Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart-Mangled Banner With Brendan James

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

"Son, I've learned one thing in this life. To stay out of trouble, just say nothing. Don't rock the boat. Don't even get IN the boat! Just buy some ice cream and walk around the pier. But don't go in the bathrooms; they're filthy." - Homer Simpson When Bart unwittingly moons the American flag, the town of Springfield ends up in hot water, and The Simpsons eventually find themselves imprisoned in a reeducation camp. As this political satire unfolds, we must ask ourselves if it's possible to be critical of the current administration while refusing to mention the President—or any other politician—by name. Our guest: Brendan James from the Blowback podcast 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 heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast. That's number one in Hitler City, North Carolina. I'm one of your host, the Kami Pig, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Henry Gilbert, ready to show off my pipes.

And who is our special guest on the line? It's me, Brendan James, and I go to Wrong Fundraiser. And this week's episode is Bart Mangled Banner. Welcome everyone to the annual donkey basketball classic. I'm sure that mule enjoy it. Yeah, tough crowd. Would everyone just rise for our national anthem? This episode originally aired on May 16th, 2004,

and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my God! Troy briefly tops the box office, the series finale of Frazier airs out. after 11 seasons and 264 episodes and then recent Simpsons guest star Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11 wins the Palm Door at the Cannes Film Festival. I have not seen the series finale of Frazier. Do they finally kiss? Daphne and Niles had their baby like the previous season. No, I met Frasier and Niles, Henry.

Oh, no, that I don't think they. America wasn't ready for it. I'm a big Frasier head along with one of my best friends and friend of the show. Libby Watson. The finale is solid. Prazier had an interesting thing where, in my opinion, seasons like 8 through 10, they were 11 in total, are quite a dip because they resolved the Daphne Niles thing. And I think in addition, a lot of oxygen had just gone out of the show. I can't imagine another program in which that's happened. But 11 comes back really strong. I don't know if they like shook it up in the writer's room, but the last season of Frazier is a real

return to form. Yeah, when we have nothing else to watch here, we usually put Frazier on Pluto TV because it's free and it's just on in the background. And I feel like I like the mullet era of Frasier the best because those are the ones I watched when they were airing. And once he loses the mullet, gets a more sensible haircut, I'm kind of checked out. There's like a transitionary period where it's still good, but he's lost the longer hair. I gravitate toward those earlier seasons because I prefer cheers to Frasier and they flanderize him quite a bit in Frazier. So the closer you are to the mullet, you're closer to the source of like the true Frazier, in my opinion. At 264 episodes, that's about less than a third of Simpsons now, I think.

Pathetic. 11 seasons. Is it 11? Yeah, it's 11 in total. Two seasons for the comeback series that just ended, which that was 10 episodes a season. So in two years of it, they couldn't make as much as one season of classic Frazier. I don't acknowledge this thing you just brought up. I don't know what you're talking about. Frazier ended the date you guys just said. I will say, yeah, only 11 seasons, but Kelsey Gramer did play the character for 20 years or more, obviously. And even if you get rid of the reboot, which we should not acknowledge, I think that was a record of some kind. And don't forget all of his appearances on Wings. That even adds to the number. Yeah, he won an Emmy. He either was nominated for an Emmy or something and won various times for Cheers, Wings, and Frasier,

all is the same character. I forgot Wings is part of the Frasier extended universe. Yeah. because it's from the same creators. Yes, he's only in one episode. Frazier and Lilith end up in the airport. I also saw that it has the record for most Emmy wins, at least of a comedy series. I don't know if it's any all series, it might be, but definitely for a comedy series.

Yeah, I mean, there was a funny line when Breaking Bad was ending. Bob Odenkirk, knowing they were going into Better Call Saul, apparently said, as we all know, all great series are judged by their spinoffs. So I would say in that regard, Frazier reflects great on both itself and Cheers, which I think our generation or my generation, whatever, like, doesn't drift to as much as Frazier, but I hope someday there's a renaissance for cheers among my age cohort as well. Who else saw Troy? I saw Troy in theaters.

I saw it. No. Oh, we have two Troyheads in this podcast. Sure, why not? I think if you saw it, you're now officially a Troyhead. I'm not in the Wolfgang Peterson fan club, but I just watched for the first time as an adult in the line of fire, outstanding film. It's great. Troy was kind of like a, not a big sensation in and of itself, but it was part of that post-gladiator wave, you know? Yeah, it was like Gladiator plus the Lord of the Rings

adapting the Iliad, except in the gladiator stuff, ripping it off, it wasn't R-rated, so you couldn't like decapitate people. I remember the cool thing in the beginning when Achilles kills somebody is like he stabs him like once in the chest, there's no blood anywhere, but it's like, yep, he stabbed him perfectly to hit all his vital organs and then walked away. We'll see. Can Christopher Nolan do better with The Odyssey next year? with his adaptation?

It's curious. That one surprised me. I guess we'll see. He loves his epics, so he got enough to work with, I guess. The book rights must have been expensive for that one, though. I think on Twitter,

someone literally posted, I don't know if it was a right wing guy or whatever, but he was like, yeah, you know, the Odyssey, you know, the book, like, why would you have to adapt yet another IP or whatever? And it's just like, well,

I guess it's an IP. Wasn't where that tweet, not surprised at all. And yes, Fahrenheit 9-11, already making waves which also like not only is he was earlier in the season that they had him as a guest to actually play himself. The drawing of him appears in this episode that also is an episode about how the French hate America. And so here we got like the big French film festival giving the award to the film that surely, surely will prevent George W. Bush from being reelected.

I was deep in the Michael Morfold. I was rudely reading, dude, where's my country on campus, no less? showing that off to the crowds. And, hey, stupid white men, also a good book. But no-use bookstore would accept them after the year 2005. Especially when I moved to Berkeley and was trying to sell mine off as well. They were like, they really, in Berkeley, California, they did not, like, that was cheaper kindling. Same with the Stephen Colbert book also. Anything by Al Franken?

Oh, Franken, of course, yes. There you go. Franken is implied to be shot to death in this episode. So I didn't catch the Michael Moore reference. I once had the pleasure of being on stage with Mike, back when I was, I think, filling in for Will with a Chapo tour stop. And we got in trouble for criticizing Kamala in some way, and it was written up, and everyone thought I was Will.

So I was identified as Will Meneker talking to Michael Moore, which, you know, I was happy with because they were yelling at us. So I was like, oh, no, Will, you know, you better watch out. Because any time, you know, I don't, if we fall out, I could just go around and people write articles about me thinking that I'm you. Yeah, Brendan used to be one of Will Mennaker Saddam Hussein-style lookalikes. Yes. Yes, which is appropriate, given the era that we're talking about today as well, yes.

I guess he's just a psych gag in the background of this episode, but I did see him when he gave a speech at my campus in 2004. I think that was the Slacker Uprising Tour, something like that. I thought you meant Saddam. Oh, yes, Saddam. I thought you're making a... It was a very conservative campus. A funny joke about just like, yeah, he actually spoke at my school before things got a little dicey.

I was counting the days to the release of Fahrenheit 9-11. Over the summer, I took my mom to see it. Like that was, among other things. In my house, it was trying to convince my mom to vote for John Kerry, which he did for all the good it did in Florida. But yes, so that is everything that happened in the week. This episode of The Simpsons aired. And joining us once again this week is Brendan James from the blowback podcast. Welcome back to the show, Brendan.

He was last here for season 14's The Bart of War, another vaguely political animated Andy Borowitz column. Which one is that? Is that joined the Navy? That was like season 10 or 11, I think. Yeah, BART of War not as memorable as the Party Posse episode. Oh, okay, it's coming back to me a bit, but... New Kids on the Black. New Kids on the Black.

Okay, which was the other one? Yeah, okay. Yeah, you know, this is my... These are all the episodes of, like, post-season 8 that I've ever seen, so it's strange. I don't remember them in particular, but, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm happy to be the sort of Simpsons-2000s Politico correspondent. I had forgotten the Bart of War one, because that is like... The ending of that episode is, like, the starting point for this episode.

like even with a couple jokes that are just like almost full on repeats yeah well so at the end of that episode what they sing oh canada at the end is that what's happening in that episode yeah i thought so yeah because mill house bart poses his mill house and then sings the national anthem wrong and pisses everybody off and then he basically does the same joke that he does from the stands in this one except it was funnier in bard of war and then they all sing oh canada to bring everybody to i totally forgot it's like the same premise it really is now that you mention you When I saw Lenny in this one, I thought he was going to say, show some respect. My dad died in some war. That is a great line. I'll give that up. I love that line. Brendan, to put this in time, obviously, this episode is a reaction to, you know, post-9-11 situation, political situation in the U.S. And when this episode aired, we were just a couple weeks removed from the release of the photos out of Abu Ghrae prison of torture. George W. Bush standing strongly behind Donald Rumsfeld, as people are calling for his resignation. just to put things in perspective. Sure.

If folks don't know, my show, Blowback, our first season, is about the Iraq War. It's been a little while, but I become too familiar with the timeline of all these individual moments of unsavariness from this era. So it is interesting. You know, we'll get into it, obviously, this episode. But this episode is very representative, I would say, of the sort of mainstream sentiment from liberal writers' rooms, you know, around this time. Yeah, it's not a great up.

It's a really interesting time capsule because it's about the culture of fear in America, fear of being seen as unpatriotic. But the episode is also affected by that culture in that they're afraid to say anything definitive. We do not mention the administration, the president, any specific politicians, except for Bill Clinton, who was here for about a minute. So it feels like they're critical of it, but they're also terrified to say anything. Absolutely. It's funny when Clinton showed up because I was thinking like, well, that Bill Clinton in prison

might come back around to being relevant in our lifetime, maybe, given this week's news about the subpoenas for the Epstein connections that he has. Yeah, I mean, it's a very good look this episode, just in general before we launch in. Like, it's a very good look at the typical type of, I guess if you want to say criticism or a light protest episode you would get from, as I said, I think largely liberal writers' rooms in those days, you know. And in this case, it's like, hey, everybody, please don't get too mad at us liberals. But some of us, of this stuff might be not so great. Let's not sacrifice our liberties or whatever, but you better believe the one guy you meet in the episode who's Muslim is a terrorist. So the Bush people might be

on to something. They just need to go about it better. And at the end, we'll throw in that illegal immigrants are pouring over the border. Anyway, when was DHS established? Was it one year before we released this episode? Oh, who knows? We're doing brilliant satire here. They are both deciding it despite their direct goals seemingly. And I feel like this episode goes live in two months. We will see Bill Clinton hit with a fire hose in prison before that happens. Oh, yeah, the delay. I mean, so many things could happen by the time this is out.

As I'm reacting right now, he has just been subpoenaed. So I look forward to listening to this and looking at the news when it comes out. I think this came up in another one we did recently where it was Bart. They talked about how they lost their Emmy and they thought they lost the Emmy to South Park that year When they actually didn't, they lost it to Samurai Jack. But that just shows you how in competition they felt they were with South Park. And this feels like them trying to make a South Park, except they don't go as far as South Park. The South Park certainly also is, I feel, had a moderate position on it, too.

But also, like, they can't be timely because it takes them much longer to make an episode than South Park. So they can't, like, rip things from the headlines. And that's especially like Al Jean on the 2011 commentary. being very clear that he regretted it, but he said they were always worried, he was always worried about taking a real stand on W because the position on him by the public change so much he couldn't trust, he felt he couldn't call where it was going to be by the time the episode aired. Yeah, I suppose that's the trouble with becoming one of the, albeit cultural, institutions of America, is that you have to care about that. You know, like, why do you have

to take the temperature on what most people of any audience think about the president if you're going to do your commentary on it. That's not a great approach. If you want to get into this kind of political commentary or social commentary, you don't have to. And at times it seems as though they really wish they didn't have to. I'm sure I probably said this in a previous episode from this era, so I apologize if I'm repeating myself. But I was thinking about that South Park episode. They did a bunch on the war on terror, I think. But the one where they go to Afghanistan, it was just like the week after 9-11, I think. And even though they sort of cop out at the end of that episode and say, you know, America's got to do what it's got to do, it was still kind of daring to, you know,

in that moment when Americans were not only sort of still shocked that we were attacked at all, but also about to enter a seething rage to kill everyone else on the planet, to go take your characters to Afghanistan and meet Afghan Cartman and have them say, like, actually, you know, you've destroyed our country. That's interesting. This is three years later. later, the war in Iraq's already on, and all the Simpsons can come up with is, you know, as you said, a rather tepid offering of, well, let's not become what we fight or whatever. And the South Park guys were also had the advantage that they were still in their prime in this era. So, in my opinion, like I actually think much like the Simpsons, the best South Park is three through eight seasons.

So even though there's like some, you know, kind of lame politics, you know, there's the, I'm a little bit country episode, which has a similarly dumb message. But at least they're still funny and there's good jokes, even if the classic South Park conclusion is both sides are gay or whatever. You still have some fun along the way, which is not quite the case with these Simpsons episodes. Also very funny, this super liberal-minded episode, for the most part, the entire first act is about the dangers of vaccines. Yes. Is that crazy? Yes. And yes, they have serious side effects.

Do your own research. Bart didn't. Look what happened to him. There were several things in this that have not been properly. mined by the Simpsons predicted it machine I felt. Quick behind the scenes thing on this said the writer of the episode

John Frank pitched it. It definitely was a reaction to post 9-11 stuff. He had seen news stories about kids not properly respecting the flag getting headlines back then. There was a lot of general like the flag was everywhere. David Cross had a great joke back then I remember. He's like

eat the flag, eat it. Take a pill and shit out the flag. Like the flag's so great. Like I love that comedy back then too. They then wrote the episode and it's had original third act that was sounded a little more grounded all they say on the comment and there's no script out there I wish I could find one but all they say on the commentary is like that Homer like hangs out with HW Bush again and they talk about being neighbors and they like share a beer and that sounds like it also a rather like concert a centrist moment moderation for sure yeah I think that almost would have been worse listening to you describe it it sounds like we're doing a lot of pre here. I'm sorry, but it sounds like they're a little ashamed of this speaking for 2011 because they were not hard enough on Bush. They were too afraid they call him out. They're actually pretty hard on Democrats and Clinton for weird reasons. And also they were talking about how they just were generally afraid to make fun of Bush because things could change in nine months.

