a jar.
Starting point is 01:35:19 It's nothing. It just feels like, yeah, what if a Simpsons character was all wrinkly? So many extra lines and and uh they don't put a date on this scene but i do like to imagine that's 40 year old bart meaning this scene is set in 2020 i like i like to think that happy anniversary and also what's weird is that bart's shirt color is all wrong throughout the episode but in his daydream bart jr. has the right color shirt for Bart.
Starting point is 01:35:47 That is bizarre. So, yes, Bart is taken out of his dream as a ball rolls away. He asks Martin for some help, and Martin over-explains it. I didn't want to mess with the ball in play. And then, of course, gives a girlish throwback. Also, that scene opens with Bart getting hit in the head with the ball and not reacting like Homer does gives a girlish throw back also that scene opens
Starting point is 01:36:05 with bart getting hit in the head with the ball and not reacting like homer does and i believe life on the fast lane you're right yeah is that life on the fast lane uh yes yeah it is yeah that's you're right it uh it was a runner back then it was a runner back then that uh somebody is too deep in thought to react to being hit in the head and then there's a bit that martin's book on the cover you can tell it's moby dick and that's why he says back to the forecastle of the p quad which is such a nerdy way to say i'm returning to read the book moby dick because p quad is the name of the ship forecastle is the front of the ship that's that why. But that's when Bart has an idea. Hey, Martin.
Starting point is 01:36:47 You have your ball. I have nothing else of value. I need you to help me get a passing grade. Well, you do need someone's help to get a passing grade, but I don't know why that someone should be me. Because I can make it so the other kids don't laugh at you so much. They laugh at me?
Starting point is 01:37:05 I'd always considered myself rather popular. You're not. Watch. Ha! But my speed with numbers, my years of service as a hall monitor, my prize-winning dioramas,
Starting point is 01:37:21 these things mean nothing to them? Perhaps another demonstration. Very well. You have made your point, Bart, and it's a deal? Yes. Rusey's delivery, I'm like, you have your ball. I have nothing else of value. He's pleading for mercy.
Starting point is 01:37:40 And I like that it destroys Martin's entire sense of self, that he's just like, everyone laughs at at me all these things should mean something all of these things i've seen in kids cartoons growing up uh the idea of a hall monitor i never experienced that in my actual life did we just stop deputizing children uh to serve this role so in my school we did have hall monitor types they weren't called hall monitors though. They were called like guardians or stuff. Honestly, it was like a, you were given the same kind of like sash and belt buckle thing,
Starting point is 01:38:10 but it was more about just making sure kids didn't run in front of cars at the car pickup area at my school. Yeah. We just had teachers standing in the hallway going, no running, no running. Yeah. I think I just had teachers too.
Starting point is 01:38:23 But also that i feel like everything martin lists are the things that the harvard guys and the in the group of writers did in school like i can i can imagine a young al jean thinking he'd be very popular with the dioramas he'd been making that uh i guess i guess martin is a multi-time champion of diorama rama i forget do we see him at diorama rama boy i don't i don't recall a joke he's got to be there but yeah i remember here are the grapes and here are the wrath i remember lisa and lisa's rival and the uh the star wars toys but i don't remember anything else he's in the scene but i don't think they show off his diorama okay oh and of course the charlie and the chocolate factory that was there too i begged you to let me go first also russie taylor wow oh man he can't speak any longer either it sucks it's
Starting point is 01:39:17 uh who else can do that very the broad german accent uh but yeah the Bart uh Bart shadowing shattering Martin's worldview and like this whole thing is could easily be longer than it like this is like a whole movie plot that goes over two minutes of the nerd and the and the cool kid decide to teach each other something except instead of learning to be friends Bart is betrayed this could have been an episode honestly absolutely like there's a good little montage of them teaching each other things i i like how bart takes away his bicycle helmet which it's like boy a sensor even two years later would be like don't show bart telling kids not to wear their helmet and and also bart explaining to him why sitting in the back of the bus is better than sitting towards the front. And I think that is my desk that they show in the episode.
