Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart of Darkness

Episode Date: August 2, 2017

Season six is here, though this episode should've aired three months earlier? Learn why there was a delay, how the hosts spent their childhood summers, and the harrowing tale of Henry once breaking his arm on this week's early podcast!

This week's episode of Talking Simpsons is brought to you by you. That's right, we're on Patreon now, so head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons. For as little as $5 a month, you can help our show and get all kinds of great extra content on top of that. We've got a ton of great bonus content waiting for you right now, so head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons today. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to TalkingSimpsons, where we're up to our knees in the original cast of M.A.S.H. I'm your host, Bob, the Queen of Summer Mackey, and this is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of The Simpsons.

Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, and somebody took my juice money. Lightning Magnet, Chris Antista. That's right, and today's episode is a season six premiere, Bart of Darkness. Hello, Mrs. Cumberdale. I love, that's actually, my fan theory is that's Barney of Darkness. Hello, Mrs. Cumberdale. I love that. That's actually my fan theory is that's Barney's son. Oh, wow.

Look for my bad article on BuzzFeed. Hello, Mrs. Cumberdale. Yes, exactly. And today's episode aired on September 4th, 1994. And as always, Chris will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real life history. Oh, my God. Oh, boy, Bobby.

Tupac Secura pleads guilty and not guilty on charges in two different states in two separate trials. Speaking of music, Kermit Unplugged emerges in music stores, but it cannot defeat the soundtrack to the hottest movie this summer, The Lion King. And best of all, The Simpsons premieres as scheduled, possibly thanks to a Major League Baseball strike. Oh, man.

Thank you, Major League Baseball baseball for going on strike and not delaying this okay sports fans i said possibly because of all the things i never want to argue about i don't know that fox had the rights to baseball at this point i think that took a little bit oh you know what actually no i remember this because of 30 2010 and in 96 30 2010 one of the tv things i got was tommy las saying, like, hey, baseball on Fox. Pretty great. Yeah. Can you believe it?

They're a real network now. So, yeah, that's two years away. But this aired two days before my 12th birthday. I wouldn't recognize Tommy Lasorda without a Sega hat. I mean, any professional sport was the bane of the primetime cartoon watcher. It just would forever ruin Futurama, move King of the Hill at 8.37pm. Awful. Burns off on Sunday

at noon just because they couldn't air it at its regularly scheduled time. When will this pennant chase end? So we are still in production season 5. If you don't follow Talking Simpsons or are that deep into Simpsons production information, there are always a few episodes produced for the season but held over for the next season.

And this was one of them, but it was intended to be the season five finale. Yeah, it is. In general, this happens just as a quirk of television production for an animated show versus a live action show. On a live action show, they would almost never have a holdover

because you filmed it this week and it airs next week. But the up to nine months production length that it takes for a Simpsons episode means you'll always have holdovers. Like, the first two episodes of airing season five were holdovers from production four, and this is the same deal here. And then it was a bigger deal because those were episodes from a different showrunner and from a different writing staff. But these were extreme situations of a holdover from season five that had it not been for an earthquake, they would have aired in season, in airing season five.

And I think that's also what makes this the longest season of The Simpsons ever. This is, season six is a 26 episode season. 26? Wow. And there were extra episodes baked in from the critic team, correct? Yes. So you have two holdovers from this and then two critic team episodes the crossover and blood and guts murphy uh-huh you and so you have that uh in the holdover and a clip show and a god damn clip worst clip show we're gonna do it

we're gonna waste a week of your uh simpsons time with it but it must be done hey the clips are funny for completeness sake yeah and and also like production season six technically two episodes of production season six get held over into season seven so you don't even see all of season six this one but yeah and in modern simpsons times last time i checked in there would be like eight to ten holdovers yes of uh the previous season that would air at the beginning of the next season so i do i do wish this episode was the finale you said it in the previous episode it does it be really fun to acknowledge the upcoming summer i really wish it was for me it was weird because this episode is all about summer all about getting a pool and after the season five finale happened our family

did get an above ground pool so i live wait i live the bard of darkness summer without the cast i wanted to ask somebody about that because only brett has like the white trash pool story the white trash pool oh that's wonderful i my family never had a pool it wasn't that we couldn't afford it but that my dad didn't want all the work of keeping up a pool which i get it i understand the work and price of it but also my dad doesn't like fun so he's i had to clean a lady's pool for a while it is one of the worst jobs it was not sexy in the slightest it was a lot of burnt... You know how chlorine burns your eyes? Imagine that feeling on your fingers before it hits the pool.

It sucks to shock a pool. It's the worst. I'm glad it's mentioned slightly in this episode because the maintenance is terrible. It was really great, personally, for me to have the entire pool experience for the summer, building the pool, using chlorine, having friends come over, and then when the summer is over, this is the first episode that airs, I'm like, oh my god god it's my pool experience captured on the simpsons i was i was

going to say my favorite episodes from these this i don't know this era all seem to involve the simpsons getting something a kid can use in the backyard it involves a treehouse a trampoline or a pool i'm down i actually liked this one coming at the end of summer because it's basically a labor day weekend episode when you're ready to reflect on summer. So showing you a whole episode that's just about summer fun, it kind of lets you. It was just, no, I love Secrets to a Successful Marriage. It makes me laugh. It may make me laugh more than this, but this one seems more special.

There's a lot of original musical numbers. There's a lot of really spot on numbers there's a lot of uh like really right like spot-on parodies it looks more expensive it looks more prestigious than the relatively straight-laced sequel successful they had a lot of time to work on this because of the north ridge earthquake which happened in january of 94 january 17 that will let you know about the simpsons production schedule an earthquake happened in january which stopped an episode from airing in early June. That's basically how long things are

in the pipeline for. And Henry, you've done the research on the Northridge earthquake. Yeah, so it was a 6.7 quake, which is pretty strong. I've lived in San Francisco or in the Bay Area for more than a decade. A 4.3 is the most I've ever felt, and that's

like jostles you awake i still go right back to bed when i feel yeah but uh well i make sure i have to tweet earthquake first and then just let everybody know i felt one but hashtag earthquake but so yes this was in la it affected the major la area and it was on january 17th 1994 it was a massive earthquake that wrecked a lot of shit it did at least 13 billion in damage the estimates were from 13 billion to 40 billion of damage to the entire area and 57 people died in it like that's it was it was really bad and the film roman building where a lot of production was happening was not spared in that destruction oh really yeah and also oakley and weinstein joke that that joke that they were the only guys who were like,

yeah, let's go to work. I mean, there was an earthquake, and they find out no one's there because the building might come down around them any second. Go home, Bill and Josh. I think it looks like a stucco cracked egg. That's film Roman. Matt Groening has a great anecdote. It's very short, but he said the first thing he thought of when the earthquake happened was, I can blow deadlines.

This is great. I can blow deadlines. I thought the same thing about 9-11 in college. Yeah, me too. And if I can may pull out a college fact from the classes I took to replace the math ones I didn't take. An earthquake is one of the rare natural disasters that has – when people like us hear it rated this, this on the Richter scale, it's one of four ways that earthquake is measured because of how well prepared california is for an earthquake

an earthquake is measured also by how much monetary damage it does there is no such classification for a hurricane because we at this point california can experience a devastating earthquake with no property damage that thing we're prepared enough for it. A 6.6 earthquake would have wiped out the populace of a city with buildings in 1910. Yeah, it's funny you mention that, Chris, because if you live in the Bay Area and some other places in America, there are a lot of really, really old buildings. I live in a 100-year-old apartment building, and when you walk in, it says, this has a soft foundation.

It is not earthquake safe. So eventually, California made my buildings, this has a soft foundation. It is not earthquake safe. So eventually, California made my building's managers put in a new foundation. They're doing that now, actually. They had to gut

the entire garage. There's men coming in and out of the place every day with these giant pipes and everything. I don't know how they do this. I don't know how you... Dude, sometimes it's

literally giant springs. It looks awesome. Did they call up Surly Joe or did they watch the half-assed guy into a foundation? Get out of here, bub.

We gotta make this foundation earthquake-proof. It turns out we needed a 50 cent washer uh yeah no i got that warning too now i'm not even in i just live in a old house bob just seen it now like it is a converted house with like four units so i i'm not as worried as when i lived in like a 25 unit place it was on top of a parking structure oh i also like this i may talk about more about meteorology sure we are recording this from san francisco you guys live in the bay area as well there are no hot days henry and i are from florida and the way this episode starts out is an absolutely something we experienced during summer yes hey it was just as bad in ohio i'm sure it was leave it i mean but Bob, it has been a decade

without the hot time of year. I think there's like a hot week in here. We put on a fan and the sun goes down and it's 50 degrees. But in Florida, our air conditioning went out. Whenever air conditioning went out and it does happen, you're on a waiting list

and I just have to sit in a bathtub filled with water because this whole state is uninhabitable. I would open up my fridge and put a tent next to it. There was one time in Florida there was a power outage and it was just the night without AC.

I was like, I am dying. I just can't do this. It felt like death. I am dead. No one is meant to live here. This is to kill you. My secret shame is I have never in my life touched a thermostat. Ever. Ever. I don't know how to do it. So, like, I don't know how they work.

I don't know what temperature. Well, you never live through winter, so it's fair. I put on a sweater, take clothes off, just like The Simpsons. So there is one last thing I want to say about the L.A. Quake that the animation contemporary of The Simpsons, Animaniacs, it interrupted their production, too. And like they did with many things they did a cartoon about it and so they did an entire cartoon about this specific quake in la that as a kid it made no sense to me because i lived in florida i didn't pay attention to no matter how extreme an earthquake was in la i did not pay attention to it but here is a song about it's a song. This is the city, Los Angeles, California.

On a starlit winter night when the moon was shining bright back in January of 1994. At 4.30 in the morning, and without a single warning, something strange began to move the floor. A quake.

A quake. The house begins to shake. You're bouncing across the floor and watching all your dishes break. You're sleeping. There's a quake. You're instantly awake. You're leaping out of bed and shouting. Oh, for heaven's sake. I ran outside with neighbors. Their faces filled with shock. That's because

I'm standing there in nothing but my socks. Oh, a quake, a quake. That looks so fucking... Animaniacs was, I was going to say, too good for this world, but since we're recording it, a little while ago it was announced they're bringing it back. And I'm sure it won't look as good or have the great orchestra backing it.

It shouldn't have looked that good to begin with. No cartoon should have. But it's the power of Spielberg. Hopefully he still has a little bit of that left after BFG. I'm hoping TMS has the availability, dude. They're not going to hire TMS. No, they will never do that. They're going to go with Flash Animation.

Titmouse. Titmouse will be doing animation. I mean, Warner does a ton of animation. But some of it has a higher budget than others, you can tell. Like, Steven Universe is technically Warner animation. But same is Tom and Jerry meet Willy Wonka. That oddly has some good animation in it. Too good for the product.

I'm serious. Just some of the character animation, they look like the Tom and Jerry from specifically the 40s. Wow. I saw that trailer for the Tom and Jerry Willy Wonka crossover, and I just wanted to walk into Warner Bros.

and throw over a table. Hey! You owe him too much shit! You didn't have to do this. God damn it! Nobody wanted this. You didn't create either of these things.