I don't know why they would be afraid of that, but they were. And I think they mentioned a pitch that Dan Graney had. That could have been a bad episode. But it was about Bush trying to rehabilitate his image. And to do that, he takes Homer around the country with him to show, see, there's a person dumber than me. But they were like, no, no, no, we don't want to go there because it's a little too specific. It's a little too pointed. And again, afraid of if

his reputation could be rehabilitated when that eventually aired. But looking back in the Obama era, they're like, no, we were wrong. We should have been meaner. And we look kind of out of date and out of touch by not being mean, that is pathetic. Like, is he dumb or not? I mean, he could be popular and dumb.

If you want to say that, if you want to get some good jokes out of it, even people who liked him thought he was dumb you know like that premise wouldn't have even really been affected so yeah sorry i mean obviously yeah i'm a certain amount of respect still for the people who created the show but that's it's a little uh yellow-bellied yeah one final thing they don't say his name in this episode i don't think they say the name george w bush yet in the history of the show except for when homer has the two bad neighbors plot yes right when no one knew who george bush junior was which is what he called him so not even in this episode to date they are still afraid i think the first time

they even broach the subject is when Homer says something is unfair because we're in Dick Cheney's America, but that's as close as they're getting around this time. Jeb got more of like a formal name check than W did. Yeah, it was George Bush Jr. And Jeb Bush. Yes, right.

The third act they switch it to, they say that after the first table read, that's when they make their drastic change to the much bigger Guantanamo Bay basically ending that they ended up with. Though I will say to counter what Gene is saying on the 2011 thing of like oh he wish he was more direct on w and i wish that too

think of all of the stuff they did with trump from 2016 onward in like digital shorts for the show those weren't very funny i mean like i said i have the get out of jail free card and that i don't think any of it's particularly funny so that's where i'm coming from but you raise a very salient point henry maybe it's good they didn't get more political yeah they could end up looking really bad because there is a short out there at one of their trump shorts where the point of the short is he actually has no supporters it's all made up ah which look at the popular vote that's not true well there's one where maybe you should have cooled your jets you know because it turns out to say cool your jets man exactly but all right well why do we get to the episode itself then so

we start with the kids getting a happy little ride where they realize it's being too nice and that they are being given too many gifts and kittens and i feel like my parents just told me i was going to the doctor or the dentist, and I just remember being just filled with anxiety, not like, surprised. I remember being excited because it meant I got to leave school. That's a plus. Oh, that is nice. Yeah. Were you not taken out of school for this stuff, Henry? I always was.

It was great. Maybe a couple times. Sure. Yeah, I think it was, but I remember more like afternoon kind of doctor and dentist stuff. And Lisa, I guess Volvo was the liberal-coded thing back then. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. We arrived. Dr. Hibbard, again, being the villain. Just remember

again, this season, he has killed. Killed Snowball 2 and he has forced puppies upon the family. I don't know if you knew this, Brandon, but Hibbert killed Snowball 2. I didn't know it. He does have a menacing air to him in this episode that I was on, I was sort of surprised by. This is where it's, uh, kids don't like getting shots. That's the grounded comedy we're starting in here. It's crazy how time changes with all this stuff here.

Who knows by October? Things are already being pretty crazy this last week about vaccines and RFK. Oh, yeah. He just ended the MRNA program at the time of this recording. He cut like half of, I don't know how much money he cut, but from vaccine funding in general. Yeah, I don't know. By October, all vaccination suppository form. That's the goal.

This is where Bart dodges his attempt as he says, Karate, which I don't know who wanted this, but this was becoming a brief catchphrase in season 15. He already said it in my mother the carjacker. Remember that, Bob? No. But what a weird runner. Were they selling a new Bart doll with new catchphrases? Was there ever an attempt, this is a good, for me, like, in my ignorance of this era, like, was there an attempt at any point to re, yeah, just to like run back to the days of catchphrases

and like Simpsons branded moments the way that people remembered from the very early days with, I guess, as you say, like new things for people to repeat and say in certain situations? Yeah, that's a good question. And I feel that from maybe season five onward, any Bart catchphrase was a joke about Bart having a catchphrase. Like they may have a lot of fun with him saying, don't have a cow. Or like when Lisa steals his catchphrases in the summer of four foot two, he's outraged by it.

And I think somebody says, you haven't said that in years. And then at the end where they bring back everyone's catchphrase or semblance of a phrase. I don't remember which episode it is where it's like Maggie's got the pacifier. Mr. Burns says excellent. Bart says, I carumba. My memory's failing me which one it is. But, yeah, it was always at the expense of the idea that these are, you know, branded characters for T-shirts and stuff. That's interesting that they were trying to get something going here with Karate.

That one you're remembering is Bart gets famous. Of course, of course. Yeah, and when Bart did it, I was like, when did he else do this? And the only other time was when Homer is seemingly being attacked by a mysterious individual who turns out to be his mother in disguise. And Bart's like, I'll save you, dad. And he, like, jump kicks at her and says, Karate. That's right. Right. This time he's using a hobo skeleton as defense here.

I did chuckle at the sign gag of the Springfield's Children's Cemetery. That gave me a chuckle. That's the distraction he's told to look at while he gets his shot. But Bart escapes, see you later inoculator, not that funny, but him stealing a car and driving away off screen. I chuckled at that too. And now it's time for another thing of the Algene era, which is obvious montage songs, in this case,

Blondie's one way or another. Yes. Before that, I'll call out one of the funnier darker jokes, is Hibbert saying no one escapes the needle, which is a Death Row reference. Yeah, I collect that too, yeah. That was good. Not a lot of hilarious stuff happening,

but I like some of us more sinister lines. But, yeah, we are in the era of the obvious montage song, and I think it's a way to not think as hard about the montage choice, but you're supposed to laugh, like, oh, I can't believe they use this song, the most obvious song about a character trying to catch another character. As you've said, Bob, it's always fun to know that Disney had to pay to license this again for streaming, so it costs them more money. For every song that they have in an episode?

yeah at least up until a certain point because the streaming rights were not negotiated it was only broadcast rights and then i assume once dvd started existing they would negotiate that upon the licensing of the song and then whenever streaming rights kicked in that would be part of it but at this point i feel like that was not in effect so disney does have to pay for these wow yeah that's an interesting aspect of physical media re-releases or i suppose actually streaming as well now that i think about it speaking of cheers again you cannot find i think at this point there's a couple episodes where because of a licensed song that they just could not, that, I don't know, Paramount or CBS, whoever owned them at the point of these releases, they weren't willing to shill out the cash. You can't find the original versions of the episodes. And in one case, there's not even a generic song popped in. Like, sometimes they just dub over with, like, a comparable song

or, like, from the library of, like, easy, generic versions of songs. There's one scene in Cheers where it's gone. Like, it just hard cuts in the middle of the scene to the bar when you were out in Fraser's house. and it's without any explanation because they were just like we can't have that they're playing it on the piano so we can't like pretend that a song is being layered over this and it sucks it like ruins the episode in a lot of ways it's crazy to imagine i know disney has the money but it's crazy to imagine like having to go through this entire catalog and pay for stuff again back in olden DVD times shows like the wonder years and mary the children couldn't have even been released with their original theme songs i remember baywatch just got uh reading about like baywatch got an hd re-release recently and even though that is such a hit show they cut out many songs from it because i remember seeing people share i think there was like a beach boy song that they just in the funniness of it is

they did find a sound alike of you know free to use beach boy type song they put over a scene i'm imagining the song skeetin or shooting or whatever in the top secret with val kilmer at the top where it sounds like a beach boy song but they're talking about skeet shooting yeah i get very interested in like the business side of all that management of licensing and stuff the simpsons has got to be a rich tapestry of stuff they have to keep track of we also get another north by northwest reference not as funny as the is what a cornfield looks like honey did like the i mean i've seen so many of these there's so many north by northwest jokes of this kind but the drug addicts coming out of the cornfield to take the clean needles was a nice a little nice little zinger on that one though the

wife was also hibbert the red baron in it that's like another level to it That's not needed. I don't know. This is where in our first clip here, Hibbert finally corners Barts, and Barney and Mo are canceled. Thanks, Barney. Mo, we won't need you now. Okay, well, I really enjoyed being you, Dr. Hibbid. Oh, by the way, you're not welcome in a library no more. I'm sorry.

Now, that wasn't so bad, was it, Bart? You know, sometimes the fear of... Whoa, something's wrong. Ah, ah, I can't hear! Doctor, perform a diagnosis! Hmm. I'm afraid the inoculation has swollen his ear holes shut. Maybe this would be a good time to talk about side effects.

The boy's hearing should clear up in a day. If it doesn't, call me in the Bahamas. For now, we can express himself with this complimentary pen. Cool. Oh, it's a good pen. Try it out. That was a malpractice waiver, fool. So, yes, I asked that Disney de-list this episode because Barney and Moe both are in blackface for this episode.

It needs to go away. I didn't even think of that because it's a mask? Yes, yeah. I mean, they also have like gloves on their hands, too. I kid, of course, but it is a joke about two white characters pretending to be one black character. But you never think about race, even though they did proceed this with a black-on-blank. black violence joke. Right. Well, someone who wants to sacrifice their career can test

this out. Do masks count as blackface? Try it out. Boy, well, then I guess everybody who like bought an Obama mask for Halloween for like years is canceled then too, right? Scour Facebook, 2008 to 2010. We're going to find out.

As you mentioned, Bob, that death prick pamphlet is probably just handed out now at all doctorate offices in the U.S. Yeah. I think it just posted on every Facebook page. even if it's not about vaccines I like the slow reveal that Bart can hear nothing

and just that like and then in the next scene him reading Temporarily Death magazine they pretty much get out every this person can't hear joke that you can get out of the show in these few minutes here also it's funny the cover of Temporarily Def

is like some bikini babe because this is the era of Maxim which the month before this Marge is on the cover of Maxim Oh God and she's got a big old-timey list Sninghorn. Does she?

Yeah. On the cover of temporarily deaf, yes. Not Marge Simpson. And Homer failing to scare Bart. My favorite bit in the deaf section is Homer simply not realizing that Bart can't hear. Like, it just never registered. Homer's too stupid to understand this. Then we get a very 2004 joke on bullying because they want to do identity theft.

Then a new internet phenomenon. I do like the bit of like, he knows deep down, all bullies are. cowards we're undone and they run away yeah one bit of canon they didn't keep is that willie has been deaf since 1988 yes yeah it's crazy that so willie has been canonically deaf every previous appearance in the show he just has been assuming mostly correctly what people are saying in every scene he's been in before this one i'll be keeping an eye out if in the very next episode perhaps even willie clearly has the ability to hear we will see though the best damn starbucks in glasgow i don't of that joke. It's not so funny

to me. If we're rating every joke of not being funny. But we're doing it. I mean, four out of ten. That's the dangerous feature to introduce. Now we're at the dinner table, and this is where Homer still cannot get Bart to hear anything. He just doesn't get it. And this is where

Bart learns that he's going to have to miss out on some big things. Bart past the ketchup. Bart has to ketchup. Dad, he's deaf. Sorry, right. BART, pass the corn. BART, pass the corn!

I think you should stay home from school tomorrow. Mom, tomorrow's the big donkey basketball game. The kids are going to play the teachers. Donkey basketball? Now I've heard everything. Unlike you! Ha! ha! Ha! ha! Oh!

Everybody remember that from when his hearing comes back. When I first watched this episode, I'd never heard of it. basketball. Oh, I guess it's a charity thing. They never did it in my school, but I saw a few references to it in media before this, but it just never happened. I certainly had never heard of it. I thought it was a gag. Yeah. Going to school, there were like teachers play the students things that like flag football or like there was powder puff football games, which is when the cheerleaders play and the players are cheerleaders. I wonder if that still happens now or not, but never donkey basketball. Now, Henry and I, Elder Millennials, Brendan, a bit younger than us.

Henry, I know where I saw this for the first time. It was on an episode of Wild and Crazy Kids, the Nickelodeon cable show in which you watched other kids be active while you sat on your ass and ate chips and drank soda. And I believe one of the fun sports they showed off on that program was Donkey Basketball. Man, I'm totally, I am lost on remember that. And I was a regular viewer of that. I remember the bat spinning games. It felt like they did that every episode or something on Wild and Crazy Kids. And that was with what, Cuba Gooding Jr.'s brother was on that show, wasn't he?

Omar Gooding. But I assume this is Lost Media, so I can just say whatever I want happen on this show. I'm surprised. That show seemed like a cheap show that Nickelodeon wouldn't pay to rent donkeys to do it. I do like the design of the donkey basketball poster as well. Al Jean said he also had never heard of it and simply trusted the writer pitching it that it was a real thing. They also have a funny bit on the commentary of saying that when they worked at the Gary Shandling's show, Gary Shandling would only improve ideas of things that happened to him in real life.

So they came up with an idea that they would try to pretend to have something happen to Gary Shandling. Like they would fake an event in front of him and then pitch it to him so he would do it. That's brilliant, actually. I think that's a, also I like Shandling's philosophy there. I would probably end up mandating that if I ever had the power to have a writer's room. because why not? If it didn't happen to me, shouldn't be in it.

It's funny that we just recorded Sweet Seymour Skinner's badass song, which I think everyone has heard by now. We recorded it recently, but Chalmers is back at it with his pun game, and he's failing once again. It's kind of the same joke, but I like him getting nothing.