Starting point is 01:40:11 This reminds me again, I should get a plant that would help me focus more. And I also like the joke of Bart gave Martin a comic book to read. Martin gave him a book to read. And each put the other thing inside of it to sneak reading it it's not a radioactive man though i wish it was the radioactive man specifically the prop they used in bart the genius that would be even better like zooming in on this very hard to read thing it looks like it says cosmic defender or something like that just why make up a secondary radioactive man radioactive man's the best and uh so yes uh oh there's even a bit of callback there's two callbacks to uh i am
Starting point is 01:40:53 a wiener here but i i like bart tries to teach him how to do a bad drawing and instead he draws a a very nice mural and an ode to miss grab appleappel. Very, very like 70s style mural. And he even signs it. And also more Silver Mini stuff. They, as a repeat, if you remember in Bart the Genius, when Martin's outside, Bart's making faces at him and they're trading faces back and forth. In a sequel scene to that,
Starting point is 01:41:21 Bart does a lot of the same faces as he's trying to teach martin how to do them and it's uh really great drawings like again very david silver mini of uh bart's like uh his under bite face and all that love that and yeah that underbite is a is a classic one hitting uh hitting bart with a writing crop as he's learning how to highlight a book yes it's like next time we'll try it with a real book i love that that bart wasn't even then that was practicing how to highlight a book. It's like, next time we'll try it with a real book. I love that. That Bart wasn't even, that was practicing how to study, but not actually studying the thing Bart needs to,
Starting point is 01:41:51 which I guess they needed that real book line also helps because once Martin abandons him in the next scene, that's when Bart is screwed because he didn't actually learn anything. He learned how to learn, but he didn't actually learn the history information that would let him pass this test. And then we get some really fun animation on Martin's freakout as he learns the joys of being popular. Who would have thought that pushing a boy into the girl's laboratory could be such a thrill?
Starting point is 01:42:26 The screams, the humiliation, the fact that it wasn't me. I've never felt so alive. Great, Martin. Now, the big test is tomorrow, and I haven't even started yet. Who cares about some test? Life's too short for tests. Hey, I thought we had a deal. Ha, ha, ha!
Starting point is 01:42:38 The Martin Prince you made a deal with no longer exists. Come on, fellows, to the arcade! Cool, Martin! Martin! Martin! Martin Fink. deal with no longer exists come on fellows to the arcade cool martin martin think martin think cool martin and hella jeff and hella bart excuse me i love the martin redesign we see later it's great yeah he he becomes uh the uh fast times character that uh spicoli spicolioli basically comes he becomes like the poochie of the show he is yes you're right yeah uh i i also uh only hearing it in the audio version
Starting point is 01:43:12 the breathing that russie taylor does yeah it's so good uh man the uh yeah it is his freak out his wild hair in the shot and and also just his perfect explanation of how it feels to go from bullied to bullier. You're like, oh, it does feel good to laugh at someone else instead of being laughed at. You can't give nerds a taste of that power. It corrupts them. That's how you end up with Ted Cruz's of the world. Yeah. But yes, then Bart is broken once more he made this deal he helped martin martin
Starting point is 01:43:48 screwed him over which i guess is the final lesson he learns he's finally gonna have to just learn for himself but first he turns to prayer well old timer i guess this is the end of the road i know i haven't always been a good kid but if if I have to go to school tomorrow, I'll fail the test and be held back. I just need one more day to study, Lord. I need your help. Prayer, the last refuge of a scoundrel. A teacher strike, a power failure, a blizzard, anything that'll cancel school tomorrow. I know it's asking a lot, but if anyone can do it, you can. Thanking you in advance, your pal, Bart Simpson.