Well the animation I also gauge it by the animation quality in the WWE films Warner Bros. makes of them like WWE meets the Jetsons. Vince McMahon rock. What are you doing here?

There's a full commentary then on Laser Times Patreon. Oh, boy. Check it out. Oh, my God. CM Punk Rock. But all right. So into the episode itself. Every episode should start with Hans Molman catching up.

Tying, yeah. Well, you're certainly doing your job today mr son oh rats and uh then we visit the springfield wax museum for the second time since lisa beauty queen yeah and reagan said would not be on a pike uh how dare they insult a president like that but all the melted wax is great i and now i've seen as a kid I hadn't, but now I've seen enough M.A.S.H. to understand the accessories floating around his feet. And it's technically one of the only ways John Lennon

as a guest starred in The Simpsons. And of course Skinner would go to the wax museum and of course he would go to the M.A.S.H. exhibit. He is that boring. Up to my ankles in the cast of M.A.S.H. I mean, that's probably an exciting day for him. He went to the 4-H club first and then came here. Got radar in my socks.

And then Just Stamp the Ticket Guy returns. Not to even say anything, he just punches a guy in the face, which random punches in the face, a motif of Season 5. We're singing the John Denver song. Then comes, I thought, a very ingenious moment for Homer. For the rest of the summer, we can live inside the refrigerator. Homer, the fridge wasn't meant to be used this way. Although I must say, it's certainly refreshing.

I got the idea when I noticed the refrigerator was cold. Won't this overload the motor? Marge, can you set the oven to cold? It's cool in here, boy. It's cool in here, boy. Yeah, I would have tried this as a kid, but obviously my parents would have said, what are you doing? You're destroying the refrigerator.

And that sound of the fridge dying was such great foley. Like, it dies so perfectly. You hear the fan go out the only time i broke a fridge was not over this engine going out it was uh breaking one right now it was it was trying to get rid of ice in my frozen over freezer and then puncturing puncturing the cool and things i was like well there is all the free on this there's a fine line between breaking the ice and stabbing your refrigerator right in the heart well i had a very old fridge in my apartment bob has seen my oven my fridge was almost as old as that i think i saw your oven on i love lucy but so my fridge is just that was

almost as bad it was a combo freezer if the door was the same for the freezer in the fridge which caused a ton of uh freezer burn and ice to build up until eventually i lost more than half of my freezer to ice and i just had to chip away at it and then when i broke it my landlady kind of had to admit like you were owed a new freezer a fridge a long time ago so i'm just gonna buy one a little bit about renting and again i wasn't quite white trash my parents were very cheap i think they discouraged me from using a thermostat. Therefore, I never really learned how to use one, and I don't. But lounging

in your tighty-whities, I do remember that we're not quite white trash, but I know we did that. When you're 10, also, you haven't developed enough shame of your body yet. Yeah, yeah. I've either had fat back knee or

back hair i do not like being around in my shirt off but that is how i cope with heat is i just take my shirt off and wear my underwear a lot of sitting around in my bathing suit for me oh that that doesn't breathe well at all i don't care it's like it's basting your own balls it was a cute little thing of maggie sleeping on the gelatin. Falling asleep. A callback to the old gelatin dessert jokes on The Simpsons. That's true. And I love Homer's kid logic of like, can't you set the oven to cold? If the oven can get hot, it can get cold

too, right? It's the codependence carrying over from the last episode. They don't do enough jokes about Marge's dyed hair. I like the fan blowing it back and forth. She stabilizes it. It's really good. The kids are misled by several disgusting food trucks. I love this. I'm all out of ice cream!

It's true, you know. Ice cream! It's true, you know. Ice cream! Oh. Chili! Red hot Texas style chili! And we got ginger ale! Boiling hot Texas style chili And we got ginger ale

Boiling hot Texas style ginger ale Texas Ah, face it Bart Our salvation isn't just going to roll by On the back of some stupid truck The pool mobile, what an awesome idea It is, I looked at it I couldn't find a real world equivalent

If there was a poolmobile. Not that I don't want to give the Simpsons writers credit for coming up with this. It'd be too hard to drive around. You'd lose a lot of water. And they make that joke, too. Yeah. So I was hoping... Get that window replaced.

I'm hoping it exists. I hope there's a mobile pool somewhere. I would think there has to be. You just put a cover on it and the water wouldn't come out. Dude, like a blackout in LA in an inner-city neighborhood? There should be a way for people to get some relief. When you open up a fire hydrant, you know, and play in it, like in all those famous photos.

I do want to say that one, this is a weird time for me. It's really true. It was a very Warner Brothers style joke. And it also made me wonder, do people still have ice cream trucks? Because we didn't really. Oh, we did. I bought something from an ice cream truck maybe once.

I mean, I'm from Florida where everything is super spread out. A lot of people living. So they'd come to Little League games because they knew we could sell to a bunch of people. It didn't run around neighborhoods. Mine did because I lived in a lot of suburban residential neighborhoods. And I can credit ice cream trucks for introducing me to the concept of anxiety. Something I live with every day. It's like, you hear the sound. the sound where is it i need money is it going to pass me by what am i going to get oh god oh god it's here i need 35 cents mom i'm so old i'm so old i can remember like a snow cone was 35 cents and sometimes not

having enough to get that and the other cheapest thing was a fucking pickle this guy sold room temperature summer florida room temperature pickles in a bag of its own juices. If you didn't have the 10 cents to get a snow cone, he was not flexible. But I realize San Francisco does have an equivalent of the ice cream man. There are people who push around carts. Oh yeah, you see those guys with carts everywhere. And that ties

in because if you want to believe Bugs Bunny, Pink Panther, Woody Woodpecker, Tweety Bird are still alive, it would be solely in the form of ice cream bars. With those delicious gumball eyes. Gumball eyes put in the wrong places. Or M&M's. Sometimes it's just M&M's.

I need a gumball eye on mine. It's pretty gross. I haven't seen, you know, I don't see as many of the, there are definitely ice cream truck guys even at the ice cream cart people at the Pride events this last weekend. But I still see on the street much more the guys with their hot dog well they're not even hot dog stands they're just like a hot dog mini cart they're just overhead and the production of hot dog carts in san francisco we were just in in new york city we're like hot dog carts were big as shit they were really big and they were really more like

kebab carts that are like if you you want a hot dog, fine. This is kebab town. This is progress. And I forgot it until seeing it this time again but it's just like that last, Texas! Texas. Definitely an ad-lib I think by Hecazaria. I know and that's why I love that clip because that's something a Warner Brothers character would do, would look into the camera

and say, it's really true, you know? Boiling hot ginger ale. Boiling hot ginger ale. and the way the pool mobile text perfectly moves across the screen when it drives by like that's just great i'd like to point out it was driving on the sidewalk just a little bit but a lot it was probably high though yeah that's true when when i was bart's age though i would not swim in my underwear i had gotten enough shame then of just like i think the last time i swam my underwear like in tighty whities i was not swim in my underwear i had gotten enough shame then of just like i think the last time i swam my underwear like in tighty whities i was six and that's why i realized like

well these are just invisible like everybody can just see my genitals if we if i get drunk in florida and someone lives in an apartment with the pool odds are we're gonna go back there and i'm gonna jump in the pool in my underwear at that point just go in naked and save your like you'll have dry underwear when you get out. It sucks. I have tremendous body issues, so I'll take any opportunity to swim at night. Don't care about the bottom half at all. Look at my dick, balls, and butt all day.

Just don't look at my goddamn awful sunken chest. Don't look at my back knee and back hair. Please. Well, and speaking of nudity in pools, I went to YMca's full of bullies but i never had like i never heard of a swimsuit being stolen like what happens to martin and i absolutely was the martin at ymca like we did pantsing stuff you wouldn't take it all we wouldn't we wouldn't take it off and that was never i because someone did that to me when i was really young and it like fucking traumatized me like just pulled my pants down got the underwear all the way.

My dick is flying around. I'm such an asshole. But we would do that as little kids. And I remember we stopped and like, oh, God, that puberty didn't set in. We can't do that to, let's call him Hiram anymore. It's not fair. It's not fair yet. No pubelly dooblies.

Some of us are actually men. Yes. But never to women. We never pulled down tops. It was just guys pulling down swimsuits underwater, not outside the water. Just classic grab ass. Total grab ass when you're underwater to surprise somebody. I can't not get in a pool and not mess with some of my friends somehow, some way.

Or my girlfriend. Well, Martin was wearing 17 pairs, but he did bring it on himself. He did bring it on himself. Martin in this episode is so great i love how i love how fey he is and that he doesn't get how how annoying that could be that that exactly was me i though i was millhouse i also feel a lot for martin i was like oh i was i did all these things as martin and i was the annoying kidders like yes we should be friends felicitations and not really real being gay and not realizing how gay you seem to everyone around you king king i do want to direct people to actually i just recently read this great article on the toast.net called uh martin prince's finest moments or it's like the queen of summer martin

prince appreciation of martin prince who is just lives his life as himself and doesn't care. Even the best example they gave of that was like him inviting Nelson to his party and Nelson knocking off his invite. It's like, you dropped this, Nelson. Oh, you dropped this. Here you go, Nelson. Here you go, Nelson. It's a very good article.

I would give it a read, folks. And then just as Dave Merkin loves, he gives them something and takes it away immediately. Sorry, Bart, dude. We gotta fill this thing with Epsom salts and jam it on over to the old folks' home. Oh, well. Same time tomorrow, Otto?

No way, man. One day of summer is all we're budgeted for. I guess it is kind of a tease. So I'm guessing Otto is the de facto facto lifeguard or he's supposed to be but it's odd it is just a pool for kids margin homer don't go into it and they probably would enjoy a swim well it's i mean it is a pool mobile but clearly it's like three feet deep yes it's not a great pool honestly but it's a cool it's mobility is one thing but it is not a see i have to imagine it exists because the funniest thing i ever saw my friend denies he

said this uh it was in la i forget for what and you have to remember they still have the fucking limos with the jacuzzis in the back oh yeah that's right i was thinking of that actually and and i just remember like a really like buttoned down friend. It's like there's a limo turning the corner. I'm just talking to him. You've seen enough limos in LA. You don't bat an eye. And then we should make the marketing call over there. Holy shit, look how drunk that guy is!

And a limo turned the corner with the drunkest executive throwing up all over himself in the back of an empty jacuzzi that I've ever seen in my entire life. My buddy Mike denies up and down that I would not have pointed and yelled that. You totally did, because it was the most shocking thing that drove past us in four seconds. The jacuzzi is more like a de facto barf bucket. Yeah, but it's LA, a city of freeways. If they have those, then why can't a pool mobile exist? That's such a BoJack Horseman moment, which I would love to do an episode about that on a Talking Toons show. But the pool mobile having no budget enough only to tease children with one day, that also feels like their comment on government waste.

