Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart Star With Kat Bailey

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

We return to the gridiron for another sports-focused Talking Simpsons, which means the return of our football fan friend/USG Editor-In-Chief Kat Bailey to the podcast! Bart puts down the pop-tarts and grabs the pigskin while Homer gets to cutting players (the easiest part of being a coach). Can Bart deal with his own reeky playing to become the quarterback Homer dreams of? Learn all about that and the dangers of vapor lock as this week's podcast goes the whole nine yards! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!

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A brand new monthly movie podcast is available now for $10 and up patrons at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you want to hear me and bob talk all about mask of the phantasm the best batman movie of all time you can hear all about that in our long almost three hours long podcast patreon.com slash talking simpsons. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where we want to see you pee. I'm your host, Skittlebrow and Joyer Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, and it's both easy and fun to criticize, in my experience.

That's what we do for a living, and who else is here? Wildcat superfan, Cat Bailey. And today's episode is Bart Starr. Hut, hut, hike, hike, hut! bart star it's clobbering time this episode aired on november 9th 1997 and as always henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god happy birthday to my mom, Bobby! The Montreal Screwjob happens at the WWF Survivor Series this night. Lisa Loeb's I Do debuts in the record stores.

And the best movie ever, Starship Troopers, is number one at the box office. Oh my God, Starship Troopers? God, I love that movie so much. I love it too. Bob, I think you're a hater of Starship Troopers. Really? Why not? I don't buy it. You don't buy it.

I don't buy it. It is satire. You're meant to do it. It's not a fun movie to watch in any case. Robocop's way better. It is so much fun. Oh my god, are you kidding me? I agree with you that I like Robocop more than Starship Troopers. All they do is shoot at bugs. I know that's the point. There was a really good 20th anniversary retrospective of it where it points out the best thing about that is that the two stars the the guy who plays a marine and then his love interest casper vandeen and denise

they don't understand that it's satire so they play it all straight and that makes it 10 times better and they're bad actors so it's not fun to watch it's true that it's true that the commercials and robocop are better but overall i find uh and it's true robocop is a better film but i find starship troopers i can watch that movie anytime anyplace and then the best part of it is how it makes the really crazy military sci-fi fascists nuts they hate that movie so much because they're like well actually i think that robert highland had a point about fascist society. And it's like, no, no. I'm going to side with the guy over here

who's like, nah, screw Nazis. Just screw them. I mean, my thing is, no matter what he's trying to say, it's just a boring movie for me. I disagree. Where you just shoot bugs over and over again. But that's endless warfare, Bob. It is the opposite of boring.

You've convinced yourself it's good. No. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong try and convince me at home and i won't listen i made up my mind so the tv the tv bits and starship troopers are also just so fucking funny what am i would you like to know more one of my favorites is the uh well one of my favorites is a kid saying like i'll do in my part but also the tv talk show like the crossfire talk show where they both agree that this war is correct. So they do not offer

the war is bad counterpoint. Why wasn't that stuff throughout the entire movie? It was only at the very beginning. No, it wasn't. It was throughout the entire film. They cut in a few times. They show Doogie Howser, famous guy. Dr. Horrible. Dr. Horrible. He has that whole thing where he's doing

the experiments on the bugs. And they have to censor the testing on the brain bug. Marvel. Neil Patrick Harris. He has that whole thing where he's doing the experiments on the bugs. And they have to censor the testing on the brain bug. Exactly. I love it because it's propaganda from another dimension. Oh, it's great. And there's also that bit where there are all the little cockroaches and all the kids are stomping on them. And there's a mom going and laughing like a maniac in the background uh and also i love how they cast uh casper van deen's like frumpy liberal parents to be like you you can't do that you can't

join the army don't join the military you can you can get a deferment no i want to serve uh and also yes the montreal screwjob at wwf surviving series ah yes that's one wrestling thing i do know about. What episode would you explain that in full on, I think? That would be on our Bret Hart episode from just last season with Matthew from Boccia Mania. The story is actually pretty interesting. It's very interesting. I don't care about wrestling, but I do care about reading about the background of wrestling, weirdly,

because I think the personalities involved are really interesting i guess and the montreal screw job is kind of the height of that sorry i don't know the wrestling terminology but the backstage stuff combining with the stuff that's happening in the ring all coming together and people as supposedly in the locker room there are two people face there are two sets of people facing off one another, and there was almost a brawl and stuff like that. It's crazy. I know about the Montreal Screwjob like some Civil War historians know about Gettysburg. Yeah, the long and short of it is that Bret Hart, previous guest star on The Simpsons, he wanted to leave WWF or WCW. When you leave, you're supposed to lose the championship.