Starting point is 01:44:29 So that bit there, I never noticed it before, but that clearly Lisa never said a line as animated. Yeah, yeah. I think they just packed in an extra line like, oh, it's weird to just see Lisa silently walk away. We should just, this is too much silence let's get another line in here which i i think it's a fine line but i think it works better of as a character moment for lisa to be like oh bart might i'm peering in on bart but he might see me i better run off and it just all all plays out silently but instead they just decide to go with a uh honestly, a very like Harvard-y thing because it's, I didn't know this until Googling it,
Starting point is 01:45:10 but it's a famous quote. By Samuel Johnson, except it's about patriotism as the last refuge of the scoundrel. Which is extra funny because Bart's learning about the Declaration of Independence and Samuel Johnson was very anti the Declaration of Independence
Starting point is 01:45:23 and the colony's independence. I always liked how they dealt with religion in this way. It is always the last refuge, but it's something that's there but not ever big in their life beyond having to go every Sunday. It's not even revered. Look how they treat Flanders as an annoying character. But it's just something a higher force i mean lisa literally says that you know she's no she's no theologian but some a bigger force gave bart his blizzard it's uh yeah it is it is kind of a
Starting point is 01:45:56 christian world for the simpsons in these early days hearing hearing bart when he tells martin about where to sit he says like and it's not just for school. It goes for church too. Like that to even hear a character on a TV show, say that goes for church, assuming like, well, yeah, if I'm a child talking to another child,
Starting point is 01:46:13 you obviously are forced to go to church. Like I am, which is that they, they could make that expectation in the nineties. Uh, but yes, then, then comes in a single bit of snow and boom,
Starting point is 01:46:27 the snow has fallen with, uh, to the tune of hallelujah oh yeah that i gotta say you know the the this new composer for going for obvious sound cues a whole lot on this that feels like that was in the script right yeah something that on the nose and uh you know just that direct of a pull i think you're right yeah well they i mean they go with an even bigger obvious pull of just them singing a christmas carol in this october television show but yes as we come back from the break bart awakens to a wonderful snow day they head down to the kitchen and that's where we get another for our first of a few more first appearances in this episode bill and marty it's the bill and marty show he's bill he's marty two grown men who can't get enough of each other and it looks like we've got some snow formation for all those flake lovers
Starting point is 01:47:18 out there springfield electric gas and water plants are closed for the day. Oh, now don't forget the nuclear power plant bill. Let's close those doors. Woo-hoo! All right! When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. We care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs.
Starting point is 01:47:46 Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? For all you youngsters, you toddlers, this is what you've been waiting for. Springfield County Schools are... i can't read it i'm too excited oh springfield county schools will be closed remember to take a break if your arms go numb. Hey, I heard you last night, Bart.
Starting point is 01:48:28 You prayed for this. Now your prayers have been answered. I'm no theologian. I don't know who or what God is exactly. All I know is he's a force more powerful than Mom and Dad put together, and you owe him big. You're right. They asked for a miracle, and I got it. I got to study, man. So, so yes kbbl's bill and marty
Starting point is 01:48:48 their first ever appearance uh they won't be seen on screen until bart versus thanksgiving which is when they host the thanksgiving day parade i can't believe it took them to the season two to come up with them because they they feel like such institutions to me in the show and it's i think it's dan and harry's best combo performance together yeah there's been other radio characters but not these guys yet only in a couple episodes there's over time it shows that like bill and marty hate each other and just like i think it's an i i think it's thanksgiving where you get the line like you're dead weight bill like uh but but i love just like we're two grown men who can't get enough of each other oh i think that was when he couldn't stop
Starting point is 01:49:29 playing the monster mash that's right on valentine's day that's right uh and then uh oh yeah it's in it's in the thanksgiving one where he goes like now i know how the pilgrims felt what what does that mean yeah and uh and i like i do like to the bill marty are just teasing it out even longer to torture kids to let them know though but now i think about it isn't it really bad that a blizzard shut down every power plant like yeah homer should be going to work and then bart says his second ever cowabunga in the series and the and in the 2002 commentary they're like whoa he said it what the hell they were asleep with the switch for that uh i think it was uh homer's odyssey commentary yeah yeah it's uh oh no no it's telltale head yeah you're right goes
Starting point is 01:50:16 through the half pipe and just says it yeah but in this case that one almost felt like an afterthought they're like oh i guess he should say calabunga while jumping on his board but this is very clearly lip-synced and everything like bart's about to jump outside and he's excited he's gotta say calabunga and we just did behind the laughter where bart's like i never said calabunga in my life yes you're right that was the last episode we did i do like as bart decides to stay indoors he describes what's bad about a snow day which uh i've never no i guess one year when i lived in georgia i was like eight we had a snow day but i've never had a snow day since you really missed out southern boy
Starting point is 01:50:58 they were glorious i'm just saying they're so fun to just have like a little extra day off yeah like we had so many snow days one year that we had to make up a few days. We had, I think, more than two weeks of snow days. The blizzard of 93. See, in Florida, we just had hurricane days, and you're not allowed outside on those days. Oh. But Bart's description of your ears start to get cold
Starting point is 01:51:23 and all these other things. Like, it can't be that great, right? Oh, it's fantastic. It's amazing. I'm sounding like Bart now. The sledding, the cocoa. And yes, Silverman on the commentary, I'm glad he finally gets a chance to speak on it and just say like this pan across like first off to fully redesign the town and every character in snow related costumes is a gigantic task in an already busy episode but to do a long panning shot across the whole town that is a huge ask that i don't think the animators understood i want the
Starting point is 01:52:01 writers understood i want to know how big that piece of art is that background as they're scanning across it it's got to be like 30 feet long it seems like there's an obvious cut when they get to the um the ice bear sculpture with uh uh what's his name jebediah or something yeah so i wonder if like maybe there's like two like there's that and then there's another one that starts as uh sit les l Lisa and Marge start ice skating. There is a big cut, but even before that, that is a long piece of art they're skating across. I bet it was probably hoped that they could get it from that full pan over to the ice skating rink and then even farther to the band and then over to the mayor.