Everyone was like, oh, we'll build a pool mobile, but we will not give it this budget it needs for more than one day. It costs $4 million to build, $400 to gas up. So if you remember the classic season 2 episode, Brush with Greatness, this is a very similar scene, but Homer learned his lesson from the, will you take us to Mass Splashmore? Will you take us to Mass Splashmore? I love that. You would have had to

have seen that episode to get that joke, and The Simpsons doesn't always do that. Dad, as you know, we've been swimming, and we've developed a taste for it. We both agree that getting our own pool is the only way to go. Now as you know, we've been swimming, and we've developed a taste for it. We both agree that getting our own pool is the only way to go. Now, before you respond, you must understand that your refusal would result in months and months of, can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad?

Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we? I understand. Let us celebrate our new arrangement With the adding of chocolate to milk I think if you remember that Mount Splashmore episode, it is funnier But it's also funny on a level

They're being very diplomatic This is what will happen to you if you don't give us what we want In Mount Splashmore they're just like It's a full assault on you at all times It's like a full day you see in a montage Lisa holding her hand up and Bart getting a little loud Right before them unplugging the television Before Homer Homer acknowledges them, they're just like, yes, honey. How much work Homer puts into like, turn my head this way, now I'll turn it back on.

They're like, yes, Lisa. I love that they can recognize in a previous episode, we broke you with this. So we've proven we would win again. It's not just them recognizing previous seasons, but it's also like in season two, they would have just said, we can't afford a pool. We have no money for this. And instead Homer's just like,

well, then I guess we bought it. And it was the swing in 90s. So my upper, lower middle-class family could afford a pool, but a white trash above ground pool is not a huge expense. It's still kind of pricey. It's attainable luxury.

It's a fucking PlayStation Pro minus the water cost. Pretty much, yeah. I mean, that whole summer we had to level out the ground and dig and stuff, but we just did that ourselves. We didn't hire people to do it. Brett told a story on one of our podcasts about when that pool broke. Like just being one of the most colossal displays of liquid you've ever seen in your entire life which they're not guaranteed they're not guaranteed at all no i think we replaced that pool once in 25 years so still going strong an above ground pool is seen as lower class than a in-ground pool like

an in-ground pool proves you did like landscaping and dug up shit and poured concrete and put pipes in i don't know having never had one, but an above-ground pool is like a fucking stage. You put your shirtless body on, whereas if it's lower, in Florida you've got to build a fence around your pool. No too many people with fucking acres

of land. I'm not going to put a fence around all this. You just put a little fence around a pool. It's the law. Children won't climb into it and die. It's not really a requirement with above ground pools so you would just see trash people elevated four feet in the air oh actually with a pool i almost uh drowned once very young as a kid oh my god i i was like two years old and it was classic baby falls in the pool where i i was uh when she was pregnant with my brother i was still she was still working and i was being taken care of by the woman in town who took care of like in the neighborhood who

took care of kids the nanny and she had a she had a backyard pool and so one day when my mom was coming to pick me up she saw me walk away and just plop into the pool and she said i didn't have a look on my face of drowning i she says it is haunted her to this day of just seeing me with a blank look on my face looking up in the water at her oh my god that's gonna haunt me now and so she is uh she was very pregnant but pulled me out of there herself and so oh baby henry your antics delighted us once again the kid being punched the stomach waving at lisa i do love i don't that scene just like uh i mean it happens later but he's enjoying being bullied for the benefit of lisa's approval i happened i was never this the cool guy but like i would the guy like oh look my pants are falling down outside the supermarket

hey girl pay any any attention all will do when i was like that kid in being like having friends who were clearly your bullies who acted like your friend like it'd be funny if we did this to you right i'm like yeah we're having fun together it's just it always happens to be me getting picked on here the pool shark scene i love the sign there i love that pool sharks where the customer is our chum that's it's beautiful and i wrote down all of the uh pool model names uh the insta rust the hick tubick Tub, the Lightning Magnet, and the Tinkler. Woo, the Tinkler. Hick Tub is my favorite.

Through growing up in Florida and swimming and everything, I have ingested so much pee in my life, I have no idea why I'm not into that. It doesn't make any sense. I grew up in the Y. That's where I went every summer. The free day camp in the Y. Once you realize it's full of urine, you're just like, well, you either

just have to accept that or not. That was a really good South Park episode about just like, yeah, everybody pees in the pool. I never did. No, they can't. I never did either. I didn't get it, but everyone else is like, oh, I mean, of course I've done it before, but not on a regular

basis. That was a really great episode of Pete and Pete actually. Which continued the urban legend of they can add a chemical to the pool to detect pee and show it. You're telling me grown-ups is a lie? They lied to you. If it turns a different color with pee, I feel like it would also poison you at some point. How can it be non-toxic? There's probably a kid with pee for sweat who would have a miserable life. And it's a great observation that the guy who sells pools would be like, I play keyboards.

Question lady. Yeah, good question lady. He's like, no, I'm a keyboard player who just happens to sell pools. Like, that's a lie he tells himself. He's so annoyed he calls her question lady. Listen, question lady. Yeah. Listen, question lady. The Simpsons will be right back. How we use electricity can be smarter,

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Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. Hi-de-lee-ho, podcasterinos, and welcome to the sixth season of Talking Simpsons.

Can you believe we've made it this far already? Well, we couldn't have done it without you yes you the listeners to our lovely podcast not only do we thank you for all your support all your tweets at us all your likes on the social medias but also your support on things like patreon.com slash talking simpsons yes the show is directly supported there and your attention gives us hope hope that we can pay our rent by doing a simpsons podcast isn't that everyone's dream i know it's mine and i'm living it thanks to you folks so if you still aren't a supporter though you're missing out on some really cool stuff what well we just did our season five wrap

up and special deleted scenes video slash audio thing yes first off we talk through all the big news and historical moments that happened during the fifth season plus we go over every deleted scene from the season piece by piece and comment on it and give it some historical context you can even see it in video form if you pay ten dollars a month it's really really awesome. And Hachi Machi, that's just the beginning because now exclusively on Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons is Talking Critic, our weekly exploration of every episode of The Critic. We did the

first two on their own thing. Now, since we hit the funding goal on Patreon, we are doing the entire series and it will post every Friday on Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. So if you head there you can see it and there's tons more cool stuff coming down the line and we thank you very much for your support there now onward to the rest of season six Hey, this is Jerry Cooney, professional boxer and official greeter of Mr. Burns Casino.

Welcome to Mr. Burns Casino. If there's anything I can do to make your visit more enjoyable, please, just let me know. Yeah, great. See ya. You're listening to the guys on Talking Simpsons. Hey, is that bug off? Also, this week's episode of Talking Simpsons is brought to you by Audible. Go to audibletrial.com slash talking simpsons for a 30-day trial of it, including your own free audio book. What's so great about audible.com?

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Here's a taste of what you've been missing. Diana is somehow 40. She doesn't look a lick over 38, in my opinion, but she had a little 40th birthday jam. It was fun. I don't know how to talk about that because it's like people's children. The doggies didn't get along.

They got along, I would say, like 85% of the time, and then 15% of the time they would. I mean, I brought my dogs around other dogs. I think I've seen that like once. They got into it quite a bit. But then you would see they would like run around and just have fun. They would up until the bone and the hot dogs entered the equation. Yeah, I think any time there was a foodstuff or another dog around, then that would complicate things.

There was absolutely no injuries. It's all bark for both of them. It's like, yeah. And they get close. Scratch Michael. Yeah, sorry, Michael. It does create an awkwardness. I can't speak for Michael and Diana or your lady.

It would have been great if you took sides. Oh, I'm so sorry this happened. And like, these are fucking dogs. There shouldn't be a moment of silence like, oh, this is an awkwardness we might not be able to socially recover from. I was hoping that it would come to like a part where like half the party is siding with their dog and half the party... I saw it. She came at him. I saw it.

Steve wanted it. Yes. And he wasn't going to stop until he got it. You wouldn't let Steve kick your dog's ass like that. Get bonus time, Laser Time's weekly, full-length, uncensored, and ad-free Patreon-exclusive podcast. As well as full-length movie commentaries, wrestling and cartoon video commentaries, the first season of Talking Simpson, and more at patreon.com slash lasertime, starting at just five bucks.

You'll help us live, and we'll do our best to help you never be bored again. They build up the pool in a barn-raising scene similar to one in The Witness, which is a Harrison Ford film about Amish people. But I just love this line. All right, everybody in the pool! It is a fine barn, but sure, it is no pool, English. Do it! Is it a pool yet?

Yes, Dad. Woo-hoo! That is a great visual misdirect but it only works once only the first time you see this episode will it work what about when he makes a grill oh yeah but that was a sequel to this joke the barn raising was great that it's weird that lisa didn't catch that the entire time either during some part of the process when they're applying the roof to their pool that no one say this is a a barn. Once it's an A-frame, you should think so. But I love that doe-eth. And actually, as a kid, I said doe a lot if I made a mistake

because The Simpsons told me to do that. But to mix things up, then eventually I started doing doe-eth instead. As a Goodman Western boy, I visited Amish country a whole lot. So I resonated with all these Amish jokes. Rather, they resonated with me. amish amish jokes rather they resonated with me it's the longest rumspring ever and uh yeah the second the pool is built dozens of children have defended descended upon the simpsons house i can't believe how many times they've done this episode at this point with stampy and the trampoline oh yeah they've attracted a ton of

strangers to the simpsons backyard by this time it should be famous to the Simpsons. Famous to Springfield, like, yeah, it's the Simpsons' house. They have a crazy thing. Don't put anything in your backyard. Also, I can't believe the Simpsons are the first residents of Springfield to ever do this. But this was another thing, another reason my dad didn't want to build a pool.

He's just like, I don't want... Yes, and it's true. It's like, I don't want my son to have friends. But really, it was like he didn't want a ton of kids over all the time but he still got it because we had video games fuck you dad suck a dick mr gilbert but yes that he it's the same with like that tragic story i told of my dad not building a swing set because he just didn't want the next door neighbor kid there and similar deal here but it is you know it's not marge's job to make them all sandwiches this is really being taken advantage of there and by bart like bart

is i i love miss cumberdale is such a great fake name cumberdale is great i want to give that to oakley or weinstein yeah and some of the kids designs get really weird because they're just like how many different can how many different times can they make this and some of them are up here to be 10 years older than Bart. Yes, yeah. And Jimbo gets a lot of fun stuff in here that he's almost unrecognizable without his hat on. That's true, yeah. Meanwhile, Bart doesn't even get to swim once. Doesn't get to get in his pool once this whole summer.

Jump, Bart, jump! You got it. Hey, Bart, your epidermis is showing. It is? See, epidermis means your hair. So technically it's true. That's what makes it so funny. Pardon me a moment.

Hey, Nelson, he's really hurt. I think he broke his leg. I said ha ha! They really did emphasize his broken leg. It's gross. It's in the wrong direction. In a position I now call the family guy fall. Anytime somebody falls, they make sure to like...

No, there's an appendage here that was broken. Dominic Colcino totally stole that from me. Yeah. And Bart got on the roof of his treehouse to discuss the pool safety rules before falling off. Yeah, by getting taunted into jumping. And right when it aired, my mom was very, like, she called it out. She's like, that's too smart for Nelson. He wouldn't know what an epidermis is.