That's what you do on your way out. He had in his contract limited creative control. He did not want to lose it in Canada, what you do on your way out he didn't want to he had in his contract limited creative control he did not want to lose in canada which is where he's from wwf felt he should he did not agree to that they lied and he told him okay you won't lose then he goes to the ring and they do a false finish they go like no you did lose get out of here and they just run away and it was this humiliating moment that kind of broke red heart spirit forever onward it's uh it's a very sad moment there's the documentary wrestling with shadows is a very good one about that before we started this recording i was the only one at

this table who liked super mario rpg so i'm full of contrarian opinions tonight which will come out in full we talk about sports starship troopers is a great film. Watch Robocop. Well, Bob, I am also, though, with you as an anti-football person on this. But that is why we needed to have a football expert on this episode. So Cat Bailey is back. Go football. School. What's so good about football? Like, you've seen multiple football games in person.

You've paid for this. I sure have. What's going on with that? Well, at base, I think the thing that draws me in about football is the tactics of it. I like the way that they draw up the plays. I like the give and take between the defense and the offense. I like the way that you can see the adjustments happening in real time. At its absolute best, it truly is just this tactical chess match going on. And it's really fun to break it down in between. But beyond that, it's an incredible televised sport. You can hang out with your

friends, you can drink, you can watch what's happening on the field. And then between plays, you can check Twitter and see what people are talking about and have some more drinks. Oh, some more stuff's happening on the field. Neat. I can do that while watching cartoons, though. You could, but I like watching football i see i think the thing that drew me in football was the first sport that i really actually enjoyed and what drew me into sports originally was it was a tv show where the ending was not predetermined and okay so i so you could have this fairy tale story and it could come crashing down on you and that was what happened to me the first year i started watching sports with the Gary Anderson kick

in the Minnesota Vikings. And it was like, fairy tale story, 15-1 season, journeyman who seems destined to come back and win it all for the first time, superstar rookie receiver, old veteran receiver who's going to win the Super Bowl for the first time, kick missed, Vikings lose, those narratives go unfulfilled. And his life's over. Yeah, and so you just go, oh. So, I mean, Vikings lose, those narratives go unfulfilled. And his life's over.

Yeah. And so you just go, oh, so I mean, that's every new season. You never know what's going to happen. That's a great thing. But I like better when those stories are told to me in a documentary like 20 years after the football game is played. I just think it's boring. And now I have an ethical reason to not like it. So that's good for me. But I would dabble in all of the sports when I was a little kid because I was just like, I guess, you you know you're a little boys is what little boys do i guess i'm supposed to do these things so i did them and i was bad at all of them and i never did them but i never really even wanted to engage with football because i'm like i don't even like sports and this is a sport where you want to like grab at me and shove me over and excuse me no and like later in life i

had a friend so i thought like okay i'm out of this you know i'm out of the having to play sports period of my life or being forced to play sports feeling obligated to play sports and i was i was friends with a new friend in high school and he wanted to play football all the time i'm like oh i like filled me with such anxiety like you're gonna ruin my jeans you're gonna mess my shirt up i don't want you touching me i have space issues it was a perfect storm for me to get into sports because previously before that, I did not like sports. In fact, I hated sports. And the perfect storm was I was in marching band, so I had to watch the football games. I was stuck on this bench watching these games,

playing the music. And that was where I learned about football for the first time. I was like, ah, this is kind of fun. Everybody cheering. Okay, I get the rules now. Okay, this is fun. And then at the same time the vikings went 15 and won that season and it was easy to get super swept in up into it and that's when i became kind of a nut for it and uh what do you like more football or football uh i think i like soccer better than football really yeah european football the advantage of soccer is first of all uh i like the culture uh it's more fan friendly it's not as corporate and evil the corporations are trying to take it over but i mean it's it's

hard i mean fifa is a pretty big corporation if you go to the german soccer league for example there is a rule that 51 of fans have to own the clubs and tickets are only like 10 15 dollars to go they like specifically are keeping it affordable you need to nationalize the nfl right now but more importantly it's two hours flat it's done 15 minute break in between yeah i mean that's why sports i really can't just take too too long it's just yeah uh it's sort of like how i feel about wrestling where i respect it and it's fine if you like it but you can't expect me to know about it i'm okay i just can't do it there's there's too much of it they do they do how do you do this henry how do you know about all this wrestling and still play video games and watch anime and sleep and have a husband you have to make your choice you have to make your