Starting point is 01:52:42 I think they wanted that entire thing. But as it pans over to the ice skating rink, that feels very Christmas special peanuts to me. And also, we get to see a first, like, you know, teases of a relationship between Skinner and Edna there. I did like to see sparks flying between those two. It would never work out between them, unfortunately. But they were made for each other.
Starting point is 01:53:03 It's sad. Before it zooms in on Skinner and kerbopple the other people playing with them seem to be mrs miss finn the nurse uh he looks like jay lauren but i i can't tell and then mo comes up right behind him that's very random that mo is hanging out and uh i also like that homer and burns briefly are in like a 1940s film of just him knocking off his head like you ragamuffin and in the scene of all the characters holding hands at the last minute they wanted to put in herman because he has no other arm to hold hands with somebody uh but they didn't get it worked out in time like sam simon wanted to fire it off to some outside animation studio just to put in five extra seconds of Herman with no one to hold hands with.
Starting point is 01:53:48 It's a joke that came in too late, which is too bad because it would have been pretty funny. It would have given Herman one other thing to do before the Pulp Fiction parody. And they really do put everybody in there, including Sideshow Bob. Sideshow Bob is handcuffed to Wiggum, but he got to go out for the snow day. This is not the first Joe Quimby, right? Including Sideshow Bob. Like, Sideshow Bob is handcuffed to Wiggum, but he got to go out for the snow day. This is not the first Joe Quimby, right?
Starting point is 01:54:10 It is the first appearance of him. You are correct. Yes, he originally appeared in the table read script for the Telltale Head as Jim, Diamond Jim Quimby, meant to be like a boss tweed type. So in this one, in the commentary, they're like, oh, we didn't put like a mayor sash. You don don't know he's the mayor but he's announcing what the day is i think it's pretty obvious yeah a big a big thanks to uh that guy 3002 on twitter who has so many great uh pulls from original scripts uh especially because when he brought up that telltale head thing al gene replied to him of like yeah it was inspired by real life guy diamond jim brady who was a gilded age rich guy that's uh basically that's the the short version of it so that's why he's diamond j something uh so but yeah he's uh it's
Starting point is 01:55:01 it's interesting to know that in season one they knew they wanted a mayor and had pretty much the idea of who they wanted as the mayor of springfield but you couldn't see him until here and uh it's i believe in the uh season 12 episode we'll be doing next he's gone so far as to be saying like hey we're all scared and horny but uh but yes it's the funnest day in the history of Springfield. Got you, Burnsy. Why, you young ragamuffin. I was never one to back away from a snowball fight. Smithers, you may fire at will.
Starting point is 01:55:34 Certainly, sir. I hereby declare this day to be Snow Day. The funnest day in the history of Springfield. And obviously pulling from Grinch as well. Yes. The classic Grinch, not the other two ones they made. As eight-year-old me, I felt weird hearing a Christmas carol song in October, though now Christmas comes earlier than
Starting point is 01:56:05 ever these years i did want to point out one thing some serious research that other people did for me is that uh we pull out from the crowd and there's just this beautiful shot of patty and selma being driven by in this like horse-drawn carriage i'm like what is this it wasn't on the wiki uh the wikipedia for this episode it wasn't in the episode capsule on snpp.com what is this so immediately i went to twitter and asked and people found out it is a parody of the 1853 painting by otto nersch uh called the road hyphen winter and this was produced for the lithograph company courier and ives who made lithographs for the common people and that image would be immortalized on christmas
Starting point is 01:56:45 cards of the early 20th century so people remember it from that but the origins are this painting that was made in the mid-19th century so that is what that is a parody of that specific thing these boomers grew up seeing on christmas cards uh that's a gorgeous it's a gorgeous artistic rendering of that and now i realize it's the thing they reference in the sleigh ride song. The courier and Ives, these wonderful things are the things we'll remember all through our lives. Okay. I always forgot, like, what's a courier and Ives? It's somebody who delivers IV.
