Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart Gets Hit By A Car With Matt Christman

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

We welcome back our pal Matt Christman from Chapo Trap House for our return to a landmark episode of The Simpsons! As the title suggests, Bart is injured, he goes to Hell, and then returns to sue Mr. Burns. All of this with the help of the debuting Lionel Hutz and Nick Riviera, making this a very important episode. Listen now before Burns crushes you like a paper cup! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! Check out our new shirts on TeePublic! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

attention talking simpsons listeners we have a new podcast miniseries exclusively on patreon right now for five dollar and up subscribers at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you get talk king of the hill season two part one that's right we're returning to king of the hill once again putting out 11 new episodes covering the first half of the show's second season. Again, that is patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Be there or be not right. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody, and welcome to TalkingSim simpsons an affront to our collective dignity i'm your host glorified notary public bob mackie and this is our chronological exploration of the simpsons who is here with me today as always hey it's henry gilbert telling you to please

don't spit over the hand and who do we have on the line that's matt chrisman hey hey and today's episode is bart gets hit by a car. I think the boy's hurt. Oh, for crying out loud. Just give him a nickel and let's get going. Today's episode aired on January 10th, 1991. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God.

Happy New Year 1991, Bobby. world history oh my god happy new year 1991 bobby talk soup debuts on the e entertainment network madonna's justify my love is billboard's number one hit and in two days congress will officially pass a resolution authorizing the use of military action in kuwait so the most important thing talk soup talk soup the greg kinnear years i don't remember there being any host other than greg military action in Kuwait. So the most important thing, TalkSoup. TalkSoup. The Greg Kinnear years. I don't remember there being any host other than Greg Kinnear of TalkSoup, so it must have been him even in 91.

Just him. And then he went on to be nominated for an Oscar. Is that correct? In a James L. Brooks film. Yes. As good as it gets. Yep.

And I think Justify My Love is probably number one, partially off of the controversy of the video being too hot for TV. And I believe they sold it as a VHS tape oh to get around that and it was I guess an eight minute VHS tape that you could buy for ten or twenty dollars at Sam Goody Wow I think I remember Madonna appearing on Wayne's World and there was a parody of this video with Wayne and Garth. I remember that.

Is that Prince? I remember. That was big. And a joke about Garth having a very large bulge in the skin-tight suit. Hey, Wayne and Garth are back, guys. They're shilling for food delivery services. You mean they're supporting local businesses, Bob. Yes. Wayne's World

was a local business. It's almost like people only do things because they get paid. I think that's just sad. You know, not to go on too long about this, but in Wayne's World 1, Noah's Arcade was the villain. That was local business. So the precedent was set that Wayne and Garth are anti-local business.

That's true. As Desert Shield becomes Desert Storm, set that Wayne and Garth are anti-local business. That's true. As we enter, as Desert Shield becomes Desert Storm, we're entering prime bootleg Simpsons t-shirt time here as well. I would guess by now already the Bart killing Saddam Hussein shirts

are already printing big time. Yeah, in 1991. Matt, did you have any of these bootleg t-shirts? I really wish I had, sadly. I do remember them. There was one where he was like cutting Saddam Hussein's throat. It was really grisly stuff. In that era.

And of course strangling him and all the guys and stuff. In that era, it was either Bart doing violence to Saddam Hussein or a mix of Dick Tracy, Ninja Turtles, Batman, and The Simpsons. All in one flea market. I mean, we'll talk about it more as more things happen in the news as we go through 1991. But like the first TV war, like made for TV war is about to begin. It's pretty fun times. And joining us today is Matt Chrisman of Chapo Trap House, of course, and the new Stitcher Premium Podcast. Time for my stories. Welcome back to the show, Matt.

Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, I was just saying beforehand, you're going through all of the, you know, important dramas of the last, you know, well, I guess the American last 60, 70 years is so great. I especially love, like, you made me want to just rewatch

all of the S.H.I.E.L.D., Sopranos, Deadwood, all over again. Yeah, thanks. It's been a lot of fun. And listening to Felix talk about The Sopranos is always fun. He could honestly just do a whole show on that show, I think, at this point. Have you thought about covering The Simpsons at all in that miniseries? Well, the premise is that we were doing the shows that make up the most influential DNA of prestige television, which is in the hour-long drama framework.

So we didn't have any ability to do anything. We didn't really focus on anything half-hour or anything comedic. And honestly, The Simpsons, it just feels too big. It's like, how do you even talk about the Simpsons when you have our frame of reference? How do you really even talk about it without being, how do you get outside of it? It's like, well, it's a six-year project already for us.

Yeah, exactly. Very long timeline. No, and I really loved your observation in The Shield of just like how they couldn't make, they kept struggling with like how evil did they make vick mackie or not and yeah they started off at such a high point that that they were kind of stuck and then they just had to vacillate back and forth and also how deadwood was screwed by trying to tell the deeper stories everybody wanted and everybody's like it's

boring i was like well what is this everybody's talking about community get the hell out of here so i guess matt do you recall uh where you were when this episode aired did did you see this brand new or was it more of a syndicated viewing i'm pretty sure i saw this when it came out as a kid because I was the age of Bart. So I wanted to be an underachiever and proud of it, although I just couldn't. I was a nerd. So I more looked

at him as a figure of odd aspiration. And if you had the guts, you could be Bart. I believe Matt... I didn't have it in me to be Bart, but I could watch the show. I believe Matt was with us for Trash of the Titans which was an okay Schwarzwalder episode but this is a really good one

and one of his earlier ones too the only thing I think that hurts this episode is the third act being a little too cutesy poo but it's a pretty great when I was listing just trying to list all the firsts of this episode I thought wow they really discovered something when they finished this episode.

They're like, oh, this is where we can take the show. Oh, by the way, Trash the Titans written by Ian Maxton Graham. We can move on. My mistake. Don't put that on John. It's all falling into place. But yeah, this episode, the Schwarzw welder one uh mark kirkland the two well i don't know if selman has surpassed swartz welder yet i think he's getting close okay yeah

well for a time swartz welder had written the most simpsons episodes and kirkland has still has the record and i think will never be beaten uh unless they make 50 more years of it and like in the third generation of simpsons that got some other guy or gal does that many swartz if it does and it very well might it will be a uh a predictive text algorithm it won't be an actual person i think swartz water was on the show for 13 years and selman has been on since season nine nine to 32 so he's had a much longer run yeah and yeah this is uh like the first the first one with phil hartman and that also means lionel hutch the first huts the first one with judge schneider the first

one with the blue-haired lawyer the first one with doris grau like so dr nick and dr nick and dr nick yeah so so many first in this one that it's inspired by a movie that is not streaming anywhere but uh but i watched a few clips from it it's inspired by the 1966 billy wilder film the fortune cookie which stars jack lemon and walter mathau oh they were in a movie together yes yeah interesting uh i think is that the movie that walter mathau won an oscar for oh man i think he was nominated let me look that up while you look for that henry they had they will mine the uh the billy wilder mine in the future for radio bart which is an ace in the whole parody oh wow and well he deserved to win for that because uh he

really is good like if you see the character if you watch the clips you know it's a walter metho version but his version of the uh slimy lawyer is so much in the huts character like you can i can totally see that swartz welder wrote huts to be a version of mathau's character in fortune cookie and then phil hartman brought his own spirit to it and the animators brought their own look to it uh but at its core it starts with that that oscar-winning performance and uh and the film is about spurious lawsuits and how people sue about anything which he uh though in the plot of it the the guy isn't hit by a car by a rich man uh jack lemon is a cameraman for football for cbs and a football player hits him uh and he gets a concussion and they act like,

well, let's pretend this is worse. It's not just some concussion. He broke his back. I feel like now he could have a lawsuit from a concussion. You know what? It's not streaming, but something that I've learned is that if an old movie is not streaming, it's probably locked behind the Turner Classic Movies cable tv paywall and that should be a separate streaming service yeah why isn't that on hbo max that's bullshit and yeah this is the first of many many many courtroom episodes that the simpsons would have i think it's just such an easy comedy starting point of like you everybody has a part to play in a courtroom there's so many rules that you can get comedy out of like they'd they basically would redo at these lionel hutt scenes

in like five more episodes and just stack a new joke on top of it the weird thing is i in my estimation is that huts does not do a lot of talking in the courtroom it's mostly about other people giving their testimony i think they'll figure out it's funny to have Hutts on stage a lot in these scenes. Yeah, no, I think once they hear Hartman's portrayal of it, they're like, oh, we need to give this character way more lines in the courtroom. Like it's it it shouldn't just be Marge on the stand. And that's the humor to it. But yes, this episode, you need him to be moving for a bad court thingy. Yes, he needs to be pantsless.

