Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart Gets Famous With Alan Siegel

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

"I shouldn't let this bother me. I'm in television now. It's my job to be repetitive. My job! My job! Repetitiveness is my job!" - Bart Simpson A trip to the box factory causes Bart to catch the showbiz bug when he sneaks away and lands a gig behind the scenes at The Krusty the Clown Show. But when a bit part on a sketch makes him an overnight sensation, he learns just how long a single catchphrase can sustain an entertainment career. Our guest: Alan Siegel, senior staff writer at The Ringer, and author of the upcoming book, Stupid TV, Be More Funny Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking Futurama, talk king of the hill, the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I hardly endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy everybody and welcome to Talking Simpsons, a non-Box related program. I'm one of your hosts, the little snot boy, Bob Mackie, and this is our Chronological Exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today as always. Henry Gilbert, and this may well prove fascinating And who was our special guest on the line Alan Siegel? And I'm longing for the stability of the box industry and this week's episode is Bart gets famous

The morning horoscope today will be a day like every other day. Oh It just gets worse and worse! This episode originally aired on February 3rd, 1994, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! Oh boy Bobby, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is released for the Genesis or Mega Drive, Green Day's Dookie hits record stores, and Ace Ventura surprises Hollywood by topping the box office.

Well, all of these things were a part of my life. A rare one where it's not. In 2004, when I see the major things that happened, I'm like, I don't remember that song or this movie when we're doing 15, but these, these are all major moments. You just described my sixth grade year right there. All of it, yeah, it's all in one day with this episode. And you know what? All of these things hold up, especially Ace Ventura,

Pet Detective. Show it to the family this Christmas. They're going to love it. It's great. There's nothing problematic about it. It's just a great, as a kid, I certainly had seen, you know, like Fire Marshal Bill or his other characters on In Living Color here and there. I was not a regular watcher of it, but Ace Ventura was like the first as a kid when I noticed like, oh, Jim Carrey is a funny person. That was a big one for me. I was a regular viewer and that's what got me to the theater. Well, the Dollar Theater,

because I feel like this was not a huge hit initially. I think it's one of those things that like exploded on video and that's when they made the sequel. Well, I mean, it did huge on video, yes, but it did get to number one. didn't stay in number one but this is number one of the box office. Okay wow wow sorry I must have not heard that or chose to ignore it. I mentioned this because our guest has a book all about what made the 90s the 90s but this is one of these moments where the Simpsons sets the tone

for the 90s but this is another moment of like oh yeah Ace Fincher of Jimmy Carrey is the 90s. James L. Brooks has a movie come out this same week, I'll Do Anything. It debuts at five and it is a huge flop. So when you think about why they hate Ace Ventura so much on the critic, I wonder if partially it's because it killed I'll Do Anything in theaters. This is the year of Ace Ventura and I believe also The Mask and Dumb and Dumber. It's a real three-peat for Jim Carrey this year.

Yeah, he's just getting started. I think he got maybe 20 million or 15 million to be in Dumb and Dumber. That's how hot he was that year. It's crazy. And then the next year, Cable Guy gets so many headlines because it's like the biggest payday ever for a comedy actor up to that point

He was you know on the level of Bruce Willis and Schwarzenegger at the time, which was very controversial Oh, yeah in Sonic 3 I did not have a Genesis because I'm not a scumbag But I had access to a Genesis so I did play this game And I think it's pretty good even though it is unfinished And it had to be released in an unfinished date because they had a McDonald's deal set up so they couldn't break their vow with McDonald's they had to get those Happy Meal toys out to children but then Sonic and Knuckles came out to basically finish the game and add more content and I kid because I love Genesis fans. When I was a child I didn't know Sonic 3 was half of a game

and fake I thought it was a trick. I was excited to hear about the lock-on technology I'd someday get to have with the Ann & Knuckles semi-sequel to it. And I loved those Happy Meal toys. So if you told me it had to ship early because Happy Meal toys, I would have said, well, great, because Happy Meal toys are more important than a good video game. I was a sucker for blast processing. The commercial told me about it.

So that's why we were a Genesis family and Mortal Kombat for sure. Oh yeah. And yes, Green Day's Dookie, it would go on to sell 20 million copies. One of the most successful albums of the nineties. The hits on it were Basket Case, Long View, When I Come Around. Most of the songs. Well, I mean, I guess American Nitty was pretty big too, but these are the Green Day songs I think of.

Yeah. This is not the first non Weird Al album I bought, but it's the first non Weird Al album I bought that really got me as an 11 year old. It would take another 13 years for them to be on The Simpsons in The Simpsons Movie. I did a big oral history of the album and I realized when I was interviewing the guys in the band that this was my first album that really put me in my feelings when I was Like a tween it was I think when I come around when I was sad about you know being a nerd I you know that's what I listened to for sure I don't think I knew that dookie meant poop until much much later because that was not slang in my Ohio area I Love the cover the very busy cover of it full of things and, I feel like the CD came with like a big fold out poster of it. I'm lightly remembering or maybe I'm confusing it with just a friend had a poster of it growing up.

Well, now I need to just read your oral history on and then I'll know everything about it. Always self promoting. And that's what happened the week that this episode aired. And joining us today is first time guest Alan Siegel. He is author of the upcoming book, Stupid TV Be More Funny, and also a senior staff writer that this episode aired. And joining us today is first time guest Alan Segal. He is author of the upcoming book, Stupid TV Be More Funny, and also a senior staff writer at The Ringer.

Welcome to the show, Alan. I think I did say Seagull. I'm sorry, it's Seagull. Seagull. Seagull not Seagull, like the action star. I am truly honored to be here. You guys love the show and you're the smartest commentators about it around. So truly I'm honored,. Thanks. Are we allowed to say we read your book a pre-release version

I'm gonna say two thumbs up way up for stupid TV be my buddy. Thank you for legs Read it then in the name of that book one more time is Be more funny stupid TV Sorry, I had to play the clip that's our job the hitting noises are not part of the books title I was laughing recently because my lovely parents didn't quite get the reference and I think my dad googled it and it's just hilarious that it's Homer reacting to Garrison Keillor and when I was a kid it was one of a thousand references

that I would not have understood. But now I very much do. Well, and Alan, you had a very nice compliment for us. We have definitely referred to your history pieces you've done on Simpsons episodes and in your journalism in our work. I just last year when we covered the Marge vs. the Monterey Monreal for our live show in SketchFest. I definitely referred back to your great oral history on it as well. And that's just one example. Oh, and your Lisa, actually that was the first,

I think I talked to you in DM, was the Lisa the Greek one you did. And I had mentioned that like, oh, but you didn't say that she correctly predicted it in the reruns. And then you told me you had wanted that, yes. Yeah, I definitely added it. I think sometimes it's sort of me explaining to people

like the amazing editors I work with, like the importance of certain things that Simpsons fans kind of want to hear about. You know your stuff for sure. And it's so much so that you've now written this book on the subject. It's about the history of like, now the Simpsons did change TV.

It's like, it's a great history of, you say the golden era, like Bart Mania, all of that. You have so many new interviews that are just incredible in it. I really, we did learn things in this. Yeah, I will say that we've been doing this podcast for 10 years now, and we were Simpsons fans for 35 years before that

So it's very shocking for me to learn something new and your book does contain new things Which if you can still find new information out of the history of the show, it's amazing Well, first of all, thanks second I think the goal for me was to try to be definitive without being completist because I think There are so many hardcore fans out there that know all the facts, all the nuggets. And I guess I thought I did too, but I guess I was trying to capture like the feel of those first, you know, eight to 10 years

that is out there, but maybe, I don't know, I wanted to bring people into that. I think some of my favorites were you talked not just with, you know, writers or directors on the show, but also some really great archival interviews you brought out too, that you talked to some really like people who know where the bodies are buried. Like the production people on the show, non-writing producers who also had a

lot of interesting story. I, oh, I forget the person who said it, but the story of being stuck between Sam Simon and Mac Raining while editing. That's just one of the many great stories in there I had not heard before. Yeah, that was Brian Roberts, who's an editor who, again, like you said, was really involved in sort of all facets of production. And also this woman, Lorena Adamson, and Joe Boucher is another producer. And the three of them were really like in the middle of it, but their names are never mentioned, I would say. And this episode, I was like, oh, this is a perfect

one to bring out on before his book comes out or to promote the book. Because this is this is them reflecting like three to four years later on Bartmania. And then you covered it so well. I was like, oh, this is great. And not only that, but also like you've interviewed the big guest star of this episode, too, before. Yeah, when I wrote about Marge versus the monorail, I talked to Conan and it's really funny because I don't think he views himself as being essential to the Simpsons. He kind of sees himself as like someone who jumped onto the comet when it was flying by and I don't know like even in a few years there he really left his mark and that's

really funny and the reverence he speaks with when he's talking about the show is really refreshing and totally not surprising that now that we, you know, know how his career has unfolded, but yeah, he loves it for sure. Yeah, I think we now know enough about Conan as a people to understand he was not really on The Simpsons for that long. It was really the very, very end of season three to about mid season five. But when we started doing the show, there was this idea that Conan was a huge instrumental part of just the creation of the show He was on for many many years and boy the show went downhill after Conan left

And then when you hear a crazy statement like that you're like season five The show went downhill in season five so I think they assume he was on the show until like 1999 or something But we can't stop hearing about Conan now because he's doing interviews everywhere. He's got his own podcast He's more available now than ever before. So I feel like that kind of urban legend about him and the Simpsons has been disputed. It's wild. If you guys I actually encourage everybody to do this on the old Simpsons use net groups alt TV dot Simpsons. There were people in 1992 saying the show was going to shit. So it's just like the law of the internet

I guess that people are gonna complain about anything which is just crazy to think about now But it's the truth and yeah, I mean this probably the way they look back in this episode It feels like you know We talked about this when the Mercant season started or when right before he came on like with Gina Reese They were feeling well, this is about over. Like, the fad's done, we just gotta babysit it till the end. Until Fox does the thing they always do, which is cancel the fad. It happened, like, in Living Color gets referenced

in this episode, it burned brightly and is about to end the same year this episode aired. So that is just the way of things, unless you're The Simpsons. One more question about your book ahead of time that I want to say, like, one of your favorite discoveries I'd really like to know, like, from just talking with Simpsons people in this one. So I would say my favorite single nugget that I found was the billboard that Conan saw when

he was driving through LA that inspired the monorail episode. And it took me back through this archival search in the late 80s, early 90s. LA had a big push for a monorail. And there were all these lobbying groups and business people and construction people who really wanted this. And they put billboards up around LA and Conan when I interviewed him about the episode mentioned this billboard and I had no idea what the hell he was talking about but it was an actual campaign and again it's sort of parallel to the episode and that like it never got made and they just like sunk millions and dollars into it and It was prescient in a very sad way Oh, I guess too. You probably had the white way

How many times did you try to get the writer of this episode, John Swartzwalder? How many attempts did you make? Just once, I tried and he gave the one interview that was great in the New Yorker. And what was so crazy about that was, I think it was over email and it was really amazing reading that

and just hearing it in his voice, which sounded like a Simpsons episode. And cause so much of his work, I'm sure you guys have talked about this a lot, is like the first drafts of his scripts were sort of carried through better than a lot of other writers. Like there wasn't as much sort of punch up. And it's funny because Jeff Martin, another writer, he kind of said to me, John's not a recluse. He's just, he just doesn't give interviews. And then George Meyer was like, that's very sweet, but he's a recluse. So they like playing that up. So yeah, for sure.

Yeah. It feels like he gave that interview to let people know that he's real. He's a real person and that he's also still alive because there are basically two pictures of him that are known to anyone on the internet. And at least in the early days of the show, a lot of people assume that was a pseudonym for like a group of writers or another writer. Yeah, and there was that rumor that he was the basis for Ron Swanson in Parks and Rec, and obviously he wasn't. It was funny that it required Mike Schur,

the creator of that show, to come out and say no, it wasn't. I definitely remember hearing those stories that like Jennifer Crington, when she left Simpson, she pitched John Swartzwalder stories at Seinfeld for Kramer stories. Like that transfers over easy. The stories I've heard about John Swartzwalder, they work just fine as a Kramer story. Yeah, the story that I heard a lot about, it's not Swartzwalder, but sort of like the way these guys inspired the writers was George Meyers movie script that he wrote for David Letterman. Oh, yes. And it was hanging around, hanging around the office and people would just open it up and, I don't know, steal jokes or be inspired to do something. And that was like a James Bond-esque spy thriller, which is bizarre to think about.

But to get into this week's episode, we talked about the writer. This isn't just an episode with a great writer. That's right. This is the first episode of The Simpsons directed by a woman. And that woman is Susie Dieter, of course. And we have talked a lot about Susie Dieter on Talking Simpsons and on Talking Critic and on Talking Futurama. And we also interviewed her in the fall of 2022. So I won't really give a bio here. I will urge everyone to go out and seek out that interview.