He's actually more unpopular than Skinner for this one. Skinner, like, is a pro and takes the mic back from him to be like, well, I'll get us back on track here. Yeah, it is very similar to his like, just a popularity contest with you kids here we are to the national anthem which was you know omnipresent back then and then what 10 years

ago or yeah 10 years ago we had the national anthem controversy was kneeling during it and that was disrespectful of flag where are we out on national anthem like I mean obviously in our fascist America KKK you have to support it but I feel like I haven't seen

like national anthem like news stories lately no I think they kind of spent that I forgot, God, it's amazing that it happened and then amazing that it was 10 years ago. Yeah, the Colin Kirkpatrick or what was his name? Kaepernick, was it Kaepernick? Yeah, Colin Kaepernick, yeah, sorry.

I mean, not that we're out of the woods, but just to think that there was not just a news cycle, but a national controversy about kneeling during the anthem, which is like kind of its own way imparting some reverence to the moment, even if it's a protest moment. It's not like, you know, the debate was whether you should make yourself. throw up during it or, you know, like, or as Bart does, you know, like truly defame some kind of patriotic imagery. It was just like, no, we're, we're going to have a national psychosis because someone kneeled during the anthem. It's sort of wild to look back on it. Well, yeah, I mean, like Nelson crying during it also feels like that way of saying, like, see, even the mean bullies love our country

so much. It's like when the Joker is like, you know, I'm crazy, but I'm not a Nazi. That's just wrong, you know, or whatever. it's like when Dr. Doom cried on 9-11 Henry back me up on this one of the most wonderful terrible comic pages of all time he was crying and he was also thinking only 3,000

idiots yeah I love that I love when it just completely runs against the entire premise of this thing you've been doing where someone's just like I mean I assume I don't know comics that well

I assume Dr. Doom has plotted or succeeded to do worse things than 9-11 but Far, far worse. I mean, if we're counting him changing universes, that would affect like billions of people dying. So, you know, it's pretty high up there. Well, also, I guess who knows by October, the loyalty you should be swearing might not be the national anthem. It should be to not support the BDS movement. That will be the... I think we already passed that in some places. So, yeah, we're there. We're basically there. And I don't want a Simpsons episode about it. Brandon, you're not going to like that. I was planning on inviting you to the episode where the Simpsons go to Jerusalem with Satcha Barron

going in season 21 oh god that could happen don't say that no that's a real episode i'm describing that really happened oh you do you're not fucking with me oh my god i thought you were i thought henry was joking until he said season 21 and i thought oh okay this is real oh my god i thought you were kidding all right all right moving moving right moving right i can't even don't even talk to me about that it's okay it's not going to go anyway now you're loving this episode what you're imagining that season 21 episode that is a good strategy henry is that Because every time we get further along, I think, God, that Bart of War wasn't so terrible.

We'll watch that one again, maybe. So everybody's respecting the flag. While Bart, they bend over backwards to give the excuse of Bart isn't actually disrespectful intentionally. He is deaf. He's just joking around. He doesn't know it. Later, he will say, but I don't hate this country, which is like, I feel, that's like when you watch movies about the Hollywood blacklist and the main character goes like,

hey, I'm a political. It's just like, can't the person actually. It'd be better if this guy actually did hate America and we're defending his right to hate it. Yeah, which in itself is a cliche, but it's more interesting than this, again, as you guys said and as I came in ready to say, just the absolute, like, sterile nature of the protest episode here. It was just like, no, no, Bart didn't do anything wrong really, whereas it's, of course, makes you think of Bart versus Australia. And just the character of Bart Simpson is a kid who does bad stuff and who flies in the face. of polite society and now they're saying

like we need to ring a plot out of this but our character can't be that bad again it's the Dr. Doom thing like you know like he can't be that evil to have mooned the flat or whatever happens yeah it's really that failed strategy I hope we've abandoned it now but the failed

strategy of actually we love America more and no one loves the First Amendment more than this guy well we're about however many it was seven or eight months the time of recording away from that being the strategy once again in the last election so we'll see if that ever goes away but i mean you kind of have to like i get it you have to say it not if you're a simpson's writer i'm talking about politicians it'd be pretty hard to be like you know i mean jimmy carter came

the closest to saying maybe this place kind of sucks but even then it was in a certain context he would never really like no one's going to go there but if you're writing the simpsons this is a really again like such a an interesting moment to see from where they've come like hw bush calling them like a public enemy you know and now they won't even mention his son's name in an episode ostensibly trying to say that bad things were happening because of him you know when this episode aired we're just what eight weeks away I think from a certain senator reporting for duty hmm oh yeah it turns out he went AWOL everyone this cycle is like literally every two years of like well what if they ran a veteran at the democrat it's like never fucking

works like it's that doesn't matter they will still be said to be of america hating muslim no matter what their background is anyway why bother with this shit just conform to your stereotype and you'll be surprised how much you wrangle people in give people free stuff if you're a democrat they're going to say you're going to do it anyway so why not just have the benefit of actually doing it rather than not giving anyone free stuff and being said that you gave them free stuff at least do the thing don't try to be a party of salutes and flags and stuff. Leave that to the Republicans. You'll never catch up. Your diet cook. I stopped turning to the Simpsons for politics in the 21st century. Instead, I went to Metal Gear Solid. Hey, now. And that's what informed me politically after that point.

Now, folks, if only there were a show that by now is out discussing the merits of Metal Gear Solid from sometimes a political, sometimes a humorous lens with, say, Felix Beaterman of Chapo Trap House and someone like me. One would only hope that by October that has come into the world at the Chapo Trap House Patreon. I literally don't know what the title of it's going to be called, so my cheeky little plug here has to end now, but you get it. Metal Gear Solid is a much richer text to follow the 21st century.

Is it available via Kodak frequency, Brendan? My opening joke is I'm calling in for Kodak. And you have to, of course, be mailed an actual jewel case in order to enter the code and then listen to the show as per the first game. Yeah, anyway, I so agree, Bob. But now I'm picturing like some kind of Simpsons Metal Gear mashup And again, I have to move right along from my thoughts. I believe in this episode aired it was six months before the original release of Metal Gear Solid 3.

Hell yeah, let's talk about that game. I wish. I wish we were talking about that game. But again, and we'll have a remake of that around this time too. So, yeah. I think this Bart being deaf and then therefore it's an even more convoluted construct as well for him to accidentally do something naughty. you know like even the the kind of mix-up could have been a little punchier

a little less like you know contrived as well some intentionality on Bart's part would at least like put a few more teeth back in this satire it's kind of funny I know it's an accident too but it's kind of funny when Homer steps on the Mount Rushmore and the I don't know what the other model is it's like the Capitol building or something and then he's like crunching his feet and making it worse

like that's funnier than you know that feels a little bit more like true to the characters as opposed to Bart like not being disrespectful for some reason and this is where Bart gets photographed and then realizes as he sees all the booing he doesn't have his hearing back yet and this is where we mentioned like the Lenny Lenny has a dull camp tattoo which is okay but there's a better joke in Bart of War like he said

Yeah and the mechanics of the mooning Bart is taunting a donkey with a carrot He sticks it in his back pocket turns around the donkey eats his shorts No joke was made about that, which I found strange. And then he is pantsless, and it's revealed that he's moaning the flag. But I was waiting for the E. My Shorts Joe. Maybe it's supposed to be just self-evident, I guess. Is that they're just like, I mean, it is fairly obvious.

Maybe they were relying. They don't need us to be told, but I don't know. I feel like the show would not show that self-control if they found a way to have Bart's shorts get eaten. When I checked the DVD deleted scenes, which there's two, but they're only in the third act. There was no Eat My Shorts thing. on the commentary they never even bring it up but yeah you would now when the simpsons is in a better era i would think it's intentionally restrained to not say it because they're like oh obviously but this episode has many obvious jokes so it's strange they it doesn't feel like intentionally

restrained it feels like they forgot to make it yeah i don't know yeah that's kind of odd that's kind of odd there we also get a joke about you know people who love the confederacy being mad about the flag yeah that hypocrisy is old to me now we end the act with Bart's being shunned we come back to the headline Indy No Pants Day as Skinner lets Vince to the family about how upset he is about this

and he doesn't believe that Bart was deaf and obviously makes sense he notes all the things and there's a great joke of the start there too where Skinner says as a veteran of America's only losing war to date Homer knows what's coming he knows what's coming so Brendan on your Korean War season

And don't you guys make the argument that America also did lose that war, too? It's not so different from Vietnam, really. You know, I mean, it was essentially a stalemate. They had to come to talk. So, I mean, at that point, I think you could argue it was a victory in that that was a confusing war because you had the MacArthur side, you know, who was actually on the ground militarily, wanting to conquer all of Korea. And much like the South Korean government, turn it all into a U.S. depending on your politics, ally, or client state. If you were the more like blue-blooded members of the Truman administration,

you just wanted to drive the North Koreans out of South Korea and call it a day. So technically that's what happened. But it wasn't a victory. So, I mean, a lot of Americans died to say nothing of the Korean debts. So if you're on the scoreboard with America, you could definitely argue it was a loss. But Korea in general, that was kind of why we did that season, And Korea in general is this strange, like, foggy part of the map that no one goes into. You know, it's like a demo tape for Vietnam in a lot of people's minds, you know.

San Francisco. I'm not made of money. We'll swim to Oakland. The Simpsons, all new next on Fox. Welcome to the break, everybody. It's Henry Gilbert, properly saluting the flag under gunpoint. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Brendan James from the amazing podcast, blowback.

It's always awesome to have Brandon on here, especially for an episode so steeped in the George W. Bush era of politics that Brendan knows. so well. Seriously, check out all the great season of blowback that he has done with his co-host, Noah Colwyn. They have an awesome new one coming real soon. Not to mention,

he's also doing a podcast about the Metal Gear Solid Games on the Chapo Trap House Patreon. Thanks again, Brendan. And if you enjoy this week's podcast, you should know it's only possible because of supporters like you that keep me and Bob out of prison. For five bucks a month, you

not only get tons of ad free extra podcasts. You could listen of this podcast or next week's actually without any ads like this one and you also get access to so many bonus podcasts do you wish to hear us cover futurama or king of the hill we do that every month but only for our five dollar and up patrons of patreon.com slash talking simpsons and you get the entire back catalog of seven years worth of exclusive podcasts we've done there that includes us doing every episode of the critic every episode of mission hill our many favorite episodes of batman the animated series and so many more. Sign up today at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons to get that all the ad-free bonuses you're missing out on.

Do you want something that feels even nicer than moving to France, then you'll enjoy extra fancy $10 a month level of patreon.com that gets you all the $5 things and also basically three extra podcasts a month. I am referring to our What a Cartoon movie podcast, where we cover an animated feature film as in depth as we cover an episode of The Simpsons, which means last month you would have heard us talk about the Lego movie, a ton to say about that important film from the creators of Clone High. And this month you're going to hear us talking about the fantastic Mr. Fox, the first animated feature film directed by Wes Anderson. And that's just the most recent stuff. We've covered so many Disney films, Pixar films, Studio, Yo Ghibli films, Batman movies, Akira, who framed Roger Rabbit, all the Beavis and Budhead movies, so much stuff there,

and all the $5 things, too, that you get for your subscription. So please consider going to the $10 level today at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons to see all of the awesome stuff you're missing out on. One more time, check it out at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Since this episode aired, of course, we did lose in Iraq end of Afghanistan. Homer, I do feel like that to-date joke is the general, like, it's starting to turn on Iraq, at the very least, by 04. Though that could also just be, I could see that as the moderate stance joke, too, because Kerry, for example, was saying then, you know, like, I'd have done this, but better. I'd have listened to the generals, all that stuff.

Like so when we're losing the war, it's not because we couldn't, shouldn't have done it. It's that John Kerry or somebody else would have run it better than George. Yeah, I mean, I think the joke still works either way. That's a good little joke. But you're right. I mean, in that the popular opinion of the war turned real quick. It was kind of astounding how they didn't get even a little bit more mileage after such goodwill after 9-11. And the invasion of Afghanistan, which did not sour in anybody's minds for much longer.

2004, as you said, Abu Ghraib, you know, that was. It was a bad one for the legitimacy of the war as well. And so this is where the whole town and the media is starting to turn on The Simpsons. Trader! Thank you. And let me say, I missed your sweet, sweet voices. Cram it, Iraqi. Why'd you diss the flag?

It partied on the moon. Weren't we afraid of him just a few days ago? We're complex. All right, who could take a story and blow it way out of proportion? I'm your man, boss. I want you to overhype this story so much it makes the New York Post look like the New York Times or the New York Times look like the New York Post.

Forget which one the good one is. Now they're both bad. There's a funniness in there somewhere. Again, like New York Times, obviously. It was not a paragon of integrity during the Iraq War era, of course. So, you know, although probably Simpsons viewers thought it was a good paper, could lay a lot of the media blame squarely on the New York Times. Times more than the post because the post is the post you know whatever it's going to do it like

we said before like you know the Republicans are going to do the flag and xenophobic stuff and you expect that the post you expect it to be kind of like a you know a terrible rag but New York Times really didn't emerge looking so good and I think it's still I don't think it ever fully recovered the Times so that joke it still rings kind of true there you know I mean the Times is like the one that W. hated then though yes they were in favor of invading Iraq, just like every other, like, major institution. And I feel like I've heard this as a truism that the New York Times has never objected to any American military action as it happens, like the editorial board or whatever. Yeah, if you go by like editorial board, I don't know

this, but it would be interesting to see. I mean, but then you can say they run op-eds that do disagree. I don't know. But I mean, certainly, just on a factual basis, they were spitting out, like, very, very cooked intel. And, you know, I don't expect. expect a paper to say, we stand against this war outside of the editorial, which, of course, they didn't. But people sort of now look at Knight Ritter, Media Company. Night Ritter is one of the very few American outlets that was seriously and at every step correctly challenging all of this bogus evidence. And the Times, not even close. This year, we've seen that, like, when it comes to just specifically the New York Post and the New York Times with, say, the New York mayoral campaigns

going on. It seems like the New York Post is just straight up, hateful. And while the New York Times more puts it as like a question, like people feel things. Who knows? Yeah. Same with Gaza. They're both essentially pushing the same position, but with a much

more finesse on the time side. I kind of like that joke. Not that it's saying what we're saying right now, but I did like someone not knowing or particularly caring which one is the good one. Obviously, time has passed this satire by also because small town newspapers no longer exist. It's the other thing.