choices you know what am i doing with my life no uh i admit wrestling started to fit in i mean i i just this last weekend they had a thing that with its pre-show i'm pretty sure it was longer than what the super bowl with pre-show content is because it was it was seven hours ten minutes long with the pre-show like how long is the typical super bowl oh my god it's gonna be like an all-day thing okay all right yeah it's gonna be the game itself's gonna be like four hours but i mean the thing is that you're hanging out with your friends and socializing and drinking. I just like watching the commercials. Actually, we're recording this before the Super Bowl.

So, Kat, what's your lock of the week pick? And we'll see how right you were when this goes live. Oh, the Patriots are going to win. That's also what I hate about the NFL. The fucking Patriots. So, I grew up in Jacksonville. Jacksonville Jaguars began when I lived there. So it was a perfect time to jump on board with the NFL.

But they just always fell short. They've never even been in a Super Bowl. They've been around for 22 years now, 23. They had a great year last year. And then the fucking Patriots ruined it. But you don't actually care. For a moment, I cared. For a moment, I was like, they're almost in the Super Bowl.

I'm going to check this out. Oh, the Patriots. Any team but. I'm going to check this out. Oh, the Patriots. Any team but the Patriots would have annoyed me more. That is the most racist Republican team there is. I know nothing about football, but it seems like a conspiracy that the Patriots win every year in America. Yeah. Think about it. I'm contractually obligated to like the Patriots because a friend of mine, a good friend of mine is a huge Patriots fan.

And so we usually watch the games together and I very politely root for his team. Even though when I was watching them this last time against the Chiefs, I was very quietly rooting for the Chiefs because I was like, not them again. No, they did it. God damn it. Sports. Boo.

Boo. All right. Well, that's the cat's lock of the week We'll see Sports Oh I'm gonna be totally wrong Watch So this episode though Is about child football Which like

That did That did scare me Much more than Little league Like Did your parents try to Force you to play football No

No they Yeah My dad was super Into little league But I eventually Didn't do that. It came close. I was like, this isn't for me, these sports.

My brother did do soccer for a few years, like ages 8 to 12 or 14, I think. But that was it. Yeah, I was never pushing to it. Just my friends were doing it. And I would say, you know, I'll try this. And I learned I didn't like it. And I was bad at it. And I was embarrassed.

So I just didn't do it anymore. How about a swimmer? My parents signed me up for swimming. Yeah, that's nice. I mean, I look back on it now. And if I could make young me do organized sports and live a healthier life, I probably would choose to do that. Nah. But younger me, then.

Here's the thing. The culture's horrible. It is, yes. Like, the little kids who are playing sports and aren't good at it are little shitheads. And they're terrible to nerds. Terrible to nerds. Well, this is a nerd show, not a jock show. Well, that is what I'm...

So the thing is, I like sports, but I hate jocks. Sorry, jocks. I don't like you. I always wonder that... We're going to lose all of our jock listeners. Well, I always wonder that... They're lifting weights and just throwing them down in anger right now. So whenever I have to cover Madden, for example,

I always feel so out of place because they are a bunch of jocks. The people, the community is a bunch of jocks. The developer is a bunch of jocks. And it's like, hi, also me, the nerd. Well, at review events, you have to be the one girl there. Also that, yeah. Yeah, a woman. But yeah, like the... Everyone there also that yeah yeah i uh a woman uh but yeah like the everyone there is furring their brows saying duh well because it's i i've had the closest i've had

to that experience as a game reviewer was i was the wrestling guy and that was an interesting cross-section because some madden guys are also the wrestling guy at their place but then also some anime guys are the wrestling guy at their place so it it's an interesting mix of nerd and jock uh venn diagram crossing over the thing is they're really nerds is they just wear backwards facing caps and obsess about the football men rather than anime i mean some comedian i apologize i'm stealing this from some comedian i can't remember their name but they they have a very good point of just like, people cosplay as football players all day. Oh, yeah.