And I will say, if you listen to our interview, she'll listen to it anyways, but it also enhances her appearances on commentaries, which are entertaining. She's very informative. But when you understand what her experience was, you can understand certain things she's not saying or certain things that are delivered euphemistically, especially on this commentary where she tries to play it off. Like, oh, you know, I just kept my head down and, you, did my work and that grain is like, oh, you were rather voice, sephiris in fighting for different choices. And she has to admit that yes, I even had

to kind of tell Brad Bird to back off when he told me the box factory scenes were too boring. And she said, that's the point. Listening back to our interview with her this week, she more than earned her position to be the first female director on Simpsons in that you have to deal with the things She mentioned obliquely that she had to deal with while also she said there were supportive people on her staff including she mentioned her ad Orlando by Aza is one of them but she says that you know that It was also an age thing too that like not only was she a woman But she was a woman in her 20s in the 90s telling guys in their 30s or 40s how to draw something

Which people don't like being told that if they don't want to listen to you, but her episodes are so good She really is one of the best directors they had like and I feel like she should have had bigger Opportunities, I mean she's worked on a lot of other things outside of The Simpsons. But her episode of Futurama are some of the best as well. And it's all right here in this first episode. You can see it. It's very sad to hear her tell stories of how the uphill battle she had to deal with just because while being a good artist, she wasn't a man, unlike other good artists who

work there. Yeah, and every episode she's directed looks amazing. They're all just stunning episodes. And then she will come back very, very soon in our timeline, well, I guess three years in our timeline, for season 18. She'll come back to direct one episode after she leaves to do other things. So we have not seen the last of her

in terms of covering her episodes. But yeah, just check out our interview with her. Very candid, I will say. I really appreciate how she was willing to tell us a lot of things that probably weren't fun to reflect upon. I was going to add that Radioactive Man looks really amazing when you watch it, and that's a Suzy Dieter episode. Just the visuals of that are so good still. Yes. Yeah, that one in Grade School Confidential is one of the sweetest episodes they ever had

without being like cloying. It's just like, there's moments in this episode where I see Edna Krabappel's like just sadness in Act One. Like, oh man, she knew, like she gets Edna so well. Like perhaps being a depressed, put-upon woman in a workplace was something she could draw from. I don't know, but, and yes, Bob, I also feel a little rough for her on the commentary that not her fault, but when James L. Brooks

and Conan O'Brien are on the commentary, you're not gonna get many words in on that, Bob. I also feel a little rough for her on the commentary that not her fault But when James L. Brooks and Conan O'Brien are on the commentary, you're not gonna get many words in on that. Unfortunately Yeah, you could see her bristling up against James L. Brooks where she was asking a question about oh Didn't you guys have to do less episodes this season? I remember I had to direct a one late in the season But then it got taken off the schedule and I had a director critic and James L. Brooks is like Oh, you had a a critic don't act like it was punishment. Yeah, yeah. A little rough. Yeah, yeah. She talks plenty about that on the interview so please check that out. I felt a little uncomfortable for her on another

commentary with. John Lovitz was being a little too jokey with her in certain ways. I was like, I don't like this but anyways. Yeah. But yes there's not much behind the scenes of like well how they came up to with this idea or whatever. I mean, it's pretty, it's in the title. A Character Gets Famous is one of the like most stock plots in TV sitcoms. Blank gets famous for an episode and if you've got a show that had like a big fad popularity, it lets you reflect upon it in a meta way.

And it's hardly the first meta episode of Simpsons like that either. Yeah, they've done similar ideas. I mean, Dancing Homer was basically this plot, but on a much smaller scale that has the line, a Simpsons on a t-shirt, I never thought I'd see the day. And then of course, the Monkey's Paw segment has a much smaller parody of Bartmania, Simpsons Mania. Yeah, that has the Simpsons Calypso record,

which is one of my favorite gags. As a way of framing it, this might be one of my favorite, this might be my favorite of them commenting on it because I mean, I do love the cutting meanness of the satire in that treehouse segment. But in this one, I like that the Simpsons don't have to get unnaturally popular. Bart just gets popular in a local crusty thing. So it doesn't like, BART goes Hollywood. It's not that story.

And it focuses it specifically on BART because that was the main push of the first merchandise in 1990 and 91. Yeah, I think the statistic I found was that in the first year of the show alone, they sold 15 million Simpsons t-shirts, which is insane. Yeah, you had. Yeah, I had two of them.

I had at least two of them in this era, in that era, rather. Did you have a note in there of like, that in unadjusted for inflation dollars, one of the years was a billion dollars? I think it was three quarters of a billion. Right, okay. It's insane, my wife and I were talking about this,

because if you go a day in this country almost anywhere any town any city you will see some Simpsons merchandise whether it's new or old they're like fossils that haven't been buried it's crazy and I think like there really aren't a lot of properties like that anymore I mean what would it be now Pokemon or like what is the most ubiquitous brand yeah probably Pokemon Pokemon is a good one or Disney Winnie the Pooh that's usually up there I want to point out just by pure chance I am drinking my coffee today out of a circa 1990 Lisa mug which certainly is not poisoning my body with cadmium in any way

And Henry is drinking out of his favorite IP Deadpool. What's the Wolverine eating popcorn cups? I don't know if that cup was meant to last that long Henry I bet they have improved the technology since the 90s on this We love microplastics here on the network You know like they compare Bart to Urkel on here or like Alf was just right before it too And those things were filling landfills within just a few years But meanwhile like Bart stayed but there was like a low, and then this is in the low point where it's like, oh, the video game deals are slowing down, the merch is slowed down.

They're not emphasizing it the way they used to. Have you guys bought any old Simpsons tees, like on eBay or like at a thrift store or a vintage store? Not so much the shirts because they're never in great shape. And now when an old t-shirt is in great shape from the nineties, it costs about a thousand dollars. I collect vintage tees and simpson's shirts are between, I don't know, 50 and 70 bucks or something like that but if you think about how many they made they should be like five bucks. Yeah. There's no rarity to it at all. Now it's just stunning to see

when I was buying thrift store t-shirts in my 20s, they were from the 70s, and I thought that was vintage. And now if you go to a thrift store, you'll see a Space Jam shirt that looks like it was pulled out of a garbage truck, and it cost $120. I wish, I don't want to pause for me to search through. I swear to you, in my apartment I have my childhood Barts, not the underachiever, I'm proud of it, but it is the like him looking

right at the camera with the slingshot one. I have that child size one that probably could barely cover my head now, but it's somewhere in a closet, though that's all of the vintage ones. We've had on a guest once who mentioned that she was collecting all of the vintage bootleg ones she could find, but those are probably very high demand now too. The prices on those, I saw one actually at the Rose Bowl flea market in LA yesterday. It's like Bart or party dude and it's him hitting a bong, which is, was like 140 bucks. And that's like tame, I think for some of them.

I really want a Bart Tracy t-shirts. I feel like somebody, some T public store should just get the designs, vector trace them as best as possible and then just release them again. We need like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Barts, a variety of Black Barts, a variety of Desert Storm Barts. We just need these out in the wild. Doing research on this was hilarious because it was sort of right after Batman hit the Tim Burton Batman, huge merch, Ninja Turtles, and then there were all these articles about how Dick Tracy was going to be the new hot merch and it didn't quite hit. Although there was so much of that stuff. It was crazy. Sgt. John Deere Disney got the last laugh by buying the

boy who defeated Dick Tracy all those years ago. Speaking of old things, this episode begins with a chalkboard gag referencing what was I just read as like the Harrison Ford movie adaptation that had come out the year before. But now of course even referencing the 1963 fugitive, a younger reference than us talking about this 31 year old episode of The Simpsons. Yeah, this is still a hot reference because the movie came out in August of 93. It would not be out on VHS until March of 94, so you couldn't watch this at home yet. You had your memories of the theater, perhaps seeing the commercial on TV a billion times.

After a quick couch gag of all the family being matched into Play-Doh, a lovely couch gag. We then have that opening of Homer reading the horoscope, which that's what I made of the opening. Sometimes I like to do the opening clip to be like something that is about the plot, but that is such a perfect Homer line, and I had no reason to play it otherwise than an episode,

because I also wanted to clip every line of this episode because I think this episode is one of the best ever. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And Bartender is humming his own theme song impossibly and he's wearing his lucky red hat like it's 1990 all over again. Is this the last time his lucky red hat has plot importance? Hmm.

I think they bring it back later as a joke in the teams. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, it's a mock that they ever cared about. Mostly because I think Mike Reese was annoyed that some writers thought it was a trademark of Bart. Like, ooh, let's put on his lucky red hat is how it sounded to Mike Reese. I think it was created just for the camping episode for Homer to think Bart was dead in the same museum. So yeah, which is why I'm pretty sure I have the Burger King toys in the other room and I think Bart is wearing a hat in one of those toys.

And Bart is told to stop whistling and treats Marge like she is acting like a Nazi, which is funny. And then we see everybody's having a good day today. They're excited for it. Even Marge is going to have it easy, we see, which is something I love that Mike Scully mentioned in your book about working under Merkin. And like the speed of his jokes are so fast.

It just hits to the cut to Marge so quick. And also this is Dieter, I think, executing it well in animation too. So a note on the treating Marge like a Nazi. So Bart says, Joal, mine, Mom and Don. And I didn't quite get the reference until I looked it up. It's what Sergeant Schultz said to Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes. And that's like the obsession with Hogan's Heroes.

I mean, just just listening to you guys talk about Last Temptation of Homer. Like, it's hilarious. It's bizarre. It's again, a 30 year old TV show and it's sort of perfect for the show. Okay So this is Bart just repeating a television catchphrase. He heard not realizing he's calling his mother a Nazi It was funny. We just did Millhouse doesn't live here anymore from season 15 Which also starts with a field trip and here we are another field trip starting episode Except this time Bart is not going to miss the Chocolate Factory. It is Lisa who will miss things. This is where we have got, I just love, Lisa has some news

for Bart. Ah, Lisa. Won't it be great to cast off the shackles of the soul-crushing hellhole that is Springfield Elementary? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. Your class isn't going. You're right, Bart. School is for losers. And that's how I cured all disease, ended war, and reunited the entire cast of TV's Facts of Life, including long-time holdout, Tootie. Hmm, sounds like another Pulitzer for me to polish. Hush, field trip boy!

Impale on my Nobel Peace Prize. How ironic. Yo, Lise, Lise, come back, Lise, come back! Why, I'm so much happier here. There are a lot of cutaways in this episode, I did notice, and they use the full theme song as well? Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, I just just love that why I'm so much happier here like that is another just perfect perfect line that should be said as much as say the line Bart. You know usually when a character has one of these fantasy cutaways another character won't reference it later I like how it's part of the reality

when in class Bart says if Lisa can fantasize so can I and he tries to have a cutaway but he can't. And yes, the history of Facts of Life reunions is complex one that Kim Fields, she didn't need to do all of it at the time because she was doing very well on Living Single. She was a channel mate of Fox at the time. And now she's actually, I'd say she is the most active of the living stars of Facts of Life because she directs a lot of TV for Tyler Perry, like hundreds of episodes of TV shows. Another TV as well, but she did most of them on the Tyler Perry, you know, 1090 deals he

has to just make 100 episodes of TV. He's got to be like the richest guy in TV, right? Tyler Sheridan, whatever his name is. Oh yes, he's doing pretty good, but he'll need another decade of that stuff to catch up. Yeah, he got a later start, I guess. But important to note that in the future, whenever this takes place, it could be in the past now, but the Pulitzer Prize has changed from a medal to a large, pointy object to

kill your enemies on. It's such a perfect Lisa resentment episode, which is I feel like they as the murkin years come, they start to come more frequently. It's very snarky and funny in a bittersweet way for sure. As we said before, the writers on the show are much more Lisa than Bart. And these are the imaginations they had all their lives that their accomplishments will make up for being unhappy as a child. It will finally, it will make them so much happier.

I talked about it before when we cover this, like in 2001, there was a facts of life reunion, like movie, but it wasn't Tootie who was the holdout. It was actually Nancy McKeehan's Joe who didn't show up for it. Though in 2015, oh sorry, in 2011, they all got together at the Paley Center for a reunion. Now the oldest cast member no longer with us, but I had forgotten in 2021, some of that post COVID TV that it's hard to even remember now

where there was a special on ABC that was like, celebrate TV. And it was just old TV actors come together just to say like, TV's nice, right? And so Lisa Welchell just came out in costume and sang the Facts of Life song. And then Mindy Cohn and Kim Fields came out and joined her and I was like, that's it! But it makes sense when you remember this is early 2021 when they did this.

It reminds me of that teens episode where they go to Branson and they see all of the old TV stars singing a song about how they're not dead. Like Mr. T in Charo, I think? Yes, that's right. And they even got the guy from your town who they always make fun of Ray J. Johnson. Yes. Yeah, Ray J Johnson, Bill Saluga, RIP. They got him there to make fun of himself after saying that's funny for about six seconds. So yes, so we head to Springfield Elementary. This is where we find out what's really going on and the way Skinner presents that box, man. Oh again, I'm trying to hold back to not play every clip,

but like this. I'd like to know what Alan thinks about this, because this is in my top five of all Simpson set pieces, possibly top three, and watching this as a kid, it made me realize that, oh, boring things can be funny. It's strange that this is in a Schwarzwald script, because this feels like the kind of humor that Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein

would basically corner the market on. I think rewatching it probably for the hundredth time, it was amazing how many small visual details I picked up on one that I love is the, you know, the box factory CEO or whoever it is. They don't really announce who he is. He has a calendar with like a little box flying in. I think that that sums up the episode to me in the monotony of that world. And just all the little appreciative murmurs that Seymour is making as he's walking through the

factory just noting things he's seen a thousand times before at this point. When I go on factory tours I am the Martin of these trips. Like my husband and I just went to, went in Japan, we went to the cup noodle museum that is full of stuff like this about the history of Cup. That really is just a tribute or a cult of personality to the inventor of Cup Noodles, the company Momofuku Ando. It's just a tribute to like, he's up there, literally he puts himself on the same level as Einstein and Thomas Edison in one of the displays at it.

It's incredible. It is no box factory. It is full of, it is a cult of personality, cult like. They actually put the noodles in the cups there. It's not done in Flint, Michigan. Well, you get to at least see them pretend that this is what they do with all the cups here. You get to put it in the cup yourself.

Well, actually, no, you watch someone do it. Well, unlike Bart, TV hasn't made it impossible for us to imagine things, right guys? It's more like the internet at this point. Mm-hmm. It's true Bart just giving up and just laughing at TV not even realizing he can't Imagine things anymore is even better. Like he just shuts it off even is a disappointment at it Just the narcotic quality of it is very apparent on that show His laughing animation is great too. And also yes the delivery on delivery on Skinner is he goes, like, he just says it the second time again.

He has no other, just box behind his back, back out. A great little bit to pay attention to in this is just how exasperated and bored Edna is with all of this. She's on the same page as all the kids. She hates this. She's constantly rolling her eyes at Skinner over his infatuation with the box factory. She's smoking a cigarette at one point and reading a book, the main presentation in the factory.

I mean, I love not the box factory, meaning that this is where Skinner always takes them. Like, it's the local business that they always go to. He can't even be imaginative enough to do a different one. And yeah, that Skinner and Martin are like, you know, they're coupled on this. And then meanwhile, Edna and Bart are usually next to each other, reflecting the similar emotions too. We get to the box factory, the design of it is also amazingly boringly designed. You mentioned earlier, Bob, Dieter was right to defend her choices on this and that I'm, I hope Brad Bird apologized. Got a big fat apology cake choices on this. And I hope Brad Bird apologizes. I got a big fat apology cake for doubting this.