Spread things. These stories go viral now much faster, honestly, of the Barts of the world mooning flags type things. I feel like more it's father's having fights at wrestling events or something or at football game. Well, for Bart, there's no podcast industry to bounce into after this event. You're right. To turn his fleeting fame into some sort of cottage industry.

Yeah. But then also get disgraced again from doing a crypto scam on his fans and listeners. And who knows where Haktua is at when you're listening to this? What's she doing these days? Six feet in the ground. That's my prediction. Wow. Okay.

All right. You know, again, look at the scoreboard at home, folks. See how our predictions. There are some angry investors. I'm not one of them. I fear for Haley Welch's safety. I know her name. Did I either see Cloud, the new Kyoshi Kurosawa movie?

No, that's on my watch list, though, and I'm dying to see it. Well, I won't spoil anything, but the scenario you just outlined is very much the premise of that movie. So you definitely want to check that. out. Speaking of sequel jokes to better episodes, we have some jokes about how Apu is undocumented, though I'll say canonically, he didn't come into the country illegally.

He overstayed a student visa, but his entry was fully legal and approved. Like you said, Brandon, this is more of the, like, centrism, punch left kind of thing alike. This is a very anti- undocumented episode. And now I understand, Henry, you were saying undocumented. They are not saying

undocumented in this episode. They're saying illegal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's 2004. I understand. The language has not evolved, but there's a little stink coming off of that these days. Oh, yeah. It was one of those issues where serious people could disagree about how to solve it, but we all agree there's a crisis, you know, at the border. And yeah, I mean, the Bush term, it's overshadowed by things like, I mean, it was such a disastrous presidency, both terms, obviously, but overshadowed by things like the Iraq War and Katrina and just general corruption and malfeasance. But there was a real fight at the time, as there

always has been since about immigration. And I think the signaling here, the messaging here is, well, we all agree there's definitely some huge problem, whatever it is. Let's show ourselves to be reasonable liberal critics by bringing that up. They're trying to, you know, like leaven their, again, almost non-existent criticism of the war on terror with, don't turn away from this, because we'll give you the immigration stuff, you know, and we'll say that we also think that's bad. One of Harris's rare blunders last year was trying to moderate on immigration and saying how, you know, she'll build a better wall and all that, like, she made so few mistakes that I remember that one.

That's the one I remember. And I was so confused. I was like, wait, is it bad that he didn't build the wall or is it good that he didn't build the wall? Like, I got lost on that whole thing from them. Clearly it didn't matter anymore because she didn't win that particular argument. I think she had her own preferred wall building contractors that were not used. Right. It's irresponsible.

Yeah. The Simpsons then get their car washed. And I do like Mr. Lago's delivery of like, they love our soapy water. They are also getting hated the mini golf course, which Stephen Eaton Moore and his team, I do think, did a fine job animating this one. I really like the design. I wish they'd show him more, the design of the itchy and scratchy themed hole, which I don't think we've seen in previous trips to the mini golf course. Yeah, I'm not sure if we're at Sir Puts a lot or whatever, but Homer's still claiming his patriotic. He puts his foot through the Mount Rushmore in the Capitol building and walks away with them and then runs them over with his car as he,

leaves his family behind. That was a moment where I kind of perked up a little bit. It felt like classic Homer, the stepping and crunching the icons of America and then forgetting that he's supposed to be getting away with his family. There was a touch of the good stuff there. How Saito Bell uses the term, his every moonery. I like that too. Oh, and they got away with something with our cups don't want your colorful balls.

It feels like they got away with something. So then we have a scene that again, it's like everybody in town hates Homer. They've really done this a lot this time. he's abandoned at Mo's, and everybody hates him there, too. Mo is revealed to be Dutch. I was going to ask you guys, because you guys would know more than me, how many different ethnicities has Mo or nationalities has Mo been attributed to be? Well, Italian, his original name is Mo Mar.

He's Dutch. He's one of the little rascals, which is an ethnicity. His name is Sizzlac, or what is it, right? Yeah, he's got a Polish last name. So it's a Polish last name, but I remember you don't talk with your accent no more. So like Italian, right, is. and then he's Dutch here and then you said his real names in Walmart

so I mean that's America you know there's your melting pot is this gentleman here and in the Apu Citizenship episode he's taking the test he doesn't say where he's from though so that could still fit with him

being Dutch as a permanent resident yeah he is ambiguous he is whatever the thing is that a character like they're just they can fudge it this way or that way I did notice that Hank Azaria's voice already sounds different as Moe it sounds like a little sort of deeper or flatter

which of course now is a phenomenon people are noticing many characters in the current seasons but it sounded different to me yeah he got a bit gruffer I will say I've been watching the new King of the Hill have not finished it yet but Mike Judge his voice has not changed at all and I respect him for that whatever his regimen is however cleanly he's living

it works not to throw us off but how is the new King of the Hill I've only seen three I really like it so far I have seven left to go Henry might have seen more than me And by the time this goes live, I think everyone will have seen it. But Henry, I only have two episodes left. It's been my morning workout thing to watch two on the treadmill. And it's really good, just like how you can say when these shows come back, that it goes like, oh, they always have to say, well, what do they think about having a cell phone now? But King of the Hill was always pulling from recent events.

So it only feels natural to pulling these stories. I think it has great character writing and it ends some really good new characters, too. I give it a thumbs up to the new season. I might check it out. I might check it out then. This is also where Lenny leaves and reveals that he listens to George W. Bush's radio addresses, which he did do weekly back then. I should have looked this up. Did Trump do them? Oh, I looked this up because I was curious about it. So Trump, he stopped this decade's long tradition in October of 2018, but then Biden brought it back in a different form of February of 2021.

But then he stopped in July of 2021. I'm guessing because he forgot. Or he was doing it and just talking to his clock radio. Nobody knew about it. Oh, my God. Oh, goodness. Thank you for looking that up, Bob. I did look up that what George W. Bush's radio address was the Sunday morning this episode aired. It's a lot of the clap track.

And you listeners can look it up for yourselves and hear it on C-SPAN. But it's the usual, just like boilerplate stuff. Here's an example of like, we attack and defeat the enemies of freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's his literal wording. But there is a brief mention vaguely about Abu Ghraib, which is, quote, Our country has great respect for the Iraqi people, and we are determined to expose and punish the abuse of Iraqi detainees. Charges have been filed against seven soldiers, and the first trial is set to begin next week. My administration and our military are determined that such abuses never happen again.

Amen. Yeah. People may not remember. This is one of the reasons we see. started blowback, or at least why I said maybe this is a good idea. Nothing can quite match Trump's, you know, like Fantasia and all that, just in every aspect of his presidency, including how he speaks. But Bush, if you go back and read, so, like, you just read that, he speaks, it's so strange to hear, like, I mean, short of saying Crusade, which I think he even

might have said at some point, just saying, like, it's almost like Heggseth's warfighters, you know, is that what he says now instead of soldiers for some goddamn stupid reason? Yeah, Bush did, we'll have to walk back. We're on a crusade. when 9-11 happened. Yeah, I mean, there's tons of stuff like that. But even just the weird syntax of just Bush speak, you know, like he's trying to make it sound kind of epic and world historical by saying we are finding and fighting the enemies of freedom and proponents of terror.

It's just no one really talks like that anymore, which is in a sense good, but strange. Yeah, you're right. Like, I feel like W. Bush had these kind of short staccato sentences. And Trumps are just like winding all around and all of these clauses and different thoughts. and then just the way he always ends with, like, it's nothing like you've ever seen before, et cetera, et cetera. Any of those statements that would just kind of end every sentence. President M-Dash or ellipsies.

And it's gotten so much worse. Like, if you go back and you look, this has been remarked upon, of course. But really, if you go back and look at him in 2016, maybe even 26 and 17, it is astounding how much, like, sharper he sounds and looks. And even by the end of his first term, it's getting real putting like up there. And now we are where we are.

You forget, like, the transformation that's happened sometimes. But, yeah, that's interesting, Henry, that you looked up the address, and he had to give a little nod to Abu Ghraib, and we'll shout out. Brendan, I mean, since, as he said, abuse has never happened again. That must have made it really boring the rest of your blowback season after the Abu Ghraib's episode. We thought we had at least 10 full episodes, and then we got there, and we said, oh, fuck, this is only episode four. What are we going to do?

Another great Metal Gear Salad game, by the way, it's really sort of a demo, but Ground Zero's takes place in Guantanamo Bay, not during the Bush era, but has one of the kind of nastiest portrayals of torture and malfeasance in the series and it's actually up there even against the full games for me is one of my favorite metal gears but Ground Zero is really good stuff

that was made during the Obama era when everything was supposed to be solved so even more points for Kojima for that one yeah the Bush people really it was a genuine crisis with Abu Ghraib but I think in a sense it shocked the nation to the point of desensitized being desensitized after that

because stuff like that continued to happen and certainly we pay people to do it in other countries and you know all that problem there was that they took photos this is where Carl then says he just doesn't want to get drunk next to Homer it definitely looks like ADR to me

I feel like Carl should have said something political instead of about drinking I don't know he should have said a liberal thing to Lenny saying he doesn't want to hear the Democrat rebuttal to the president's address this ends on a very weird moment though because it's not even a gag

Homer just goes behind the bar and steals the hard liquor which I guess it's funny for being just so understated. Nothing silly or extreme is going to happen. He's just going to drink the alcohol for free while he cries. I guess the gag is he's like, oh, boo-hoo, boo-hoo, but then he's scoring free liquor while he's crying. That's what I took it as. It's also weird because, you know, Homer's such a beer guy.

It was weird to see him just chug. Was it vodka or something? I don't know what he was chugging. I definitely saw gin written on one of the bottles. Actually, that's also funny, Brendan, because I had been waiting. Homer just a few episodes ago and the even, worst episode where he frames March for a DUI, Homer ends it by promising to give up all clear liquors. And now he's already breaking that promise. Yeah, it's strange. Even in, I can't remember

which episode of the series it is, it's one where the TV's talking to him and he goes, are you on your eighth beer? And he goes, does whiskey count his beer? Even though it's a really funny joke, I always kind of cocked my head at that. I'm like, Homer drinks beer. I get the gag. It's funny. but I always thought it was a little strange that Homer suddenly is drinking whiskey like in massive quantities that day. But I guess here, clearly, he's back on the hard stuff. Yeah, his friend's abandoned him. He needs the harder stuff to get through it.

Then we go to the breakfast table and Lisa now has to have a laptop on the show for jokes about the internet. So they can't complain about the internet if Lisa doesn't own a laptop. So now she has to. When spam was as easy as getting an email, not people texting you for your social security number or pretending you have a warranty, et cetera, et cetera. Or that you're about to be arrested in 10 minutes if you don't sign up. Yeah. Yeah, I've got one of those.

We have the car that you sold years ago. We found drugs in the trunk. We need your bank card number now. Amazing. Get you a lawyer. Amazing. There was a term from the early Chapo days. I don't even remember nor would want to remember exactly where this came from.

But there was someone who was like a kind of pseudo intellectual on the internet. And he wrote a book called Geo Hell, which is a funny title that's, you know, to make your treatise called Geo Hell, but we started to use the word GeoHel to just mean, like, the incredibly, you know, grim and mostly just, like, frustrating aspects of modern post-industrial America. And the calls where someone is telling you that, like, unless you click on this fishing link, that they'll kill your elderly relative, and that's just a daily occurrence now, that's geo-Hell. That's what I think of when I get those calls is Geo-Hell. Yeah, I guess the newest scam, it used to be they would call you and talk about your

car's warranty expiring and now the newest one I've noticed and it hasn't happened within the past few weeks but it was happening a lot is they say you have an unpaid toll and for me it's a state I haven't lived in in 15 years and actually haven't driven a car in 12 and they say we're going to take away your license if you don't click this link and pay the money for the toll the car ones are easy for me too Bob because I don't drive so like sometimes if it's like it's your bank there's fraud I'm like I got to figure out of this is really my bank you know I have to have some level of like investigation but the car ones are nice and open and shut for me And it's also marked this as 2004.

They need to draw that there is an Ethernet cable connected to Lisa's laptop. Yeah. She's got a wired mouse, too. It's mind-blowing. We used to live like that. But this is where we get... I like this Homer one-sided phone call joke in our next clip. Hello?

Up here on your TV show? Tell our side of the story? You'll see us there? Goodbye? Dial tone. If there's one way to get the... The truth out, it's on a cable news channel. When we explain our side of the story, the hate calls will end.

I won't have to hear suck my such and such, or hell this, and bitch that. We get it, Mom. No, no, no, let her finish. Look, what should I say to make people not hate me? Son, I've learned one thing in this life. To stay out of trouble, just say nothing. Don't rock the boat. Don't even get in the boat.

Just buy some ice cream and walk around the pier. But don't go in the bathrooms there. Filthing. Dad, I am going on a talk show. I have to say something. Talk about boats. Then when he asks you if you hate this country, you just start crying and pretend you don't. But I don't hate this country.

There, there. Save your lies for the American public. I have to say, the line, if you don't want people to yell at you or whatever, don't say anything at all. It's a little rich, given the nature of this episode. It's like, yeah, clearly you don't want to say anything because you're worried about Bush's, like, polling numbers or whatever. So I didn't get a lot of messaging one way or the other out of this episode itself. No, they are trying to not rock the boat with this. That's true.