There should be random items inside of his briefcase. This character really hits the skids after this first appearance. His life gets much worse. He seems almost like an okay lawyer. Well, I mean, he's a money-grubbing lawyer who chases ambulances, but seems like he

knows what he's doing in a courtroom. He's more of like a Saul Goodman in this one. Yeah. In subsequent episodes, just becomes more and more fail. Living at the YMCA. Yeah. Ready to stab anybody if they touch his stuff.

But yeah, the episode begins with a minute of just cartoony gags. Kirkland says that it's just the script says, Bart does general mischief. So he's like, okay, he goes through Wet'suwet'en, makes a dog, run around an old lady. But these little cartoony bits, the show would never give time to this much silence and action. I miss seeing the dog, like the dog that wraps around the lady it looks like a goofy cartoon character i love that dog and uh and then as a little kid who you know was very pedantic about things to see the title appear on screen and say episode 23 it messed me up because i thought did i miss it when it said the title in every other episode? What's going on?

What's this? Yeah, I just reflected, oh, I've watched 23 of these so far. Yeah. And then, yeah, I was trying to also count in my head back then in a pre-Wikipedia or episode guide age of like, has it been 23? Let's see. Can I remember 23 episodes? And as of this recording, we just hit 700, and that was on the screen. Wow.

Oh, right. Yes, yeah. But also, it works as a really – I really laugh at the joke now 23 episodes and as of this recording we just hit 700 and that was on the screen wow oh right yes yeah but also it works as a really i really laugh at the joke now because the meaning of the joke is just to say the name of the episode is bark it hits by a car and then he is instantly hit by a car the second you see the name of it that's it's a good gag i'm trying to judge fault here like who's at fault because bart doesn't stop at a crosswalk but neither does burns and like burns just plows right into him so i did some little bit of googling on legal stuff for this i would definitely think burns is at fault here like legal criminal fault for hitting someone

usually it's the pedestrian who's got the right away for me what i took away from this and i want to know what matt thinks about this is that these early, well, he's only in his 80s and he is much more active. He hasn't been enfeebled yet. So in this episode, in other season two episodes, Burns is driving himself, which we would never see in the future. And he is so animated and screaming in this episode. So he loses a lot of that spark in a few more years. But it's interesting to see a slightly younger but still elderly version of burns in this episode yeah it's a little bit more bigger i also think smithers has witnessed like multiple barts being hit by cars in the world and maybe that's why he eventually is like you know

what i'll just i'll take over it'll be me and it's a shame we're not doing blood feud because that story is very ripped from the headlines of today we're hearing about the royal family traveling with a refrigerator full of blood and the future of, you know, immortality is stealing the blood of the young. So Blood Feud, it's very, very predictive future, I think. Not to date this one,

but we're recording it on the death date of Prince Philip. Now, Matt, do you think he, they had been work weekend at Bernsingham for a long time? Or do you think, do you think he really did officially die today? I think that he molted, like the reptile that he is. That timeless picture of him in the backseat of the car, just catatonic.

He had seen hell. He had been to hell, and he had seen hell. And he's there now. He had seen what was coming for him. I guess just like Bart in this episode too yeah uh i also love burns is very dickensian like just give him a nickel and let's get going like that that's fun i this episode is definitely against uh lawyers who dare to sue people for things but i like that burns is at least very like evil as a rich man in this too yeah he's always evil they never forget that but i guess you know i'll say this now but this is what i was thinking at the end of it like

they say that bart a crux of the thing in the courtroom is like oh well bart's actually fine he does die he goes to heaven and then how it back. Like Burns is at fault for almost killing Bart. I guess they gloss over that Bart has a near death experience. Yeah. Well, he doesn't seem too traumatized by it. So I don't know why anyone's supposed to take it too seriously. But then they frame it as like this completely,

you know, empty lawsuit. This is trying to rob Mr. Burns. It's like, no, he burns almost killed Bart's like, well, I mean, burns it's like no he burns almost killed barts like well i mean this is the era where everyone

decided for no reason that lawsuits were frivolous and that and that there's never any reason to sue anybody just coincidentally around you know a bunch of corporate campaigns to make people think that uh around the time of the hot coffee lawsuit which was a legitimate suit about actual significant physical damage that got turned into a punch line uh by the media so it's all part of that era the tort reform era and so was the movie liar liar the premise what if a lawyer had to tell the truth i'm laughing already it's the 90s so bart goes to heaven in the first minute of the episode it's so so funny like and this stuff scared me as a kid things about like life and death like i as a seven year old seeing this i definitely was thinking like oh bart's dead and what is this what hell is it did

that kind of stuff scared me a lot as a kid. But yes, first appearance in heaven. It's kind of eerie that it's in heaven. You hear Phil Hartman's voice. I didn't think of that. Yeah. But the first appearance of Phil Hartman, the incredibly talented comedic actor who was still on SNL at the time. I would guess he, you know, I don't know. They never really mentioned if they recorded a lot with him in New York. I would assume he just came down to L.A. from time to time and recorded his lines for the show. Until news radio.

I'm sure it's on the record somewhere, but it's frustrating on this commentary from 20 years ago. They don't talk about why they hired him or who they had in mind for this originally or if he was always the guy they wanted. Yeah, yeah. Actually, in general, this is a crappy commentary because mark kirkland the director is kind of having to run the show like he's uh like graining and mike reese barely talk he feels like he has to prompt them to talk like it's which is the opposite of how most commentaries are just a bunch of you know writers trying to goof around on top of each other while an animator can barely speak it's it's kind of the reverse of that.

And this probably will become a Phil Hartman love fest this episode because it's his first appearance, of course. And recently I rewatched Pee Wee's Big Adventure because my wife had never seen it. And one of the things, he's had such a big career that I forgot that he co-wrote the movie. And I saw his credit at the beginning. I'm like, oh, yeah, he's in this, isn't he? He's not in it until the very end. He has one line talking to Francis at the end. And I love the movie. It's a great movie. But I thought he could have been in a bigger role in this and't he he's not in it until the very end he has one line talking to francis at the end and i love the movie it's a great movie but i thought he could have been in a bigger role in

this and he wasn't but uh just an amazing life he had and it sucks that i mean it's been almost uh it's 22 years i think 23 years 23 yeah yeah i mean matt you're an snl historian you know all about phil harman oh yeah i watched i watched most of his uh run on the show at that point i was watching snl every weekend or trying to although i'm sure i missed some ones because you know this is before it was on hulu and shit uh well one of the worst things about peacock is that like they say oh we got all these snls and they are 40 minutes sometimes they're like 20 minutes and i know it's gonna like suck and i'm sure they cut it because they're just like oh that's racist that's racist but like i want to watch the one where hulk hogan and mr t hosted the show and there's like literally 25 minutes of it it's not just the music they cut like they

didn't even have the one of mr t and hulk hogan being interviewed by uh fernando fernando fernando interviews views them and that wasn't even on there that's the one scene everybody shows of hulk and t on snl then you also can't get the uh seagal steven seagal hosted episode which has been completely memory hole due to its catastrophic terribleness uh i think there's at least 20 pages on that episode in that live from new york book oh yeah uh that uh but yeah hartman as far as the simpsons this was a stat i uh figured out when we covered his final episode but i'll just say it again to think of how important he was to the show for the time he was on it from uh until he is passing he was on 53 episodes out of 206 total episodes so 25 of the series up to the point he

passed away hartman was on the show like he's in one fourth of all episodes of classic simpsons i forgot about that stat and he would just come back to do random roles like in the australia episode evan conover yeah i love him as conover oh Yeah, that's why I think that the easiest yardstick for when the show went downhill is when Phil Hartman died. That's fine. Put the line there. It works. As well as anything. I would think if he had been around in seasons 10, 11, and 12, even if those episodes we were disappointed by then, I think we still would have been saying, well, hey, at least Lionel Hutz had a funny line here.