Like, it is a classic dork joke to say your epidermis is showing which means your skin not your hair hey actually i looked into this i thought nelson was wrong and that was part of the joke it does include the hair follicles what it does yeah see okay it would have made way more sense for martin to say it all right but here's the thing i think nelson just like watched an episode of bill nye the science guy and found a way to prank bart no No, I think, okay, I swear to you, I had heard this joke before, and I never read hair as being epidermis. I think the joke is that Nelson got it wrong. What's the dermis?

I guess hair is part. It's the skin. Yeah, I think it's the epidermis. It's the upper skin. The hair counts. I looked into it because I thought that was part of the joke, that Nelson still got it wrong and Bart fell for it. I like it better

if Nelson gets it wrong because it is too, it's too urbane for Nelson. But it is a classic like bully kind of like wordplay prank that I've had similar things not happen to me but I heard similar things like as a kid just like, oh I actually meant this and it's harmless. And the story

of a childhood summer and broken legs, it reminds me of a separate piece, though I don't think they were meant to do it. But you read a separate piece? No. It's a story of an asshole who has a fun friend who he tries to destroy who still loves him. But I did fall off a two-story roof

jumping in the pool over the summer, which is something we all did. Wow. Climbed the air conditioner to the tree to jump up, and I fell and hit every branch in the way right down. And just I cannot believe how indestructible I was. Did any of us ever break a limb? I never did as a coward and a non-active child.

I did, but in a more cowardly way than you not breaking a limb. A girl threw a basketball at me while I was holding a basketball. It hit my finger. My pinky was sandwiched in between the basket. So something was clearly wrong and it was swelling to the point where it was noticeable. But I couldn't admit a girl broke my finger. So it gets worse. I suffer through it for hours in summer camp.

And I manufacture a story about a mysterious cowboy who, I'm not kidding, who was walking around strutting his cowboy boots and stepped on my pinky and ringed it. I'm like, I think he thought it was a cigarette. I made up a lie about a broken bone and made myself suffer forever because I was too embarrassed to let everybody know a girl got the best of me. Goddamn you, Marilyn. You were attacked by the whip master it was a baptist camp that's the only excuse i want to hear about your multiple i broken i broke an arm once actually oh it was in the summer of 2000 i was 17 going on let's go back and well my friends and i really got into ufc and mma and uh and we decided to you know wrestle

around look at me I'm horse crazy. And also not think about how gay it was. It was like, no, we're just rolling around. Oil up first. So we were doing this and then my friend to boy, if this was in a separate piece, then he did it on purpose, but I absolutely don't think he did it on purpose. Then he gets me in an arm bar

and he pulls the arm bar and you watched your arm break no so actually his head so my left arm is between his two legs but my head is facing away with his legs on top of my ears so when my friends

hear a very loud crack I hear more like you know that sound like if you like crack a knuckle underwater or whatever it's just it's much quieter but my arm can't move anymore and he immediately You know that sound like if you crack a knuckle underwater or whatever? It's just, it's much quieter. But my arm can't move anymore. Oh my God, Henry. And he immediately lets go of my arm.

I'm like, do you think you dislocated? And they're like, I think it's broken, dude. I think it's really hurt. Let's get out of here. I'm going to pull a Henry now. So they did. Oh, that's so awful. They called an ambulance. And one of the hardest things I ever had to do was.

There's been an incident at the Gilbert place. Well, so this was also... My mom never forgave me for this because she... Well, this was one of the first times like, no, my friends who have graduated high school, they just got their own apartment, so I'm going to go hang out with them. And so the first time I'm at a place where a parent isn't, I break my arm. Son, was this some sort of jackass style chicanery? So I'm

like a 30 minute drive away from my family. Are you listening to the insane clown posse? If you're backyard wrestling, you need to tell me. So they call 911 and one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life was I wanted the ambulance dudes to pick me up, but they wouldn't do it. They're like, you gotta get up.

Okay, with one arm and my other arm feeling like it's in a hole. You jack palance it. I pushed myself up and just like, oh, this arm is hanging really weird. And then they put on a fake splint, but I'm still in shock, so I'm not feeling it. They take me to the hospital, and once I get to the hospital and it starts hurting, that's when I'm crying and like, oh, fuck, it's really hit me. And also the most pain I've ever been in is when they're like we're gonna have to move your arm slightly to x-ray it and like you're just gonna have to like and i i am like in tears and pain we're all cringing here in the studio by the way so when your arm is broke it was

the humerus bone so above the elbow and when that breaks you don't get a cast they you put it in a sling until it knits itself back together my arm is in a sling for three months and for the three months that followed that i could not bend to my elbow my my brother joked that i was bob dole and i just could not move it still a topical joke in 2000 not dead yet and also that my there was a huge bruise on my elbow too so i spent at least i will say in bart's case i actually prefer that it was during the summer that it was easier to stay indoors and heal during the hardest parts of it instead of going to school and dealing with that injury and though i did have i still came to school in a sling and spent like until like

october in the sling and i remember the in the sling. And I remember the day exactly. It was like two days before the first X-Men movie came out. Because I remember going. It was the first thing I did with a broken arm. June 2000. If only I had Wolverine's powers. So, yes, I have dealt with a broken bow. The nice thing about a broken arm is that it is hard, but is hard but is not you can still walk around there

there is a big difference so on a lighter topic uh that was a great story by the way thanks for sharing tell this story i could tell it was very well told but uh so uh bart becomes weird and isolated uh in his seclusion from the pool but i want to say that this was my ideal summer every year until i was in high school i was like no no friends my summer belongs to me i am going to play board games by myself yeah read mad magazines watch old tv shows play the same video games over and over friends will just get in the way of my time exactly yeah it was the summer of an indoor kid who re-watches stuff all the time that's that's that's what you do Yeah, so I really enjoyed my isolated and weird summers. And I actually was very much like Principal Skinner.

It's like, I'll just go down to the corner store. Let me see. What will I read today? Mad, Cracked, Disney Adventures. I think today I will choose Cracked. Yes, I did. I love that. It showed me what I love to do as an indoor kid.

I'm just like, yeah, I'm going to watch every old TV show kid i'm just like yeah i'm gonna watch every old tv show i'm gonna catch up on all these things and and uh it's why i was glad once i turned i think 13 until then my mom would send us to like day camps but the last one the last year we did it of the ymca was so bad of just like full of horrible bullies who were not very nice to me they're like okay max is just gonna henry is just gonna stay home the whole summer so you were known as max power then yeah max power you strap yourself in and feel the g's but but like thus begins the real parody of the episode and i hate that they call this bard of darkness should be rear bart dough they called

the last episode was called secrets of aful Marriage There's a movie called that You can call this episode Rear Window if you'd like to I always confuse the titles Bart of Darkness and Bart After Dark which is a season 8 episode I always have to name check it No no no, Bart of Darkness is the pool one If it's a reference to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness it almost makes sense and I kept looking for meaning

The horror More about the Coppola documentary which is for my money one of the best five films of all time and better than the movie it's about the documentary about the making of a podcast oh good yes uh oh but before we get there this is when bart finds out he's losing his whole summer or so he thinks i'm sorry that leg's gonna have to come off did i say leg i meant that wet bathing suit I'm afraid you'll need a cast

on that broken bone I'm gonna miss the whole summer Don't worry boy When you get a job like me you'll miss every summer That joke hurts more as a grown up Yeah as a kid I was like oh no he's right I have to enjoy this time

But it is sweet seeing Homer go to the ER with Bart. Like the selfish Homer they'd paint in some of their episodes, he wouldn't go to the ER with Bart. But him running next to the gurney with Bart on it actually made me go, oh, that's nice. I'm going to get this kid a magazine. After Mama's Family's Boy. And that Hibbert joke was pretty close to the Arrested Development Doctor jokes of just like...

Oh, right. It's going to be all right. All right. I wouldn't take that the way you would. You lost his hand. We've lost him. Yeah, we've lost him. But they begin the rear window, apparently.

Yeah, well... And the Heart of Darkness thing almost works because if you've seen that movie, the madness of a shirtless Francis Ford Coppola is very similar to Bart isolated in his room by himself. The original Joseph Conrad story is called Heart of Darkness. It is. It is, but I wanted to see more of that, but it is a very clear rear window parody

down to the music and everything. Yeah, I think the... Or Disturbia, because they're all based on the, like, what's it called? A Night of Murder or something like that. Oh, yeah.

An original story. It had to be murder. Okay, I think... Never mind. By Cornell Woolrich, a 1942 story that H An original story. It had to be murder. Okay. I think, never mind. By Cornell Woolrich, a 1942 story that Hitchcock made. Rear Window On and Disturbia with Shia LaBeouf is kind of a spiritual remake of that. Yeah, I mean, if you read about Hitchcock, he was a voracious reader. And all of his movies are based on books or short stories.

The Sherry and Terry bit of them saying like, hey, did you realize the day you got a pool is the day we liked you? And just Lisa getting to be popular was a really nice thing of just that. Corrupted immediately. Yeah, I've been that child. I had been that child too, occasionally like, oh, am I popular now? I was not. She truly is the queen of summer in these scenes. And one of my favorite visual gags ever is Millpool. I love Millpool so much.

And also, though, this is so kid-focused, it reminds me more of the Scully seasons, where episodes are just like all the kids, or it's all about the kids acting like adults, which, honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of those. They remind me too much of Rugrats. Yeah, they're a little Rugrats-y. I mean, Homer and Marge are there in the background for some gags,

but this is really a kid-focused season. I mean, episode, not season. I still really like those. And before we get a rear window parody, we get a lengthy Esther Williams musical number parody. I couldn't place the exact musical that was from, but it's funny. I did some research on Esther Williams.

Oh, boy. I'm going to say The Great Muppet Caper. What's that? The Great Muppet Caper, which is a parody. Well, that's how I got this joke. Oh, you're right. Miss Piggy does that. It's the Miss Piggy song from Great Muppet Cape. And the only scene... Here's to you, Miss Piggy. The only scene in any Muppet movie where just a little person is in a Miss Piggy outfit, and it is terrifying.

Wow. It's from a distance. It looks... It's shocking. Never do that again. As a kid watching it, it was just like, oh, this is fun, the Muppets. And now as an adult, I'm like, they had to get all these Muppets wet for a very involved sequence. It's crazy.

But Esther Williams, of course. It's funny. This can only happen in old Hollywood. It's like, you're a beautiful woman. You're also a professional swimmer. Every movie you will be in will be a swimming-related role. We already have a movie star ice skater. Yes, exactly.

Any more of those. I mean, she was a beautiful actress, and she was a great swimmer, so all of her roles involved swimming in some way. It's the best workout. She probably looked great. Oh, yeah. I mean, she hurt herself in the movie Million Dollar Mermaid. She took some colossal dive to the water and broke her

neck. And she had to be basically in treatment for seven months. My God. So she was devoted to her craft. My God, man. That's like Jackie Chan there. Yeah, but honestly, go online, look up Esther Williams. You'll find a lot of amazing water choreography, water choreographed dancing. It's amazing.