Or even get in it. Bart loves America, everybody. And they're on the show. It's called Headbutt with Nash Caster. And while watching this, I was thinking, what is this, like Bill O'Reilly or something? Hardball with Chris Matthews, maybe? That's it. That's it.

On the commentary, they said, we wanted Chris Matthews. He turned us down. We are kind of offended because he does everything. If you ask Chris Matthews to be on a show, when he was, doing hardball he would come on your show he was on family guy that's what's that he and he didn't take the simpsons that's surprising i guess maybe thought this wasn't funny or it was incendiary or it was making fun of him too much but when they said chris matthews a door opened in my brain where all the chris matthews information was being stored for the past decade i was like oh this guy he's gone he

went away i had forgotten this too i shared it with bob when i found it i was like oh right the first thing was that this is kind of a race because covid lockdown happened right after but when Senator Bernie Sanders won the Nevada primary in 2020, Chris Matthews compared the reaction to it to the Nazis invading France, where, of course, Bernie Sanders is the Nazis in his metaphor. People were calling for his firing. He just resigned like a week later rather than just go through it. And then came out allegations that he was inappropriate with some female heartball guests with, like, language to them. It seems a little vague. He was, I mean, it is strange.

because, like you, Bob, there was a period where you couldn't get away. Like, he was a part of the Mount Rush more of, like, political commentary in America. He was the closest thing to maybe like a liberal Bill O'Reilly. They weren't really the same type of guy. But that's crazy that he didn't take The Simpsons as someone who was a constant guest star when he could get it. And Keith Olberman is, he's gone too, right? He's no longer like the shouty liberal on TV. He's not on TV.

Is he on the same channel as Cuomo and O'Reilly? Is he in there? News Nation or whatever? Is that what that is? Yeah, I only see ads for it on Twitter or when they get made fun of by like Adam Friedland or something and he's on it.

Other than that, never see it. I will say someone circulated recently Keith Oberman clip that was very prophetic in which he really quite rigorously explains what the fallout of Citizens United and then a couple other things is like from 2012 or something and it's describing pretty accurately

our reality right now. Not in a vague Simpsons predicted the future way, but in an actual fairly astute political analysis, even though it's coming from a somewhat silly guy. But now I have no idea. I think he's still screaming and stuff, but he's just not on TV. Yeah, a podcaster. He's a direct competition, unfortunately. Now we have to destroy him. Well, now I'll libel him. Brennan, you know, Chris Matthews, I think a person who's been on blowback, James Adomian, his Chris Matthews is perfect. I love his Chris Matthews, is breathless.

One of his many great, great impressions if people don't know James Adomian. For a second, I was like, was James Adomian on our show? He played George W. Bush in the first episode, in the first moment of the show. Yeah, his Chris Matthews is great. You got to get a little spittle worked up if you're doing Chris Matthews. And Bob, so right, I checked his IMDB. Like, a year after this, he plays himself on West Wing. He's on 30 Rock in 07 and Family Guy in 09.

Like, who is he to be too good for The Simpsons? He was in Man of the Year, the Robin Williams comedy. Yep. The Barry Levinson, I think it was? I think so, yeah. They were bros together. Yeah, yeah, strange. He must have thought it was like having a dig at him or something, you know, maybe it was an ego thing, I guess.

I mean, I also am so tired of seeing news anchors in movies. Like, I did the extremeness of Wolf Blitzer's appearance in Mission Impossible was so crazy that I actually did like it. But when I see like Jake Tapper on a TV going like, is Superman really? I'm just like, ugh, get away from here. Terrible. And it just feels gross. Like it's one of those handshakes between, you. you know, one of these not terribly impressive or actively evil newscasters being like,

well, I've always been a big Batman fan. And they're like, oh, we'll put you in the movie. That'll give us our news footage feel more, whatever, like topical or realistic. The name of the show came up. I thought Headbutt was going to be a crossfire. On my first watch, I remember thinking, oh, this is a Crossfire parody we're getting into. I thought so, too, yeah. Once the Tucker Carlson show, it was Crossfire.

It was Tucker Carlson and Paul Bagala, not the original version, but the one around this time, before John Stewart nuked it by appearing on it it was Tucker Carlson on the right and Paul Bagala on the left Has Paul Bagala

had done anything lately like Tucker won't go away but yeah no I mean Paul Bagala was he was a democratic like a strategist who kind of you know

he didn't get there from being like a shimmering talent on TV he was one of those MSNBC guys who you know spat out the right analysis that people needed to hear

from a seasoned you know I don't know if he was Clinton I think he was like a seasoned Clinton advisor. And he just, I guess, got offered more and more jobs until he was co-hosting Crossfire. He really wasn't like a sizzling media personality. So I think he's probably just doing some freelancing consulting. Now, I'm going to assume both of you are familiar with the work of Andy Borowitz, the hilarious columnist. It's what if the onion was drained of all humor and

relevance? Well, this strikes me as the most Andy Borowitz coded material in the episode. And we get into more of that in Act 3. And if you're wondering, like, what is Andy Borowitz? He'll write a column like, President Trump comes out pantsless because you see all of his pants are on fire. He's a liar folks. And there'll be an entire Onion Star article written about his pants being on fire. That's about the extent to which it goes. And I feel like all of this, like, why do you hate freedom? That kind of stuff.

It was such softball boring political commentary even then. You guys keep going. I'm going to look a couple of classic Borowitz headlines here. Well, I have to admit that in 2017 that I had a headline and I did not read that it was an Andy Borowitz one. I once posted for about five minutes until I was rightly made fun of in my replies. I shared an Andy Borowitz thing thinking it was real, and I've never felt more shame as a social media user. Well, that's the crazy world we live in now, Henry, so I don't blame you.

This is from, I forgot by the way, that he was one of the creators of the fresh prince of Bel Air, if people don't know, Andy Borowitz was. Okay, this is from a vintage Borowitz report from 2004, the year that this episode came out. Quote, flip-flopping may have injured Carrie's shoulder. I think that's all you need to know. That's what we're talking about here, folks. So I'm sorry I took a second to get that, but I think it's worth knowing that this is the level we're dealing with.

I also think my pants on fire parody of his work was funnier, and it wasn't even good. It's very easy to throw out an idea that's funnier than his actual stuff in trying to parody him, yeah. Now, in today's 2025, this does to me feel similar to what Bart is going through is the do you condemn game of things, like of Bart falling into this. Like, do you condemn this or that? I think Bart has not a bad attempt at it.

He's respecting the troops. He wants forgiveness. But obviously, though, in the do you condemn game, like, you never win. It'll never be enough. This bit here of just him constantly cutting him off and just saying, I would say with Nashcast, there's not enough of a take, I feel like, you know? It also just feels derivative. I know it wasn't a political context, but it just felt derivative of Homer Badman.

You know, when Homer's getting stitched up by an unfair interviewer or broadcast, I was just like, this is basically the same situation in which they're going to, you know, railroad them into sounding worse than they are, but it's going really, really slowly, and there's not a funny part that's coming up anytime soon. Yeah, there should be more to this guy. He just is loud and jingoistic, and there's not the Simpsons twist on this kind of a character. Like, he's trying to sell something. He has an ulterior motive.

He has, like, a deep personal problem that's coming out in the air. There should be something more going on with him, I feel. Yeah. Or just better jokes. This could have been, like, squashing the... Do you guys remember the name of the show that Homer gets... Please, Mr. Simpson, don't come any closer. Oh, Rock Bottom.

Rock Bottom, yeah. This was Rock Bottom with the reporter grilling Quimby during the debate. You know, like, my question's about the budget, you know, guy. So you have, like, unfair questions, but then it's a fun loop-de-loop where, you know, they're an unscrupulous reporter, and it's also on TV, so they're manipulating the family into the public. but yeah it's just kind of it's generic well you're bringing up birch barlow there which is a much more direct and specific and intentionally mean and fun in that way parody of a real guy in rush limbaugh of course and also i mean not to well you know what else am i going to do to compare it to a

great episode like sideshow bob roberts sure it's not going after besides limbaugh it's not going after any politician in particular but at the very least like you respect that episode because they're just slamming the Republicans left and right with funny jokes, of course. It felt like we don't particularly care if Newt Gingrich gets mad at this or like how people will feel about the Republican Congress or whatever in a couple months.

It's like night and day compared to this where they're tiptoeing around every possible, like, you know, a spark that could happen if they're too mean to the sitting administration. They copped to it on the commentary. They also do admit like 9-11, fuck, them up. They were a little more scared afterward. Yeah. That's what's interesting about this episode for people is like, it's 2004. 9-11 was three years earlier. It was years later. So,

I mean, I appreciate what they're saying. It's good that they're, you know, that they're saying that. But just I think people right now, people our age, people younger, you know, they look around and find a very scary political climate. And of course, there's a lot of reasons to feel that way. It's not so different from this period, not to make a Simpsons episode into some kind of, you know, like ultimate commentary on it. But that is why you did not want to be on the wrong side of any of this stuff. In a certain sense, there's a lot more public opposition to what goes on now because maybe Trump is just, he motivates so many people who would otherwise have fell in line

that are disgusted by him. But the Bush era, yeah, I think a lot of people quieted down because they were deeply afraid. I think people were afraid of being the next Bill Maher. Now, everyone doesn't want to be Belmar, but for reasons back then, he was fired from his show. a show was shut down because of statements he made. And I feel like that... Club random were back then. We would not have had the war in Iraq or maybe any war ever again

because everyone would be chilling out with a fat one with Bill, you know? Yeah, if you just smoke weed with a 73-year-old pervert, everything will be clearing up in no time. Yeah, but that's true. He was... And you know what? Like, that thing he got literally canceled for. It was a provocative thing to say in like a kind of interesting sense.

Not, you know, I'll give him that one. He literally never had an interesting or funny thought ever since. maybe again maybe he was kind of changing his tune brandon thanks for we are all talking about it here that's a good point on the bill bar thing like because bob you heard on the commentary too dana gould specifically brings it up as a partial inspiration for like what marge gets in trouble for here i think was inspired by it was september 17th 2001 so so six days after is when you know what i have the quote right here let me pull it up i can remember it pretty well but a transcript would be good. Bill Maher says when talking about people bringing up, you know, bombing our enemies and all that,

but he says, we have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly. I think, again, to give him just the right amount of credit, and by the way, that was written by someone. Bill Maher didn't. Part of his monologue, if I'm not mistaken. So Bill Maher said it, but I'm almost certain it was written by a writer. Or at least I'll say that's a possibility. but him saying that it was useful to point out at the time of just saying all our enemies like it's it's cowardly to be a terrorist and what we're doing is the right way to kill people and to sort of put a little bit of a spotlight on that and say why are we saying this you know does that even make sense you could think it sounds a little trying too hard to be edgy now but at the time that he lost his show his whole show went away because of that so can you believe he's been had that HBO show since February 2003 oh man yeah I was in high school and watching, seeing my mom watch real time with Belmar, like out of the corner of my eye. The fact that it is still on is amazing to me. It's also, I think I brought this up before, so apologies have you heard this, but it was kind of one of the first podcast because for whatever reason, HBO would take the audio from a real time and upload it as a podcast. So I would just not watch the show and listen to the audio. I did too, Bob. God, it's so strange. You're right. Because, you know, he had like a panel discussion. So it was essentially what you would hear a podcast, you know, episode would be like where people. are doing a free-flowing conversation.

And, God, I forgot about that. There's some goal of those older episodes where it was less stagey. Ariana Huffington and Bill Maher once gotten a real nasty argument where they started like airing dirty laundry about each other's personal lives. I would love to try to find some of those, but I think they're completely lost to time,

those old episodes. And you know, despite being pro-freedom of speech in the past 20 years, he's created all these new rules. Indeed. I mean, also to think about what Bill Maher is it now like, He really likes lobbying bombs from 2,000 miles away, certain people. Yeah. He would be, you know, this is a cliche thing to say in and of itself,

but he'd probably have some fucking new rule about dumb dumps who say things like it's cowardly. It's not cowardly to be a suicide bomber. And he'd go, guess what? New rule. He's obviously shifted right. But he's always been really annoying. Like even when he said that quote, which was kind of cool, he still sounded really annoying. And I think that was part of why people were like, fuck you.

You know? Yes. There was a really mean joke about Bill Maher in an episode of The Simpsons two or three years ago before this. So they were being very pointed about him. They hear his voice on something. And I think Bart says, isn't that the voice that caused all those suicides? And Marge goes, murder suicides. That's a really good joke.

It's about a talk show host they're kind of grumpy at. Yeah, well, hey, I didn't realize I was walking into an actual Simpsons joke from this era. But, okay, I got a laugh. That's great. again I'll admit I was a regular watcher Bill Marr in 2004 I watched him a lot big time nowadays definitely like well he's always been

racist against Muslims or always but now more than ever I mean also too I'll tell you what's not religiousness the definition of the Bible for certain places that things are colonized that's not religious at all oh my god you know I saw that movie and Larry Charles

directed that it's like I love Larry Charles he actually recently on my friend's colleague show Chappo went on to talk about his dynamic with Sasha Baron Cohen, Bill Maher, and who's the other one? Seinfeld, right? Seinfeld, yeah. Who's that guy? Seinfeld.