Everything is perfectly boring. The bare floors, the bare walls, just the little squeaky conveyor belts too. Oh, sound design's amazing. It adds to the monotony of the whole experience. Dan Casalnetta also, I think, understood the assignment, as the kids would say, but he brings out a voice

like Bob Elliott's Wally Ballou. It's just like, no, he is just a boring guy. We just make boxes here. Yeah, David Merkin directed Bob Elliott for an entire season of Get a Life, so he was probably thrilled to just hear this voice again. I assume they probably could have got Bob Elliott, actually. Ooh, well, if you remember how that show ended

with Chris Ellie and Dave Merkin's feelings for each other. Oh, that's true, that's true. Yeah. He poisoned the well there, I apologize. Why don't we hear a little bit about and learn something on the Wonderful Box. The story of how two brothers and five other men parlayed a small business loan

into a thriving paper goods concern as a long and interesting one. And here it is. It all began with the filing of Form 637-A, the application for a small business or farm. Many interesting and important things have been put into boxes over the years. Textiles, other boxes, even children's candy. Do any of these boxes have candy in them?

No. Will they ever? No, we only make boxes that ship nails. Any other questions? When will we be able to see a finished box, sir? Oh, we don't assemble them here. That's done in Flint, Michigan. Have any of your workers ever had their hands cut off

by the machinery? No. And then the hands started crawling around and tried to strangle everybody? No, that has never happened. And he popped eyeballs. I'm not sure what kind of factory you're thinking of. We just make boxes here.

There's also an undercurrent of the death of manufacturing in America, where this is just it for Springfield, and then when they ask further questions about the boxes, the man speaks reverently of Flint, Michigan. Is he saying it as if he's impressed, like, oh, that's Flint, Michigan, that's where that's happening, where if you know the reality of Flint, Michigan,

especially in this time period, not good. Yeah, if you watched one documentary by Michael Moore back then, you would know, you're right, yeah, that this guy looks up to Flint, Michigan. They're doing this shit work that Flint, Michigan, they're an undercontractor for a Flint Michigan company. This was what, five years after Roger and Me? Yeah, yeah.

Also, the denial, like as a comedic piece, the denial of fun at every point, and like characters are basically pitching ideas of like, this could be funny, and just like, no, no. Yeah, even in the reality of the situation, you just want anything to entertain you, and I love the undercutting in the reality of the situation, you just want anything to entertain you. And I love the undercutting of the story of the box factories. Like the story of two brothers, okay, this could be fun.

And five other men. So it's like, well, not interesting at all. Just like a consortium of people got together and started a box factory together. And that it's filled with nails, just like pointy, boring, cold metal things. Yes, also on factory tours on field trips. If I was into it, I would definitely be the Martin with his hand raised and calling the presenter sir. Like I am more Martin on these trips than Bart, I have to admit. Honestly, though, it is just as boring as any brewery tour these days. I feel like

in our age bracket, we've probably gone on dozens of these brewery tours and they're all the same. So as fun as it is to drink beer It's kind of true I've done a few of those Alan and after a while they're always the same and then you eventually keep asking yourself When do we get to the part where we drink beer? Oh, I can just do that by going to the bar and not bothering to go on tour Okay, that's literally to my brothers and I and my dad and we were in a at a brewery in the DC area And my dad just turns to us and it's like I think we had drink a at a brewery in the DC area and my

dad just turns to us and it's like I think we had drink tickets and he's like you guys just want to go have some beers and so we went and it was perfect so I also have done the Jelly Belly Factory tour and the most interesting and it's fine and all my mom loves it if we're driving through Fairfield California you end up doing it though it also is a cult of personality but to Ronald Reagan like they Love because as if you go on the tour you'll hear a lot about this But famously he stopped smoking a pipe and his way to stop buying jelly beans and having a but jar

Jar of jelly beans in the Oval Office and you better believe those were from the Jelly Belly Factory direct. Again, great character layout. When Bart says, and he popped eyeballs, he is popping his eyeball toward him saying it. Like that is a great extra that that's in the animation. That's more of how a great drawing can make a joke funnier. And like half a twister mouth. They've got the twisters under control to an extent here. Like they got away with one in the tree house. I remember that when he was a vampire. So maybe they were like, well, if he's a vampire, he can get a twister mouth, we got away with it. So we see across the street is the Channel 6 building.

And after we learned that there used to be a cool thing in there, that's another great joke. God, I love that joke. And if you pay attention, I don't think you're supposed to know really what it is, but it was probably the drinking fountain or something incredibly pedestrian like that. Yes, that's great. The thing that he thought would be fun is no longer there. And he's like, oh, no, this is just like all the other rooms. And we see across the street, Channel Six and me and Bob have been there to see a Conan taping of his TBS show.

They draw it to look like the Warner lot in Burbank. Alan, has your work brought to you to the Warner lot in Burbank. Alan, has your work brought to you to the Warner lot in Burbank, California? I have driven past it and I've only lived in LA three years, but every time I pass it, it definitely still feels very special. You know, something out of a movie or a TV show and I've never been on the lot.

We are properly indoctrinated to care about it thanks to Animaniacs as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's the place where all mayhem and fun happens. They ever get rid of that, it'll be a dark day. Zazlov can't get tax benefits from canceling that water tower, can he? Hope not. Anything to save a couple bucks.

The Animaniacs have been executed. Since it has nothing to do with boxes, he shuts those blinds. And man, I love how excited Skinner and Martin are to walk around that desk too. That's such a great just walk around and you know what when I got to walk around a facsimile of the Studio Ghibli offices that's in the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo I was just as excited. Meanwhile Bart has to get away. Oh this is where there's that great box calendar on the wall too again no sexy ladies nothing funny just a box then another great murky thing also a sports watery thing the denial of a joke Bart jumps in that laundry cart as the start of a joke then nothing happens and yeah all fun is denied here just sits in it until he realizes there's no joke coming

it's he could have just walked away we're not gonna ask why there is a laundry cart on the box factory. There just is. They have a lot of laundry to do there for some reason. Bart then walks onto the lot easily. And you know what? When we walked around the Fox lot after our table read, aimlessly, it was that easy.

Just look like you know what you're doing. We could have stayed there all day, but we did have a plane to catch. And then we see, after walking right in, Skinner has no power to find Bart, and this is where they have to make a little phone call. I'll handle this. Simpson, I'm giving you a total count of three to come out. One, two, three. I've done all I can do.

We'd better call his parents. Just a minute! Don't hang up! No answer at home. I'll call his father. Just a minute! Don't hang up! Hello. You'll have to speak up. I'm wearing a towel. I think that's one of the lesser, most discussed Simpsons jokes online, in terms of determining the meeting. It's not necessarily on the ranking of asleep, that's where I'm a Viking, but it does come up enough.

That's definitely a good example of a Swartz Welder joke that I kept hearing about from the other writers, which was a joke that doesn't really make any logical sense, but is very funny. And the other example I think that John V Viti told me was it's like when Homer's imagining what he's doing with his lottery winnings, if he won, it'd be like he becomes a jewel encrusted giant. And Viti's like, well, why would he get bigger if he won the lottery? It doesn't really make any sense. But it basically led other writers to try to mimic that style because something hysterical about it. I think Bob, when you pointed out the line, I always read it as a non sequitur,

but I feel like it was you mentioned the like, well, no, if you have to speak up while you're wearing a towel, it usually indicates you have a towel over your ears because you're drying your hair, right? Yeah, that could be one potential meaning, but it does feel like it just Homer's weird logic. He can't hear it. At play here.

As he's also showering at work and running to his station nude covered in... but we have seen the showers before. Homer will later draw Lenny and Carl while they're showering in a later episode. Though they talked about watching the big fight together in the shower. So it's not impossible that they would shower there. This is where Bart walks around backstage at the Dream Factory, which also we got to do at the Simpsons table read and at Conan taping we went to, which that was fun. No one said they wished they were dead, which was nice.

We should have stuck around a little longer. I bet we would have heard one of them. No, everybody loves working at Conan. This couldn't be the first Teamsters joke, could it? On the show? Very well, maybe. I think so. Merkin had worked the most in live action

of all of the showrunners, I I guess so maybe he was at least on film So maybe he was most grumbling about had the most fun stories to tell about teamsters perhaps I always loved the going back on watching old SNLs in the last couple months. I love all of their teamster jokes They have some great teamster jokes about all of the specifically because they're in New York So they get to make like even more easily say they're attached to the mob as gags. Though they also totally sell out the Bumblebee Man character in the rare... this is like the closest to a misstep I'd say of a bad joke in this episode. Yeah it's a little too obvious I guess of a joke and then they have to immediately reset him and say no this he actually speaks Spanish and he is not this you

know elite British sounding guy. Well the funniest part of this is more that he not that he's like a Charlie Chaplin type who's always like working through the gags or whatever it only works to set up him stealing Kent Brockman's job later at being good at reading the news. A gag like I much prefer him is like no he only speaks Spanish exclusively don't question it like he is just a Spanish language TV star who only speaks Spanish. The portrayal of show business is very John Schwarzwald because it's sort of like when Pee Wee goes on the Warner Brothers sound stages in Pee Wee's Big Adventure everything is being filmed at once in one giant room.

I'm surprised there aren't like gladiators walking by in this scene with Bart. Can Bart handle being a superstar? I'm not a human being anymore You're not a human being find out on an all-new Simpsons Thursday Hey, it's Henry Gilbert welcoming you to the break with Danish in hand and a big thank you to our guests this week Alan Siegel It was awesome was awesome having him on, not just to talk about Simpsons' history with a fellow expert, but also about his brand new book, Stuba TV Be More Funny, which me and Bob have read, and it's a great collection of stories

of the golden age of Simpsons, with many of the people who worked on the Simpsons at the time, with a lot of stories that even me and Bob hadn't heard before. And there's a link to the book in this week's description So, please check out Alan Siegel's Stuba TV be more funny and a big thank you again to Alan We'd love to have you back anytime and if you enjoy our

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That's right, we cover Futurama and King of the Hill just like we do The Simpsons. You can hear the entire back catalog of us covering all of the episodes of Futurama up to Season 7 as we keep going forward and everything up to the fourth season of King of the Hill. And that's in addition to our huge back catalog of us covering every episode of The Critic, every episode of Mission Hill, and many of our favorite episodes of Batman The Animated Series. You can see how to sign up for that ad-free $5 tier at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. But if you want something even nicer than a big clown hanky, then you need to sign up at the $10 level of patreon.com

Talking simpsons you get all the ad free $5 stuff I mentioned then you get basically three extra podcast equivalent in our extra large What a cartoon movie each month we cover an animated feature film super in-depth Just like we do an episode of the simpsons this last month you could hear us talk about 1986 is an American Tale, the Steven Spielberg produced Don Bluth film that there's a lot of interesting history for. And this month you're going to hear our yearly live action discussion as we're covering Looney Tunes Back in Action, a film with a lot of interesting history behind it. And

that's just the most recent of the ones we have been doing for almost seven years now at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.'ve covered every disney renaissance film we've covered every toy story film we've covered a ton of studio ghibli films we've even covered junk like cool world and our longest podcast ever six and a half hours about who framed roger rabbit sign up at that $10 level to get that and all the $5 ad free things one more time patreon.com slash talking I guess actually mentioning SNL as well like Force Walter had a he had a year there He had a rough year there and also George Meyer He was actually in the documentary

about the season 11 he did. Like it was amazing to see him in there telling the funny stories he has about, you know, stress and anxiety and failure on that season. That was something I heard over and over from the Simpsons writers, which was, the ones that came from SNL were so used to this extremely competitive

environment that's fostered there where like you're trying to get things on the air. You're trying to basically beat other writers or other cast members. But the Simpsons, the best joke kind of won the day. And again, that is also a form of competition, but it did seem like more of a team atmosphere from what everybody said. Well, different head games, but less intense ones, perhaps. James L. Brooks might be a tough critic sometimes, too, but it seems less cult-like than what you hear stories

about Laura Michaels, I'd say, a little bit. I think there's just a lot less pressure when Conan O'Brien is not in the room pitching all of his jokes, being a great performer. It was. I mean, yeah, you talk about Conan like he was just such, we've said it before, but perhaps his biggest contribution to the show and his time was just, everybody wanted to be as good as him in the room and be as funny.

And he was just a fun guy. It probably was more depressing to be in the writer's room after he was gone. Who picks up being the funny man at that point? Well, we're covering the early teens episodes right now. And Dana Gould is a writer in that season. and his voice is so strong in so many of those episodes because I feel like he is the loudest one in the room. He is the least introverted. He's a stand-up with decades of experience at that point so he's not afraid to just pitch everything and I feel like that's why we can clearly

identify so much of his material in the show in that era. It kind of felt funny enough like George Meyer was a little bit like Bart at the end of this episode I know I'm skipping ahead a little bit where the writers would sort of look at him and be like what's he gonna come up with what's he gonna come up with and I think that put a lot of stress on George for sure oh yeah that comes up a lot in your writing and you have some great some of your stuff with George Meyers some my favorite in the book but like how every like he was counted on even if he doesn't have the most like episode written by credits like he also was another secret sauce in the room we've talked about that

amazing moment here in the episode as Homer arrives Oh my God, that's his lucky red hat! He's a box! My boy's a box! Damn you! A box! I said I wanted a Danish! I'm sorry, all the Danishes are gone! They're not gone. You're gone! You're gone! Uh-oh. Tragic news tonight. 120 dead in a tidal wave in Kuala...

...Pierre. Kuala Lumpur... ...France! Yoink! Now of course I'm so worldly, I know the Kuala Lumpur is the capital city of Malaysia, and I never just have to look it up every time we talk about it on a podcast. I remember these things. It's right at the front of my brain at all times and Yoik is being used so often in the show now I like the characters are

questioning hearing it. Yeah the questioning Yoik. I think Oakley and Weinstein put it in their script first too. It feels like such a I've heard Meyer explain it before I can't remember it yet. Yeah I think Oakley and Weinstein put it in their script first too. It feels like such a, I've heard Meyer explain it before. I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Meyer basically turning Flintstone sound effects into spoken expressions because you were like the yoink when the sound effect of a yoink.

So he just decided to have characters say that. Man, the echo, the echo on my boys a box. Maybe that even makes them even better. Like that makes it so much funnier than just if he said, no, just screamed to heaven snow. Like, would you see that in a million things? It's a funny enough joke, but a box, damn you, a box. The Planet of the Apes recurring references.