Also, if you've seen the History of the World Part 1, there's also that during the Tokamata scene, the Inquisition. It becomes an Esther Williams scene as well, but with the nuns. And then Bart watches Itchy and Scratchy, which is a very uneven reference-y one. Which first, it's the cask of Amontillado. Yeah. Of walling up Itchy. This is why we're better than the wikis. Because your limited minds attribute this to Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

I took several. There's almost nothing in here that relates to... If anything, they look like the heads of the people from To Serve Man, a previous Simpsons Halloween episode,

Twilight Zone. It's actually a Star Trek reference. I thought that too, Henry. From the first episode of Star Trek, which is both an adaptation of an unused pilot for Star Trek called The Cage, but also turned into a two-parter called The Menagerie, the first episode of Star Trek, which is both an adaptation of an unused pilot for Star Trek called The Cage, but also turned into a two-parter called The Menagerie, the first episodes of it. How does that work?

I thought this was from the not-used pilot for Star Trek. Well, yes. Boy, this is a long story. But Gene Roddenberry wanted to make the show Star Trek starring a guy called Captain Pike, not Captain Kirk. Right. And so he filmed a pilot of that on the desi lee desi lou studios but they didn't make that one they wanted him to rework it so then as he's working he gets that pilot sold for the regular star trek with with shatner in it he's got this footage from

this pilot and as they're getting farther into season one they're like production wise we need to save some money and so he's like okay if i write an episode where that basically is kirk and spock watching the pilot and then incorporating that into a story then it becomes that so the cage was where captain pike is being kept and then the bad things happen to him and then in the menagerie they are watching it in his trial about what happened. Are the brains that size as well? So they're on Talos IV, and the people with the big brains are the Talosians. Very aptly named because they live on Talos.

So they keep humans captive. They keep aliens captive, and they're just like, yeah, we're going to test you. We're much smarter than you, and they talk telepathically. Their brains don't make that. They just telepathically talk into your brains and have telepathic powers like throwing shit.

That might be a part of the age, right? That might be it. I think you might agree with me. This could be the most violent, itchy, and scratchy. Yeah, it really is. Him getting caught in the escalator and getting his skin ripped off is violent. But him getting chopped into pieces methodically. Blood everywhere. And after they

put him and you in a false sense of security, like, oh, he's finally getting to rest. They dress him, they wash him. That simple phenomenon, I forget somebody... There's a word for it, but say if Freddy Krueger is killing the shit out of somebody and you remove Freddy Krueger from that

situation, all you see is dismemberment and limbs and blood because there's nothing to block anything and that's why this is so disturbing to me it's just it's just a cat being dismembered we should also say it's jim reardon episode so it looks amazing and again they had extra time to work on this episode so the scenes in bart's room there's an extra layer of shadows on everything which costs extra money it's an extra cell layer loved how that looks. We have talked a billion times about him. In marketing, Bart appears in a blue shirt.

And in the show, he appears in an orange shirt. The lighting is just such where it's both colors during that sequence. The way Scratchy's head is split in half at the end is like, Jesus, this is a bit much. We are lucky to have seen this. So Bart is ready for the summertime of doing what all of us would have done of just, yeah, I'm going to watch TV all summer.

I'm going to watch every episode of One Day at a Time all summer. I mean, this is me. I was watching. I saw the entire run of the Beverly Hillbillies. I love Lucy. Happy Days, which I hated. Gomer Pyle. Andy Griffith Show.

I was there. That's how you did it. I was there in the summer. I was sent away for summer, so. You know, this isn't so bad. I'll just spend the summer getting better acquainted with an old friend called television. Hope you enjoyed that, kids. Because Krusty's out of here for the summer.

In the meantime, we'll be running classic Krusty. Enjoy. Smoking that TV. Good evening. And I'm my guest as AFL-CIO Chairman George Meany, who will be discussing collective bargaining agreements. It's a pleasure to be here, Krusty. Let me be blunt.

Is there a labor crisis in America today? Well, that depends what you mean by crisis. Crisis. Oh, I love that. Sounds like Dr. Wally. Dr. Wally. Yes, so. It's Joe Weaver, man.

I believe that Krusty's set is made to look like the Jack Parr version of The Tonight Show, which was actually the second Tonight Show. First was with Steve Allen. Yes. But I actually have a clip of George Beanie. AFL-CIO was one of the biggest labor organizations in America, and he was one of the greatest known labor leaders in America. That's when unions did something.

He was the labor leader for decades. But this is from the program Longines Chronoscope, and Longines was the sponsor, a watch company. And I have one more thing to drop on you when this clip is over, so we'll hear George Beeney in a second. Now, sir, first of all, why did the afl see fit this year to endorse the candidacy of governor stevenson here's george well of course the american federation of labor has been interested in the political scene for many years because of the fact that to a large extent

the conditions under which we work can be determined by legislation but there is what what's the difference is there between 1952 and 1948 i think it's enough play all of it no he's not he's not quite as marble mouth as harry shearer's uh i didn't but i never realized he's doing an action he is doing a bit of an impression yeah that design is very close to the wow him in the show i never i just assumed ge George Meany sounded like a fake name. Yeah, he's a real guy. And so Longines is the sponsor. This unlocked a new reference for me in my head.

In the They Might Be Giants song, like the Longines Symphony, it doesn't rest. The Longines Symphony was a radio program that would play symphonic music sponsored by Launching the Watch Company. That's what that lyric means. There you go. Sometimes I grew up loving They Might Be Giants. Sometimes I get mad. Like, how was I ever supposed to get that asshole? Yes, and it was a radio show in just the 50s.

It only existed in the 50s. Well, I mean, that's why They Might Be Giants makes music for dorkos. That's who they're for. They're my favorite. I love them. And yeah, also that Birdhouse in Your Soul is a great karaoke song, or at least it's always been. I always do it because the singer has no range and neither do I.

Blueganary in the outlet by the light switch. But so yeah, Bart is going to be damned to watch all this. And this is a return to casting Krusty as the Tonight Show. They hadn't done that in a little while since the Tonight Show writers had left the show. Yeah, they kind of forgot that was an old joke that he's with Krusty. I'm a little tired of saying 30, 20, 10, but I feel like I always have to reinforce that. We do a show called 30, 20, 10 about 30, 20, and 10 years ago. Mostly what the pop culture media landscape looks like.

In 1987, this joke isn't far-fetched. Everybody has pulled the Flintstones whistle and stopped making television it was reruns it was like bob hope specials that were produced cheaply and quickly you'd get like one or two specials a week and some of them were just like we're watching fireworks come if you want it's like and here here we are in july we're like i have too much to watch there's too much new shit what do i watch glow or kimmy schmidt like i don't know which one to watch in one month netflix dropped it it's like unbreakable kimmy schmidt uh house of cards season and glow but it's a joke that doesn't work the same way anymore that a kid being excited i can sit back and watch tv all summer if you didn't have nickelodeon you were fucked like there's nothing to watch i like the brazenness of a channel too like we're going to show a black and white rerun you will never see black and white television as just tossed off unless you're going

to a channel that is specifically you're watching black and white stuff no company would want to show you have to find that and so one more thing so canonically we learned from i love lisa crusty started in 1963 the episode was written in, and that was his 29th anniversary special. This episode is from 1961, which makes things out of whack a bit. I hope someone got fired from the M1. Homer thinks he's in the blob, and so then

he's added so much chlorine that it's poisoning children. I don't care how popular Lisa is in his pool, they go like, I'm not coming back. It literally bleaches millhouse's hair white oh you're right yeah that's how harsh the chlorine a i i have to think homer learned the chlorine balance better after the first day i never ever ever want to bore anyone

with that again but when you first shock a pool you pour in a lethal amount of chlorine and you're not allowed to swim in it for a few days that is part of the process of taking care of a stupid pool. You need one of those little pH readers too, like what color is it at. You pour in way too much to kill everything to then make it easier to clean out again. And if Homer followed the directions to a tee, it would harm every child who jumped in within the next hour. They'll call me weird. I love the smell of a chlorine pool. It's hard for me.

It's very nostalgic for me. Especially for me, a nostalgic feeling I have is when it's an indoor chlorine pool, too. I just remember smelling that smell, trying to beat Mike Tyson's punch out with a hat that had the logo on it. And then Bart, because he doesn't have video games, it's wrong that he's just doing all this stuff. Like, well, he'd just be playing video games. He should have his Game Boy out. Yeah, I feel like he's had video games before. He should be playing a games he should have his game boy yeah i feel like he's had video games before he should be playing a lot of games but it seems like they at least at this point they

seem like they only have the rule of like you play video games in the living room you don't fit it in your room yeah that was my parents rule yeah it's a big deal when they let lisa play crash bandicoot not really in in her bedroom when she's sick so my parent my mother just reminded me of this because i would steal tvs off the side of the road and fix them because they wouldn't let me have a TV in my room. But I was able to hide televisions in my room and they knew when I'd done that because they can't really punish me for like, how the fuck did you get a free TV? Did you talk to Sally's brothers again? It was usually walking around a rich neighborhood, finding it like, I don't want this anymore. And I just fucking take it, put it on.

This TV is too small. And I would steal a lot of black and white tvs and uh they'd know when the video game system was gone that i found another television when it was because where else would it be yeah well it got stolen by the tv oh jim would you get up here he hollowed out the credenza and tried to hide the television in it don't try putting a lock on that mr little chris at all my parents knew that tv and video games were a reliable babysitter and they did not want to break that trend Meanwhile, Bart's playing Stratego

alone, which like, I'd play Stratego if I had to I never learned That wasn't Risk? No, it was Stratego Risk is a much bigger map than that Stratego, you have two sides of pieces, red and blue, and

the guy on one side can see what every piece is, and they have different actions. It's kind of like playing chess, except you don't know if something's a bishop or a knight. Like mastermind or battleship? And so you go like, well, I'm going to attack this one. Well, it was a bomb, haha!

And so, yeah. I mean, classic Lonely Child situation, I would play board games alone and then make up my own rules to make this one well it was a bomb ha ha and so yeah i mean classic lonely child uh situation i would play board games alone and then make up my own rules to make a like a single player game to this day i've never played a i don't when you tell me if i land on free parking monopoly you don't get 500 i'm like how the fuck did you learn how to play this i had no way i'd rather i'd rather read a comic book than start playing a game by myself. That's what I was going to do. I'm very particular about Monopoly rules, too. I vary by the book.

I'm like, it's what it says in here. I don't give a shit about your house rules. Do you have an auction on a property if someone doesn't buy it? I learned through the NES game, oh, that's a rule in Monopoly? We just let the game go on instead of tying things up for hours. We do the auction. It's like free parking. Your money goes there. Anything you pay.

We were very particular about that. And it led to some very angry game playing. I also love the animation on Bart's deadpan look at Lisa. It's like, it's not so great. Bart, not only is getting weirder by being alone, but he also is getting smarter. He's spending the summer with his brain. It's the best acting I think we've seen from Bart, where he's a kid

and he has to plea for things or cry. It's very well observed of the weird kid who spends too much time alone and what that does to you, in that I was that kid too. I did those things and... But Lisa has a nice little gift for Bart. Look, it's a telescope I won at the Optics Festival. It was an Optics Festival and I wasn't informed? You go now. But Lisa has a nice little gift for Bart. Look, it's a telescope I won at the optics festival.