And he was really eloquent about just like, look, I worked with these guys. Like, they have talent. I wouldn't disagree with that. But he was very upfront about what he thought about Gaza and it being a horrible crime against humanity in his view. You know, just kind of, I think artfully, but very directly said, like, what he thinks, what he thought was wrong with them. But the religiousist I saw it in theaters, and even in that, movie, it sounds like 2008 or something, 2009. Even in that movie, the religious Jews he's laughing at are the ones who don't like Israel. Those were the kooky religious Jews that he

doesn't like in that movie. Like, he kind of makes fun of the guys who, you know, build machines to get around the restrictions on, you know, like buttons and stuff on certain days, on 7th. But really, he is having a go at the anti-Zionist Jews. That's what he found to be religious. The Larry Charles interview was very good It was very nice to see him distance himself And be honest about it Even though it looks poorly on his friends And or previous colleagues

That was very great to see Yeah And I have to apologize The murder suicide joke is about Dennis Miller They did make a joke about Belmar And that he is so ugly They cannot let him on TV Before a certain hour of the day

Okay That's also fine Yeah Dennis Miller And previously pretty funny guy Who just 9-11 It was just his ticket to a pathetic right-wing lurch, especially Dennis Miller. He really just got so unfunny and lame.

And they do bring it up on the commentary, and it's true. After Bill Maher said that, like, this was a scary aspect of it that afterwards, press secretary slash mass murderer Ari Fleischer said, people have to watch what they say and watch what they do about that. Yeah. I mean, Phil Donahue got his whole show canceled. Not a comedian, not hiding behind satire, just was raised. using serious questions about Iraq, they can't his ass at MSNBC.

At MSNBC, you know, which was supposedly, obviously, the loyal opposition. So, yeah, time not so different from our own, really. So now we've given all that background on other people for the things they got in trouble for. Let's hear what Marge gets in trouble for. I'm Nash Castor, and it's time to butt heads. Bart Simpson, what do you hate most about this country? Is it the freedom? Nash, I've realized something. I'm the worst kid in the world.

and the last thing I deserve is forgiveness, but with a little help from Jesus and are fighting men and women overseas? All right, so if I hear you correctly, you're saying America is better than Jesus. Do you agree? Before he can answer, do you? Well, America's not perfect.

So America isn't perfect. Is that why you and your son hate us? If by us, you mean loud-mouth talk show host, which everyone seems to be in this country, then yes, I do hate Americans. but they make sure that like that is couching it too marge says americans she does not say hates america yeah that's true i would say everybody is a talk show host nowadays including us we're all

talk show host it's never been easier everybody turned on mar and this is also where nashcaster puts her out is like oh so you know everybody must hate you and then she He says they love her in Springfield, that then turns Springfield into what happens all of the time still is like the evil left-wing hellhole city that gets all the news pieces about it. This is where there's a unanimous congressional approval of hating on Springfield, even on December 25th. You know, we see a lot of bipartisanship back then for invading Iraq or for today for starving children. You hear about it all the time. Yeah, I mean, if Veterans Day can also be Flaming Mo's Day, Christmas can also be we hate Springfield Day. And also Springfield was unanimously denied support because of its association with the perverted arts.

That's a better version of this joke, man. We're just remembering better jokes. I was just thinking about that joke instead of this. We're really analyzing joke by joke here. But this could be right as really conservative. And I'm not sure if it is. The joke about, like, people in a vaguely Middle Eastern country celebrating the decline of Springfield. I mean, if you don't know this, the joke is based on things people would say, like, oh, they were dancing in the streets on 9-11.

11, who they are was up to whoever you hated the most, I guess. But they're not really clear as to who these people are, except they're, like, eulating and firing their guns in the air. Yeah. I'm surprised there's not a burning effigy in the shot, too. Well, also, in a show where there are, like, no Arab anything in the show that the one time we go there is to see people shrieking as they shoot guns. I was like, but I feel like, you could at least earn this if you ever showed a Muslim on the Simpsons at any other time where they're not a terrorist. And this is what I said at the top. I'm not trying to sound like to clutch my pearls about how this should have been like, you know, more sort of representative of the spectrum of different people who were affected by these heady events. I'm not expecting that or even desiring it. It's just lazy and it's just very of its time. And again, like I said, we haven't gotten to the moment yet. But no, we'll cut away to a real terrorist, you know, in a sec just to make it clear, you know, we know that stuff's bad. And I think the eulating scene is like, again, that could have been.

been funny, like, the idea of people celebrating the demise of Springfield in different ways. But it's just on rails, like, jokes about, oh, there's extremists and they don't like America, and we're going to do, like, the cookie cutter version of what they're like in the Islamic world and the Middle East and stuff. This is where they

get closest to mentioning W. They do say the president is pointing warheads and then they turn off the TV. But they leave it vague. I feel like, were they also scared of, like, oh, this will replay forever. We can't name a president. I mean, they talked about Clinton enough in the 90s. Clinton's all over this episode.

Yeah, yeah. This is where they learn they're losing tourism here. I really did laugh at the scared aid saying like bandana days. But as any viewer of the real sex TV show on HBO would know, the adult video awards are always in Las Vegas. They never go anywhere else. That's mainly how I know as a regular real sex viewer, which is not on HBO Max still.

And I think that's shameful. So then we also get to the Freedom Fry section of the episode. Now, the use of the term freedom fries was grossly exaggerated, right? Was it just one White House commissary or something? It's remembered as though, like, all of America renamed French fries, like, by decree or whatever. And what you see today where some individual things were popping up and that got churned into this idea that, especially with, like, you know, time passing that, you know, it was some kind of national policy or whatever. So it apparently happened first at some smaller,

governmental thing where they changed it at the official at the cafeteria but then a GOP Ohio representative Bob Ney he was in charge of getting to rename things in the congressional cafeteria so in 2003 he renamed it to Freedom Fries where it would remain that way until he resigned in 2006 for using campaign funds to pay legal fees

he'd end up in jail for 17 months Bob Ney was always voting against stuff too you should do less whining less maize and more yeas his opponents were savaging him but yeah it made it sound like oh it's freedom fries everywhere all out of the you know the anger that France I do recall

for another 2004 story when I worked at Blockbuster Video this was like the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie or some Johnny Debb movie was coming out this was when it was all right to be excited for Johnny Debb movie that was about 30 years yeah so i was saying to a co-worker like oh are you excited to see the new pirates movie and the person said oh i don't go to johnny debb movies he's a france lover like that was so okay that's still what i think is his you know biggest crime i would say that's top of the list other stuff but i would put that at the top in what way was johnny depa france lover he just like living in france or he like owned a home in france i think was their assertion my number one issue is the bad dental hygiene there's some other stuff in there too but I can't really get over that I saw that headline the other day like fans disgusted

by Depp's rotting teeth or whatever in the daily mail and I got to say I mean maybe they're rock bottoming him with the photo but it looked pretty grim with those teeth this is where they renamed the city to Libertyville everything cost 1776 I like how long Luigi's dance is I like that yeah I had a fun I always love Luigi we just covered the first Luigi episode and he's still doing big 10 years later in season 15. Is that Play to the Red Crap, or is that? Yep, okay. That's Sweet Seymour Skinner's badass song has Leopold, the one-eyebrowed baby, and Luigi, all together debuting.

Leopold didn't go as far, but the other two, their mainstays. I love Leopold, but yeah, Luigi, it's, he's amazing. It's some of my favorite lines in that episode. And what's the other one is, oh, the, I only compare you scum, compared to Christy, that one. I don't remember what episode that is, but some of my favorite line reads in the show. Lisa is bemoaning the red, white, and blue traffic lights. They'll like a classic liberal from this time, Lisa has to preface it with, I'm as patriotic as the next person.

Like, you have to say that before you can criticize anything that. She just is walking with Janie to have someone to talk to. That's it. Janie says nothing. Again, she's coming a long way from Lisa goes to Washington. Sesspool, cesspool, cesspool. And I know that that's still like the real, like, Brooksian era. I know they kind of put a little bow on that.

in that episode even but like even with that it's it's pretty terrible how toothless Lisa is in this episode we love that episode when we covered it most recently with Matt Christman as a guest on that one I love that in that one Lisa is just like yeah America stinks it's horrible everybody's corrupt and they do nothing good and they have to do an intentionally comically quick arrest of the representative and she has to go like the system works like that's the only way she can restore her faith A little girl has lost faith in democracy Exactly And it is one of the funniest parts of the episode

It's like again I mean you don't get better than that That's a what a perfect show But yeah And now it's like We have to hear Lisa say You know Oh well by the way

I'm not in any way Saying that this is legitimate hatred It's just like Oh god Just don't even have Lisa in the episode Because that's where you would expect Her to inject Some level of

You know Astute real talk This is where Marge ends up at the Quiky Mart and talks about the homeland noodles and all that. That's the real Freedom Frizi stuff there. And then this felt like it did have a little teeth to it to me of like Apu saying like

to maintain his mahogany nagin because he is a Hindu, but the people committing hate crimes after 9-11 did not check the background of the brown people they horribly would beat. Most notably Sikhs, I believe. Yes, they were getting it. Pretty hard. Yep. And so like this joke

of him renaming all of his children, like I do like it that it comes from a place of like, I have to be extremely patriotic out of personal safety in a horrible place like America. KKK. Yeah, that was just more stuff like that could have at least brought. I would have approached the rest of the episode in better faith if they ran with some of these genuinely funny ideas, even if they're coming from somewhat grim, you know, places in commentary. Yeah, I think there was a similar joke with Apu. He was doing a back-to-school sale at Quickie March. and the commercial ended with, just please stop beating me.

Right, right. The first time they addressed that post-9-11, wasn't it? That's right. I think so. So then we head to the church where now religion and the state are highly intermingled, which was certainly that was a correct liberal assumption then in W's America. Definitely. Obviously, the Christians love Trump just the same, but I still think to mention Matt Christman again.

I love his tweet about how he said, like, Trump holding him. up the Bible and going like you love this stuff don't you folks like you idiots love this shit yeah I used to go to this restaurant in my old neighborhood fairly frequently and the waitress who was very nice she said you know I come from the south I got an evangelical family and it had just come out that like there was some this is first term Trump that Trump had maybe paid for more abortions than we even thought and she was like just wait just they're going to desert him after this one and I was like I won't bet money on this I don't think you know anyone will feel good. But this was both

kind of equally scary, but also quainter time in which people did genuinely profess faith in God among the heights of the Republican Party. A little less Trump-like cynicism. Well, I never thought that there would be, the Republican vice president would be like a born-again Catholic. Like, that's

even crazier. Oh, God. Yeah. This is where Bart also has his 80-yard reaction of I-Koramba. Which said, I felt like it was them being like intentionally corny with part saying, I-Korumba to American Jesus. This is where Lisa gets the whole family arrested. Lord, give us the courage to worship the American flag,

be it on a car, a belt buckle, or on your holy person. My caramba. I'd like to say something about the current climate of repression and fear. Oh, put a pork in it. Sit down, Saddam. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. That's from the First Amendment to the Constitution. Thank you.

Thank you, Lisa. I'm sure your opinion will not go unnoticed. Simpsons, you're under arrest for the violation of the government knows best act. Martha, place on me to lighten the mood. I'm eating some peanuts and cracker deck I don't care Now who could ever imagine the reality of like masked people Like representatives of the government

Rounding up somebody for like freedom of speech violations And then taking them to an unmarked location I was very humbled and lucky to me him Mahmood Khalil a couple weeks ago and I see now he's kind of bravely not just because of what of course the horrific events that he experienced but also the stupidity of his media interlocutors he's doing a bit of like a kind of media swing around talk shows right now it's an exercise in patience to watch him exercise his patience with them but very brave and smart guy he is spoken very well after for things he shouldn't ever should have had to go through like that but this is where

like satire has been outstripped by reality once more. Yeah, yeah. This also was like, and I still feel it's the Democrats do this of like, I know the Constitution better than you. Have you even read the Constitution, President Trump, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's like the debate school technique.

Though, of course, freedom of speech in the First Amendment is very important when you need to misgender somebody. That's important. But actually, the reality is outstrip this joke too in that these guys identify themselves and say why they're arresting the simpsons. Yes. That's the...

Yeah. But okay, so the military police abscond with the Simpsons for their First Amendment rights because they can just do that. I was surprised it wasn't like the Patriot Act being just directly called out. That was the joke on Arrested Development back then

of just like, read the Patriot Act. We could do this like for any plot point. Actually, yeah, that was like airing at the same like most nights as this, which was kind of, it was also outdoing the Simpsons and political commentary, but it also didn't have as long a lead time as an animated show. So benefited from that. yeah yeah because that show was 2003 started in 2003 right yeah yeah I was like I mean on that show I mean it really is an allegory for the George W. Bush era but on that show it was better because even if they weren't talking about the president every week there were stand-ins for those types of characters and here we're not even doing that I really was thinking about the rest of development and why I don't think I mean it is a time capsule in a way but it's aged a lot better it's aged great certain seasons have the first three seasons yeah

I don't fuck with four and five. I'm sorry, folks. No, but I was too. I was thinking, and, you know, look, I mean, like the Simpsons had lost their fastball, obviously, by this point. Like, I wouldn't want either of those shows to constantly be talking about this stuff. But we've discussed this before on the times I've come on about these types of episodes. You just see South Parking their lunch, a rest of element eating their lunch, you know, and I'm sure that sort of made them want to get it right. But so far, you'd only see improvement if you go in reverse, you know.