Starting point is 01:57:22 Courier and Ives made a ton of a ton of Christmas lithographs, too. It was the art for the people. It definitely looked like a reference to something, even though I had no clue either. But I just love them going by and just a small grunt for both of them. Yeah. Thank you for the research on that, Bob. I was shocked. Someone added to the Wikiaia page because uh this needs to
Starting point is 01:57:45 be spread around like nobody figured this out until now i couldn't find it i tried every google search every like document about this episode never showed up that's amazing and i i also love in the song that crusty's voice is so loud in it and he's still kind of doing the voice he did in like uh uh uh in telltale head of like uh i don't feel like killing him anymore that's right and then you hear a like and and his snowsuit design like it's like a overall like uh yellow polka dot on red outfit like it's a thing crusty never wears but i i love the design on it it definitely has the more rusty nails voice yes yeah all right and then we head back to the cellar with bart he has to escape this magical day of snow uh he heads into uh the same
Starting point is 01:58:40 area he was for the some enchanted evening with the uh the babysitter bandit and then we head into a dream sequence that is exactly a sequel to the dream sequence on the train from barth the genius including the same like weird non-simpsons people yeah with the like very tall heads every bystander with a tall head and the ziggy nose yeah yeah some akbar and jeff looking motherfuckers in this congress totally uh that feels like again another rule that graining had of like don't i know i draw akbar and jeff characters but don't do it on the simpsons but yes uh our harvardy writers go back to their favorite thing the founding fathers and specific jokes about them we hold these truths to be self-evident we hold
Starting point is 01:59:23 these truths to be self-evident we hold these truths to be self-evident. We hold these truths to be self-evident. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal. That all men are created equal. That from that equal creation they derive rights, inherit, and enalien. Hey, look everybody, it's snowing. In the middle of July? It's a miracle.
Starting point is 01:59:42 Fellas, I've invented something fun. The sled. Hey, look everybody. John Hancock's writing his name in the snow. I didn't get that joke as a kid. Yeah, especially Hancock is the perfect guy for that. Yeah. I like, as an expression of Bart's inability to focus,
Starting point is 02:00:07 I like that even in his very focused daydream or his trying to read it his visualization even they get distracted and leave and you get nothing i've invented the sled benjamin franklin i love that although he was like 100 years old during that right right that whole thing he was yeah but i guess he had just invented the bifocals so he's like now a sled the sled apparently wasn't invented until the 1800s by not ben franklin i really like the the little snake drawing on the don't sled on me joke that you see for half a second yeah you're right they put more effort into that than it uh deserve for how little they were showing now that gadsden flag meets something else i know yeah i like that snake drawing it's very wiggly and yeah also bart slapping himself to try to focus it it feels extra sad like i think it was meant in 90 i thought it was just like that's a funny
Starting point is 02:00:56 joke but now to me it's just so sad of this desperate kid who's like no i seriously want to study but i i can't and you're just honestly self-harming and trying to focus his pencils all chewed up and the family just sadly looking at their son hitting himself in the face it's like they're running the snippet where it ends with ran blue i hope no one sees this and then everyone's watching it in the fucking window right it's a very similar pen yeah oh god i you just pity bart so much in a way this feels like a prequel to the riddlin episode really that they did uh that bart bart needs that focus in more than ever uh and uh so yes we then have a very abrupt clip back to the
Starting point is 02:01:38 classroom i in my memory i thought there was a more gradual move to the last scene, but instead it's like Bart slapping himself on the snow day. And then it cuts between slaps back into the, him slapping himself in the classroom. And I think it's where they're learning. Like these, these quick cuts are way more effective. Like if that faded to like the scene of him slapping himself again, I just like,
Starting point is 02:01:59 it's a quick cut and bam. He's just, he's still slapping himself, but in a different location. Yeah. It's really effective. It kind of cuts on the noise of the slap. it had it had been bart yeah in season one they'd had bart slapping himself and then it fades and then fades back in on him still slapping himself in the
Starting point is 02:02:14 classroom still with a chewed up pencil too good design on that chewed up pencil maybe that i don't know if i chewed on pencils before i saw that Bart did it, and then it was a cool thing to do. And also we get to see the last shot of cool Martin Prince. Oh, man, with his skull shirt? So cool, man. What happened? What happened to Martin between this episode and the other one? He got laid, everybody.