It was an optics festival and I wasn't informed? You go now. Go! What have we here? A wider side of hippies. They don't care whose toes they step on. I love

that line. This was the era, I guess Bob's with me on this thing, where I fell in love with Mad Magazine. Late 80s to late 90s, I was a heavy reader of Mad Magazine. And inexplicably, Dave Berg was still drawing comics, the lighter side of, and his

sense of humor was stuck in like 1967. Everyone was dressed like it was 1967 there were bad doctor jokes and lawyer jokes the main character always had a pipe in his mouth this is the 90s yeah yeah it's it's only slightly removed from gene the onion comic strip guy yeah and in later mad magazines they would actually publish those again but add new dialogue to make them edgier. I didn't like that. Better for worse style? That's a terrible reference. But here's the thing.

Bart is reading Mad Magazine, and the cover says NYPD blech. The real NYPD blue parody would come out that summer in Mad Magazine, and it was called NYPD boobs. They got to do something with the nudity. We used to do a quiz on our other podcast about can you try and guess the Mad Magazine parody. And you usually can. Yeah.

And one other thing that startled and surprised me doing research on this, NYPD blue. I was like, oh, it was on in the 90s and they showed Dennis Francis. But who cares? It was on for 12 seasons. It stopped in 2005. Holy shit. I didn't know. I had no idea.

You were putting misleading Simpsons information on the web. Well, it was. On my No Homers Club. It wasn't just Dennis Franz's butt. There were more butts. There were butts you wanted to see, too. I mean, Dennis Franz's butt was the joke every sitcom made, even The Simpsons. But they built up to that.

They were the Jackie Robinson of dickhead for network television. I wonder if that show holds up with The Shield and The Wire in existence. Can you go back to it? I cannot imagine. It had enough creative headspace to make 12 seasons of a network show. I would like to go back to the original, the first seasons, because Dennis Francis Sipowitz's character was pretty much the spiritual child of david milch who was one of the main writers on the show but not the creator and david milch would go on to make deadwood and deadwood is just his mind like you watch their writer's room thing he's surrounded

by the writers who were doing a great job and he's like no then the guy would say this and he would just spit out like this western shakespeare line sitting there off the top of his head like, who the fuck are you, David Bilge? He's a mad genius. I love that man. Go back to a couple episodes ago where I can yell about how much I like John from Cincinnati, the Twin Peaks for the fucking 2000s. I think the other parody that they did on Brother from the Other Planet was NYPD's shoe.

Oh, yeah. I like this NYPD's shoe sketch. It's basically the same thing. Also, an optics festival is bird watching. That's what an optics festival is. It was a good observation of Bart's demented attitude where he was like, I need to find a way that this is a slight against me. I would not enjoy the optics festival. I wouldn't like being there at all.

But the fact that I wasn't included with a working leg, I take great offense to this. You're an angry victim child who's lashing out at people being nice to you. Maybe I did that. And we do have a nice continue swimming naked. I remember that in the commercials. That was the number one commercial joke for this episode was the continue swimming naked. But it didn't go all the way to the open fire. Ah, continue.

And Lou nods his head like, yep, I'm going to start shooting at him. I wonder if they at least fired a warning shot in The Simpsons Fled. But it is, it's, I like that. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there.

You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricarland.ie That is something I never got to enjoy of owning our own pool. It's just like I could not privately skinny dip and enjoy it. I did much later in

life. I did it constantly. I told the story recently on a show. I was skinny dipping and as boys do, you start wrestling and we just had that moment of our dicks touching and like a freaking gay panic. Wouldn't trade it for anything. Classic Gladiator style concept.

Glad we could have space docked like that. But so Bart has magical telescope luck as we'll also see in Bart's comet later in this season that Bart will see everything nobody gets to see in telescopes. Telescopes are boring until you see the one cool thing, but he sees a spaceship! That might be my favorite part of this whole episode. It's one where you're like, wow, the universe is so boring. I love that. Yeah, just seeing everything

expand in front of him. But what his... What that sequence looks like is a placemat I ate off of as a five-year-old. Every single cosmic phenomenon stuck on a placemat with all the planets around it. That's what Bart saw and couldn't give less of a shit. I remember my placemat as a kid was a Sesame Street one. It was just all my Sesame Street pals saying, enjoy your meal.

Then the rear window stuff finally begins in earnest. Oh, that's why you guys didn't want to talk about it. It hadn't happened yet. No, no. Well, so Bart sees first that Skinner apparently spends his entire summer sharpening pencils. But I love that because they only touched upon it briefly with Otto, but now that I know a bunch of teachers, you've got to find more different work. If you're lucky enough to be principal, you might be paid throughout the year, but otherwise

you've got to have a summer job. That's how shitty we do to teachers. We're always paying them garbage. Can you just pay them in the summer? Yeah, a lot of people, I don't have those stories, but like, you'll go to the grocery store and you'll see your, hey, my teacher's here bagging the groceries. Summer job, baby. And then I wonder what show Hibbert was watching.

It's not a broad enough parody. Turns out it was Evil Twin. Like, was that Martin? Was that Seinfeld? I thought it was Who's the Boss. That sounds like a Who's the Boss line. It sounded like a Tony Danza kind of line. But the voice was really high-pitched. It was sort of

like a Moe-ish voice. No, I agree. I don't know what else it could have been. Maybe bad stand-up comedy or something? I don't know. And just like in Lady Bouvier, I feel that Merkin is punishing people for explicitly referencing something because it is rear window and then Bart then looks in

on Jimmy Stewart. I said us were looking good. He calls for grace, not something because it is rear window and then bart then looks in on jimmy stewart he calls for grace not lisa the character's name which is the character's name in the movie yeah i mean we should talk about rear window sure i don't need to tell you that rear window is great if it's ever playing in a theater and it probably isn't if you don't live in a major city go see it because this is the it's not my favorite hedgehog movie It's the movie I've seen most in the theater. Every viewing on a huge screen, you could be like, I'm going to look in that window for most of the movie. You'll catch something different.

Some new activity. The set itself is glorious. The choreography of getting all the actors hundreds of feet away from each other to work in unison on one set to create a convincing reality is just astounding. Like he made it work.

No, it's beautiful. I need to see it on a big screen. I've only seen it on a TV screen, which is not how it's meant to be seen. Was that one of the 30-20-10 responses was that the creator of the Chipmunks is one of the dudes in the window? Yes, Ross Bagdasarian is the guy who is writing a song throughout the movie. And in the end, it's a song that Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly dance to when his leg heals. Wow. And we have the trailer.

Let's play part of it. I queued it up to where it gets interesting. This is the apartment of a man named Jeffries, a news photographer whose beat used to be the world. Right now, his world has shrunk down to the size of this window. He's been watching the people across the way. Nobody seems to pull their blinds during a hot spell like this. He knows a lot about them by now.

Too much, perhaps. For instance, down there on the second floor, the woman pacing about. He calls her Miss Lonely Hearts. So lonely that even death seems like a friend. Jeez. These are the newlyweds on a honeymoon no one will ever forget he calls her miss hearing aid an artist of a very odd and strange art the songwriter who plays the same melody over and over again there he is. It's Dave Saville.

Insane. We found out. Alvin! That's the guy. It's true. But yeah, I mean, I don't need to tell you it's a good movie, but it is a great movie. And it is filmed from the main character's perspective. Not in the first person, of course. But you only see what is possible for him to see.

So it's frustrating as a viewer to be like, what's happening in that window? But when you're watching it in the beautiful, I don't know what the aspect ratio is. I think it's like 2.35 to 1 or 2.85 to 1. Just like there's so much happening on the screen,

but there's something happening all over the screen, but it's not distracting. It's one of the most interesting sets ever built. I think going to Universal Studios when it first opened, you walk into the Hitchcock exhibit,

which is literally Minion Mayhem now. That's sad. It became Terminator 2 and Minion Mayhem now. That's sad. It became Terminator 2 and Minion Mayhem. But again, that's the trajectory of what's popular. But you walk in and this is how the rear window set looked. And I remember, I'll never forget that. They had projections of people in the windows. So obviously they're not going to pay actors to be there every once every ten minutes. But it was so awesome to see how they made that film.

I also remember that they showed how, like, how did the Hitchcock film going through this window? It's like, well, the window broke apart. It was really, yeah, Rear Window is so fantastic. It shows, it's all about voyeurism, which is all Hitchcock films are about in general. But this one is his most voyeuristic. And Jimmy Stewart, like, pretty good job for him. He gets to sit down most of the movies. He's one of my favorite actors of all time. There's, like,

at least ten Hitchcock movies that will never not be interesting, and this is way up there. And if you're into babes, Grace Kelly has never been hotter in any movie. She is amazing, and you're like, why is she dating this old man? Is she in High Noon? Is that her? God, I think she is in High Noon.

It was one of the first movies. She was one of the first people who was oldest. This was 50 years ago, and this is the hottest person I've ever seen. And it's not just that they drew Jimmy Stewart into the show in his rear window costume. Yelling at Grace Kelly. It's that behind him, too, it's his apartment. Even some of the photos we just saw in that trailer

are drawn behind him. That's right. It does make me wonder that, are they officially now acknowledging that little chris is watching it's not going to get this joke unless they're very specific no like henry said i think they're punishing the writers for being like you think you're so clever we're going to tell the audience exactly what you're doing exactly yeah that's what i think it's it was nice to see the series go back to hitchcock they did a million hitchcock references in the first four seasons but i think that is a difference i think that is a difference in the murkin years

versus the algin and reese years the algin and reese were just like a movie scene is going to happen if you know it's from the godfather it's fun but we hope it's fun either way in the murkin season he's like you're gonna do a scene from godfather and then i will have somebody say like that was in the godfather you you're sued, or whatever. I represent the state of Charlie Chaplin. Exactly. But also, the parody is important to the plot itself. It's not just a throwaway visual or a throwaway reference.

It's not like, say, on The Critic, where a scene from Do the Right Thing happens for no reason. You found my trash can. Or in Principal Charming, where the vertigo camera pull is done in the school bell tower for no reason. You found my trash can. Or in Principal Charming, where the vertigo camera pull is done in the school bell tower for no reason. Or what was that episode from like the third season where just there's a Hitchcock reference and then Alfred Hitchcock walks by the scene. Oh, it was the...

It was birds in the... Just to remind you. Speak our name, Marge, yeah. But so, Bart finally does hear something interesting and I just love... He hears a woman scream, and I love the way they animate him grabbing the box with his foot.

It's another just awesome animation. Oh, Jim Reardon is on his game in this episode. Uh-oh. This can't be what it looks like. There's got to be some other explanation. I wish there was some other explanation for this. But there isn't. I'm a murderer. I wish there was some other explanation for this. But there isn't. I'm a murderer. I'm a murderer.