They all wear the jerseys. Oh, I never thought of that. Like, it's the same deal. And they sit there obsessing about what-ifs, stats. It's the same dang thing as being obsessed about video games or something like that. And what are sports call-in shows but anime forums on the radio? Yeah, exactly. Except instead of saying

the writers are doing it wrong, the players are doing it wrong, the coaches are doing it wrong. Fire them! Everything in my life would be fine if this coach was gone. You got a point, Henry. Why I don't watch wrestling or sports

is because anime battles are the ultimate form of sports. But wrestling is just anime battles. But anime's better. There's beams. It's like, I mean, you're not wrong. Exactly. Uh-oh, now I'm the odd man out here.

They even have super moves, for Christ's sake. Instead of wrestlers. They don't scream their moves when they do them. They should, though. Yeah, they should all be mics. Don't make me choose. And then, of course, also with football football there is the concussion issue too which is just like i feel this episode's all about child football wrestling which i feel like the i i fee i'm not a parent and i don't know many

parents but i believe i've read a number of stories that just like oh foot the kids don't play football now they play soccer or some other lower impact thing. But they play flag football. Tackle football at a young age is generally agreed to be not great. But even in high school, you're destroying brains. Oh, for sure. Yeah, flags don't care about your feelings, Henry. But tackle football at any age younger than like 12 is kind of more or less agreed to be not a thing anymore.

You want to protect the brain. Not only that, because Pop Warner Leagues are having a harder time finding insurance. Yeah, insurance is increasingly not covering these Pop Warner Leagues, so they are starting to fold. And that is probably the greatest threat to football is if the seeds end up going away, then you're just not going to have as much talent. If you're not enforcing to have as much talent if you're not uh enforcing these children into this lifestyle then possible football players will go to other sports

and won't grow up to be the talent you can exploit and make broke later in their lives as concussed old men i don't think football as we know it is ever going away but i do think that basketball and soccer are definitely going to oversubsume it in America. As we've heard, it's going on the downfall these days because of that damn politics ruining it. The NFL is a great uniter because liberals hate it because of the concussions and the corporate BS, and conservatives hate it because of the flag crap. Everybody hates the NFL. It's really remarkable, actually. Why are the ratings still so high then? Because it's kind of a drug. And when it comes down to it, it's once a week. It's for a very brief time. And when it's happening on Sunday, everybody's talking about it. And you can go to the bar and you watch the games. You're having a good time. And it's a routine for me. That's a

routine for me that's hard to break because it's like, all right, it's Sunday. I can go have brunch and watch the games. It's going to be fun fun so one of the reasons i have a thing about sports is because uh i'm expected to know things about them why and when i don't people seem upset with me especially strangers like the worst thing that can happen to me in a bar or in a public place mostly a bar because that's where you talk about sports there'll be sports on the tv and a guy will be like how about that blah blah blah i'll be like yeah yeah and i hope and i hope they will stop talking to me but the other day i was just like walking to the grocery store not expecting to talk about sports with anybody and the guy stops me on the corner is like hey did you see the score for the blah blah game and i was like you know what can

i try to get through this and i said to the guy oh you know what i must have missed it and he like he furrows his brow at me i use that expression twice in this podcast he furrows his brow at me and he's like that game is happening right now and i was like you're talking to the wrong guy and i walk away just like i feel like uh like i feel i failed as a man by not knowing the score of a ongoing sports game that's happening right now conversely i'm like i want to talk about sports and i'll be like so about the sports they're like uh oh my god a woman's talking to me about sports crap what's going on uh yes the score and then they're like oh oh oh she does like sports oh and we do actually want to talk about it okay and so like i feel like i have to break the ice every time yeah and now i don't even bother i can see that yeah it kind of stinks so I wish we could reverse places in this case.

If that guy had asked me, like, what's your favorite One Piece arc or whatever, I'd be like, let's talk. Let's go get a beer. But no. That's so weird, though, that people just assume that you like sports. And I'm wearing, like, a pink hoodie with, like, an anime T-shirt on under it. Like, look at who you're asking. I would never in a million years assume that you would like sports. Thank you.

Well, I mean, isn't that also similar to when you're with a taxi driver who's white and he's like well hey you're racist like me aren't you like i would also never in a million years assume that anybody's racist like me lots of people do i think now i am free of that because one uber drivers are usually uh not an old white guy so they're not gonna throw racist things at you the old white guys just talk too much in general. Yeah, I'm like, look, I'm not your grandkid. Anybody who talks to me in a lift needs to shut up. Also, I'm not racist. I just want to clarify that. Yes, yeah.