Starting point is 02:02:42 He's a child. I'm kidding, of course. So I cut up the endings kind of long but it's all pretty heartfelt so uh here's the first half of it where bart gets an f which that's also the joke of the title the title called bart gets an f is supposed to be like well yeah bart always gets an f he's bad at stuff like he gets an f but that's why it, that is the joke of it, I guess. I thought it was the F stands for friend, and that's Martin. No. No, I'm lying.
Starting point is 02:03:10 But yes, here's Bart getting an F. Well, Bart, it's a 59. That's another F. Oh, no. I can't believe it. I know, I know. Another year together. Oh, it's gonna be hell. really tried there there this is as good as i can do and i still failed well a 59 it's a high f who
Starting point is 02:03:49 am i kidding i really am a failure i like that moment because it i think it really captures how it can feel the frustration of a kid who just they don't know why they're not doing good in school and they feel bad about it but they don't know what they're not doing good in school and they feel bad about it but they don't know what to do and no one's giving bart any help like he needs more he can't just be like self uh sustaining in this effort he needs like outside intervention that line that she gives i thought you'd be used to failing is a fucking punch in the gut oh my god it's a bit of like humor to like kind of cut this very like sincere scene too it just it just feels different now i mean like it's a very sincere scene but just like
Starting point is 02:04:31 man jesus christ yeah that's that's what's interesting about how this is played because the whole show is you know this comedy and we're used to especially like satirical or parodic uh distance in the show but here's a moment where like she's doing a joke. She's just like, well, yeah, I'm in a sitcom. So here's my next joke line. Another year together, it's going to be hell. And then Bart acts like an actual sad child whose life is over, who just starts sobbing.
Starting point is 02:04:59 And Edna almost feels like she's an actor in a show of like, hey, whoa, don't cry. Like this isn't funny. Stop. And we've done a lot of trashing hey, whoa, don't cry. Like, this isn't funny. Stop. And we've done a lot of trashing of Richard Gibbs. Now, Rubenstein, what are you thinking with this cue? It's a little much. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:05:12 It's a little much. I can see why they went with Clausen, you know, definitely. I would have let more of this play on its own. Yeah, the tears are enough. Like, yeah, I mean, I think it'd be even more blaring on Gibbs. But one for rubenstein maybe he's just as like well gibbs just did this for you last year i thought this is what you wanted and silverman's interesting on the commentary he says it's a real challenge to draw a bart
Starting point is 02:05:35 breaking down and for it to read as sincere instead of you know he's used to drawing bart bart mike makes a crazy face silverman's one of the best in the world at drawing a Bart crazy face. But here it's like, no, we need an earnestly sad face from Bart that works. It's like really unusually fluid animation of him breaking down, but it was worth spending all those extra frames on it.
Starting point is 02:05:57 And then all Greening's got to say is that all the tears, you know, we always have a problem with the tears. I'm like, give it a rest. Can't you appreciate the good animation you're seeing i'm gonna go back in time and drop kick him right like he's not even complaining about the tears in this scene he's just like i always tell people only one tear just like appreciate what you're seeing now don't think about all the other times tears went wrong this is the stuff you take for granted on david silverman don't you see he it's seemingly all over for bart then this ending i think does feel slightly like a satirical choice at least when put in comparison to the cosby show that's up against it because cosby telling his son how
Starting point is 02:06:39 to study and he's really taking him through uh like studying and telling him i expect a certain level of performance from you and then oppositely on the simpsons you have the success awesome ending for bart is he gets a d minus and barely doesn't fail i could tell you like one frustrating thing about watching the cosby show outside of the obvious but before we knew that when i was watching it like in the early 2000s re-watching it the weird thing about the show was compared to the Simpsons the parents were always right
Starting point is 02:07:12 they were never wrong and it was such a specific perspective maybe Cliff would fuck up and cheat on his diet or be a goofus or whatever but the mom was always right that never changed so it was cool to see on the show like this like oh parents are fallible unrelated i just wanted
Starting point is 02:07:32 to bring it up uh the animating of the sharpie backward sharpie marks on the paper as bard is crying and you see like the f and all the x's and stuff like that is like fucking like amazing like that's above and beyond for this animation animated show even when it's just very subtly you see the f and the x's like when he starts breaking down and shit i uh oh yeah the uh the the cosby thing you're talking about too bob i'm reading that and the the the framing of the shows against each other in those articles from 1990 and the things Cosby's quoted is saying in there of just like he wanted he it fully was like a certain sense of conservatism of like he wanted to go back to like father knows best it's not jokes about how dad is wrong anymore
Starting point is 02:08:18 it's about how dad knows better than you and you ultimately have to say no you were right dad like that was what like theo or lisa bonet or who else like would have to say to him and in those articles we were passing back and forth he was reacting to criticism as people were saying you know like this is not what an american family is like this is not what the black experience is like how are you going to address these you know concerns and questions about your show all right but so then bart in fact does not get an f in this final scene oh now i know how george washington felt when he surrendered for necessity to the french in 1754 what oh you know 1754 the famous defeat to the french oh my god bart you're right! You just demonstrated applied knowledge. And due to the difficulty and relative obscurity of the reference,
Starting point is 02:09:09 you deserve an extra point on your exam. Hey, it's only fair. You mean I passed? Just barely. I passed! I got a D-! I passed! All right! I passed! I passed! I passed! I passed!