At least I liked that Troy McCllure scene that's always good there's no more he couldn't he couldn't save anything anymore i wonder too maybe on the commentary it was the first time they were going to have to address hartman i think yeah maybe they just felt uncomfortable because like that would have been recorded i would bet within three years of his passing and they might have just been like what do we even say this is uncomfortable like they'd they hadn't figured it out yet maybe uh but yes bart goes to heaven the god uh voiced by hartman or an angel's voice tells him not to spit over the handrail i like a bit because no one would think to spit over the handrail unless you told him not

to and that was the temptation it was like your positional defiant disorder that's what he's got always had wow uh that and that is how i mean that is a very old testament way of god saying don't do this thing and once you did it like up hell for you going away and your sins are cumulative and yeah that great grandpa simpson he's strangling someone but that has to be abe simpson's brother then because abe couldn't be in heaven to be strangled as a child so did abe's younger brother die and that's why he's a child angel being being strangled by great grandpa simpson you know i never thought of that but that's a very dark think about there's another possibility which is that great grandpa simpson's heaven is strangling

his children but since they didn't die as kids, it's like some sort of heaven apparition in the form of his child that he can strangle to have his heavenly experience. Okay. I like that, too. The show is telling us child abuse is not a sin. Yes. Up front. That's definitely true.

That's unarguable from the text. It's also creepy to see that great-grandpa Simpson's wife is a Marge-looking woman, too. It's just like that Homer is married to a woman that looks a lot like his grandma. It's a very Back to the Future 3 style choice. Yes, yeah. The Simpsons will be right back. The Simpsons will be right back. Look at this thing, Blot Barton. Tell me what you see. A Butterfinger.

And this one? Another Butterfinger. Just as I thought. Your obsession with this so-called Butterfinger can be overcome only by sharing the very object you hold most dear. Speak English, Doc. I want that Butterfinger! You need help, man. Crispity, crunchity, peanut buttery Butterfinger. Wait, boy!

Sorry, man, but nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger. And try new Butterfinger ice cream bars. Cool, man. Butterfinger on a stick. Hmm. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub

at electricireland.ie. Welcome to the break, everybody, for the podcast. It's also a sponge. And a big thank you to our guests this week. We, Matt Christman from the Choppo Trap House podcast. It is always awesome to have Matt back on the show. Thank you so much for coming on. And if you enjoy the Talking Simpsons podcast, you should know that this is me and Bob's full-time jobs. And we're only able to do it because of the support of listeners like you on Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. For just $5 a month month lots of people support us to do this as full-time jobs and they also for those five bucks get so many exclusive extras

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If you go up to that $10 level at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons and and we see snowball in hell heaven as well but yes bart spits into the atlantic i like the visual too the little ripple it sends out that i mean again these tv budget animators are told well of course an end a an infinite escalator up to heaven and then it stops working and bart has to tumble through the core of the earth into an hieronymus bosch style hell just draw that and you got you got two weeks just do that maybe two sentences on a page yes yeah uh but yes we have our first clip here as bart enters hell and i didn't realize that until look really looking into it that the first line the devil says here is a reference to the rolling stone song sympathy for the devil

who the hell are you uh Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm the devil. And you've earned eternal damnation for your lifetime of evil deeds, Bart. Spitting off the escalator just clinched it. Hey, I'm innocent, man. Innocent. Everybody's innocent. Okay, let's just pull up your file here.

Okay. Hmm, seems to be a mistake. According to this, you're not due to arrive here until the next time the Yankees win the pennant. That's nearly a century from now. Boy, is my face red. Bart? Bart? Um, say, is there anything I can do to avoid coming back here?

Oh, sure, yeah, but, eh, you wouldn't like it. Oh, okay. See you later, then. Goodbye, Bart. Remember, lie, cheat, steal, and listen to heavy metal music! Yes, sir! Matt, do you prefer a devil that is this guy or Flanders Devil? I like the idea of the devil as, like, a new character, as a separate character. I also like that he's just sort of an affable, sort of sleazy guy. I like the idea of the devil as like a new character, as a separate character. I also like that he's just sort of an affable, sort of sleazy guy. I like that.

It is interesting that they say Yankees win the pennant, and then they did win the pennant like two years later, the first of four in a row. I think it was 96. Yeah. Yeah. And it's very similar to how they kind of reverse jinxed the Denver Broncos, who won the Super Bowl like a year after the Hank Scorpio episode. Yeah.

It's like when they decide to indicate a team as like a joke, they then go on pretty quickly to prove them wrong. And I'm sure based on that line, there are maybe three YouTube videos about how Bart is actually dead. He died in 96. That's good. I like that theory there are too many homer is dead uh youtube videos i need to do more bart is dead youtube videos i bet matt

grainy was like well let's tell the kids that bart lives to be a hundred like that since he says that's almost 100 years from now that means bart lives to be 100 he lives to be all older than prince philip even i also please henry he just died and yeah the yeah not only do they they won the pennant uh since then one two three four five six seven times and won the world series three times since then it had only been 10 years since they last won the pennant it was 81 when they when this episode aired i mean yeah they just had a bad decade like they that's what they would do they'd have one bad decade every a very you know generation and then they would be better because they're the yankees have all the money in the world it was

very short-sighted to pick them frankly should have picked the padres the swartz i guess you know swartzwalder is a big baseball fan i'm guessing he's letting out some some of his own personal distaste for the yankees in there i guess yeah everybody should everybody should hate them so uh that's appropriate it's the correct stance to have yeah i also really love like the ancient windows interface of his computer that he's checking that's i think it's a mac oh you know yeah yeah i think you're right it is a mac yeah yeah i like his shrimpy kind of style of just the way and it's like stort laughter is innocent i like that too i i also that that felt to me like a great line too of bart saying well can i not go to hell yeah i mean

you wouldn't like it like yeah it feels like they're tweaking the conservative christians who hate the show but they're also saying no you're right these are the things that lead you to hell like listening to heavy metal music so but bar and also like we if you were given the instructions to not go to a christian, which we all are at church. I mean, we just go like, nah, that's tough. Oh, I don't like that. And yeah, so Bart moves back up to heaven. They are from hell back to earth.

They credit Stephen Dean Moore, future director on the show for the gag with Jacques returning. Like he drew the, the very honestly kind of stock gag of like the glove being snapped on and the man realizing, Oh no, he's going to check my prostate. It's the worst thing that can happen to me. One of a few non-speaking Jacques appearances after his initial appearance outside of every time the opening plays for 20 years, the animators are much more into Jacques than the writers were.

Uh, but yes yes so we get our first appearance of lionel hutz i love the shot of him just in between the family already in the middle of the wizard of oz parody they come back to apparently lionel hutz was a is is or was the name of a real friend of john swartz welters and that's funny i like that specificness that it's hot like that like who would you wouldn't make up the name lionel huts you know i wonder if his life was destroyed like the man who uh steve urkel was named after or armin tamzerian well he actually found out oh yes yeah that's true and decided to not sue the show it's nice of him and yeah kirkland said that they originally

designed him as just like an evil guy but they then thought like no let's soften it like powder blue suit this like kind of desperate like i like he has a wigglier mouth like uh yeah and he's constantly doing that insincere smile which he wouldn't do a lot more after this but it's just part of his character trait in this episode uh but yes hutz comes in literally chasing the ambulance and he introduces himself to the family hey yeah who are you i saw you chasing bart's ambulance hutz is the name mr simpson lionel hutz attorney at law here's my card it turns into a sponge when you put it in water classy i'd like to talk to you about bringing legal action against the fiend who did this to your boy well the fiend who did this to my boy is my boss.

And besides, the doctor says it's just a bump on the head and a broken toe. Nothing serious. Doctors. Doctors are idiots. There's no telling what kind of permanent injuries he might have. You might have to wait on him hand and foot for the rest of his natural life. That's the downside.

Now, here's the good part. You can ching, ching, ch ching cash in on this tragedy excuse me mr hutz are you a shyster that is a nice little girl like you know a big word like that mr hutz this is hardly the time or place to discuss this you're right you're right when you feel up to it come over to my office and we'll talk about it. Lionel Hutz, attorney at law. What's that, a broken neck? Great. Great stuff. I love how impressed. Homer finds it classy to be given a sponge card.