So we come back. from the commercial break. They're in a place that looks not unlike what you hear about Guantanamo Bay then, which obviously has been closed since January 24th, 2009, or 21st, 2009, as we all remember. But they're in Alcatraz. That's the reveal. Didn't Trump want to reopen Alcatraz? Wasn't that a thing recently? Like a weird fixation for about a week? He wanted to reopen it, which would have, everyone pointed out, would be like a massively costly endeavor for not like a great facility that couldn't just be you know built or or managed elsewhere and he lost the thread on that but they're now calling the other place alligator alcatraz

so i think they just kind of said why don't we just call this other place alcatraz we don't have to actually refit alcatraz and then he got to design a new ballroom which i'm sure is very nice for him yeah no i am excited about that we'll have the wwee banquet there and in the this beautiful ballroom. The Alcatraz thing, I was trying to find the most recent thing of that when we're recording this. And like, back in July,

Pam Bondi went on a tour of it and had to pretend like it was still happening because she can't just say, well, Trump just says dumb shit all the time. Like, so we're not really building our address. So she has to like, she did a tour of it of like, yeah, it might cost $2 billion,

but it's going to really pay off. Like, that was the most recent part. Yes. That is so incredibly lame. He started to just say, like, we should bring it back. And then he's like, He starts talking about the movie escape from Alcatraz

and talking about how no one knows where they went if they escaped it. We think it was sharks, maybe, that got them at the end. He just started to really get into the movie. So he probably just watched the movie and wanted to, like, bring it to the office in some form. But I don't think it's on anymore. We're going to leave Alcatraz as whatever, like, museum that it is. You know, I live there all that time.

I still never went. Bob, did you go? I've been there like three times because people would come to visit, and I'd say, let's go to Alcatraz. It's kind of fun. It is a museum, basically, right? It's preserved, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you're allowed to walk around of your own for you will,

but there's an audio tour you can listen to, and it's essentially like a ruin. It's like a ruined building. Yeah. To bring up our pal, The Real Gims, who first brought this up, season 15 is the season of arrests, and the Simpsons going to jail.

By the Real Jim's count, and I think this holds out, Homer is arrested five-ish times this season, is in jail three times. Marge and Bart go to jail twice, And Maggie and Lisa, this is their one time being arrested. And that doesn't count the times they are threatened to be arrested in other episodes this season, too. And this is where we are seeing that all of the liberals have been locked up in here.

Also, that joke of Bart never served in armed forces. That approaches a W joke, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. We talked about this on something. That's what got Dan Rather fired for not fact-checking his sources on Bush's. what was it Coast Guard or air whatever thing he was in whatever military thing he was in yeah Dan Rather botched the story about Bush serving in the Texas Air National Guard and there was like elements of it that were true but he's wrong enough that it wasn't a clean

shot and he got canned yeah it essentially ended his career like he still appears in things but yeah it was called Memo gate it's just four months from this rather thought it was a real I mean obviously the whole now serving and in military is pointless. Like, they tried to get Trump on that, too, of like, he had bone spurs that, he didn't go to Vietnam, that thing. Like, that also doesn't matter anymore.

Yeah. It's like saying, look at these report cards. Tarty, tardy, tardy. And, I mean, they were literally, Bob. They were literally talking about their grades, Carrie and Bush. I mean, it was like, Bush got a sea. But then it turned out, like, Bush's grades,

I can't remember every angle of this. But, like, Bush's grades weren't that much worse than Cary's. And everyone was like, maybe we shouldn't have brought any of this up. And it was, God, it's, again, like, pretty silly but yeah rather we talk about in season four of the blowback about afghanistan rather was one of the chief propagandists of america's funding of the mujahdine he snuck into afghanistan and portrayed a lot of false stuff this is far worse than his texas air national

guard story like he used footage of soviet drills as actual war footage saying like tanks were everywhere and it was like the just a much darker picture and like more ominous situation for either inside or outside the country, and it was used with, I think, some Reagan officials helping out as, like, the kind of exhibit A of why we need to start funding radical Islamist drug dealers inside of Afghanistan. So that's the other side of Rathers' legacy. We started this episode saying, you know, oh, you know, what a wimpy thing. And I would stand by that in terms of the actual quality of this as like a protest episode. But we have mentioned a lot of people who got fired right around this.

time we were losing their job so you can see why they were thinking this way you know and also even more shameful dan rather walked away from his podcast oh wow he's a deserter just like he wanted to say w was he's the deserter of his podcast dude there's some yeah mark on his record i just assumed he would have had a podcast and he did called the big interview and it ended august of last year hmm wow what a piece of shit then we go through the prison and see everybody else who's in there with them. Sorry, the re-education center. And it's all the liberal celebrities there.

I think you can only spot her in the upper left-hand corner in one shot as Janine Garofalo. I knew you were to say that, yeah. Oh, I missed her. I was too focused on Elmo. Yes. As you've pointed out before, Bob, Elmo is real in Simpsons. Yes.

In Missionary Impossible, he is one of the many PBS celebrities that's chasing Homer. Like, he thinks his Elmo knows where you live. Right. Not the best joke. And Michael Moore is there, the Dixie Chicks. That was their name then. Now they're the chicks. And Bill Clinton is there because he felt their tax cuts were unwise.

That's why obviously he should be in jail. He knows down every day. Well, I was thinking about this as we were getting to this section that I think a little bit what they were trying to do in not talk about the direct figures of the Bush administration or even mentioned Bush, like the presidency at all, is they kind of thought maybe they were making up for it by explicitly having Clinton in it. You know, like, it's like jazz, like the note you're not playing. We're seeing Clinton and we're saying, like, this is the guy we will talk about because he's a victim of someone doing something bad somewhere in the White House, but we won't say who that person could be who's doing it. You know, so like it's a little bit of like a tacit endorsement of the Democratic side, you know,

obviously since we're seeing, you know, these mainstream Democrats who actually none of them were fine. I mean, Michael Moore, I think did very good work around this time. And Gene Garofalo as well, but like Bill Clinton, and, you know, I don't remember who else they show. Oh, Al Franken, they say later. It's like, this is hardly like the cutting edge of American, you know, radicals who were opposed to the Bush administration, you know. And it's really, once again, reality outlapping satire because, I mean,

maybe the voters would call for it, but George W. Bush was not calling for Bill Clinton to be in prison. But now I think Trump is still trying to get Obama on Russiagate or something like that. Felix pointed this out recently. He's like, they're trying to do this Obama, like this new Obama coup idea. And the plot of it, if you will, is so boring, especially compared to the actual Epstein, like, lurid story that Trump is obviously involved in, as well as Democrats, is so much more spicy than this weird. Yeah, I don't even know what it is, but Felix was trying to explain it. And I was like, I was just like, why would anyone, you know, be able to, like, sustain interest in that? So again, it's like J.D. Vance talking about UFOs the other day, you know, trying to just very like naked gun level attempt at a distraction from.

Yeah. If any more Epstein birthday cards come out, they're going to march a gray out on the White House lawn and make them do tricks. Yeah, absolutely. And also, 21 years later, they have effectively defeated Elmo in public broadcasting recently. unfortunately by shutting down funding for PBS and all that yeah you're right but Elmo is essentially in jail he's in he's he's out now I thought like Sesame Street was sold for parts to HBO before that though it was and I think at some point yeah I don't know I followed that a little bit

but I don't know where it ended up yeah Sesame Street got thrown around I think it's on Netflix now I want to say like it moved over there and like episodes still air on PBS but at the time of this recording, I think, like not first run anymore, I want to say. Worse is going to happen to Elmo fictually in this episode, but... Okay, so writing-wise,

I actually do like this as a joke about jokes in that they have, like, silly ones, like two silly ones in a row, like a guy who says imported wines are better than Napa Valley, and then a guy describes an actual terrorist plot of bringing bombs over the border, explosive over the border in March says,

I don't know why they put the real ones in with the joke ones. Yeah. It is funny. It is funny. That did stand out to me. They're very critical of this episode as a whole, but especially of where they ended up going in this very broad third act with a musical number and an escape sequence.

Yeah, it felt like a Simpsons Spinoff Showcase was coming back. They're pulling from the same jokes there. So, yes, we see that they're in the Ronald Reagan education room. They're being forced to watch a parody of school house rocks. Again, to do another thing. They did this better with Amendment to be in that episode, too. I've seen it already. But this is where the torture is working on Lisa.

Lisa, that's not funny. You believe in the Bill of Rights. I don't know whether it's the lack of sleep, the sodium pentothal, or that is the only cartoon I've seen in two months. But this is what I believe in now. Mm-hmm. We've got to get out of here. Yeah, yeah, next commercial.

I know a way out. Who are you? I'm the last registered Democrat. tax and spend, tax and spend. Woo ha ha ha ha! Now, if you want to escape, you can do it during the prison talent show tomorrow night. I don't want to be in any stupid talent show.

Not without my Tennessee walking horses. Well, you got no choice. It's the only way you'll achieve your goal. Goal! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Sweet, sweet goal! Yeah! That's basically the return of the character of Cookie,

who we saw a Dude Where's My Ranch a couple of seasons. go. Oh, okay. Was Cleeney the Gollum style creature? Yes. Yeah. Okay. It's what we just talked about Atlantis, the Lost Empire on our other cartoon podcast. There's a cookie in that, a very prospector-like man named Cookie. You're right. They are the same guy. This is Carl Wiedergat

again doing his old prospector character, which is funny. Carl Wielder got, I feel like he was like a guy they got multiple table reads and then their give back was he got to do voices every now. And then I think he's also Clinton in this. I think he took over Clinton. The wikis say he's

Clinton in this. Oh, I think they're wrong. It sounds like sheer to me. I agree, but the usually unimpeachable Wiki Simpsons might be incorrect here. Bart and Lisa have been, like, for real tortured as well. That's what's happening off screen, too. Administered drugs.

But this is where they're going to be put into the talent show. This is where briefly becomes the sound of music a little bit. Oh, I guess so. Yeah, I could see that. Though they don't sing anything as nice as Edelweiss here. No, no. This does, like you said, Brendan Simpson's spin-off showcase. This is very 70s for some reason, and they are really digging into

what that was making fun of, which was the Brady Bunch Variety Hour. And to say another thing that this is ripping off from themselves, the singing of the national anthem that then cuts into a rock and song, that was Lisa's Beauty Queen performance as well. Yeah. She had that in her back pocket. But this is where the Simpsons sing the red, white, and blues in our next clip. 50 stars and 13 stripes. Okay, kids, show off your pipes. Americans are brave and loyal. So come on, jerks, give us your oil.

My card here says ACLU. Now look what I'm going to do. Tell of our country is no chore. Wait right here for our encore. We mean it, don't move. They've escaped. Okay, kids, show up your pipes. Dad, why are you still singing that stupid song?

Because if they catch us, we may have to do it again. And this time I want it tight. And if you want to hear that very placeholdery song again, it's on the third Simpsons album, Testify. The one that no one talks about, and I understand why, but there are three collections of Simpsons music, and Henry, it was just off screen. Yes. I had actually pulled it up a couple episodes ago to find out the credited singer for another song in season 50. For the Lee Greenwood song that was in a few episodes ago, that was it, or the parody of that.

Yeah. There was no fourth one, Brendan, as far as I know. It's funny, because I think the first time I ever came on, I probably told you guys my Simpsons origin where I didn't watch it as a kid. I caught like a couple episodes, but generally it was banned. But I did have, from the prying eyes of my mom, I did have Simpsonic, is that what it's called? That was the second album. That was the second one, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I listened to The Simpsons far before I ever really watched it, which was kind of an odd way to get to know it. But did they keep making, oh, you said there wasn't a fourth one after that. Yeah, they never made a fourth one. There was like probably 200 songs that followed that album, but they just never bothered making another one.

I agree. So Bart's line seems very 80-ard to me that come on, jerks, give us your oil. Though that feels like a little toothy to me, that one. Come on, we're loyal, so we're going to steal your oil. That's the reason we're doing all this, all that. But Lisa, they couldn't change her lines if they wanted to because they animated her burning the ACLU card.

So the ACLU is still doing good stuff this year. I mean, they're certainly, they seem pretty busy these days. A lot of lawsuits they need to start. This is where we see that it's Alcatraz And this bit here They're all going to try to swim away And they're checking that they did their swimming lessons Bart doesn't remember his

This is to set up a deleted joke actually Of Bart drafting First we see that they're going to swim to Oakland Because San Francisco's too expensive Yeah, that's a man I mean I know jokes become dated I feel like Henry in our personal lives This was around the time

A lot of our former friends And the former friends Our friends that we used to hang out with in the gaming industry, that's when they moved to the Bay Area. And a lot of them were able to settle in San Francisco because it was a lot cheaper. Now, like, we both lived in Berkeley, and now I looked up like a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland. It is around 2,000 or more a month.

Woo. Man, the East Bay became so much more expensive. In the time we lived there, like, by the time we left, we couldn't have afforded to move there with the prices that they were compared to when we were there. though it was never cheap when we got there. When I was planning my move in 2006, two years after this aired, and I remember thinking of Homer's joke

to be like, I should live in the East Bay because that, oh, Berkeley, that's close to Oakland. Homer says it's cheaper there. I remembered it then. Good advice. I also like Homer is eating a seal while swimming. I kind of like that food monster gag there. But this is where Bart is starting to drown

in this deleted scene. We're swim to all. Oakland. Oh, it's no use. I'm going to give up, like that dude in Titanic when the chick pushed him off her board. Great movie. So, yes, they have a joke about 1997 film Titanic in there. Was the expectation when the, because we've, I know I've been on episodes where stuff like that has happened before where it's a joke about something five years ago or more.

Was the expectation that culture did genuinely move slower back then so that even, I mean, that's still far too long ago, and I guess it was cut. I don't know. I feel like there was a different idea of like how dated something could be or maybe even trying to like bring something back that, you know, was used to be a big punchline for an easy one. I don't know. You would never try that now, I don't think. Yeah, I think maybe now you could do a Titanic joke again.

But this is, the movie was what, like seven, six years old at this point? And I feel like we had just gone through everybody doing their parodies. So maybe it was a little too soon. We could hold on to jokes for a little bit longer back then, it felt like. On the commentary for the deleted scenes, Al Jean says he wanted to do this joke because it was something they talked about in the writer's room back then of just like, oh, Jack didn't need to drown at the end of that, which is like, it's that has driven me crazy.