Starting point is 02:09:24 I got a D-! I passed! I got a D-! I passed! I passed! I passed! I passed! I got a D-! I passed! I got a D-! I passed! I got a D-! I passed! I passed! I... Kiss the teacher! We're proud of you, boy. Thanks, Dad. A part of this D-minus belongs to god
Starting point is 02:09:46 so i also think that was a late retake those last five seconds yeah yeah do you think it ends with i kissed the teacher and that was the end i think so i think he's supposed to be like spitting over the credits or whatever like and which that also is just a very like i don't know that's a saturday morning ending too like i think it know that's a saturday morning ending too like i think it's kind of weak of just like a patooey like he's not saying a patooey a yuck yo but it's it's all but that but his his reaction is fun i like i also like that edna finally gives him a break that she's just like you know what fuck it yeah here's two extra points you don't fail there are some like when bart running outside, there are some really awkward shots of characters, like, looking over at him,
Starting point is 02:10:27 including, like, one of Skinner sort of apprehending cool Martin. Oh, yes. He's spray painting, I am a wiener. That's great. That's what happened to Martin. He felt the consequences of being a cool kid and was like, this isn't worth it. I guess that explains why he's back to regular Martin. Skinner scared him straight after that yeah and and i also love the animation of like not just
Starting point is 02:10:50 bart's happy celebration but also the way he like kind of almost prances with joy over the uh the desk yeah jumping from desk to desk that's great but i think i my feeling is that last shot came in late because it ends enough with bart celebrating and that shot of him on the snow with lit from the back like that's an end of episode shot too but i think they realize like well it's not a complete emotional journey for bart if he can't prove it to his family and it's a more rewarding thing that like oh bart finally gets to put something else on the fridge and it's a d minus surrounded by a's from lisa which is still it's it's a it's success in defeat kind of moment it reaffirmed his faith as well yeah i like on the commentary recorded 18 years ago i think silverman's like you're stuck there for 13 more
Starting point is 02:11:42 years pal and i'm like you guys are in season 33 if you get renewed. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're about to do the 250th episode of the show, too, in a couple weeks. And thinking of that is like, yes, one third of the show is done with that episode. Talking Simpsons is almost over. And yeah, that shot of them, the final shot of them at the fridge that's just the game over screen from bart's nightmare uh but yeah i think it is a it's a pretty all right episode that's really well animated and i think it's the perfect one to come back from a summer of bart
Starting point is 02:12:19 mania to truly to take us into the basically 12 weeks going up to christmas that will also include the mega launch of the four times platinum simpsons sings the blues it's uh there this was a big episode to go with and i i absolutely understand why they didn't start with the homer gets his hair back or mr burns is uh the mr burns centric episode they were so excited about burns yeah i mean it's not the best season two episode and it is the most viewed uh for a lot of reasons but i i really think like uh there's not uh as many jokes as there would be later in the season but it is such a step up above season one in terms of art and writing uh they really are figuring it out,
Starting point is 02:13:05 and it's going to be fun to see this evolve over the course of our revisit to season two. I've been finding so much new stuff. It's great to put it in context as to everything that's been discovered since we did those episodes. Yeah, this is a solid episode for me. He got a D.