That's so great. Again, I do think it's worth suing over. I mean, Hutz is, you know, you're not supposed to like him. And also, he's going to take 50%. We find out later, which that sounds like a lot but hey if i have to give somebody else 500 000 for me to get 500 000 off of an evil man seems fair seems you know fair enough and we find out later that burns is not even willing to pay the medical bills for bart yeah just the very idea causes all negotiations to stall out also the word shyster just sounds

wrong to me yeah no it doesn't It's got some baggage. Yeah. But yes, then Dr. Julius Hibbert comes in, second appearance for him. He's getting a little more of the friendly, laughier Cosby. You know, he has, let's just say friendly doctor demeanor. Like the Cosby demeanor sounds wrong now. But in this episode, Dr. Nick is set up to be the funny doctor and in the few very very soon they will both be the funny doctors for different reasons oh and we get the return of the al quidditch joke from the uh the xmas special again the hibbert just says like a

broken toe bump on the head just send him home and in march can doesn't have to worry about him that much but i still feel like they probably should should worry a little more homer goes to work he i get i love lenny's like hey simpson i hear mr burns crushed your boy and a lot of uh mouthful acting on homer which i feel like these shows are messy and noisy these early ones people are talking when their mouths full it's a it's a different kind of uh audio uh fabric here we're working with now in general dan sounds like he has a full mouth this entire like episode well you're talking about my boss like yeah he's uh he hasn't is speaking to walter mathau i don't think dan's fully cast off the mathau of of the homer voice just yet and i also like in homer saying like if i wasn't so spineless accepting that he is

spineless and terrified of his boss even though he he should know, like, you just go to your boss and have a conversation. That's all. That's all you need to do. Like, that's that's the power of of capitalism and corporate business. Yes. There's no need to unionize. Homer heads into Burns and Burns. He tries to settle with Homer in this next clip.

Simpson, at last we meet. Nice meet you too sir yes my attorneys have advised me to pay you for running over your child so i'm cutting you a check really great one hundred dollars. Of course, you'll have to sign a waiver relinquishing your right to sue and so forth. Really a formality. A hundred bucks. It was a very generous offer, sir, but medical bills alone... Oh, so extortion is the name of your little game, is it, Simpson?

Very well. Then you get nothing. I have the finest lawyers in Springfield, Simpson. Tangle with me, and I'll crush you like a paper cup. Throw him out, Smithers! You don't have to do that, Mr. Burns. I can throw myself out.

That, too, it, you know, this episode has a very lively Burns, but that's their first, like, Burns Burns is so weak he can't crush a paper cut a cup kind of joke after they finish this I think they're like we like the weak Burns better than the yelling Burns it's more fun that he's incredibly feeble it will become a struggle to give a thumbs up later I guess we had

him throwing out the first pitch at Nance and Homer that's true yeah this is even more exaggerated because we've all seen first pitches like that in our lives. Yes, yeah. Yeah, Anthony Fauci much? He should have resigned over that. Obviously, yeah.

Brought shame to America. I don't know how anybody comes back from a bad first pitch throw. Oh, I mean, I'd never. If it was offered to me, if you gave me a month to practice, maybe I'd take it but otherwise it'd be like no thank you underhanded or i walk yes yeah burns i think is very realistic in that when he's told to pay more than 100 for something he instantly just shuts down like oh extortion hey like you fuck you i think burns just got a blood transfusion before this episode. Ah, yes.

Yeah. He's, you know, yeah. It's all about the blood of a young boy. He means he's collects that quite a lot. Old Burns does. They finally are even having Homer notice the joke of that Burns doesn't recognize him every time because Burns should definitely remember that Homer just ruined his run for governor.

I would feel like nobody would forget that but uh but yes homer heads over to i can't believe it's a law firm first time we visit that mall kiosk is it named that in this episode i don't think it is i think it's just named lionel hutz uh attorney it just says that but that's a better name they would stumble upon later i don't know how long they kept it took him a while yeah the bit uh you're right yeah they change it but the the location always remains the same and and this is the uh the another first of the episode the first appearance of doris growl here i'll play uh this quick clip right in here mr simpson any calls della calls oh calls yes uh the supreme court called again they need your help on some freedom thing.

Tell them to sit tight. I'll get back to them. This way, Mr. Simpson. You sure have got some education, Mr. Hutch. Yes, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Oxford, the Sorbonne, the Louvre. Oh. Oh, well. Mr. Simpson, the state bar forbids me from promising you a big cash settlement. But just between you and me, I promise you a big cash settlement.

Pretty great that he instantly breaks the law in front of Homer. That impresses Homer, I'll think. But Doris Grau, she passed away in 95, and she was a script supervisor on things dating back to the late 50s. And they just loved her so much, the people she she worked with she would end up on screen a lot in fact kenry sent me an episode of cheers on hulu yeah where she is just the cold open joke she's coming into interview to be a barmaid at cheers yeah yeah the the door's grow like when i when i read her obituary it mentioned the like she born in 1924 in bro Brooklyn, in her teens moved to Hollywood and became a script supervisor in the 40s at Columbia. Oh, wow. Okay.

She'd been at it for that long. The story is, I'm so, you know, she seemed like she lived such an interesting life. It's so sad that she passed away, right? Like, the story she could tell about just being the script supervisor which is you know an important role but not i don't think particularly respected one in hollywood all the things she saw like oh man like she worked on lee marvin's point blank in the the 1976 king kong remake like what how much like insane shit did she see on those of those movies and of course she would be lunch lady doris and then she become doris on the critic and if the critic had a third season she would not be on it because she passed away in

december of 95 but she was script supervisor on tracy ellman show so i think she was just in the gracie building i think so and they just used her for their show now looking at her imdb it looked like in the 70s by the 80s she transitioned more to tv movie script supervising and then cheers was her first sitcom one which is that was the first time they really were like oh let's have her in here like here here's doris uh in her quick scene in her first of three appearances on cheers in 1986 uh pardon me am i mistaken or did you used to work at the hungry he Heifer. Sure, I work there. Yeah? Say, I know you. The girls, they're out of pet name for you.

What was that? That guy who comes back. Classic cheers. Nobody will ever sound like the smoky grandmas of our youths. It's sad. It's sad. The cigarettes.

Yeah, I blame vaping. See, vaping doesn't, it doesn't give you the kind of tar and gravel that's sad tom waits rask that you just speaks to the life of hard living uh man yeah 71 she'd be you know i'd she'd be 97 now i don't know if she'd uh live that long like that she's no prince philip no it's gonna keep coming up on this podcast that's why they just named the characters after they have her just do a few random roles on simpsons they just said let's

just make up a character called doris that just is her so first lunch lady doris and then the critic has doris who i remember al jean saying he really after she passed away he felt really bad about the few times he directed her as a voice director of like could you cough a bunch about and say how you his smoking's fine and all the jokes about doris uh being near death yes yeah but yeah i also as a kid i didn't get the joke of it being a con of saying what the supreme court called but homer's just buying all of it i love that uh and yeah that homer also his animation where he says a million bucks is a okay like his uh i really like that he just like kind of jumps up and goes that's the kind of take

that i feel like you know dan castleden doesn't really bring that energy to homer these days he's a much older man yes yeah so yes when we come back from the commercial break uh we had again this was another joke I did not get. And first viewing as a kid, the Nick Riviera's office is two down in the mall from Hudson's office. So that's that's a good extra joke there that. But yes, we also get to meet first time Dr. Nick Riviera. Now we'll get a real doctor's opinion bad news your son is a very sick boy just look at the x-rays you see that dark spot there whiplash whiplash oh no and this smudge here that looks like my fingerprint? No, that's trauma.

Am I going to die? Yes, son. Homer. No, of course you're not going to die. Everything's fine. Will I ever play baseball again? No. But I played baseball this morning.