Then that's not the real Ned Flanders. I'm a murderedly urdler. If that's not Flanders, he's done his homework. So that's my favorite thing of this whole episode. I don't know. I just really thought that was so clever.

I know this looks like something else, but it isn't. i just really i thought that was so clever yeah i know this looks like something else but it isn't yeah it's so every it's really funny line of the show it's filmed very well i feel so good i don't know why i felt like i was tugging at my heart and then you put it out there ah relaxed bart is speaking to the audience of just like you as if you were like well no ned definitely didn't kill his wife so ned has has to outright say, like, no, I am a murderer. I did it. It makes so little sense with how the ending is. He's speaking for the benefit of an audience he doesn't know is there.

Totally. Which is such an arch joke. If that's not clear, he's done his homework, which is a very clever way to say, like, I don't know, just acknowledge exactly what the audience is thinking. Yes. And there's the great joke of Bart turning back on classic crusty it's from the 60s later when it's a psychedelic show and ravi shankar is on there which that is such a beatles fan joke like no no american has heard of ravi shankar unless it was through the beatles or beatles associated products he mispronounced it

yeah yes that was that was an actual mistake in the booth and harry shearer corrected him voicing robbie shankar yeah that's great and respond with groovy and he's the father of nelly furtado by the way really yeah but one who's like a bird yes that uh that song's only 20 years old now you know but yeah the robbie shankar i know this as a i i've talked about the concert for Bangladesh a million times but I always think Ravi Shankar on there just that George Harrison kind of punished the audience like I know you came here for

a rock show but you're hearing music from the region Ravi Shankar is going to just play it and you're going to listen like this is you better eat your vegetables if you want to hear me play music yeah and like father like clown that's the album Kirstie puts on to pad out the time at the Simpsons to stay with the family longer. When we talked to Dan,

our buddy Dan Amrick, who's Palette Swap Ninja Band, remade all of, oh my God, why am I losing this? Sgt. Pepper's. Sgt. Pepper's. Only Hearts Club Band, in a Star Wars parody.

That was that first part of the title. Princess Leia still on Death Star plans. But there's a giant sititar solo in the middle. Is that him playing? Yeah, I think so. That Dan had to recreate on his own? Wow, how did he do that? I don't know.

That's impressive. Just a little plug there. PalaceFopNinja.com. You want to hear the coolest Beatles parody of all time. And that woman's scream was Tress McNeil, obviously. That was not Harry Shearer. But that would establish a character trait for Ned. It would.

In a few episodes, we would hear him singing with a woman's voice. And much later, we'd hear him screaming bloody murder in the woman's voice as well. I kind of missed that trait of him, but now I can think of Ned's traits is from where Ma dies. Oh yeah, that Ned

has a 14-inch penis. Yeah, Ned is an incredibly buff man with a monster dong and a woman's scream. And. Ned is an incredibly buff man. And is 70. With a monster dong and a woman's scream. And a butt that just won't quit. But when you know

the ending of this, this line makes no sense. I love how contrived it is. Like, again, Ned is speaking for the benefit of us to build this fake mystery.

Daddy, where's Mommy? We miss her. Mommy had to go away. She's with God now. Yay! Can we go there too? Soon enough. Yay!

I mean... He's going to kill Rod and Todd too. That's horrible. In principle. I mean, you could read it as Ned is still dealing with the guilt of killing the Ficus, and he's thinking about when Maude will come back and he'll have to tell her. So there's this gloom over him. But also,

my best friend lived next door to a preacher, and he did say shit like that all the time. But he's not going to send his kids to Grandma. When Maude comes back, she's just there. They don't get sent to be at the... No, it's not to Grandma. They're not going to get sent to where Maude was at Bible camp. Well, soon enough, it's just there they don't get sent to be at the or no it's not to grandma they're not going to get sent to where maude was at bible camp well soon enough is just like maybe maybe next summer maybe next year who knows it it really makes this yeah this is a big difference in rear window and

bart's rear window is that jimmy stewart can't hear everybody he is far enough away they can't hear stuff but it's funnier if bart can hear things he shouldn't be able to yeah and that Flanders isn't ambiguously narrating yes everything I mean at least Flanders is right next door so that makes sense but uh yeah and then came uh one of my favorite lines the episode I just love it's it's so poor poor little Ralph that I had many things stolen from me when I went to the YMCA in the pool, so a public pool plus thievery makes sense to me. Look, Lisa, I found this change on the bottom of the pool. You can have it. Thanks, Nelson.

Somebody took my juice money. It's just tragic. There's no funny Ralph Lies. Like, somebody robbed me. This is really dumb, but I remember watching this expecting him to say milk money. But it's summer, and no child would ever, ever put aside money for milk. You don't want to have dairy products and then swim. Nobody does.

Milk was a bad choice. You're asking for a cramp. But I can definitely see Wiggum say, like, well, you're going out for the day. Here's 50 cents. then the uh the rich kid talking to lisa and trying to like pick her up basically i like to imagine that kid grew up to be hugh parkfield or every writer of the simpsons he is a very i mean this was the era of hugh's romantic comedies, right? He did look too specifically designed not to be based on a real person. That was so many romantic misunderstandings. I do enjoy that Lisa is immediately hoisted by her own petard.

Can you say that word? Yes, I can say it. I'm petarded, so I can say it. But Lisa, as soon as she indulges in just turning her brain off, it's all over. You deserve an award for that joke. Thank you. What she didn't realize is that an even wussier kid is even getting a bigger pool. My plan has come to fruition.

Soon I'll be queen of summertime. Oh, king, king. And it is a nice touch that Martin's pool is bigger and it has a nice touch that uh martin's pool is bigger and it has a deck and speaking as like a white trash former pool owner or pool user we just had a fucking ladder we took out of the pool so no one could die in it when we weren't using it bob i've been to pools above ground pools with no ladder like i've seen the worst you gotta fall into it no martin's use the trampoline martin's pool is like a million dollar pool. That is a monster pool.

It is a full deck construction around a pool. The water level is so low without all the children. Lisa just gets stuck in the pool with her brain. It's like now it's just you and me. I like to imagine that she tied together some of the pool toys that were in there to pull herself out. At least she can figure it out. I mean, she has to tell Bart later in the episode. And I totally forgot that this was the episode where something ribald was mentioned.

Listen, Ned Flanders murdered his wife. But why? She's such a fox. I mean, who is on Fox tonight? Something ribald, no doubt. I wish you'd stop spreading bad rumors about people. Remember how you got Grandpa tarred and feathered? Sure.

That was 20 minutes ago. Gonna be in the tub for a while. God damn, that's such a fucking great joke. Somehow that happened. Bart was able to do that in a cast from his room while dealing with the Ned Flanders situation. I love the resignation of Abe. He's like, gotta be in the tub for a while. I don't know. That's a perfect scene. God damn, I love the resignation of Abe. He's like, gotta be at the top for a while. I don't know.

That's a perfect scene. God damn, I love this scene. We last heard of Homer's lust for Maude in the Homer Loves Flanders episode where he was like, she's got a thing for me, but she hides under a mask of low-key hostility. And I also like this line, this scene, and also the 911 thing. It explains why Bart didn't go to the cops or just like that he did tell his family and nobody believed him so but at least gave him the excuse you don't have a clip of this henry but i do want to mention bart's play his his horribly uh his terrible

british play i don't know how he picked this up like he was intentionally writing a bad annoying play i mean in the summertime i watched a lot of p PBS as a lonely kid, watched a lot of Red Dwarf. But I found out St. Swithin's Day is a real thing. Yeah, I was shocked to find this out, too. And it's a summer holiday. Yeah, it's July 15th. You don't want to know what St. Swithin's was, but apparently the lore goes the weather on St. Swithin's Day will continue for the next 40 days, which of course is not true in any way. It never happened.

But that's the belief. If he sees a shadow. Kip us for breakfast, Mom. Tease, replied Anna. Here, let me read to you from my play. Kip us for breakfast, Aunt Helga. Is it St. Swithin's Day already? Tease, replied Aunt Helga.

I'm going, I'm going. Well, it also reminded me of my childhood in the summer. One summer, I got a typewriter from my mom's work. I was like, I could write anything I want. It was that magical moment of creativity of realizing, oh, I can write anything. It's one of those things I like being about a writer, except then I realize, oh, writing's hard, and I don't like doing it. I'm going to go back and look for it, but I wrote a comic book at Bart's age

inspired by the design of The Simpsons. Is it Mort Drucker from the Mad Magazine? Mort Drucker, yeah. With a giant nose. So they looked like The Simpsons with a big, giant, full tick-like nose. We think of John Caldwell. It was Slugman.

It is literally the Radioactive Man origin story, which I thought I wasn't inspired by. But my dad brings it up every time I come home that I tried to make a comic character called Slugman. I drew comic strips about Fox characters that were in no way similar to Garfield. And they weren't drawn in the same way. I didn't write plays.

What I did was, this could predict my future life as a podcaster, but I did have a tape recorder, and I would record my own radio plays, and I would use the sound test on Nintendo games to edit in music. Holy shit. Which, thank you, Street Fighter II.

That Wedding March song gave me so much comedy. Mario Payne let you score your whole soundtrack with cats. I did that a few times too it was one of my one of the good jokes on family guy was stewie revealing the tape recorder radio show he had made him like yeah i did that that is a family guy joke i love it was really good it was a well-observed thing about people not just cutting to a movie you're gonna compliment this episode in its rear window parody again? Yes, yes. Well, hey, they recognize it and subvert it.

They earned it. But Lisa and Bart kind of go on like a Gravity Falls-style adventure. I never thought of it like that. It's something I got into, too, of hearing like Alex Hirsch, the creator of Gravity Falls, big Simpsons fan. Great show. And he was such a big Simpsons fan, he hired Josh Weinstein to write on Gravity Falls. Big Simpsons fan. Great show. And he was such a big Simpsons fan, he hired Josh Weinstein to write on Gravity Falls. You're right. Can you play the clip of the

911 call, though? Oh, yes. I love this. An axe! He's got an axe! I'll save you, Lisa! I'll save you by calling the police. Hello, and welcome to the Springfield Police Department Rescue Phone. If you know the name of the felony being committed, Hello and welcome to the Springfield Police Department rescue phone. If you know the name of the felony being committed, press 1.

To choose from a list of felonies, press 2. If you are being murdered or are calling from a rotary phone, please stay on the line. You have selected regicide. If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press 1. Hands up everyone in the audience. Who learned the word regicide on this episode? It sounds like Bart needs a dialing wand. But this is a parody of Moviefone, which was parodied a lot in the 90s.

It was never a thing in my town. And it's hard to find a recording of Movief phone because it rebranded itself as a new thing yeah nobody just taped a movie phone as far as i couldn't find clips either like it's it was so frustrating the closest thing i could find is my favorite parody of movie phone there has to be tapes you never you never would have heard it but this one from seinfeld hello and welcome to Movie Phone. Brought to you by the New York Times and Hot 97. Coming to theaters this Friday, Kevin Bacon, Susan Sarandon.