Again, I don't know that I understood that at 11, 12, 13 years old, but it really is funny to see them now. How, again, ubiquitous that movie was. Yeah, there's a lot of them in the Merkin era, and I'm not just talking about, later there'll be the Planet of the Apes musical, of course, but I can think of like four Planet of the Apes references in his episodes alone. Oh yeah, and again, this is before Dana Gould's there, Mr. Planet of the Apes, so much so, I feel like he spends about a one day a year, or one day a month, as Dr. Zayas.

This is where we get kind of a star is born moment for Bart. Like this is one of those like great Hollywood fables you hear. And it's like, oh, how'd you get your start? I got coffee for whoever I did this. I started in the mail room. And it's funny too, that in both of Bart's situations, him doing in this episode where he moves up the ladder, him doing the wrong thing creates his opportunity. Him stealing the last Danish so Krusty can't have it, gets a guy fired and he can take his spot.

And later he will injure Mel to take the spot in the sketch that gives him his next opportunity. And once he takes it away from Kent Brockman, he brings it over to Krusty and this is where Krusty gets his Danish. And I want to play his clip because I love it how much how Dan Casleneta vocalizes not knowing something that I've used it in my real life. Yeah this non-committal muttering is what I'll call it is very very good. Where am I gonna get a Danish? Here's a Danish Krusty. Give me, give me, give me. Now that's Danish. Where'd you get it?

I stole it from Kent Brockman. Great! He didn't touch it, did he? No. Good job, kid. What's your name? I'm Bart Simpson. I saved you from jail. Oh, I... I reunited you with your estranged father. I don't know...

I saved your career, man. Remember your comeback special? Yeah, well, what have you done for me lately? I got you that Danish. And I'll never forget it. Hey, kid. Wow, a big clown hanky. It's a towel clown hanky.

It's a towel you yuts. I want you to wash it. You're my new assistant. Cool. And we didn't grow up with this commercial, but I had to know it to get all of these references to it that were in everything I felt like growing up. Yeah, it's a parody of the famous Coca-Cola Mean Joe Green ad. I guess premiered in October of 79, but ran during the 1980 Super Bowl.

That's when most people saw it. It's about a kid who offers Mean Joe Green a Coke after a game. He chugs it, he walks away, and because he's mean, you think that's it. But no, he turns around and says, hey kid, and he throws a sweaty, disgusting towel at him, and it's a treasure. No, no, it's his jersey. It's his game jersey. Oh, it's his jersey. Okay. In the Futurama parody, it's a towel as well, right? Yes, that's true.

Yeah. These parodies have misled me. And I swear to God, I watched this recently. Just because I wrote down, because he throws his towel at him too. And I was like, wait, no, no, it's his game jersey. That's why it's a nicer gift for the kid. Yes, sorry, Ad. So that ad was such a sensation that they remade it

with Diego Maradona in South America in the 80s. And it was enormous for sure. What I like watching it is how he drinks the entire Coke like on screen. Like an entire bottle. Like it just expresses you've never been as thirsty as this guy is right now after this hard game. Yeah. So apparently during the filming of that ad, he had to drink like a dozen or two dozen cokes and it like made him physically sick.

When they did the Futurama parody, I think John DiMaggio says he's seen the outtakes of that and he just is belching constantly. Bart becomes basically a production assistant, which if you want to hear fun stories about being a production assistant on The Simpsons, listen back to our podcast with Mike Mitchell or Tim Calpacos, who both worked on those. Have you heard those ones, Alan? Yes. Very, very funny. We always want to know lunch questions. I think you have some lunch stories in your book even too.

Yeah. I think I have several pages on the lunch situation at The Simpsons because from what everybody told me, when things were down, it was basically like at least we had lunch and the like legends of the takeout orders were incredible. I think Bill Oakley, who's a food guy now on the internet had some, I think he termed it as the orders got quote aggressive at some point. So it's caviar and it wasn't just, you know, the apple pan is a burger place in LA. It was at some points It was pretty ridiculous and I don't want you to give away all of your thing in your book there Alan But there is a story in the book about James L. Brooks needing coffee that is not dissimilar to crusty needing his day

for sure that's Serena Adamson who again was was a supervising producer for the show and She talked about how you know Brooks needed his coffee to start the day. And so she would have to sprint across the Fox lot with the coffee. And one day before a record, she got there just in time with the coffee. And he looked at her and said, you'll go far in this business.

And I think that was sort of a good example of what her life was like on the show. Again, it wasn't horrific, but she was sort of tasked with these really menial things and kind of casual subjugation, if that makes sense. Like she, I don't think she hated it there, but she definitely was doing jobs that were really in the nitty gritty that maybe she shouldn't have to have done, but she did it. And she basically told me, I think I have this in the book that, you know, it's a good, a lot of women at the time had to deal with in the industry,

even if it wasn't sort of actionable things going on against them, it was sort of this culture that was kind of backwards. Oh sure, yeah. Well, it still is a problem to this day of just like a general lack of respect for production of teams and the assistants who work on stuff, like nice stories in these situations I've been seeing lately is that more and

more studios are having like their production staffs are unionizing too now. And so it's not just, you know, the artists or the writers or directors, but it's also production people are at least unionizing to get something out of it. So, but, you, but unfortunately people can, they end up hating their lives and wishing they were dead in some cases. So after we get a quick joke about Bumblebee Man stealing Kent's job,

because he can pronounce Kuala Lumpur, then we head back home at the start of the next scene and Marge is sweetly reading a book with Lisa, which makes it, it's such, that's again, great layout. Makes it great that Homer bursts into the room with seemingly horrific news and they're in such a cute little tableau before he enters.

He's able to recover really quickly when he sees Bart just walk in. That's really an element of Homer is just being able to snap into any emotion without notice. Yes, he's all over the place. I love Castle Inetta's line about some bone chilling news. And it's just, it's perfect Homer over dramatic. And Bart did learn something at the box factory.

Here was all boring and he learned what all these boxes are. Now I think about the box factory, that's just working at an Amazon fulfillment center, I would assume. That's basically a box, it's mainly boxes. You put things in the boxes there, finally. We've achieved it. Yeah, fun things for once.

Though nails are probably put in boxes every day at every Amazon factory too. But of course there's no, I think those are good union jobs at the box factory. I doubt it at the Amazon factories. I love when Bart, it feels like on the show, especially after a couple of years, like anything he learns is just accidental. Like he

doesn't even know he's learning it, you know, he knows about corrugated boxes, not because he's conscious of it, just because it's like through osmosis, he doesn't even realize he's learning it all. And then instantly is like, nah, no, I want to be famous. Forget about that. Though this is where we get another Bart has a fun little line here, but it's really just a setup for Swartz Welder to puppet the body of Homer to say things. Hey, that's my lucky red hat sitting on top of a double corrugated eight-fold 14 gauge box.

Oh, it sounds like you really learned something on your field trip. Think you'd be interested in a career as a box maker? Well, that'll always be the dream. But for now, I got a job in the show business. From now on, I'll be helping Crusty the Clown after school. No, no, Barney, you're only ten. I got a weekend job helping the poor and I'm only eight. That's not a job. It's a waste of time.

What can poor people pay you? Nothing. What satisfaction you get from helping them? None. Who wants to help poor people anyway? Nobody! So anyway. I had to keep in the so anyways so you listeners can see just how much of a pause they gave on screen to Homer there. And I think they did say in the commentary this is just the rant he would have in the writer's room to rile people up. Sportswell. Alan in book, you talk a little bit about how he was like sometimes just the dissenting conservative voice in the room at time. And just, I still believe, I think he probably does believe some of those things, but also

I think he just was like an in real life troll to a bunch of like nerds in his writers room. I think it was maybe Jake Hogan who said, who is another writer. Why am I clarifying the podcast? Of course everybody knows that. Sorry. So, but he sort of said that Swartzwalder, he sometimes got the feeling like he's like, oh, these, I'm stuck with these kids and you know, I'm an older guy. I'm a man and, and, uh, these kids are little twerps. And I think he kind of relished actually, like that's how he bonded was to sort of be that troll in the room. Yeah. I can see a sweetness to it. Conan says it on this commentary, doesn't he?

That he's like, Swartzwalder is like an immigrant-beating Irish cop of like the 1900s. He's very handsome if he were dressed as an oldie time cop. Basically, the character from Gangs of New York that John C. Reilly played. Jeff Martin described him as, quote, Clark Gable. And this was like recently. Yeah, I think he just has such a distinct, like he could have been an actor in another life. We do get a quick scene of Homer then tells another story for a crazy cutaway. It borders to me on monkey cheese of just in that a monkey literally attacks him on screen

but it leads to again him just being insane and no one listening to him. Yes not reading the situation where he thinks Bart is a musician now. It is kind of a sequel to I Like Stories, but it's funny on its own, which you also, I don't want to keep saying, Alan, you have a great thing in your book, but I do love you tell the story of I Like Stories. Yeah, it's basically George Meyer. They sort of were waiting for a punchline for that joke, and George Meyer just piped up with I like stories and the room exploded. And I think he did. George did that a lot. He the way Jeff Martin sort of described was that George just hit a ton of home runs in the room. And that was one

of them. And Homer is playing a real song as well here, which as he's pretending to be these guys, here's the intro to the real song Homer, in the flashback, is playing. ["Tighten Up With the Music"] Hi everybody. I'm Archibald with the trails of Houston, Texas. We don't only sing, but we dance just as good as we want. In Houston, we just started a new dance called the Tighten Up.

This is the music we tighten up with. He couldn't even get past the spokenen Up. This is the music we tighten up with. He couldn't even get past the spoken word segment. I assume they're singing in this song. I didn't listen to the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. Tighten up, do the tighten up. Yeah. It's more of just a cool funk jam.

And apparently one of the first big hits of funk music in the genre of funk. Though Homer plays it really good as a one-man band. He actually has incredible, he's even playing it alright while he's being mauled by a monkey. Let's say Homer is an unreliable narrator here. Sure, sure. This little thing with Bart here, I really feel like this is a universal experience for a lot of people when they enter a new industry and they're very green and optimistic and they just are encountering all of the people who have been beaten down and have been worn down are incredibly jaded.

And I do remember when I started working on site at a video game website like 15 years ago, this is what I encountered because that site was just purchased by another site. You'll find that happens a lot in the world of websites. One big site buys a smaller site and is just buying it to shut it down and strip it for resources. Well, everybody knew this but me. And I do remember just seeing all the people who just had given up completely, were just, you know, cashing their checks every week and not doing a lot of work. And one thing I do remember, I don't think I've

said this on a podcast before, is I sat down to record my very first podcast in a podcast studio. And I was doing this for the first time as a huge podcast fan. I started smiling like, wow, it's my first podcast. And somebody I worked with looked at me and they said, what are you smiling about? And that really sums up Bart's experience here. The person didn't say, I wish I was dead. They said, what are you smiling about? Oh God, that's perfect.

That's perfect. And that person is still in the industry, by the way. I think they were just completely at the end of their rope with that job. Hey, I was saying, I wish I was dead at a similar, I had that same similar situation too of starting at a video game website and being like, this is amazing, I get paid, I do this for free,

to then five years later, it almost is a mantra to myself, like I wish I was dead or wild life. Our last job together, Henry and I had, I wish I was dead lunches. Yes, yeah, those were. My first newspaper job, that was my first job out of college, I had a coworker who would say, I've repeated this line. He basically said that we don't make enough money

to hate our jobs. And that's basically the feeling we were covering sports and it was miserable and we were not getting paid well. So it was a bad combo. This happens in three minutes for Bart that he becomes the I wish I was dead guy that quickly, which cleaning up a clown's toilet that you can just imagine, like, God, that's such, you're seeing it from the toilet's perspective and he goes like, I don't know what I was

thinking last night. Like, God. It took a couple of hours. Yeah, the toilet POV was an inspired choice. It's much funnier than any disgusting thing they could have showed you. Like they show you a pile of vomit or whatever. It couldn't be as gross as what you think Bart is seeing here. And also like the acting on Krusty too that he's like sort of ashamed but also like well this is your problem now. And we also

get a joke about credits which now you don't get to see credits anymore on TV shows. No. You're actively punished for seeking them out. It's different on every Streaming app they're all annoying in their own ways and trying to find out who did anything on a show But max has to be the worst because they show you the first name if that then I was watching the new season of jelly stone that's on there, which is really funny cartoon I like it and they always put so much work into getting great voice actors, many of whom are like, this is the living actor who played this role 20, 30 years ago. And I want to pause the voice actors to see who they were and did they get everybody.

It is like a surgical operation of like, okay, hit back down and then pause. And it's also on screen for less than a second. I'd like defusing a bomb to try to read the fucking credits! We were watching White Lotus last night, and it's like, all I want to do is finish watching so I can see the scenes from the next episode, but it's like, then it's like a little box in the corner, and you have to click over to get it bigger again so you can see. It's just, it's exhausting and annoying. It's like a QuickTime event in a video game. It's like, oh, if if you want to see the rest of the show you have to hit that little square before it disappears This is how credits are being mistreated in the early 90s

They were finding new ways to shove them over to the side Then they would eventually run at the bottom of the screen while the other show was wrapping up etc etc And now we're talking about how it's shrunk down to the corner the thing that I hate the most though is When you're done watching a great movie You're just like oh what a great experience. I was I'm just gonna think about the movie Immediately credits get shrunken down to the corner. You're presented with a preview of something. You don't want to watch That's completely totally different from what you just saw and you're just like, oh, I don't want to know about this I don't want to think about this. Let me process the movie, but they're like no watch the next thing right now

I'm gonna mention the conversation again because I just watched it last night, but they're like, no, watch the next thing right now. I'm going to mention the conversation again, because I just watched it last night, but like the conversation, I'm not spoiling the movie for anybody who hasn't seen it, but the last 20 seconds of it is just the credits. Cause it's an old movie that it's not in a long stream of credits over black. And it's just a haunting final shot that lasts 20 seconds, but that is technically the credits. And so Amazon Prime where I watched it was like ah the credits are playing let's pop up over your screen

the suggestions of the next things you can watch like half of the screen just let's just like you are ruining this incredible like moment that sums up the whole feeling of the movie just yeah it's the worst in this so I wish I was just trying to read Brad Storch or Brady Simington on these things also the way he gets beat up for it that Nelson is defending not taking credit for other people's work that's also great then another thing I want to cut I've said it before Merkin gets sensationalist news so well then too like they won't tell you what's

lethal you got to watch and it's after the weather So you got to stick through the weather report to and I'm wondering I'm discovering new things this time around I'm wondering if funny sunny storm is the guy we later see in Lisa on ice Who is giving the weather forecast at the beginning of the episode never seen again by the way? Yes. Yeah, Bob. You're right I think that guy is funny sunny storm the comedian meteorologist does not identify himself in that episode, but I do think he's so close to being, you know, out of all the places there are for recurring characters in Simpsons, you would think the weather guy would be one they make up,

but they never did it. And I can only assume Stephanie, the weather lady, retired after marrying Kent Brockman in season three. The only other time I can think of her on screen doing her job is in a deleted scene from the sweetest op-oo I think it was. They had to hire Funny Sonny after Kent married the Weather Lady. Oh, and also another great layout, when the kids exit the room after beating up Bart,

Homer is revealed to be on the couch and has been there the entire time. He did not intervene. It's a great reveal. And I also love how after he tells Bart, you know, oh this is what you know This is how I live my life and after a speech and he's depressed Homer just goes there there like he knows his story was depressing He understands like oh, yeah, you're gonna be like me that's sad, isn't it? and then we cut to the Monstro Mart, which I only mentioned that it's the monster mark because We do air order on this show, but if we did production order we do Homer and Appu first. So this is actually in production order, them returning

to the Monstro Mart set up in Homer and Appu. Oh, okay. Again, another like easy to just say all of the time, over there. Yes. Oh, thank God. It's like such a great dismissive, dickish thing. And I think he's even, there's a lot of bored smoking in this episode. I think he's even, there's a lot of bored smoking in this episode.