That being brought up as a cinemas in has driven me crazy since I saw Titanic in theaters because it is answered in the film. They both tried to get on top of the driftwood or the wood that she's on. it can't support both of their weights. It happens in the movie. It is explained in the movie and people try to bring it up like it's a cinema in, including the Simpsons joke

to just be like, oh, Rose could have gotten Jack up there, but she's selfish. Like, that's usually the joke. But it's like, it's in the movie. They explain it into the film and it drives me crazy, as you can see right now and how angry I am. And nobody knows that Jack was saved by the Navi off screen.

He's fine. That's, I will at least say that on the 2012 episode of Mythbusters, they at least tried to see if it could work and they did say that it is plausible that Jack and Rose could have stayed afloat if they had somehow tied her life jacket

around the board to increase its buoyancy. That was their one way of saying that it could have worked. And then James Cameron actually replied to that saying, I think you guys are missing the point here. The script says Jack died. he has to die so maybe we screwed up

and the board should have been a little tiny bit smaller but the dude's going down good reply that was my long speech I had prepared for this one tiny deleted scene that just still makes me say

speaking of movies this is where we hear about French movies they realize the family can't go home they don't want to end up like Alma who hung himself in his So, and this is where a boat shows up, and it is a Frenchman, very Frenchman. This was about how they admit on the commentary, France was right.

They were right to not go to invade Iraq. Like, that was their problem. They were wrong and being correct. And that's why we all hated them for a time. And they're still a little salty about the phrase cheese eating surrender monkeys being used sincerely. When the point of that joke, it's Willie, he's hateful, and he's especially hateful towards the French. Yeah, Al Jean is rightly. defensive that a line

from an episode he oversaw was completely misinterpreted to attack the French who he agreed with. I do think Al Gene agreed with the French that even then that we shouldn't have been doing that and they were right to not support us. There's also just kind of again like a

stock joke of like America save France when it was weak and lame World War II and they also throw in I believe World War I right? Is that what they're trying to say? Oh that he does say twice doesn't he? That's right. When in reality, it's like, I guess you could say that we saved them in World War I. I think that's not, that's kind of silly.

But you could say that about Vietnam because basically France was losing the war in Vietnam and we took over that project. So maybe that's what they meant. Probably not thought. Oh, yeah, you know, it could be that. I always forget they're part of that. You know, the only times I think about the French being in Vietnam is why I think about the apocalypse now deleted scenes with the French. Sure. Well, thankfully, on the commentary, somebody has pointed out that the French,

French help fund the Revolutionary War in a big way? Yeah, well, this is the old thing, is like, someone's like, oh, we saved your ass World War II, and then someone goes, yeah, well, Lafayette was a general who helped the American Revolution. It's just like, yeah, we all know. Like, we know. You know, we all know that.

But obviously here to service the plot point of them escaping to France, but again, just nothing particularly interesting or spicy here is just like, yeah, everyone hates France. And then Homer's like, oh, I'm not even considered fat here. And I was like, you're making a joke about French people excusing obesity.

Like, say what you want about the French. Like, I don't think that's the target with France, you know. That seemed to be just a joke about Gerard de Pardue, I feel. Yeah, I think I really... That's exactly who I thought about. I'm like, well, I mean, they do have him. So maybe just specifically him, that kind of works. Well, I can say based on evidence of my own life, if you move away from America, you don't miss it.

Some of my stuff is there. You don't want to come back. You won't miss it. You can't make me. I mean, I'm being a little stinker, of course, but I feel like, well, they have to get this show back to status quo, but they also want to make sure, okay, the Simpsons, deep down, they're Americans, and they love this country for better or worse. They want to throw that out there begrudgingly. It's not the worst line. I was ready for it to be more cringeworthy.

It's kind of that classic Simpson. It's an echo of that classic Simpson sort of, well, as you just said, Bob, being a bit of a stinker, you know, you're winding up, you're saying it has its flaws, it has its crimes. but most importantly, you know, as a modern American who cares about my stuff, I'm just going to throw my hands up and say, why not? You know, it's where I'm from. And I thought that was better than some kind of annoying, you know, idea of like, I was just prepared for Lisa to say something, more 2004. And you know what?

For the quick French jokes when they get on the boat, once they're in Paris and like seemingly living in the Eiffel Tower, they're like, this place is awesome. We love this place. And a nice return of the Chanel suits that Marge is so fine. I saw that. Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield. Yeah, that was a nice little.

Although she uses one as a napkin. This is where the Simpsons realized they got to go home. Mamon, please pass the baguette. The food is so delicious here. And these Chanel suits are fine for a dollar. I'm using a jacket as a napkin. And here no one calls me a fat jerk. I'm a gourmand.

And yes. I miss America. I miss America, too. The United States has its grandeur and its follies, but mostly it's the place where all our stuff is. I wish we could go back, but I don't think we're welcome there. No, March. There's one group that's always welcome in America.

Immigrants without IDs. Well, kids, this is the first chapter of our brand new lives in America. Ma'am? Simpson? From now on, you're not. of the Sims. That'll save time. Now, kids, it'll take us

a while to assimilate. I'll start out as a cop. And then with time, become a dirty cop. I think I'm going to like this America. And then we go out with Neil Diamond's song.

I think it's funny. They could have played that out over the entire credits, but eventually they pull back and it's a Simpsons theme again. Was it cheaper to just buy 30 seconds of it? It felt like a choice to me,

I think. I mean, I'm always a fan of this. old school immigrant comedy, even though they've done it a lot before. It is charming to me that they're immediately dressed as turn-of-the-century immigrants in these very brown clothes. Entering through Ellis Island seemingly and getting their names changed. We did all of the history on that when we covered an American tale earlier this year.

Brandon, you're right, we wrap it up with one more thing against immigrants as well that they are. Or is Homer thinking, is the joke that Homer thinks they're always welcome just him being like naive because they're not welcome now? I think the joke, because they get in. They works. Like, I think the joke is our ridiculous border policies, you know, mean that, you know, this is one of those things that we got to fix. But for The Simpsons, it's working out because, you know,

again, I'm not offended. It's just, again, whiffing the moment, you know, because like I said, the Department of Homeland Security was created. I mean, they was signed into law in 2002, but it was created in 2003. All the good stuff we love now, most notice. incredibly ice created in that year. So, like, it's just like, what are you trying to do in this episode again?

What are you trying to get a culture of fear, standing up against the stuff that's eroding our liberties? Like, it's just kind of rudderless and strange to me, you know? I do like that Homer plans to become a dirty cop with time. With enough time, he'll be one. And you know what? A compliment to the animators again on Stephen D. Moore's team. I do like the shot of the Simpson family looking at the Statue of Liberty.

It's a good drawing. It's a really good, like, shot in the episode. And one final mystery, maybe you can clear this up, Henry. Marsha Wallace credited as a voice actor in this episode. And Krabopel does not speak even the donkey basketball game. So I assume that there is a deleted clip that is not on the DVD unless you hurt her in a deleted clip. So that must be a deleted scene they did not want to share with us because it's not on the DVD. So, man, but that you've noted before, Bob, they have to credit her even if they cut the line.

So that means there was a deleted scene with Kraboppel, but they just don't. They have to credit her and pay her all the same. Now, the only other deleted scene, actually, you may notice when everybody's listening what they love about Paris or France in general, you don't hear what Bart says. Here's Bart's line that got cut from the episode. And yet, I miss America.

Me too. All the kids here are too drunk to play with. Thank you for the ashtray. Bart throws a frisbee and then the drunk child who's smoking uses it as the as an ashtray. Children need wine. That's what I was thinking. It is the same joke.

You're right. Yes. So, yeah, we get a drunk child joke they got cut from it. Man, now I want to know what Craboppel was in this. So many cut things in this. But clearly they weren't confident in this. They were messing with it the most. And also it's funny, the commentarians, when they could have talked about all of this, like, you know, political stuff,

they instead are talking about how Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin were friends late in life, which they always loved talking about. Yeah. Boomers. A very boomer-coded conversation. The episode ends with The Simpsons returning home as The Sims and the status quo is regained in this very strange episode, to say the least. Yes, I guess final thoughts.

I've spoken enough about the politics. It's a fun time capsule of someone getting it wrong and being not very confident in what they're saying. So it's fun to go back, especially from this modern perspective, to see what were the topics, how was this handled? You can go look at similar episodes of like the Daily Show South Park to see it handle a little better. But this is a big whiff. And I'm glad these kind of episodes are kind of limited in the grand scheme of the Simpsons.

They've got a few things to say in this that I did like. And it was fun to go back and remember like so specifically what we were all thinking politically back then. And there are moments that do reflect the time. But yeah, I wish they just had a stronger take. I agree with 2011 Al Jean as he reflected from the safety of the. Obama era, what he wishes he would have done with the episode. And again, I'll say any listeners out there who write headlines about Simpsons predicted it, Alcatraz reopening and holding prisoners and being arrested for freedom of speech

stuff right there, Simpsons predicted it. I'm leading you to it. Easy money. And the vaccines. Yes. But sorry, Brendan, any other final thoughts? No, I think it was interesting to walk through the episode in, you know, we started with essentially, you know, we all were in agreement about the way the episode lands, but like I said

a little while ago, talking about some of the texture of that era, and particularly in media, and how people were just getting shut down, shows were getting shuttered, you know, left and right. You can understand a little bit more maybe if you weren't there or if you were too young, like why, whatever you think about it, why they had the attitude they did about not saying too much. and I'm sure as the Simpsons, they didn't feel quite certainly not like they have been for the past, for like the Trump era. They probably didn't feel quite as secure as you might have assumed. They played it very safe, obviously. So it was an interesting product of its time.

Well, Brendan, thank you for joining us for this very long episode. We promise next time you'll get to do a good one. But until then, where can people find you online? Tell us more about blowback and more about this unnamed Metal Gear podcast that will be named by the time this goes live. I can't wait to hear it. That's a big if we're going to name it. assume we have to in some way. But yes, I'm the co-host and producer of Blowback. I have to say this episode, even more than our previous ones, if people are interested in more about this era that

we've been discussing, our first season of Blowback, which you can find anywhere you get your podcasts, is about the Iraq War. And we take it from even before 9-11 and before the Bush administration, the second Bush administration, to its origins and how it played out up until around the Obama and Trump era. So if you're thirsty for more of that, gets a little bit headier than the Simpsons discussion we've been having. But our current season, which is out by the time this has been released, is about the war in Angola, the kind of Cold War showdown in Africa between Soviet Union, the Cubans, and the Angolan government, and America, like the CIA in South Africa, it had great repercussions.

It's not talked about a lot, but it's a fascinating conflict. If you're already a fan of the show, a lot of the same characters and twists and turns that we usually try to bring to life. So blowback season six is the new one, but for this episode, I'd say, go back and check out season one if you haven't already. And then, yes, Felix Biederman and I, my buddy and former Chappo colleague, we are doing a series, a mini series about Metal Gear Solid. And I've already sent the episodes to Bob and Henry to see if they're terrible and we cancel it or not, but I think it's going to be good. And we just want to have fun and talk about a series, games that we both really, really love, and hopefully in a way that only Felix and I

can produce. So if you're into stuff like that, I know Bob also host Retronauts. I've had the privilege of going on Retronauts. If you like your game talk, then check that one out too. It'll be in the Chapo Patreon, the Chapo Trapp House Patreon feed. Thank you so much to Brendan James for being on the show. Please check out Blowback and his now named Metal Gear Solid podcast, which will be on the Chapo Trapp House Patreon. But as for us, If we want to support our show and get a ton of bonus stuff on top of that, go to patreon.com slash talking Simpsons and sign up at the $5 level. And when you do, you can access all of these podcasts ad free. That's right, zero ads on these podcasts.

And also access a vast back catalog over eight years of full-length miniseries episodes over 200 to date. We've covered shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critic. And that five bucks a month also gets you a new episode of both Talking in the Hill and Talking Critic every month. It's a great bang for your buck. It's happening for five bucks a month, only at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And there is a $10 level two that will get you all the $5 stuff naturally, but also you'll get one very, very, very, very big podcast once a month for patrons of that level. What is that podcast?

Bob is talking about our What a Cartoon Movie Podcast. You just heard us talk about that with an American tale we covered earlier this year, which is a lot like the ending of this episode. And that's just the most recent ones. We're recording this a bit in advance, but I can see. tell you that if you signed up now, you can hear the whole summer of Disney 2000s that we did covering films like Atlantis, the Lost Empire, and Treasure Planet, and Lilo and Stitch, and an extremely goofy movie. We've done years and years of them, us covering great films like

all of the Toy Story movies and multiple studio Ghibli films, even junk like Shrek or Cool World or live action things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 1990. We've covered it all on what a cartoon movie and if we haven't yet i'm sure we will very soon cover an even better thing so sign up at the ten dollar level to get all the ad free bonuses bob mentioned at five bucks a month and then you also get the what a cartoon movie hundreds of hours of bonus podcasts as well sign up today at patreon dot com slash talking simpsons and i've been one of your host bob macky you can find me on blue sky and letterbox as bob servo other places as bob servo as well find me there and i have another podcast. It's called Retronauts. It's about classic video games. Check it out wherever you

find podcast or go to the Patreon at patreon.com slash Retronauts and sign up there for a whole bunch of bonus episodes. And Henry, what about you? You can find me on Blue Sky and Instagram as Talking Henry. And I'm H-E-N-E-R-A-G on Letterbox. And you can also find the social media accounts for this podcast out there as at Talk Simpsons Pod. At Talk Simpson's Pod on Blue Sky and Instagram keeps you up to date whenever new podcasts happen, whenever there's events, on our Patreon. Any other cool stuff going on in our lives. Follow at Talks Simpsons pod. And TalkingSimpsons.com, of course, is where you'll find all of our previously released free podcasts of Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon.

Thank you so much for joining us, folks. We'll see you again next time for Season 5 Secrets of a Successful Marriage. And we'll see you then. There's the boy who bared his bottom to old glory, and the family that applauds is every moonery. They hate our country, but they love our soapy water.