You've got to get me over that mountain! No! No! There's no higher place than Mountain High. Rate it on if you know the... So the one other movie phone reference I remember, and this was a popular reference in the 90s because people in these big cities,

it was just a thing you would call movie phone. It was 777 film. You would get all the times. There's a cut scene in the first Austin Powers movie with Sherry O'Terry playing a stewardess, and he's hitting on her and he asked for her number and she gives him the movie phone number and i'm guessing they cut that scene because nobody knew what movie phone was outside of new york la chicago city shit yeah

and like we we had a local we we had at least a local movie theater guy they had a radio guy to announce movie times at the cinema i remember I remember being in the summer, especially just like, okay, it's time to see a movie today. Open up the paper. I know exactly where the movie times are on this newspaper. If you don't have the paper, you could call a toll-free number. I'm so old. You could call a toll-free number. AMC Theater.

Actually, yeah, I called into the AMC Theater one. And then when I worked at AMC Theater, I got to see the people who changed out the tapes of like no they got to change out the message i just i said this story and it's the foundation of starting a podcast but when i was a lot like this year when my parents would take me on vacations to arizona and the grand tetons boring i would just call 1-800-USA-SEGA to listen to a person tell me what Sega games might be coming out in the next three years. Video games still exist, Chris. Don't worry. This vacation is really boring. Do you recognize that music? Aquatic suit!

Yes! That's Sonic the Hedgehog, and he's got a new adventure coming. God, I would call and just listen to that. Just to be reminded that video games exist. God, at least they're not mountains. The scene coming up where Lisa infiltrates Flanders' house is directly out of rear window where Grace Kelly, in a

dress and pearls and heels, breaks into the killer's apartment to find things. And it is an extremely tense and well-done scene because Jimmy Stewart's character can't communicate with her, and he sees the killer enter the apartment. Spoilers, the guy killed his wife

it's so beautifully intense yeah oh god all they can do is like increase the sweat count the sweat beads and jimmy's yeah they just they spray him down with every new cut and as bob's point as bob has pointed out her name was lisa so he was watching the character and lisa go through there and both in rear window and in the center and i think the song ross bagdasarian writes is called mona lisa oh yeah that human head of lettuce line was a bit cheap but it was just fine it's very go through there both in Rear Window and in The Simpsons. And I think the song Ross Bagdasarian writes is called Mona Lisa. Oh. That human head of lettuce line was a bit cheap, but it was fine. It's very much like the joke from the King and Koda's

first episode. How to cook for 40 humans. Yeah, they wipe the dust off. Yes, the to serve man parody. There's more space dust on here. And the Reardon team really did an amazing job on the Rear Window references. My favorite one is like the zoom in on Bart's eye moving into the telescope. Like, this is straight, like, it's so perfectly done.

What isn't a rear window reference but also very well animated is the scene. So Lisa breaks into Flanders' house. He's in there. She has to go to the attic to hide. The scene of her jumping for the knob on the drawstring for the attic door is so well animated. Oh, yeah. It's so well animated. Oh, yeah. It's so well done. It's beautiful.

And seeing her close it in time. And also another bit there that I feel like would not have been done if they didn't have three extra months on it or ever extra long. When Lisa dives behind the thing to hide in the attic, she bumps into a birdcage. And it is swinging as Ned comes in. It's just a little touch that would reveal oh someone's in here to a murderer the only thing i change is like ned should be singing a religious song not mary had a little lamb in the sheet but i enjoy again ned performing for the audience to mislead them like it's time to put you away put Put you away for good. Only you can prevent accidents.

Yeah, I love that. And then just the idea of murder knocks out Flanders, and he just passes out. And this is a long clip, but you need a long clip for all of the explanation of what really happened. Yeah. What the gumdrops is going on here? Came to stop you from murdering Lisa like you murdered your wife. Murdered? Murdered? Murdered?

Oh, no, I've just been in the country for a week. But I distinctly heard you say that Maude was with God. Oh, that's right. I was at Bible camp. I was learning how to be more judgmental. But I saw the murder, and then I saw you bury the corpse in the backyard. All right, it's true. I am a murderer.

I overwatered Maude's favorite ficus plant. I panicked, and then I buried the remains. I was hoping to replace it before you got home. But I heard a woman scream. Huh? Well, now that I can't explain. Found it, Chief. Oh, well, I guess that explains everything.

Not everything. There's still the little matter of the whereabouts of your wife. Um, I'm right here. Oh, I see. Then everything is wrapped up in a neat little package. Really, I mean that. Sorry if it sounded sarcastic. That neat little package thing is definitely David Silverman animation.

Just the poses and the finger animation. It just looks like him. Yeah, it zips between poses in a very Silverman-y way. And I think Silverman was the animation director of the entire series at that point. So I could see him say, no, I know how Homer should act in this thing. He really specializes in Homer. I want to call out, if we criticize Harry Shearer for being a negative Nancy, this is the best acting he's ever done.

Oh, I mean, he brings it, even at this late in the series. He has not yet given up. Well, late in the series, it's the fifth season. Every single line Ned Flanders gives, for the first time ever, he doesn't sound like Harry Shearer anymore. Yeah. It's amazing. I think this performance is awesome.

And shows his versatility as an actor, and I wish he cared enough. Yeah, I wish he knew how much people love The Simpsons and value him as an actor. I love him so much. I criticize him because I love him, and he gets angry. I'm sad he doesn't care more about this. I'm a Le Show fan. Don't hate me, Harry. I just want Harry Shearer to be happy.

Me too. Please, Harry. Me too. Don't hurt your friend's feelings. So everything is wrapped up in a neat little package. And we cut to Martin, who is having his own problems. A precious pool in its lifestyle. No!

What? I hear you. Ha ha! Oh, the gentle caress of a summer breeze. Aw, and he's just standing there naked in the sunset. It's a beautiful shot, despite there being a naked little boy in it. He's not covering up, he's not running away, he's just so defeated. He's like, I don't care. Seeing this in a rerun, and I have nothing profound to say, but I just saw this on syndication.

Like, this show is better than every other show. It really is. And, like, it's Martin Naked singing a Sinatra song for no reason. Here's the thing. I did some deep digging into this song. It turns out, just like every Sinatra song, he is, like, the sixth person to cover it. This song started as a German song called Der Sommerwind. It's an awesome song. He is like the sixth person to cover it. But he made it famous. Yes.

So this song started as a German song called Der Sommerwind. Der Sommerwind! But I could not find the original German. I could only find a Finnish version. But I found the first English language recording by Wayne Newton. Oh! He sings it in a beautiful soprano, like very high-pitched voice, and I love it. So here is the Wayne Newton version, the first English language version of The Summer Wind. It'll linger there to touch your hair and walk with me. I gotta say that Wayne Newton is a big gay.

I mean, that honestly fits Martin singing it more than Sinatra. It really does. Unlike Sinatra, you can actually sing. That was a dumb reference to Johnny Carson constantly making gay jokes, but Wayne Newton to the point where he went to a vocal. Oh, he did do that? Actually, I see a related clip in the YouTube we're looking at. Wayne Newton slaps Johnny Carson.

Yeah, they got in a huge fight over it behind the scenes, but Wayne Newton went to vocal training to not sound as girly anymore. That's so sad. It does. He was an inevitable voice from a male that did sound ladylike. Wayne Newton has an amazing voice, and he should have just embraced that. And now I think, I mean, he's not that's maybe why he's kind of a cuckoo person.

Let's hear it for the boys or Wayne Newton's whole house. Wow, I had no idea. It was shorthand for a gay joke for Johnny Carson in the early 70s. Then it turned into Boy George in the 80s. Scraping barnacles off his dinghy.

And also, well it feels extra mean now because it's like he was a child star so you're mocking it you're like you're a gay kid a gay kid you're gay a great singer he fucking he would have he would have drunk lava to stop being made fun of by johnny carson that's a terrible but it yeah the the sinatra version from 65 is the one that got most famous, which is kind of, that's more of the instrumentation we're hearing. Taking credit for people's music. Anyone can sing like this. I was just disappointed Martin didn't sing the whole song over it.

You know they paid somebody. Lucy Taylor was going for it, too. I like that. It was very earnest singing. And because Martin is an earnest character I also just love like, hang those who would speak of less. Yes, he's so into his own success and then he's reflecting

upon his failure like very thoughtfully as the submarine caresses his gentle buttocks. And the way that pool explodes too, amazing animation. Animating water, not easy I would think. I forget the laser time episode where brett talks about being witness to his pool doing that um just breaking open and it's like a hollywood

movie stunt like it's he lost his title of queen of summer 800 gallons of water flying at one moment for 10 seconds it's gonna hurt everybody involved so that was a great episode i mean it was an odd choice for the season premiere it should have been the season five, man, what a great episode to kick off season six. A great season. I'm so excited to do more season six. We get to watch it in the summer. Yeah. It's a rare time of us timing it when the episode is set.

Like, I think we'll be in Halloween before September. Only two years from now. But, yeah, this is a great episode full of great references about summer. I believe this was Dan McGrath was the writer on it. Yeah, I think he did another episode in season five. I can't remember which one it was. And I'm glad, you know, that earthquake, terrible tragedy, but it at least let this episode be better anime than it was. Like, if we'd seen this in the May of that year, I don't think there'd have been as many things we liked about it.

Those 53 people didn't die in vain. 52. Oh, okay. Well, now it's worse. So, yeah, this has been Talking Simpsons. Thanks so much for listening. I'm your host, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Retronauts, every Monday at retronauts.com, or look for Retronauts

in your podcast machine. It's a classic gaming podcast every week. A new topic, a new classic gaming topic. If you've ever played a video game in your life, you will find something you'll love on Retronauts. I guarantee it. That is not a guarantee. I'm not offering anything legally up front here. But please listen to Retronauts.

And if you like Talking Simpsons but wish it was a week earlier and also came with hours more content and had no ads, then you should be heading over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons where we'll fill your summer full of Simpsony memories. I think it's likely at this point we will have the Talking Critic in full gear, right?

Yes, Talking Critic will have begun at this point, and we already did the first two episodes, but now we're going to be doing an episode every week, and it will be exclusive on the Patreon. So patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons is where it's going to live, along with tons of other awesome stuff, including interviews, including a community outreach podcast, so many other cool things.

You should totally give it a listen and give us some money because Bob and I did quit our jobs to do this full time, and we are doing this at your convenience. And we thank you so much. It's been great. You will hear this episode about a month after we're recording it, but the turnout has been amazing, and I'm sure we'll hit our next goal this summer.

I'm almost positive we will. We'll do more great cartoon shows after Talking Critic. Hell yeah. And Laser Time, I apologize. It's been a three-beer show for me, and the site is down, but I do love doing Laser Time for you guys. Thanks for listening. Make sure to check out laserdimepodcast.com. There's so many great things there.

We just did an interview with Trace trace blue of mystery science theater family controversial songs so many great the whole show about farts motherfuckers if i if that's not enough for you i don't know what you want who else is talking about farts exactly something you can't get from the simpsons show my real fart thank you so much for listening we'll be back next week with lisa's rival we'll see you then this is not a dream the summer wind came blowing in from across the sea Thank you.