I think he's smoking too, in this scene. Watching this episode, it was wild seeing all these characters smoking, which I realized it's, I don't know, at the time it wasn't that crazy, but it really now would feel maybe controversial. I don't know. It was so ubiquitous, especially in this one with Krabappel and Krusty.

It's like seeing all the Ghostbusters smoking. Also, we've been on both sides of the over-there of like, I've been a nerd trying to say to a celebrity, like, ooh, I love everything you do, that's nice, but... Over there. But also at the live shows we've done, we're like, well, we'll be at the merch table. So we don't do, I don't think we've done it over there.

But we have had to say like, yes,, the signing's over there in a friendly way. We don't have a 10-year-old work in our booth either. We need to get a 10-year-old to start signing stuff for us. We should do that. It's unpaid labor by my wife, not a 10-year-old. In pencil too, which is a great touch. Yeah, that he's doing it live in front of you, like, no, you know Krusty's not signing this.

They're not handing it to you. It's such a great, counter productively lazy like that's also perfect sports well to writing of something it's both lazy and pointless and this is where our first deleted scene of the episode actually is because we get to see one other bad job that Bart is handed on crusty's behalf which is to respond to fan mail in this next clip. Paternity suit, paternity suit, death threat, paternity suit and death threat. Hmm, what's this?

Dear Krusty, I am an American farmer. My mule is sick. Please send me $100 signed Homer Simpson. That's good, they kinda kept it, and the lighting's great in it too. It feels like they're trying to squeeze Homer in scenes where he doesn't exist. It's like, what if Homer was here in some way?

And then this is where Bart also gets the call that, I mean, it's funny that this is in 1994, that it's a joke about a celebrity trying to cover up a murder or get away with murder. Funny where they don't know where they're going in 1994. That's true. Just a couple months. Yeah, yeah, June, right?

Yeah, it's like June, what a crazy year. 1994 is the craziest fucking year. The mask and OJ in the same month? Ha ha ha ha. Though they lighten it by having, Krusty thinks he did kill somebody. Did Krusty actually kill somebody? Let's assume he didn't, but he needs to frame Bart for it

in a clue-like fashion. This is where Bart also finally says, "'I wish I was dead.'" The cycle is complete very quickly. And so now Bart, just like the kid in the opening in the first act who gets fired, the squeaky voice teen, now he screws up and hands out the wrong sandwich. Like this just is the like,

this is the Simpsons production assistant job of showing up with your sandwich. Probably one of the writers had said, "' don't get me cheese on this sandwich. What the hell's wrong with you? I wanted the large order of caviar. This is medium. It's the only time during the day that the writers are happy and Bart screws it up.

Yeah, I mean, it is the classic Conan story. They've told a million times of how he pranked them all to Joe. And what's great about that prank is that it's him. Ultimately, he's not making fun of a production assistant for it. He's making fun of them to be like, do you see how you are, you know, just addicted to eating this garbage food every day? Didn't I make you all seem like fools? One of the writers reacting to that, that story is in my book, but I forget who

it was, but one of the writers basically was like when they heard the crash and the scream of the fake lunches falling down the stairs, their number one reaction was not, oh my God, is the PA okay? It's, oh my God, is our lunches okay? And this is where Bart is about to leave as he's being yelled at through the bathroom door by a very sick man. And this is where opportunity knocks for old Bart. There's just one line Mel's supposed to say it but he's dead. Dead?

Or sick, I don't know I forget. Anyway, all you gotta do is say, I am waiting for a bus. Then I hit you with pies for five minutes. Got that? I'm waiting for a bus. Makes me laugh, Let's go. Hup! Buzzer. Applause. I am waiting for a cl- Whoa! Hup! Oof!

Gah! Banging. I didn't do it. Laughter. Oh man, it's a miracle we got through that one. Remind me, never let you on stage again, kid. Some people got it, some people don't. And you, my young friend, do not have. Hold on, I want to finish this thought outside.

It's that kid! It's the I didn't do it guy! He's mine! I own him! And all the subsidiary rights! Now we have a lot of fun here on Talking Simpsons and my question is, did the Simpsons predict Hawk Tuah? I'm leaving the show. Goodbye everybody. Well, it's been great, Bob. Thank you. The I didn't do it boy didn't eventually make I didn't do it, boy. Didn't eventually make, I didn't do it coin though. So I think things were a little more wholesome back then.

It's kind of innocent how he gets merchandise compared now that you make me think of the scam of at the very least, if you're buying a Bart shirt, even if it's poorly made, you have a shirt. You don't have a thing that isn't real. Like a crypto. I'm surprised nobody has written that article or has included it in their listicle. Although I feel like that like that wave is dying down in terms of online content.

Do you guys buy the sort of Simpsons writer logic that the Bart catchphrases were ironic, that they were written because it was like something he would, you know, his catchphrases were things he would repeat from TV, which I think that there's truth to that, but I do wonder in hindsight if there was like, we have to use these because people like, yeah, I think that was their intent.

They were doing these catchphrases ironically and that they weren't very inspired. But then people just took them at face value and they thought, oh, this is what Bart says and Bart is cool. You lay it out well in your book. And I thought about this too, that the marketing machine was there for Bart like they were Ready and you have a great bits about how like how they had to really speed it up But the tracks are in place. They just had to speed up the train is how I view it But they were ready of like kids do love Bart from the Tracy Holman things

Let's make dolls for it And so I see it too is that I think the writers were like well Bart should say like don't have a cow man or other things like We're putting it in the list of things that can be on a t-shirt They were trying to be funny and say like well He says cowabunga because he heard it on TV Which I get that way of thinking too, but it was completely unironic t-shirts of him saying yeah Oh bugger and I believe these are just antiquated sayings like don't have a cow was not a new thing for 1989 or 1990 and The Bart shirt I had was him saying cool your Jets, man

Which feels like it's from the 30s whenever Jets were invented. I have that one as well still And we were you know, we were seven and eight when Simpsons debuted, you know in 1990 as the full show and At that time like I didn't get Bart you know was being ironic in any way I treated it on the same level like well yeah this is the funny things Bart say like same with you know as a kid too I loved Pee Wee Herman I didn't see any like satire or camp or anything to that I was like Pee Wee's funny and he has funny puppets who are his friends but the writers definitely had that kind of attention and you and and we've heard it before too at like they also the writers

Loved Batman 66, but that was sold. It was being written as high camp and satire But the Batman toys weren't satirical toys. You spent real money on it. Not ironic money The way this turns is perfect. This is where it feels like live television, like Saturday Night Live, I say again, because Swartzwater worked on it, but like the discovering of like, hey, that's a ticket, like boom, it just becomes the thing instantly. You just hear the audience cheer and you're like, well, now we're going to do this every episode of the show. It also makes you question what is going on with Krusty's show and why is it so popular because the sketch is 1910s Disneyland-style America where a young boy is just hit with pies for five minutes. Not inspired at all. I like how Act 3 opens with the Ming-Va sketch where it's telegraphing what's going to happen with the title card, which is a great little touch.

And also it should be pointed out that this I didn't do it thing is really recontextualizing two former catchphr phrases on the show. So in Crusty Gets Busted, his catch phrase very briefly is don't blame me, I didn't do it, after he mangles Sideshow Bob. And then a common Bart phrase from this era, I think it was in one of the songs, it's I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it,

you can't prove anything, said very, very quickly. I think it was in one episode and then sampled in like deep deep trouble or do the Bart man or something They say it on the commentary that they very specifically picked out like Bart's like fifth ranked Catchphrase to be the one that becomes a hit in the reality of this episode and they mentioned Urkel and he had I don't know Five catchphrases and I want to say did I do that is the number one right it's above got any cheese and I'm gonna wear down or I'm wearing her down there's something about Urkel the Simpsons writers became fixated on I think the silliness and stupidness of stupidness stupidity of that what that

character sort of became unfortunately that they really seized on like he's constantly referenced in those episodes early Simpsons episodes. Bob you're right with the Hawk to a girl I also was thinking of you know we we still live in the age of AJ and the Rizzler and the other one all booming us up these days. I like your description AJ Rizzler and the other one. And the rest. And the the rest I've really super this is the Costco family But they're not actually a family just a random child joined in what is a father and son and then they found another kid He found a Rizler. Yeah, they decided the road. I mean the Rizler is he's the star. Yeah, they're the big justice

That's the third. Let's not get ourselves here, the Rizzler is the star. Yes, yeah. AJ is just like Krusty in this episode. He's hanging on to the coattails and cashing in on all the Rizzler's money. I mean, I look forward to 10 years from now reading the Rizzler's tell-all about how he got screwed out of all the money by AJ. Not that you mentioned it, there was,

and I wish I was dead moment, when they were on Jimmy Fallon's show and you look at his face And that's what's going on internally That's true. Yeah, you could see it in Jimmy Fallon's face. Normally he's able to hide that feeling I think is any good talk show host, but you can see it Perfect way of parading overnight fame and popular catchphrase base characters Like I do also think like this is a little bit about,

especially because the Fly Girls literally dance behind him, that this is about In Living Color had a lot of very catchphrase based characters who appeared quite a lot. Like, Homie the Clown's funny, but, and the original Homie the Clown sketch I think is genius. And then he's every, it's like, well what job does Homie have this week? They didn't have much self-control with homie the clown

Yeah, and they all had catchphrases all the popular living color characters The fire marshal bill was let me show you something homie the clown was homie don't play that men on film had their own Thing to like every recurring sketch you were waiting for the drive to the catchphrase to end to celebrate Was men on film hated it? Was that the? Hated it, thank you, thank you. And then like three snaps and a kiss or, see we're mentioning all the stuff that Hades so great. Like yeah.

It's important that these are all bad sketches, that it's not funny, that it's the Ming-Va sketch of just like, eh, eh. There's nothing to it. I also now notice, I love this in the layout, the title card for it is not Bart's face, it's Krusty. Like Krusty is making sure he's all over this and it's his getting the most value out of

Bart's success. And as we see the Fly Girls, and just to put into context when Living Color was a compatriot of Bartmania, the first episode of In Living Color debuted April 1990 on the same night as the Crepes of Wrath. It was a compatriot with that episode. And it would end just months after this. Yeah, yeah. I think it was just Jim Carrey was leaving town and they really couldn't continue the

show without him. I guess that was a consensus. I'm sure I watched every episode of In Living Color because it was a sister show with The Simpsons, or at least on the same night. And then just a few years later they try again with House of Buggin but as Mike Reese said not enough buggin. The Edge? Just enough edge.

Yes, this is when you see the Fly Girls I guess now they're mostly known because Jennifer Lopez was a Fly Girl from 91 to 93. That was usually if you heard anything about Fly Girls it was that Rosie Perez was their choreographer who I share a birthday with her and Lauren Lapkus Those are two of my famous birthday pals. Well now I have to send two cards Henry. Thanks a lot Then we see how it's gone viral just like very demure very mindful all of the wonderful phrases that go viral now And back then Virality would last a lot longer.

I don't know, it feels like you get a year. The reason I brought up the Hawk To A Thing is because I heard people saying that around me when I was going out to restaurants and bars, and I was like, what are they talking about? And they were doing the catchphrase to each other, and I had to go home and Google it to figure it out. So this is like extremely accurate.

This is still happening. The Bart hotline that's in the episode with Barney voicing Bart. It was taken from a real thing. I don't know if you guys know this, that there was a hotline that you could call and order a personalized greeting for your birthday as, you know, from Bart Simpson. Oh no. And so this company called Intertel and they did like Fred Flintstone and Santa Claus for 10 bucks. And my in-laws, my wife's parents bought her a Bart greeting for her birthday. And you order it and they call.

And so the number calls and my in-laws give the phone to my wife. She's eight or nine years old or maybe younger. And she hears Bart Simpson. She's like, someone's pranking me, hangs give the phone to my wife. She's eight or nine years old or maybe younger. And she hears Bart Simpson. She's like, someone's pranking me, hangs up the phone. And so I interviewed Nancy Cartwright once, I think about Lisa the Greek. And I asked her about this

because I just thought it would be funny. And she said, she was in a recording studio for hours, just recording every name that possibly could happen. And she said, Matt Groening stopped by the studio that day. And after five minutes, I was like, screw this. I can't stick around. And I'm pretty sure you can just get a Nancy Cartwright cameo. Exactly.

Not for $10. No, not for $10. Yeah, actually, that's funny. Now it is like you can get a cameo from just about anybody, or at most people. My husband actually gifted me you can get a cameo from just about anybody, or most people. My husband actually gifted me with a very nice cameo from Brian Poseyne last year, which was very nice. Because we really love these Steve and Brian characters from the Sarah Silverman program.

Hey, if he was acting, then he was acting good. But he teared up a little reading our cameo, talking as my husband mentioned, like, oh, we loved your characters on the show. Like it really meant something to him. That was nice. He's a sweetheart. And he also had a funny joke about Jay Johnston, but I won't repeat that. Hey, he's now been exonerated.