That's right, he did. So Nick Rivera, he would not get his hi everybody line until he became an infomercial star but right he's one of two new characters in this episode that the visual appearance is based on one celebrity or one person and the vocal performance based on another in this case visually he is gabor chupo one half of klaski chupo but the accent is is obviously Hank Azaria doing a crazy Ricky Ricardo impression. I don't know if they've recast Dr. Nick at this point, because it seems like they've recast every character that

is a white person doing an accent, so I don't know if they've done this with Dr. Nick quite yet. Isn't he supposed to be an Eastern European or something? Are the rules different? I don't know. It's unclear. Is Riviera... Well, Riviera definitely is a fake name name i don't think that's his real name yeah i mean if they lean into it it's definitely hank azaria is mocking a cuban man's extreme accent yeah that was you know for a stage character ricky ricardo i don't believe talked that way normally uh but

desi arnez uh but if but you're right matt they could just hide and like no no we're mocking gabor chupo who's like you know from uh a former eastern bloc like and that's fine you can a white person can do that accent and it's a it's not racist you can still do the eastern european accent it's fine right yeah but he was he was killed in the movie but they still brought him back that pissed me off to find that out. I had said for years on here, they're like, oh, yeah, they killed him in the movie, and they wanted to make a big point of like, hey, we killed off a character. He's never coming back.

He's crushed under a giant piece of the glass wall, and he's dead, and he says goodbye, everybody. And then he just started showing back up on the show, and Al Jean in an interview is like yeah no he's just not dead now he just we want to bring him back if you're gonna at least make a big deal out of killing a guy in the movie keep him dead you know yeah but rivieri also i like that among his things on the wall is a female body inspector sign i like that that's it's no hollywood upstairs medical college but uh they they did their work in this episode their workshop in their way to the better every the story of of hutz and dr nick are just slowly discovering better jokes to do with this this same premise though yeah it's also funny that the next time we'll see him

he's like oh he's a commercial pitch man now for spiffy like that's that's what he became after this one his his infomercial career kind of stalled out he went back into you know practicing medicine i guess and uh marge already questioning things this is the moment if hudson was a better lawyer he would say can i speak to you guys privately and he'd say marge what are you doing you this this is to get money shut up like this uh if you think this seems fake don't worry about it like that, that's all he should have said. I think Marge comes off as very naive in this episode too. I don't really love that. But, but I do like how Homer snidely says like Johns Hopkins Medical School, just sneering

at that. He's impressed by female body inspector, but thinks that's a made up place. Dr. Nick is very flattered by saying he's the only one in the room closest to being a doctor yeah which marge reiterates later he's might not even be a doctor in this episode i love something about the way azari says x-rays like that that also stuck with me just look at the x-rays maybe there's also a little spirit of this of saying that like if you hear about trauma or whiplash or all that it's all made up by some quack doctor to pretend the thing is worth suing over or whatever but and last thing i'll compliment about this scene i love just homer instantly just breaks down sobbing in his boy's lap just he can't even keep a brave face i was like yes you're going to die and you won't play

baseball oh he's just that's uh they they're starting to realize just how good dan is at just homer's you know wild mood swings the the bigger the better with homer and so yes we get the next scene of burns being told uh what to do and i just love i love his reaction to the headlines it's all visual so i like his little murmurs like oh yes especially the headline like another smart move for burns that's so great they're like what about the headlines like he's uh and then smithers i also love this is i think the first real big burn speech of like the i'll bide my time like there was a cool little visual touch on this that i'm sure drove mac green crazy because it was cartoony. When he says, this cat has claws, you see his teeth turn into sharp razor teeth really briefly.

Groening would hate that. That's a no-no. Nothing visually interesting. Please, get it out of the show. I like Burns saying, I don't want to be an ogre. Though, again, I think of the amping up of those jokes they do later. People see you as an ogre like yeah but though again i think of the the amping up of those jokes they do later like people see you as an ogre i should grind their bones to make my bread there's another line in this episode that will be improved upon in the next season actually you know it's a fine

machine you got to just keep testing it out like oh let's uh what's a funnier way to do this joke uh well meanwhile huts gets uh starts training Bart to take the stand. How are you, Bart? Fine. Oh, fine. Isn't that nice? Bart says he's fine. Wrong! You are not fine! You are in constant pain! I am in constant pain. Dad, may I please make an observation?

What is it? I think this is all a charade to make Bart look more injured than he really is. Maybe Lisa does have a point. I don't mind you boys doing this in the living room, but in court, doesn't Bart have to tell the truth? Yeah, but what is truth, if you follow me? Now, Bart, can you roll your eyes back in your head like this? Oh, you mean like I'm dead? Yeah, sure.

The kid's a pro. I love that. I love that Bart instantly is like oh i can just lie i'm i'm into this all right like you are right though march is a little too naive uh and she seems like a different character by the end of the episode the way she just says like well it's okay for you boys to do like it's very much like my boys like now boys they're playing the pretend game in the living room yeah well i also think to what mike re said about how i i say this every swordsweld episode but how mike re said that swordsweld often would underwrite or just leave out lisa or margin his scripts in in this bit here

where lisa wants to say something and homer's like what what like that that feels like swordsweld are going like lisa has to speak garley smith has about uh two lines in this episode i think and one of them is though also man i'm curious what you think about like you know we talked to you about swartz welder being a bit of a libertarian and also definitely from the tales of in the office a bit of white a right wing reactionary uh what What do you think of his thoughts on like, oh, every lawyer's a liar. This is all just a scam to steal for people. People in wheelchairs are probably even faking it.

I mean, yeah, I would say that that was in the 90s. That was the industry line. And it was embraced pretty broadly by people because you could, yeah, take a story about, because people were suing. And I mean, the story of it was that the regulatory state was being dismantled and torts, lawsuits are the only thing people really had left to get any kind of recompense from corporations. And so that then became the next frontier to try to further reduce corporate liability for any kind. And it's just part of the broader cultural trend of pushing to fully annihilate any remaining legal restraint on private industry.

Well, I could definitely see Schwarzwalder saying, well, yeah, the private industry should just do what it wants if it cripples a kid too bad like that's that's just that's making an omelet yeah it's the omelet of capitalism i also just love the line but what is truth really if you follow me yeah and then he just dismisses the thought completely yeah yeah i guess so if you can see it from marge's standpoint i do think that she feels that bart is getting a bad influence here. But if they wanted to make the story of like, oh, well, this is Bart. Bart, even though Bart's name is in the title of this, he's basically a nobody in this episode after minute four.

He takes the stand once here. Hutz's line about the truth made me think of his line from Realty Bites. Like, there's the truth and the truth. Oh, yeah. So he's frowning at one time and smiling at the other time that's a good yeah that is an improvement on his his general views on truth yeah uh all right well so now it's time for supreme court history hell yeah yeah i'm excited uh though he's called judge molten here this is the first appearance of judge snyder he was in Crusty Gets Busted. Oh, you're right.

Okay, all right. I'm sorry to... Henry's a fraud, everybody. I failed. You're fired. None of this history. But yes, visually, he's meant to look like Robert Bork, the Reagan's failed Supreme Court justice.

You're much more learned in history than me, Matt, but I never had looked that closely into the Bork case. I didn't realize that Joe Biden had such a big role in Bork not getting the nomination. Yeah, yeah. His nomination being defeated was, in the way, in Republican memory, it's the thing that justifies every norm violation that they have done in pursuing Supreme Court seats since then, because it was the first time that, according to them, that a justice was or that a nominee was denied a seat based on their jurisprudence and not on any kind of ethical issues. and teddy kennedy were instrumental in getting together sort of the case against bork for his wildly reactionary takes on basically every issue uh and use that as a way to uh declare him unfit for the court i mean he was very vote bork was very vocal in his dislike of civil rights and also

uh anything anti-trust he was is though it's also funny to hear about moralizing from Teddy Kennedy, of all people, especially. Well, the timing of it too, I saw, was like Biden was doing this right after he had to pull out of the 88 presidential campaign too. It sounded like it was a bit of a rebound for him. Yeah, after the plagiarism slash brain hemorrhage campaign that didn't go too well. Yeah, in both those those cases that plagiarism

derailed a presidential campaign and that after you know say kavanaugh that we look at like well bork couldn't be supreme court justice because of x y and z it's like really that's things things were different in 1988 what is criteria if you follow me yeah and we also have the debut of blue-haired lawyer still not named by the show because often with these characters they will eventually give them a name as a joke like a comic book guy and a few other characters but he has never been named and uh the voice is dan castellaneta doing a ray cone impression sorry roy cone impression but the visual appearance is wally cox the actor so another character where the voice is one thing and the design is another thing to be very confusing i mean wally cox looks even more