Starting point is 02:13:18 I think I should give him an A, give this episode an A. It's just one of the ones that kept, I saw a lot in syndication and so it was always a nice episode to revisit kind of like um uh the one where homer and smith burns are stuck in a cabin like i saw that in syndication a lot where it almost just felt a little numb trying to re-watch it in any kind of way but like oh man it's it's a solid ass episode in my opinion i yeah i will say this
Starting point is 02:13:45 was like the earliest if i were to watch syndication or put my tapes in this is as early as i'd go in the show i wouldn't want to i uh for the longest time until the dvds came out i basically never put in my season one tape once season two was it was getting recorded in the house like but and and also it was something going back to the season two dvds and like i gotta go through this whole menu oh the menu terrible they make you uh watch that the fucking head swirl around four times every time i don't know you dvd having suckers those dvds are the ones i'm popping in are like 18 years old so i'm like oh you didn't rot yet thank you bless you that's true but yeah a great start to season two with a great guest hey thank you casey can you tell everybody out there what you're working on now where they can find and support
Starting point is 02:14:33 you uh i'm still working on the usual stuff from last time i was on here uh back my comic back that i uh write and my friend anthony clark draws from bertato and whatnot is coming closer to an ending than it has six months ago than you last heard so you can check out back comic.com i'm doing stuff on twitter once in a while uh tumblr man just go to caseygreen.com.com and you can find all that stuff and uh yeah and more i uh recently just drew the classic tiny tunes character fifi lafue as i recall i started yeah i started to do some portraits of uh in black and white and stuff and i got kind of stuck on doing some uh furry babes once they once they announced the the re the reboots of like tiny tunes animaniacs etc, et cetera. I just had that thought and was like, Oh, why don't we just go weird with some old cartoons?
Starting point is 02:15:27 I do have a, you can, you can just go to Casey green with two ends.com. And that'll take you to like my Tumblr page, which pretty much works as a kind of just a catch all for everything I'm doing right now. Comics, art,
Starting point is 02:15:40 whatnot. We can all agree. Minerva Mink gets her own series though. I can't wait to see how horny she is in this new reboot she made that dog too horny that was the point of all those cartoons my dog was too horny getting away from this mink that wiener dog was standing at attention that's jesus but thank you again casey it's always great to have you on no thanks y'all it was my pleasure so thanks so much to casey Green for being on the show.
Starting point is 02:16:06 Be sure to check out all of his stuff. And as for us, if you want to check out more of our stuff and get all these episodes one week ahead of time and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Sign up there for five bucks a month. You get everything behind the $5 paywall we've made for the past three and a half years. It'll all be instantly available to you the second you sign up that includes all of our limited miniseries the most recent one was
Starting point is 02:16:28 talking futurama season two part two that was nine new episodes of talking futurama to wrap up the year of 2020 and there will be another miniseries coming in 2021 in the spring and in the fall so you want to stay on that tier to hear both of those and everything we've done before today and also also, if you want to join at the $10 level at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, you get all the $5 stuff naturally, but also access to one mega long podcast once a month just for patrons of that level or higher. And what is that, Henry? Bob is talking about the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, where we cover a different animated feature film each week. You know, on the free feed just last week, you got to hear a full one of those, our Iron Giant one, where we talked a lot about its connection to The Simpsons.
Starting point is 02:17:12 If you want to hear the entire back catalog and the brand new one that's coming out in January, you need to sign up at the $10 level at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Recent one includes, you'd also hear december's one which was for the end of evangelion that anime classic wallace and gromit curse the were-rabbit the month before that and a huge back catalog otherwise so please sign up at the ten dollar level to get everything super cool at patreon.com slash talking simpsons as for me i've been one of
Starting point is 02:17:43 your hosts bob mackie you can find me on twitter as bob servo and my other podcast by the way is retronauts it's a classic gaming podcast about old video games find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts sign up there for two bonus episodes every month henry what about you follow me henry gilbert on twitter at h-e-n-e-R-E-Y-G. I'm sure I'm going to be having some more fun into 2021, and you need to pay attention to me there. Please pay attention to me.
Starting point is 02:18:12 Also, you should follow on Twitter the official account of this podcast and our sister podcast, What a Cartoon. I'm talking about at TalkSimpsonsPod. At TalkSimpsonsPod keeps you up to date whenever new podcasts come out, whenever new things happen on the Patreon, whenever there's news about a poll or the schedule, or whenever there's like a sale on our shirts at Tee Public. There's so many cool things you will only know
Starting point is 02:18:37 if you are following at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter. Thank you so much for joining us, folks. We'll see you next time for Season 12's Treehouse of 411. And we'll see you then. Oh, well, maybe just one more hour. It's so unfair. Just because he's different. Well, time to hit the books.
Starting point is 02:19:19 Burning the candle at both ends, eh, boy? Go get him.

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