That's true. You know, he's a patriot. Poe Seinfeld, safe making that joke when he was in jail. Now free out on the streets. Who knows if he will feel this. Watch out, sketchy medians. Instead of, yes, crypto or starting a podcast, as we saw with the Haktua Girls, that, in this case, it's the 90s version of very quick merchandise. You have to make an album. You do a quickie biography that has nothing about the actual person's life.

These were the levers of money making on instant fame then. I don't remember ever buying, like, if Matt Groening had a true, like, the biography of Matt Groening, I don't think those existed existed but he was publishing his own stuff anyway. Yeah, I would buy books about the Simpsons in this era and I bought one after the first season and it's clear that they didn't know what to talk about because there's only 13 episodes so it's just giving me bios about Julie Kavener and Harry Shearer and things like that. Like just trying to milk as much out of every aspect of the show that was available. But it's funny that when we see Bart's rap album,

it's volume three, and maybe they were making fun of the fact that they had been working on the Yellow album. So it's like, maybe we'll have a third album one day, not knowing the second album would not be out for another five years. God, when I tried to do Alan's style work of journalism, of asking the Simpsons writers, I could, do you remember working on this?

You're credited on the yellow album. Jeff Martin and John Beatty were like, I don't remember nothing. I know my name's on it. I didn't touch Whitland. They didn't seem to, I'm paraphrasing here, but they barely remembered Sings the Blues very well. And so I don't think,

despite taking a songwriting credit on things, don't think they really cared much for it. The producer who did Simpson Sing the Blues, John Boylan, it's wild. Like he had a very accomplished music career. He like helped form the Eagles. He managed Linda Ronstadt. And he was talking about how when that album came out, his daughter thought he was a hero. And he was like, he was like, she didn't give a shit about the little river band or Boston or all these bands I work with. It's just, it really was a huge thing and I think people forget. And yes, this is where Bart mania is spreading like wildfire or smoking fire.

This is the third time that this building is burned down because someone has been smoking in bed. I didn't do it. been smoking in bed. I didn't do it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha North he was just poured into that uniform. Marge has grown at that says so much about what has she had to hear Homer's fantasies about Oliver North a lot now and she's getting tired of it. The Oliver North thing was something I made a note of because it's definitely a Homer Homer breaking character to satisfy the writers needs to reference something. There's that. It's a good example. I think the one Conan mentioned mentions a lot and he's mentioned in several interviews is, you know,

Homer sometimes forgets to breathe, but he knows what Vassar is. It's Supreme Court justices to. Exactly. I mean, I also love that seemingly the way Lisa describes the book is that it took like a 1992 biography of Ross Perot and then transcripts from a trial and shoved them together under a cover with Bart's picture on it. Yeah, it feels like a biography about Ross Perot designed to come out after he could potentially win the presidency and they didn't know what to do with it. So it's like, oh, just put this material in this other thing we have to publish. We already printed the pages.

This is where we get the music scene to which they don't say it's MC Hammer, but I mean, they're using the can't touch this and it's drawn to look like him. A reference to Michael Jackson and DJ Jazzy Jeff, both wrote songs for Bart as, and Prince kinda worked on a Bart song, as we mentioned in the Yellow album. Yes, yes, check out our podcast about that we did about a year ago.

It's funny because in Camp Crusty, we have Barney playing fake Crusty here, he's playing fake Bart. It's his main job. I would bet now I'm just gonna make this up. This is through the same Crusty scenario, like they hired him at Camp Crusty, they're like, hey, who is that guy

who we hired to be a fake Crusty? Let's get him on the hotline now too. He's a rummy, he'll work for Nichols. You know what, I was gonna say as a Swartzwalder, but Conan also really loved jokes about, that the Demi-Kratz for ya Complaining that Abe has to wait in line and then this is the deleted scene I wish was in the episode is actually one of my favorite deleted scenes And I feel bad that it got deleted because there's so much design work in here in this deleted scene

I don't know Bob. Have you did you look this one up too? I didn't see this scene this time around. Well, so the scene is in Krusty's office and he's surrounded by Bart merchandise. And Homer is looking at it and he's got some questions for Krusty. Bart Simpson marinara sauce? Now that's Italian. Hey, when are we gonna get a cut of this? Hey, I know it looks like we're making a lot of money here, but we're still deep in the red. Hey, Krusty, you got another load of money here.

Where do you want it? That's different money. To go back to Alan's book, you do write in your book, Alan, about how the writers were getting a little peeved at the fact that they were making cartoon money, let's call it, in the early 90s, and they were seeing just the millions and millions and millions pouring in from all of the merch, much of which featured jokes that they had written. It definitely annoyed them. I think maybe they were young enough and not quite jaded enough that it really like it didn't quite crush them.

And I think now in hindsight, they're happy they get, you know, the syndication money or the rerun money. But they did pick up on that. And Groening, I think to his credit, was able to negotiate a much higher percentage of merch revenue than than other sort of creators. And I get the feeling that after the Simpsons, a lot of creative people didn't get as sweet a deal as he did. Oh yeah, that came up when we did the South Park history, when we've covered it in the past too, of just like that they got lucky, or not, yeah, I'd say lucky of just the ignorance

of their bosses who didn't realize how much this could be merchandise, because if they did, the executives would make sure that all of that money would be, have to be shared with the creators, which is normally how it goes. With Matt Stonentree Parker, the South Park guys, I do believe Mike Judge sat them down and told them, this is what you have to do because I got screwed initially. So I think he was a real mentor for them.

I always look at Matt Groening's history as being a comic creator in the seventies and eighties as what gave him the idea of like, oh no, I need to retain the rights because he saw all the comic artists he grew up loving, like Jack Kirby, screwed out of their money. And he was already pretty used to selling his own work with his then wife on Life in Hell. And so he knew to retain the rights, though even he, in his wildest dreams, could never have imagined that keeping that part of the ownership would be worth that much.

But it was smart of him. So I don't begrudge him. I'm sure it might be hard to work with every day a guy who's making a billion dollars on the thing you also are working on and you're not making any money. But if it wasn't Groening, Groening's money would have just been made by, you know, Barry Diller, like who didn't do anything. Or Rupert Murdoch, right? All of them would, yeah.

I think that's what the writers basically said, which was, yeah, they would have liked a little more money, but also I think they were happy that people that they love, which are Brooks, Simon, and Groening, were reaping the benefits too. And you mentioned too that like it had its own cache too of like, you know, the other writers wanted to write on it. Like Dave Mandel, I think told the story of like looking down on another writer he met who didn't watch The Simpsons every night or every day. Yeah, a writer called him I think for notes on a script and the writer called him I think

at like eight o'clock or you know, on a Thursday or Sunday night, whatever night it was on at the time. He said he immediately dismissed him out of hand Fair enough This is also another first in the show. It's the first appearance of Mayor Quimby's wife we've heard her referred to before but this is our first appearance of her They just draw hers Jackie Kennedy a smart move and I guess the first well not his first mistress But whoever's doing this voice Pamela Hayden or Maggie Roswell,

is doing the Harley Quinn style voice, let's call it, that Tress McNeil will eventually start doing for the mistress character. We haven't heard his previous mistresses say anything, the one at the Do What You Feel festival. This is the first time they've had a line to say. So after that deleted scene of the lost money, it explains why the Simpsons are not rich after this, which also reminds me of the B-Sharps episode, which also sort of was about Bart-mania via Beatle-mania. Then we see that Bart, he sees the dangers of fame here. This is Bart going through the real-life child star stuff that you hear all of these horrible stories from like, you know, Macaulay Culkin literally went through this at the time. Like, he was living this in 1994.

Is this the longest legacy of the episode, this moment here? Um... I never thought I'd say this, but shouldn't we be learning something? Say the line, Bart! I didn't do it. Yay! Come on, Lisa, say something funny. Like what?

Oh, something stupid like Bart would say. Bukka bukka or wuzzle wuzzle. Something like that. Forget it, Dad. If I ever become famous, I want to be for something worthwhile, not because of some obnoxious fad. Obnoxious fad? Uh, don't worry, son.

You know, they said the same thing about Urkel. That little snot-poet like that smacked that kid. Airing that week on the fifth season of Family Matters was the episode Presumed Urkel, where Laura defends him in a mock trial where he's blamed for an explosion at the school. They really lost the plot there. Yes.

We were talking about Family Matters on some podcast and we assumed that it was around this era where things started getting crazy, but no, season three has Urkelbot, so it was one year after Urkel shows up. There's a robot version of him You got to make 22 episodes a season. You know, that's how it goes. Sorry. Yes, Alan When did Stefan Urkel make his debut? Oh, I assume it was like post Julio white puberty. Otherwise it wouldn't work Though also, you know now I mentioned Macaulay Culkin. He just won an Oscar so this is Macaulay versus Kieran Culkin.

Like Lisa is the long-term play to true fame and accolades instead of instant child stardom. Oh okay to answer Alan's question I'm sure we're all dying to know this. I was. Apparently Stefan Urkell made his first appearance before this episode. So it was November 12th, 1993 in the episode Dr. Urkel and Mr. Cool. Wow, man. Some uncreative writers would have found less to do with Urkel. I appreciate that the Family Matters writers found so many ridiculous things to do with Urkel. They thought about him and they said, you know what, we could rip off the Nutty Professor.

No one else is doing it. They thought about him and they said, you know what? We could rip off the Nutty Professor. No one else is doing it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha This is where Bart realizes that he means to show the world a different side of himself And he's gonna have a great opportunity to do so as just like the Rizzler He's getting to go on NBC late night. What the hell are you reading books for? I'm doing the Conan O'Brien show and I want to have some intelligent stuff to talk about. Don't forget to say I didn't do it.

Dad, there's more to me than just a catch phrase. How do you figure, boy? Watch the Conan O'Brien show, you'll see. Alright, but after Leno I'm all laughed out, you know. You know, Conan, I have a lot to say. I'm not just a one-line wonder. Did you know that a section of rainforest the size of Kansas has burned every single- Just do the line.

I didn't do it. Woo! Woo! Woo! Great material. We'll be right back. Sit perfectly still. Only I may dance.

This was a great little gift they gave to their friend who at this point They didn't know if his show would still be on TV when they were writing this. I don't know if you have a date on the table draft or anything Henry. Were there any scripts for this one? Unfortunately, this is one of- okay. More than half of the episodes have table drafts out there on Internet Archive But not this one, but the date would definitely if it would match with the other ones in production order This would be June maybe June and we recently covered the pilot for the critic wait that did come out on this feed right there is a joke around this exact same time where the joke is it's funny that anyone would know

who Conan O'Brien is and that they would bump you to give him a table that's the joke about him because they're wishing their friend the best but there's a very big chance his show could not be on TV when this airs. It would be a deeply, deeply tragic moment on The Simpsons. But you know, he was a late night host for 30 years and had a very successful career there. But Bart's saying watch the Conan O'Brien show feels like a just a nice, nice plug for them. And I believe even the credits for this year's Halloween episode listed Conan as 1230 NBC. O'Brien.

There's like a really very sweetness, a very sweet thing with the writers and Conan sort of being so shocked that, A, he got the job, he replaced Letterman and B, that it was a success. I think, I don't know, like Conan's self-deprecation has always been part of his comedy. And I think you really see it here. Even on the commentary, he's talking about how like this is going to end. He feared it would end up being a joke about like, hey, James Dean is coming to town after that comes out after he's dead.

All of these like poorly timed things. And I also like that he talks about how in this scene for in a classic Simpsons episode, it's forever the set that he hated and they got rid of in less than a year of his show. I actually liked this set. And I think it wasn't until like the late 90s that they got rid of it. Like 96, 97 maybe.

I was looking up some old clips and by late 94, like six, I saw November 94 clip and they'd already added the windows behind him. It was still brown, but you were already getting the skyline. Okay. I have very vivid memories of this set. Maybe that's why I'm imagining that it lasted longer than it did, but I assume they had to animate this later. It was a retake or something because this episode airs about four months after a show begins and that's not enough lead time to bake that in from the beginning. So I have to assume it was something that was done later.

Yeah, I think so. Though now you mentioned how he says, watch the Conan O'Brien show. Like I don't know if you noticed, Bob, but there was some seemingly legally mandated silence on that commentary. Like there's some quiet bits in there when they I feel like they pushed up against some Fox lawyer who told them, Hey, we can't promote the other channel on our show. We can't tell people about how good Conan O'Brien is not see on NBC. Though it's funny around the same time, one of the Conan's best bits on his show was Polly the NBC peacock, who the joke always was, Polly would promote a thing on NBC that week that sounded crummy, and then he would say,

well, then Conan would be like, isn't 90210 doing something cool? And he's like, no, no it's not, brrk! You don't wanna watch that, it's in Spanish, brrk! I'm assuming that was the voice of Robert Smygle or someone like that. Boy, you know, I think that one's Dino Stamatopoulos by Q.B. Long. Okay, yeah, that could be a Dino voice as well. So I did look up who was on the episode of Late Night that aired, the night this aired.

Remarkable episode in that it is the 99th episode of Conan. The next night's episode would be the 100th. He'd be that far along in it guess would be Norman Lear just talking about like his career and then it would be Katherine Heigl on there at the age of 15 I think you know what she's promoting but my father the hero the hero that's right yes oh well we all know I'm the biggest fan of that movie on this podcast network they couldn't get your Rd part dude Pardue to join her. I couldn't find a clip. I could find a clip of him talking to Norman Lear from the episode.

I could only find a 2009 interview with Katherine Heigl on Conan where they talk about how young she was when she did it and they have a picture from it. But I could not find the clip from it. She had fun saying, I was so young there. No mention of this movie. No. It debuted underneath I'll Do Anything that week, My Father the Hero. We talked a ton about that one of Conan getting hired in our episode with Evan Susser, but just it is funny that they're saying on the commentary so much like Merkin's like, oh, and I was wishing you well, and we wanted to promote your show. And I do believe that. But there is also the story of like,

he kind of pinched Brent Forrester for writing on Conan because he's like, no, I want Brent Forrester on Simpsons and hired him to Simpsons. Yeah, I think we talked about it on Crested Gets Cancelled as well. Conan was let out of his contract. He's technically, I guess, still owes Fox Simpsons episodes, well, I guess Disney at this point.