spineless than roy cone but yeah roy cone had to be one of the slimiest worst people in american history you gotta be up there right matt oh yeah real real piece of work it was the kind of guy does not have a name i don't i don't acknowledge that we shouldn't we shouldn't know i i get it wrong intentionally every time i say it if i'm forced to but yeah he roy cone represented you know all the greats uh rupert murdoch donald trump and most republican i mean every rich guy like steinbrenner him too well friends with nixon he was like the kingmaker for roger stone for like every every bad guy did he ever say the words dinner door uh he would well yes actually bob you uh supplied me with a an easy roy cone clip as uh he's

defending trump uh usfl lawsuit against the nfl in the mid-80s, I guess, right? Yeah, it's actually within a year of his death. This is Roy Code. Tie up three networks. When they dictate to you, you can't play football. When the fans want you to play football. When they tie up stadiums with leases, so you have no place to play. And it's also funny that that lawsuit was anti-monopoly

stuff against nfl but it was only done because donald trump was mad they didn't sell him an nfl team but again to hear roy congo like now the nfl just has too much power this company can do whatever it wants uh but uh if it makes you listeners feel any better he's dying as he's saying those words like his death is coming. He'd probably be in his late 90s now. And I'm sure he'd have been in a Prince Philip state as well if he had not had the bad luck of getting the HIV virus. So blue haired lawyer based on like he's the Roy Cohn is the exact man who would have been Burns' lawyer and would have been very good friends with Burns. Oh, apparently it's not Wally Cox. who would have been Burns' lawyer and would have been very good friends with Burns.

Oh, apparently it's not Wally Cox. It's Charles Lane, the character actor, who is less well-known than Wally Cox, but that's the visual appearance of the blue-haired lawyer. Oh, all right. And yes, as the courtroom begins, I do love the joke that Burns does everything that you shouldn't do at the very start. Your Honor, my client has instructed me to remind the court how rich and important he is.

That he is not like other men. I should be able to run over as many kids as I want. Mr. Burns, I must warn you that if you continue to disrupt the court in this way, I will have to cite you for contempt. You wouldn't dare. Well, no, I contempt you wouldn't dare well no i guess i wouldn't uh i love that the judge admitting like oh yeah i wouldn't sue i wouldn't put a a very rich man in jail for contempt never uh it's a great flustered reading of that line i also this is the first time i noticed like definitely a bunch of rewrites. The blue-haired lawyer's mouth is all wrong.

And the reaction is wrong, too. They are pulling Burns down after he says, I should run over as many kids as I want. Like, his lawyer's like, no, quiet. That doesn't fit with blue-haired lawyer saying, my client wants you to know that he is not like other men like that that seems to go against what their their plan was so i feel like that not like other men line was was a change but it's a great change that just to know that burns was in his ear saying like let them know that i am very rich and not like other people so yes bart comes to the stay stand after burns burns fucking it all up like that's just a good

bit too of like he's he clearly would lose this in any other world he's he's on his way to losing this if it wasn't if this episode didn't have to have a moral to the story or change the uh economic situation of the simpsons uh but bart takes the stand and it's really just great fantasy sequence mostly just visual of him being chased down by burns in his luxury car of death i think what we miss with these uh these fantasy sequences is uh lionel hutz talking to the characters yeah i think because of this we don't get him interacting with the characters in court uh yeah it's true that's uh it it would it would be funnier to hear phil hartman saying some silly thing here instead of uh instead of seeing bart's visual but i love that burns in

the thing is constantly aiming at bart and a rare twister mouth on burns burns has a twister mouth he's i can't i'm still having trouble finding any twister by a non-bart character other than burns here but i think i think that was kirkland going like i love when wes archer does the twister by a non-bart character other than burns here but i think i think that was kirkland going like i love when wes archer does the twister i'll just do it on burns not knowing that the rule is you'd only do a twister on bart like bart's just into it he's like this is acting like i'm on stage like he's so into it uh sometimes i wish i was so good uh also funny thing you can spot in the background when marge and lisa murmur together uh you can spot akbar and jeff behind them really well background yeah uh from life in hell comic

strip in case you don't know akbar and jeff and so yes then burns is called to give his testimony he pulls out a sheet of paper and uh tells his own version of the truth now mr burns would you please relate in your own words exactly what really happened on the day of the accident certainly oh it was a beautiful day the sun was shining i was driving to the orphanage to pass out toys suddenly that incorrigible simpson boy darted in front of me. Oh my goodness! Look what's happened! Oh, it's not important, sir. Let's drive on. You despicable, cool-blooded monster! Regardless of what you think, we must summon help and comfort the dear boy until an ambulance arrives?

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your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricarland.ie. What are you looking at me like that for? You believed his cock and bull story. One thing I noticed in that scene for the first time, I've seen this episode like 50 times, is that when Bart hits Burns' car, the car has stopped. Oh, yeah.

So it's even more good evidence for Burns' side, where it's like his car had stopped, and Bart still hit it hit it yeah it puts all the fault on bart you're right i i just love in burns's telling of the story that bart is this like insane uncontrollable maniac who's like just laughing with maniacal glee as he runs himself into it even as he flies in the air he's laughing and hits the ground like uh such a great such a great view of the world that burns has there and i think that that take me i'm old thing is the writers misremembering a twilight zone episode uh in praise of pip yeah and jack klugman is in it he hears his son has been wounded in vietnam and then he uh finds

a small boy who basically is his son. He hangs out with him. And then I think the small boy fades away. And he's like, take me. Yeah. But he doesn't say I'm old, right? Yeah, no. I pulled up the episode. He's like a bookie who got shot.

And he's like, so he's bleeding to death in the scene, too. And he's just praying to God, like, take me. Take me. But no, no, take me. I'm old. And that uh that yeah it's the klugman jack klugman and bill moomy is uh is the boy he's your all-purpose twilight zone child they they knew two children they could call a boy and a girl to be in every twilight zone episode uh and also like burns kissing him like that's a bit even smithers is mad like that's how many times has smithers looked at burns

angrily and thought that's too far how dare you uh and then i have a brief clip here of the most energy burns has ever had in the show's history they hate me what trial were you watching oh yes settlements fine hang your heads in shame you You overpriced, under-brand, glorified notary publics. Just get that big ape to my house tonight and we'll buy him off with a banana or two. He kind of becomes Otto when he says banana or two. It's yeah, he he he loses decades in that speech, but it's still great. Oh, God, I just I love what a rich guy statement he has of saying you like uh there hate me what trial are you watching like still in his head he's like

i did so good on the stand everyone loves me and he's just being they were saying who earns yes yeah he's just being really inconvenienced by all of this like why do i have to be here it's so great yeah he's like that's uh he's smart to go for the settlement thing after this like he's he's right and also i do love the it's a really i think it was done in post they said or like late but giving you the detail that you can see that homer hears him say it is is extra good it adds a lot of flavor to the next scene though i suppose homer's written so stupid in this episode. He shouldn't even realize they're talking about him.

He's just be like, oh, you wonder who he's going to settle with. Yes. So we head inside Burns is living room. I guess you'd say there's a full size tree in the fireplace and then other jokes. And and also I like that they they do set up you know evil rich guys they it's a timeless bit they they go around the world and they kill animals that it still still works today though i feel like it's like gamified more i don't know it's different uh the when the trump sons kill some animal on a safari it uh it feels uh it feels like it lacks

even the dignity of burns on one of his old-timey safaris. Old-timey safaris, yeah. But yes, Burns is plying Homer with liquor. He says, the trial's an affront to our collective dignity. And he offers Homer $500,000 right there, which I would guess that Hutts takes half of that, too. So really, it's just 250 000 which especially 1991 dollars pretty it's pretty good money but definitely made it got in the pool minimum oh yeah that's that's above ground or uh in ground oh it's gotta be in ground there yeah

yeah because the simpsons at their normal amount of money we see later can't afford an above ground pool so they uh but yes the as as they make the offer to them they leave and then it's it's a corny joke but i like their eyes in the painting yeah is that a psycho reference to him pushing his head up to the people yeah just the way it's framed i think that framing is the psycho framing yeah i think you're right there's more bits here when homer says because he knows he's gonna lose that all bit there the mouth movements are all way off too like i think they the ending has so much adr that it distracts from the rest of the episode but i think they change that for clarity just to make it clear that homer does know that burns is is trying to buy them off because they're this close to winning and yeah

i also i love he he spits on five hundred thousand dollars maybe that is the show showing that like he's this is homer's um wings of wax moments that he's like he he instead of just taking the money he'd have been much richer but he thinks he can get that million so he sticks with it uh but this is when burns learns an important bit of information well marge what do you think i don't know maybe we should take his money and put all this ugliness behind us the fish is in the pan what do you think homer i'll tell you what i think i think he I'm an idiot. The only reason he's offering us this is because he knows he's going to lose the trial and have to pay us a cool million.

Oh, I feel faint. $500,000. I spit on his $500,000. Homer, what's happened to you? All this greediness and lying and shifty lawyers and phony doctors. Phony doctors, hello. Do you know what I'd settle for if it was up to me? Bart's medical bills and an apology.

And you won't even get that. Sorry, office expired. I guess we'll just have to let the jury decide. Twelve good men and true. Good day. Smithers, release the hounds. Instantly, the hounds are released. Also, they inserted the shot from Bart vs. Thanksgiving

of the close-up with the lightning bolt thing behind the dogs. That was straight out of Bart vs. Thanksgiving. Well, first off, I feel like the Simpsons have another lawsuit on their hands against Burns because he invited them there and released the hounds on him. I feel like you got some sort of case there they weren't intruders i suppose burns can just say they were intruders and you get away with it i guess but and also i have to say that blue-haired lawyer is pretty crap at his job if he didn't already doubt the testimony of dr nick riviera yeah we i guess that's why we don't see it a scene of that because it's so flimsy it would be so flimsy you know uh blue haired lawyers should just go like this is a comedic character on stage how can

we how can we have uh even trust the words of this guy this man has a catchphrase they then end the act with marge being called to the stand and there's a really good zoom in on marge i guess the the ultimate question in this episode is like is marge wrong for not just lying on the stand and there's a really good zoom in on marge i guess the the ultimate question in this episode is like is marge wrong for not just lying on the stand and getting the money she could get now i think her taking the oath and swearing to god shows that like maybe she just had a fear of her soul for that lie perhaps i think that's it though maybe she also was like she could have thought huts wouldn't have told her this because he's bad at his job.

But if they already know to question Nick Riviera and she still tries to lie, they probably have a good chance of proving she perjured herself and getting Marge in a lot more trouble. So it's complicated. I think it's more complicated

than the cable episode we'll get to later where Lisa is wrong. You should steal from cable companies. They're the worst. But in this case, yes, Marge could be setting herself up for like greater crimes and, you know, jail sentences possibly. Who knows what's going on? But I don't know.

I don't know. I'm not enough of a lawyer to know. But it seems weird that they could ask her about her opinion of Dr. Nick. I mean, that seems – is that something you can ask someone? Is that something that is applicable to a legal standard of truth? You're talking about an opinion? Yeah. Why did this is a civil?

It seems like Hutts could have objected and said hearsay there, but I'm not a lawyer. I don't know. No, you're right. Yeah. It feels like she would be a character witness for Hutts maybe, but the judge could throw that out or huts could object uh yeah who knows they just they just accept this for the story yeah well then it's a civil case too i don't know like where i mean you can't perjure yourself in a civil case just because it's not a criminal case but yeah i i would guess then it's really just marge's like fear for her soul of lying on

the stand and though some of her reactions to these questions she's like you know now that i think about it like she's written a pretty ditzy in that moment that she doesn't understand what the goal is of putting her on the stand and asking about it like she's she should be a little smarter than this i feel like i do though agree they all should have just come in with a better plan and a better lawyer but like this is our plan to get a million dollars from a rich man who won't miss it who did almost kill bart which again i feel like they absolutely have a case there uh but but yes marge takes the stand and this blue-haired lawyer interchange i kind of wish she talked with the blue-haired lawyer

more like this like it's so funny hearing dan in this in this situation there's a lot of fun crosstalk i like how smarmy he is with her yeah i mean this type of crosstalk is just dead well i mean it's especially over because they don't record in person. I think they didn't record in person all that much as a group into the teens of the show. But now in COVID times, they definitely can't. But yes, Marge tells the truth. Could you describe for us in your own words Bart's intense mental anguish and suffering? Well, I don't know how intense it was. Uh-huh.

But, well, I guess he did miss three days of school. Oh, three days. Although he doesn't really like school all that much. No. So I guess that may not count as anguish. No, it doesn't, Mrs. It was a little hard on me having him around the house all that time. Could you put a dollar amount on all these hardships?

Well, we pay Bart $5 a week to take out the trash. I suppose if he'd been able to do it that week, we might have given him the $5. $5? But your lawyer, assuming he is a lawyer, is asking for a million. Well, we can't blame them for trying, can we? Thank you very much, Mrs. Simpson.

No, Marge. I'm going to write a figure on this piece of paper. It's not quite as large as the last one, but I think you'll find it fair. I think we should take it. You know, Marge should have mentioned the medical bills. Yeah, yeah. On the stand, not just the $5 Bart lost. Yeah.

Burns saying, I think you'll find it fair, made me think of the line from the German episode, I think you'll find it most unfair. You're right. That was the sequel line to that one. That's right, man. He also draws a perfect circle uh like burns has great penmanship with that zero there and homer is like turning the circle trying to make it a

different number possibly yeah he's a dumb man folks man you're right march should have said well the medical bill like when asked like how much money did bart lose say we lost two thousand dollars paying the medical bills of bart being hit by a car by that guy like just at least push it over to that like that the jury might listen there but instead she's too wrapped up in the injustice of burns possibly being ripped off yeah i hate that i i mean it is very realistic that an evil man won in court and he had better lawyers like that's uh but that's a depressing realism you know well because they settle it it doesn't even go to the jury i still think they'd have had a shot

if they gave it to the jury yeah but uh by taking zero i guess it's like well they didn't lose any money in this like they the simpsons didn't have to pay burns back anything i suppose and pay for his legal fees and now we get to the james l brooks portion of the show where we like james l brooks he's very talented but he was meddling with the show at this point in ways that didn't make it better we covered dance and homer and a lot of that show was re-engineered by him and his idea was that because this is animation we can make changes as late as possible we can you know freeze on you know frames of the show and have narration over it or characters thoughts we could basically do whatever we want with finished animation and uh it was told on the commentary that brooks came in with this ending and kind of rewrote the third act of the show to be about this

this scene with homer becoming disillusioned about his marriage going off to mose and then reuniting with marge and brooks is not on the commentary and they're uh politely dismissive of this ending yes the writers in the room if brooks is there or it's after they've done a few more commentaries they are much uh more like you know brooks great idea boss like there's a little more of that spirit in the in the commentaries i mean this ending you know it's not so different from the ending of dance and homer that was just all edited back together because probably from the same spirit of and they they blame they they credit brooks in that too i was saying brooks wanted uh he didn't want just the sad thing of the family driving home they wanted like a minute to make

it about homer's emotions or he finds some new maybe two like the if the ending is just well burns one we're sad and we don't have money i suppose them finding more love for each other is a more hopeful message but it's just kind of weak like if if it had been pulled off it comes out of nowhere it's it's it's not in the the episode until that point like that tension doesn't exist it just emerges yeah and i think brooks also thought oh we need emotion in this episode not understanding it's a john swartzworld episode uh in blood feud uh burns does win right in a way yeah but the ending is marge saying this is an ending yeah there's there's no resolution we're just living

in an ending now and let's just enjoy our lives well you know the work on season two it was you know such a marathon for them that i also think they were just so worn out by the last one in season two that probably brooks didn't have the energy to be like no let's let's find the heart here let's we need a heart to heart about them talking about this whole mech head instead they're just like it's over you know they're they're eating their tv dinners in front of this giant head and trying to just think of what the moral could be but coming up with nothing this is different than just the usual like at the end of uh simpson and delilah or three-eyed fish where uh 20 seconds of them in bed together and marge and homer say oh i i'm sad well you shouldn't be sad because i love you oh hug this is longer than that and far more extended

and it really hijacks the episode really at the end after we've had all this fun with lionel hutz he just goes away and just we have to have all this family stuff i mean i do think it's realistic that for most relationships if one partner could be blamed for costing you a million dollars it would poison it for the rest of your life and you it would just end your relationship right there i read the ending as homer goes into such deep denial that he's like no i love you more than ever he's like no no very deep i think the real homer is him saying like yeah a million dollars worth you treacherous snake woman but yeah i think there's

just so much padding of like voiceover in this like Homer at least Homer's internal monologue is kind of funny here But just a lot of dialogue over people not moving and just a lot of too much just too much room ruminating on things It just it's not a great ending Would you like some more macaroni and cheese million dollars worth a million dollars worth, you treacherous snake woman. Oh, thank you. Some string beans? No, I don't want any string beans either, you two-timing backstabbing. Uh-oh, better answer.