I think the statute of limitations is up on that. there was some tricky things that they really couldn't talk about on the commentaries from this era Yeah, I believe the stat I found him saying was like at least a hundred K He had to pay himself to Fox to get out of his Simpsons contract. It was negotiated by Anatole Klebano The famous lawyer we always hear about that's right. I also do love the shade of after Leno I'm all left out, you know, like just their way of saying Leno suck. That's their way Nobody would be laughed out by Leno. That's not cool. The last thing on this sequence I love too

Is that this is a thing you see on talk shows sometimes where like an actor tries to rebrand or they're like, you know I may be this but actually and the fact that like he doesn't even get to say it like Conan just cuts it off like you're here to say the line say the line to say the line. You have to do your bit first before you try to talk about something you care about late night but no I mean Alan like you were a big Conan guy I would assume growing up. Oh yeah. But moment here, I didn't know who Conan was. I was definitely not watching the show when this aired. I didn't become a Conan late night viewer regularly until I, I want to say like probably

my summer vacation of 96 or 97. I'm going to say 97, maybe even 98. I think discovering it around that time, you know, we're maybe around the same age. I'm 41 now. You know, discovering it at like 12, 13, it was sort of my first taste of like oh wow This is a little weirder than SNL or even the Simpsons which was great to sort of come across and I think like Conan he told me this story basically that when he was his show was first on the air He was like really unsure of himself

He didn't know it was gonna last and I think people would reference the Simpsons to him. It like would make him feel like he was home, you know? Like the fact that the monorail followed him around was something I think he really appreciated. Yeah, I don't think I was reading the trades or anything at age 11, but I believe just hearing the name Conan O'Brien, it's a name you've never heard before in your life. You're like, a guy is named Conan, all right.

You're kind of selling me on this. And then I'm a guy who's watching, a boy rather, who's watching the Simpsons credits And when you see a name like Conan, there's not gonna be another guy named Conan doing something else It's the same guy and I think even in the press for his show. It's like, oh, he's a writer on the Simpsons So I thought like okay, I like the Simpsons. Let me follow this guy over here Watching in the first year as a kid who was too young for any of the humor It was just fascinating to see a guy that

Unpolished doing comedy that I had never seen before because I'm not going to improv shows in Chicago in the late 80s. So it's all new to me. I really think his early hosting was probably like how he acted in the writers room. But I think the writers love that. And I think George Meyer told this really sweet story about they had this thing in the writers room, which you guys maybe have talked about. It was like a pool cue that they would compete to see who could put it together the fastest, like disassembling a rifle and putting it back together. And I think George said that they sent that to Conan when he was on his own show to make him feel at home, which is really, really nice.

Sgt. John H. McCormick That is sweet. It was very nice of them to put Conan in. And yeah, Conan appears on the critic and this, though not in character, or he didn't like voice himself in it But it did work as promoting the idea of Conan O'Brien as a thing I should know as a kid watching those both and like a no one week period of these two episodes of cartoon So not knowing about Conan Henry when you saw this were you like, who is this? Did they make this guy up? What were you thinking? I think I must have at least well I do know my house, but my mom and dad were very much

on the Letterman side of things and did not like Leno and so I might have heard about Conan as or would have been explained to me, he's the guy who took over for Letterman. Like I think that, that got explained to me to that extent. But I was not staying up that late. I was not much of a late night kid yet. So Conan insists on dancing, which he still dances a lot He had an entire dance sequence on the Oscars even this year, which was some great classic Conan It really was this is pre his string dance era. He would wheel out the string dance if a joke bombs

Yes, I don't know if you remember the string dance, but he would like dance like he was being puppeted Then he would cut the strings and let his arms flop down You know, he didn't have the string dance at the Oscars this year. It's sad, but the Oscars really were like Trying it did feel like him announcing himself again like he took a little time off in Podcast land and being a loser podcaster like us, but now after doing the Oscars it feels like everybody's like hey wait a minute He's really good at hosting television. You know let's's be honest. The string dance is the dance of a much younger man. He's not in his 30s anymore. You know, he did a good dance on stage,

but it was a very short dance. He danced longer when he hosted the Emmys. Him joking about Estonia felt like a leftover from 1992 and the Simpsons. Your move, Estonia, yes, is a very Simpsons line. Yeah. And hey, you know what? He got directed by previous Talking Simpsons guest

Scott Gierner, so in a way, we're friends with Conan O'Brien, in a certain way. And he was forced to meet us via charity at one point. We talked about it. Yeah. I gotta win another charity auction to meet him so I can take a photo with him in a much slimmer weight than I was when I took that previous picture with Coderhulk.

You just let our good buddy AI take care of that, Henry. Oh, you're right. Yeah. Why give to charity? You're right. I almost gave to charity. I didn't learn the lesson that Homer has in this episode. All right.

This is where Bart sees his future and we get basically a little taste of Futurama here. 2034. Creeping closer and closer. Nine years from now and I mean a few these people have died like Farrah Fawcett died in 2009 she did not marry Shaquille O'Neal or Jim Varney by the way before she passed or Lee Majors I guess was she actually married to Lee Majors I didn't look that up I believe yeah that's the the Farrah Fawcett Majors that's where it's born from yeah

yeah and Kitty Carlisle out in 2007 but, her head in the jar is the roots of Futurama are blossoming. And Kitty Carlisle made it to 96 years old. Pretty impressive. Billy Crystal and Lonnie Anderson and Spike Lee, they're still with us. Lonnie Anderson yet to become a ventriloquist, but give her time. She can do it in her 80s. It's possible. But this is the thing I mentioned earlier, that's why I brought it up too. The reunion thing where the actors from facts of life Just sing the song to you. That's this like that is this thing all it is remembering TV is is most TV now Graining has to admit that like the head in the jar thing is like oh, yeah

This is future Rama right here on the cometaries not that he's saying he ripped it off nor do I think he did but And he wouldn't be ripping himself off anyway, but this almost seems too mean to Spike Lee like why is he he's not like a panelist guy. Yeah I don't know what they're they're saying with this Malcolm X was just a huge hit I don't know if that was a huge hit before the writing of this. I think it would have to be it's done Oh, 90. Yeah, and also why does he like just kind of grunts like he doesn't they don't have him say anything He just kind of like goes like that. It's odd. Yeah, it's weird that Spike Lee would be like, oh, remember that guy, like, not.

He's still a very appreciated and accomplished director. It's still doing tons of work to this day. It's weird that he was sort of treated as flash in the pan. Though then again, this is also like six, seven years later in the Treehouse of Horror. He's also on The Spaceship to the Sun with Tom Arnold. With Tom Arnold. Yeah.

Great caricature of him. He's got like the Malcolm X hat on. Of course Malcolm X is that. He's got the Malcolm X hat on in this parody. But he's got the kind of Futurama touch in that the hat has an antenna for no reason. I love that Kitty Carlisle hisses at Bart and that makes him scared. This lineup of people too is just like at any convention you go to, you'll meet the I Didn't Do it boy at every

Comic-con you walk by again. I got to give credit to Suzy Dieter's amazing direction Bart in his dream screams and then the cut to him screaming in bed like that is such a great match cut it lines up Perfectly like it's just god. I love that shot. It's such a great dream sequence This is where Bart is gonna lock himself in his room. He's not gonna do the show tonight. He can't take it anymore. We cut to Krusty losing his mind

that the show's not gonna happen. And background, you'll see David Silverman playing the tuba. And if you ever wonder what Nancy Cruz, the future Simpsons director looks like, that's a drawing of her as the flautist, the woman playing the tuba. I think that's correct, flautist. There's times where I write down the pronunciation ahead of time, and then there's other times where I wing it and I fear I'm going to screw it. That was a winging

it time, so I made it. And this is where there's actually a quick deleted scene that is only intact thanks to somebody recording a vintage ad for The Simpsons here. Listeners may have heard it in the break, but let's listen to it here, saved by the wonderful Daily Simpsons on Twitter archivist. Shantar Handel being a superstar. I'm not a human being anymore. Ah! You're not a human being!

Find out on an All-New Simpsons, Thursday. It's good? It's a good joke. Yeah, it's Homer basically right before Marge starts talking in this scene There's the moment of Homer hears that and runs away But hey, that's a good use of it in an ad to show you a joke You're not gonna see in the show so they're not burning a good joke in the ad

But this is when we all learn what the real job of an entertainer is Honey, I know you feel a little silly saying the same four words over and over but you shouldn't You're making people happy and that's a very hard thing to do I know you feel a little silly saying the same four words over and over, but you shouldn't. You're making people happy, and that's a very hard thing to do. You're right, Mom. I shouldn't let this bother me. I'm in television now. It's my job to be repetitive. My job. My job. Repetitiveness is my job. I am going to go out there tonight and give the best performance of my life the best performance of your life the best performance of my life

God that's good This is for all of our listeners to remember when they start saying Bob always talks about this and I'm tired of it or Henry Can't stop mentioning this well welcome to show business buddy. It's true Hey, if you're tired of hearing about the time I went to a theme park, you know, it's my job, guys. Sorry. It's my job. No, I mean, the layout of that is just great. I love Bart's all the poses they have,

the way he touches his chest like, my job, my job. They're just driving it home. Also feels like a very Merkin thing, which is, you can only be accidentally successful in the universe of a David Merkin tragic comedy, in his cynical satires. You get successful accidentally. And if you actually decide to try,

then that is when you will fail. If you actually try to embrace what you're doing and do it well, that's when you're going to fail. You're punished arbitrarily for giving people what they want, because it just the universe is cruel I guess. And there's no answer like that's what's so great. Why don't we hear about the fickle fans as Bart arrives on the scene after Krusty gets

stepped on of course then Krusty introduces him on the commentary David Silverman even forgets he drew some of the Krusty poses in there. Susie Dieter actually reminds me though it looks exactly like David Silver. Like, we didn't need to learn that from a commentary. But this is where Bart embraces his job. And now, boys and girls, here he is, the boy that says the words you've been longing to hear, like the salivating dog that you are, Bart Simpson! I didn't do it. Ha.

Ha ha ha ha. Ahem. I didn't do it. Huh? Wuzzle Wuzzle? Wuzzle Wuzzle? That's what passes for entertainment these days, Wuzzle Wuzzle? Wuzzle Wuzzle? That's what passes for entertainment, these days? Wuzzle Wuzzle? Ladies and gentlemen, The Clown Show has been put on hiatus for retooling. And see, Bart couldn't have pivoted to a podcast that somehow becomes the most popular podcast for the 13 episode it exists for.

Yes, yeah. He couldn't just sign a deal with Spotify or I Heart Media. Yeah, actually. So going back to Hawk 2, because I'm drawing a lot of comparisons here. Hayley Welch, she has a name, by the way. Her podcast did run for 13 episodes. The last one is called How to Avoid Getting Cancelled. So she should have taken her own advice then, I have to say. Yes. Don't invest in scams run by a catchphrase person.

Yeah, that's so great. What a wonderful last podcast. That is at least know our next pin. I believe in Haley Welts. She's got more scams in her. I think she's got it. I was shocked that her fame lasted as long as it did, to be honest.

I thought it would be done in a month. The Krusty the Clown in her life really moved fast, for sure. Whoever that Krusty the Clown was. Anytime anything is put on hiatus, I think of putting on hiatus for retooling. Though now things don. Anytime anything is put on hiatus, I think of putting it on hiatus for retooling. Though now, things don't get to be put on hiatus, they just don't get released. And then they go into the tax vault.

Tax fire. It's more of a fire. It's more of a thresher, I guess. Right. Actually, if it stayed in a vault, it might get released accidentally by somebody that would cause a problem. So yeah. Destroy it. Destroy it. You know, also with all the SNL interviews going around now, it was nice to see somebody ask Will Forte, what about Coyote versus Acme? He's like, I think it's fucking bullshit. It was so, it was just awesome to hear him just say that instead of being nice and thinking about like, well, I don't want to piss off the Warner executives.

He's like, I think it's fucking bullshit. Love that. That was great. Bart's has learned a valuable lesson in the industry, which is you're just finished. That's all like happens all the time. One day you're on top of the world and your son, Schmo, to box factory and the way exit only like the slam. Yeah. Exit only. Oh, and he's immediately alone. It's the inverse of the scene that ends act one where everyone is wanting a piece of this boy And now it everyone is left when the door closes it locks behind you and you're never getting back in like that's just such a great

This is back in the four networks on TV era where if you just became unpopular enough the door is closed And there's no other way back like now there are more Opportunities out there for good and for ill for the I didn't do it boys out there Though I also love that the box factory just comes back for one little line there and the fact that it's across the street just to be used as an example of being unfamous is wonderful if only there was a box factory across the street from the Warner lot instead of like an okay Italian restaurant hmm or an Amazon fulfillment center yeah as Bart walks home we also get a joke about kung fu fighting a one-hit wonder that again when they act like whoever heard of that that guy

Jamaican vocalist Carl Douglas who's still with us. He must be making big money because it's in every commercial every day I feel anchor in every trailer for movies movie trailer to yeah It's still like a comedy song you can immediately drop in for a cheap laugh. Just for the Kung Fu Panda movies alone, I bet he's made like eight million dollars. I was immediately gonna ask, is that song used in every Kung Fu Panda movie? Man, I definitely know it's in the first one. Could Jeffrey Katzenberg have been that unoriginal to insist it be in all of them? Though also remember, my most, as I try to remember it being used in movies or commercials and all that, the one in the American release, English language release of Rumble in the Bronx, they

hired Tom Jones to cover it. They couldn't even get Carl Douglas to do this. Like, no, no, Tom Jones, let's be even crappier with this. Instead of hearing Jackie Chan's wonderful singing voice over the credits, as you should at the end of a Jackie Chan movie. So that song plays as the mountains of Vancouver are seen in the background of Rumble in the Bronx. I'm looking at him right now. I'm in the Bronx, the movie Bronx. There are always hovercrafts coming down the street out of control.

When I visited you in Vancouver, you and Nina, you guys took me to the beach where the finale of that happens. I felt the movie magic right there. That end theme song, it's Tom Jones covering Kung Fu Fighting and he puts in lines about Jackie Chan just so you really know that this is original for this movie. It was really Tom Jones introducing Jackie Chan to America. He was Jackie Chan's ambassador, I think. Henry here from the future with a quick apology to listeners. I mistook the ending song of Supercop in the US, which is Kung Fu Fighting performed by Tom Jones and Ruby. the big box. Let's get it on. With the ending song for Rumble in the Bronx, which was Kung Fu by the band Ash. Many apologies. So yes, Bart is sadly walking home. You know what?

Those radio DJs, they are still around. They haven't been fully replaced yet. They do have So yes, Bart is sadly walking home. You know what? Those radio DJs, they are still around. They haven't been fully replaced yet. They do have staying power. I have to give it to Bill and Marty. Bart heads home and this is where we see the box of collectibles, which like every, I mean Alan when you were talking with all these Simpsons professionals, they have their boxes of these collectibles, right?

Still to this day. Most of them, I feel like all of that is gone. Oh, it's interesting. I think actually I take that back. There's one person I don't want to give it away who it was, but worked very closely on the show and they showed me their collection and my eyes like bugged out of my head like Bart. And it was the skateboards, the DVDs, the t-shirts, like stuff that I would geek out over. But to them, I think it was just like stuff that I would geek out over.

But to them, I think it was just like a remnant of their former life. You know, it wasn't anything that they, they cherish it. I think when you work on the show and you see how the sausage is made, I think it's a little less special to keep those mementos. I can say from checking auctions for Simpson's cells that an auction site purports that Wes Archer was selling his collection and that's where they got these cells from. And if it wasn't, if that auction site was lying, then it was an impressive collection

of things that were mainly from Wes Archer episodes. So I... Well, I can tell everyone it's a buyer's market for Duckman cells, if you can find them. You got a great Duckman cell recently, Bob, for the cost of like one 30th of a Simpson sell these days, I would bet. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it was 200 American dollars. So you're not walking away with a good Simpson sell for less than a thousand, I feel. Just to reiterate, though, like the amount of merch that they created was absolutely landfill's worth of stuff. Like, I think it was Burger King that made too many dolls and they had to flip them to carnivals to use as prizes.

So I imagine that they sold those for like 30 cents on the dollar or maybe like five cents on the dollar. And it was also just to, I'm just sort of waxing poetic here, but the crazy thing too is that craze happened in like six to eight months. It wasn't years. It was boom, Bartmania, it was boom Bart mania.

And then by 1991 people weren't buying as many t-shirts anymore. And I think people sort of forget how quick yeah, the craze burned. It did feel like a very long time because we were kids and we looked into this in the history of our show. Is this true, Henry? There was Simpsons merged on the shelves before the show even started airing, right? Yeah, the trading cards that had shots from Tracy Ullman in it. There's like a December 89 interview on NPR.

I think it was Fresh Air, but let's just say NPR with Groening where he's talking about like, oh, I've seen them make a Bart head now, like to make it for the doll. So yeah. It was crazy for me to learn that like the Butterfinger campaign started

way before the show premiered, which is absolutely shocking to me that they would do that. It's why Millhouse predates most characters on the show. It's crazy just because they needed a friend for Bart. I just remember this era, like spring of 1990, going into the mall, going into JCPenney or Sears. There's an insane display of Simpsons merchandise and there's a TV in the middle playing No Disgrace Like Home.

And it's like, okay, mom, go buy a blouse or whatever. I'll see you later. And when we chart some of these things, like when we covered Simpsons Sings the Blues, that showed up of just the pressure of, you have to finish this album to release in November. If this is after Christmas, don't bother. And same with the video games came out, the first video games came out in February or March 91 like that's when arcade and I think maybe it was April for versus the space mutants but you know that like bonuses were lost because those couldn't get ready in time for Christmas like

they missed that quarter by 91 I mean it was cooling off some, but it still was like hot. And then it was funny to see by like 98, 99 when South Park, you know, was so huge that that's when they realized there's a second life on Simpson's merch and they can sell it more to nerds and adult nerds instead of children. And we were all definitely enough old enough to see the South Park craze happening and think this is happening again. And I'm older and I have more perspective and I wonder how long this will last. I remember around that era must have been 97 I thought I was very cool and I was not and I bought a like a Homer raglan and it was like a

Duff beer bottle and it's like you know you want it and there was like a woman in a bikini and Homer was like peeking out from the beer bottle and looking At her and I I don't know why I bought, but I think that sort of speaks to what you said is like they started ramping up the sort of more, uh, not risque, but like, Oh, it was like a Mr. Burns tea or more crusty stuff. Yeah. I know we were in a downtown Vancouver last weekend, I think. And my wife and I saw someone with what looked like to be a new South park shirt

that was the respect my authority Cartman as the police officer. And I was explaining, I think she had seen it back in the day, but I was explaining, this is one catchphrase from one episode. He never did this again. And maybe it came up a few other times, but this was like, this catchphrase had the shelf life of nothing, of like milk, basically.

Yes, and yeah, they made a whole cart racer like built around that, even though. Yeah, and you could buy the Cartman plush like cop doll too from the episode yeah yeah or you would think based on the original explosion of it of like oh well he must eat cheesy poofs in every episode right from now on it's sort of that speaks to like the micro merch stuff that they you know like Rick and Morty and all the animated shows it's like merch based on one little thing. It just, it is like the culture of fandom or nerddom now

is so, they can just take advantage of like one little nugget and it's a little ridiculous. Well, I mean, the people who were in charge of Bart Mania merchandising, you know, 35 years ago, they wish they lived in a time of print to order T-shirts and these exclusive launches and all that. And now your action figure company can go out of business making poochie dolls or various Troy McClurs, right? I'm sure they're doing fine, but clearly that was not a success for them.

I felt for Super 7. They tried their best with the weird ones and now Jack Specific has back the Simpsons rights and they're just doing the obvious things and it's probably selling much better. Those are the box factory of Simpsons action figures. I'm sorry. They're so boring. Before we sign off, let's hear the last clip from the episode as the show gets incredibly meta in a perfect ending. I saved these for you, Bart.

You always have them to remind you of the time when you were the whole world's special little guy. Thanks, Mom. And now you can go back to just being you instead of a one-dimensional character with a silly catchphrase. Ay, carumba! Idley-ho! Excellent. Excellent! If anyone wants me, I'll be in my room.

What kind of catchphrase is that? Now, if you look at Simpsons merch, they were really trying to get a catchphrase for Lisa going, although a lot of them were referencing Bart. Well, if you play the arcade game, her catchphrase is embrace nothingness, which I believe is from the putt-putt episode, Dead Putting Society, when she's trying to teach Bart about Zen. Yes. Is that on your cup, Bob, any of her pony remarks? No pony remarks, but my cup says overachiever,

and it's Lisa doing jump rope and counting up until the 11,000, so she's not really saying anything. So it does fit in with her character to say nothing interesting on merch. Previous merch things from the past, pieces of merch have her say like, a penny saved is a pony earned. That was one of a mildly clever catchphrase. But if you look at merch from the era, I recommend checking out the book Collecting the Simpsons by a friend of the show Warren. There you can see what they were trying to do with Lisa. A lot of the Lisa catchphrases are, oh brother, and Bart did it. So even when Lisa was being sold

to you, she was also reminding you of Bart, the other character with more merch. They didn't see the money in selling Lisa stuff back then, unfortunately. That she would be the one to reject it is so great. It's the show admitting, yeah, we do have a lot of catchphrases, don't we, but our better angels are Lisa going like, ugh, I'm getting out of here. Now the best Lisa catchphrase shirt is the shirt of her being poured coffee and looking very content. I believe that's American Apparel that put that out? Oh yeah, I got that one. I have that on a hoodie. It's a wonderful hoodie. Of course,

unfortunately, Lisa's catchphrase now is standing in front of a slide projector in horrible pictures that I hate so much Yes from bye-bye nerdy right. I've also seen the Elon Musk even just use like an original version of Lisa in front of a projector to say some dumb crap, so he's not even using the bad screenshot from the episode It's like what I would assume an AI bot faked it for it. To make it even like more horrible to look at. I think ultimately Lisa is better now in dialogue free memes. Like the meme of her at the computer

and Marge has her hand on Lisa's shoulder. It's a bunch of like cropped together images from different sources. And also Lisa disassociating image. They're looking at the plate? Yeah, yeah. I love that one. Which we discovered was like one second

of her just going like actually Alan you mentioned those Bart dolls. I think that's literally the doll that Marge hands to Bart is the drawing of that the Burger King Bart doll that was everywhere. Probably. Yeah. There's a story to real quick. There's a guy I interviewed his name is Bill Stephanie. He he was a hip hop promoter producer, and he represented this group called Young Black Teenagers, which was a group of white teenagers, and he sent their demo tape to radio stations, and he would send it with a Bart doll just to get them to pay attention to it.

Like, oh, it's a Bart doll, it's popular, and I think it worked. Speaking of Bart doll picks from them, to discover recently, like in the last year, a political reporter I followed found a picture in Jermet and Josh and Jermet is his name. He writes funny stuff, good stuff. But he found a picture of HW Bush holding up a Bart doll in like camo fatigues like he and it was gifted to him by visiting Saudi officials And I was like no this has to be fake right it's on Wikipedia It is sourced from like the HW Bush library like it's a real picture. It's insane. I'm looking at it now Yeah, it's got a little flag, too Yeah, I couldn't believe it and that it was gifted to so not only is it bootleg Desert Storm Bart

But being given it to the president of Desert Storms. It's incredible. You could probably do a book, a coffee table book, just on Desert Storm themed bootleg Barts. There are so many. Yeah. One of our live shows, I just put together a reel of all of the bootleg Desert Storm

Bart. My favorite catchphrase on one of those shirts was, I was there and it sucked. That was a beautiful, Bob made the montage. I believe you'll find it in our archive. Go way back in the video section. I think you'll find it if you want to give it a look. The episode ends on a wonderful just silence of Lisa walking away.

I guess technically creating her catchphrase of, if anyone wants me, I'll be in my room. And then straight to the credits. And yeah yeah just like to wrap up my thoughts I just this as I watched I was like man this is like the perfect episode like it is about the Simpsons and Meta but it also is just about a general sense of fame and it sticks all within the crusty world and also like no act is a waste like act one is just the boring box factory act two it's shitty to be a production assistant act three Fame goes wrong none of them feel like a waste none of them feel like all leading up to building a tennis court or something

Let's say yeah perfect direction to yeah This is one of the few I would put on and just hanging out with people like this is a real crowd pleaser Especially if you're with a bunch of elder Millennials who grew up with the simpsons and were around for Bartmania so you can appreciate the meta stuff but there's also a great joke every five seconds in this episode and it's also extremely well directed by Suzy Dieter so it's got everything you need it just everything is hitting so hard in this episode so yeah I have no complaints about what's going on with Bart Gets Famous. Yeah I think the 10th best joke in this episode could be the best joke in, you know, in several classic Simpsons episodes.

And I think they also sort of nailed that third act, like the feel of sudden fame and losing the fame in a very almost visceral way, in a good way. The say the line is just like every second of this episode is a moment like say the line I'm just like oh that's in this episode like that tells you when a Simpsons episode is great that you just see every moment like wow is every moment in this a meme? Is every second of this episode a meme? It's crazy. It's possible. Well thank you so much for being on the show Alan. Can you let us know where we can find you online and more about your upcoming book Stupid TV Be More Funny. We are big fans.

Thank you guys so much for having me. You can find my work at the ringer.com and I am on social media, Twitter and blue sky. It's Alan Siegel, LA and my book can be found at any online retailer. It comes out on June 10th. So preorders are a big help to me. And also there's a smaller online retailer called bookshop.org that works with small bookstores around the country It's a favorite of mine if you would like to check that out Oh, that's great

And we'll have a link to it in the description for this episode so folks can check it out We really enjoyed it and once again listeners the name of that book is Be more funny You'll have to add your own banging noises but please don't hit the book it's your own TV before you hit the book yeah Alan I really loved all the it's full of great stories great research and great history I'm sure we'll be referring back to many times in episodes to come for history as well thank you guys guys again. It's truly an amazing endorsement. Appreciate it.

So thanks again to Alan Siegel for being on the show. Please check out his work on the ringer and of course preorder or perhaps purchase his book Stupid TV Be More Funny depending on when you're listening to this. It could already be out. But as for us, if you want to hear more of us and what we do and support the show, head on over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up at the five dollar level. And when you do, you'll access over 200 full length mini series episodes covering shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Batman, the animated series,

Mission Hill and the critic. You'll also get all of our podcast one week ahead of time and ad free. That is right. No ads. If you're on the Patreon at Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons at that five dollar level and that $5 level also gets you a new episode of both talking to the Hill and talking Futurama every month. And there is a $10 level as well.

When you sign up for that, you can access all the $5 stuff naturally, but there is also one very, very long podcast coming at you once a month. And what is that Henry at that $10 level? Bob's talking about the, what a cartoon movie podcast, where we do an animated feature film in the same way a classic episode The Simpsons covered, which means that's why it's over

five and a half hours long sometimes where it's basically three podcasts in one where we do a deep dive into the history of the animated feature film. Then we talk about it scene by scene with tons of cool history and trivia in there. Last month you heard us talk about An American Tale, the 1986 Don Bluth film produced by Steven Spielberg, and this month we're going to be chatting about another live-action film as we do every April, but this is another mash-up. It's Looney Tunes back in action, the ill-fated sequel to Space Jam, and that's just the most recent one. I think we're up to 80 now at this point not very close What a cartoon movies a giant back catalog is there and easy to find on patreon.com

Talking Simpsons because we have a new collections page there where you can see all the great stuff we do But you can hear that entire back catalog of what a cartoon movie where you've covered so many different things Disney Renaissance anime all that you can find it at patreon.com Slash talking Simpsons, and I've been one of your hosts Bob Mackey You can find me on Twitter and blue sky and letterbox and all this stuff as Bob servo And I also have another podcast. It's called retro knots. That is a classic gaming podcast all about old video games You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com Slash retro knots and sign up there for two full-length bonus

episodes every month. And Henry, how about you? You can find me on Twitter still as h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g, though I'm also that on Letterboxd where I'm a lot more active. And you can find me as Talking Henry on Blue Sky and Instagram. And if you're following us on those social media sites, you should know that on Twitter, Blue Sky and Instagram is also the official Twitter account of this podcast, at Talk Simpsons Pod. At Talk Simpsons Pod keeps you in the loop whenever we've got new podcasts coming out or we're doing a live show. If there's something that you can only see on Patreon, any of that stuff, you know about it first. If you follow at Talk Simpsons Pod and all those places, so please do. And an easy to

find list of all of our previously released free podcasts is one click away from TalkingSimpsons.com. Thanks much for listening folks we'll see you again next time for season 15 smart and smarter and we'll see you then. If anyone wants me, I'll be in my room.