Oh, thank you. Some celery with cream cheese on it. Just mouth-polite nothings. Oh, thank you. You know what would have really been cool? If we got that million bucks. Bart, please. What?

We could have bought tons of great stuff, Mom. Maids, a pool, fancy sweaters. Stop me if I'm wrong. Marge, dear, would it be all right if I went over to Moe's for a drink? Sure. I don't know if I'll ever come back here. Good night. My woman's intuition is telling me something. I wonder what... Oh, my God. Well, that's it. I guess this is the class I'm going to die in. Ah, you're better off. Rich people aren't happy.

From the day they're born to the day they die, they think they're happy, but trust me, they ain't. Well, we should shut up. What's weird about the narration, it's clearly a different audio session and a different recording it just feels like it's so obviously doctored i i i do like mo telling like saying oh they think they're happy but they're not like that uh that mo isn't the sleazebag he is yet he's just like a stupider version of bartender profit type guy one thing they also didn't need was marge saying like my women's intuition like just showing her face you know i think it also comes from like brooks doesn't trust

the drawing to express this information yeah it's like he he looks at marge looking sad or homer looking sadly at his glass of beer and he thinks uh homer or marge needs to say i'm worried about this person doesn't love me like that they apparently don't think that the drawing expresses enough when i think it does i agree i feel like that scene played out originally without the narration over it without the thoughts and it would have conveyed the same information without being so i guess didactic about it and i bet they probably deleted a scene or two to make room for that because that ending with all their narration is like 20 30 seconds longer than it would have been before because they have to like pause on

everybody but uh but i do like homer just very directly telling her like well our love affair and marriage is over but you know we can just have a dead relationship we'll do all the bad stuff do all the bad stuff maybe it won't be so bad. I also, though, when Marge comes in, they all start catcalling her, which is a joke about, like, I guess how no women ever go to Moe's Tavern. And she takes it with gentle good humor. Yes. All of the sexual harassment. Oh, Barney went to high school with her. He should recognize Marge.

He's very drunk. Okay, fine. Fine. That's a good excuse. But, yes, Homer, he's not so sure he loves Marge anymore. And Marge asks him to do one last test. I think that you should look me in the eyes and find out. Homer, look at me.

All right, all right. Look at her if it'll shut her up. Start with the feet. Still angry. Good. Good, Homer, good. This is tough. Need refreshment. Oh, good old trustworthy beer. My love for you will never die.

All right, all right. Got to look at the wife straight in the eyes and tell her... Oh, who am I kidding? I love you more than ever i love you too sorry to scare you like that babe okay everybody for the next 15 minutes one third off on every picture i want my customer domestic beer only hey no sharing yeah they also lean out real hard on mo at the end of like can he do some extra lines there let's just make it a little funnier that but yeah that i love you more than ever yeah the commentary they shot that i was like why mike reese points that out and i i agree with him it's just what it was

a test of their marriage sure but uh it just feels like too much, this ending too much. Like, does he love her more than ever because she did the right thing or was honest to a fault? And he's like, that shows what a pure person you are. I think he was just hammered. He stopped to drink more. He's like, oh, look at you, I love you. And that just got him through to the next day,

and then he kind of forgot about it uh in the morning the resentment comes back and then he drinks more to forget it and uh yeah you know if you uh you could read it as homer becomes a deeper alcoholic from this day forward to try to drown his unending resentment at the the woman who cost him a million dollars i need to be drunk to look my wife in the eyes. That's just how my life is. Yeah, you could read his whole arc from now on as just fleeing from

that reality in alcohol and food. He just can't believe it. But, you know, I guess time has shown that Homer, if he even had that million dollars, he'd have wasted it anyway. So, I mean, what a few episodes in season 12, 12 they're gonna end up with like armfuls of diamonds and and clearly they lost all of that money at the end of their uh their simpson safari oh we'll get to

it i don't think james l brooks intended for us to have this reading but we're correct yeah i he yes james l brooks just wanted a happy mary Mary Tyler Moore episode, hug of an ending of like, and all the lessons were learned. We all love, or just the idea of like, well, marriage is tough conversations, but then realizing you love each other more than ever. You don't blame her for costing you a million dollars. They also like that they really slow down that Homer looking up thing. Like it feels very like early video editing effects there uh i do like his line like my love for you will never die about his about beer that also goes more to the

like increased alcoholism story of homer there but a lot of great firsts in this episode first huts first riviera first appearance of doris grau lots of great burn stuff especially in the first half of the second season they're way into burns i think they're being told at this point please no more burns people want to hear about bart but the ending is a big whiff and it is the james l brooks tinkering a little too much with the show but i can forgive that because the rest of it just so funny this episode was where they like they discovered all these new toys that they could play with and have a lot of fun with and and you could read uh brooks trying to have a less satirical or cynical ending with this.

It was one of his last attempts at saying, like, no, this is a sweet show with tons of heart guys. Here, look, it's the end. And all the writers saw that final scene and thought, this is way too schmaltzy. And then they saw the Hutt scenes and were like, we got to give a hundred more lines to this guy he's the funniest character uh but yeah man any final thoughts

yeah i just as far as uh as courtroom episodes go uh not enough shenanigans insufficient shenanigans it's still fairly down to earth again lionel hutt's had pants on yeah and he wasn't calling David Crosby. As the flanderization begins for him, he gets better and better. But Hutz is one of those magical, and I guess Dr. Nick as well, they're one of the characters that there really was no too far for them. Even in the Scully years of Panda Love, I feel like if they did any joke with huts

that was like oh huts accidentally killed somebody or he he ran over somebody oh yeah he ran over this judge's son repeatedly yeah there was no too far he could be the person you could put any of the jokes you wanted to make about homer being a horrible person just do those with huts and you can have a lot of fun with them uh but sadly you know that's not not how fate uh played out uh but uh but i guess yeah thank you so much matt for coming on this week yeah thanks for having me i guess where where can folks find you and all your great podcasts i mean if some people listening this they probably know but they they should if they don't uh yes uh champo Trap House and Time for My Stories on Stitcher Premium.

And you're still doing live streams too? Yes, trying to do at least one a week on Twitch and then YouTube after that. No, those are tons of fun. I always love watching those. I come out of them feeling so much smarter than before. Well, thank you. So thanks again to Matt Christman for being on the show please check out time for my stories and of course chapo trap house and he's also on twitter as kush bomb as for us if

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Hey, I'm Henry Gilbert. Follow me on Twitter at H-e-n-e-r-e-y-g also if you're following me on twitter and bob you should definitely be following the official twitter account of this podcast at talk simpsons pod if you follow at talk simpsons pod you will stay in the loop whenever new stuff goes out on the patreon on our free feeds whenever there's polls whenever there's other news all of it is talked about there please follow at talk simpsons pod on twitter thanks so much for joining us folks we'll see you next time for the latest episode of our community podcast talk to the audience and we'll see you then Homer, I'd like you to forgive me for doing the right thing. Oh, Marge. We've squabbled over money before. Never this much.

I mean, I know this is different than that time I washed your pants with a 20 in the pocket, but I... No, no, no. You think this is about money? Well, it's not. It's worse, Marge. I'm afraid that from now on,

when I look at you, I'm not going to see the wife by my side or the mother of my children. I'm just going to see the dame who blew my one big chance. What are you saying, Homer? I'm saying she's been your wife for ten years. You've had three children together. It's time to be honest with her.

I'm not sure I love you anymore. But don't worry. I'll never let on. I'll still do all the bad stuff. Maybe it won't be so bad. Oh, my lord! Well, I don't want to wait another minute to find out whether you love me anymore.