But I don't, but now also too, my husband is not white, so I think that would also prevent them from having, when we're together, they're not going to give me a racist speech either. So that's helpful. You're one of those people. But all right. So that's our football spiel for this episode. On the Nerd versus Jocks thing, Bob, that reminded me too of like,

this really lets you know Bill and Josh are gone because they would have never, ever done a football episode. No way in hell. Yeah. This episode is based around the memories of being a child on a sports team, which I would feel is anathema to the existence of Bill and Josh.

They were protecting their eggheads. Their calculators. It's a slightly dumber cousin of Lisa and Ice. That's a good way to put it, yeah. Which also is Mike Scully. He wrote that one too. Yeah, oh my God, you're right. Because Mike Scully's a sports fan.

Sports, sports, sports, sports, sports. I think, yeah, Lisa and Ice is a much more punched up version of this particular episode. It's more Merkany, I will agree. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like literally punched. There's more punches in Lisa and Ice. But you also like the kids act more like kids.

The adults act more like adults. There isn't that kind of everybody's extremely witty all the time kind of harvard thing going on so well this also does feel more like a one of those ones like bart should be a teen for this this she shouldn't be a kid yeah i think well pop warner football i think for people of a certain age pop warner football is just a thing especially for a lot of men what does that mean pop warner i have no idea i think it's an old player name. It was some classic football player. It's a kid football. You start in Pop Warner and then you go

into middle school and high school. Is Pee Wee different than Pop Warner or is Pop Warner or is Pee Wee Stanford Pop Warner? I think it's the same. It's like Little League. That makes sense. You got the big leagues. You got Little League. Pop Warner. What about Little Big League? I like Little Big Chew. Okay.

This episode though begins with a bunch of like kid health stuff which uh this opening also it made me uncomfortable as a kid as a heavy kid watching a part be told he's fat a bunch didn't love that didn't love that i mean it's partially inspired by uh arnold schwarzenegger's uh health kick for children back in our youth oh yeah i've got a clip of that so arnold schwarzenegger's health kick for children back in our youth. Oh, yeah. I've got a clip of that. So Arnold Schwarzenegger was the spokesperson for the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition in the early 90s.

And so you see a lot of jokes with an Arnold-type figure making little kids do setups and push-ups and stuff like that. I mean, the pump you up thing was also kind of built around this, too. His persona of like, I'm going to make you get fit like me, Mr. Olympia. Though this extended it to hegemony over kids too. But you want me to play the clip? Yes, please. As a parent, I appreciate the importance of education,

but also of teaching our children good fitness habits. With all that proven benefit of regular exercise, you can see why physical education is so important to their future. Our children need healthy hearts to grow into healthy adults. So let's be sure that they grow up smart and fit.

And if you're still not convinced, I'll be back. He'll murder us all. Hasta la vista, baby. I didn't think I had seen that until I heard, fitness is feeling great. And I was like, oh, it activated something in me. And I started doing push-ups.

I do remember that too. Yeah. Which now I see it as an adult. I'm like, that's a lame catchphrase. That was a huge push. I remember. And it was directly right. It was directly in touch with george hw bush and

actually i think fitness it was a positive thing to push on kids though interestingly i was reading an article just recently that gym class is considered bad now really because they did a huge study in texas and determined that actually if the more they push pe the more they push PE, the more they actually have disciplinary and absenteeism go up. Because you have the bullies bullying kids who are basically like, ah, screw this and don't come in. And then the other thing is that it's not helping fitness very much. Well, that's because they outlaw dodgeball. Making kids too soft. The curriculum wasn't very good.

It would just be like, yeah, play kickball or whatever. I mean, I didn't love Jim as a kid, obviously, but I wanted to sit in the bleachers and listen to my mixtapes of Weezer songs. When we did PE and we were playing baseball or something, I would stand as far out into the outfield as I possibly could so that I could stay away from the ball i did not want it coming anywhere near my head i mean gym class very physically awkward kid too is just like you're just it's already hard enough to not be teased in other classes but when you're supposed to like jump over something and you're just like but i'm not good at this why why are your whole body's on display yeah i think i was okay with gym until high school gym and that's when we started playing actual sports.

And I was not signing up for that. It's like, I've got to actually play basketball. Yeah. Middle school was when it became bad for me. I can do beanbag toe tag. I can do like rolling around and all that crap. But I'm not playing actual basketball. Well, in that same article, it said kids are most likely to be teased or bullied in middle school.

And in our school, middle school was when they started having the kids be in the locker rooms and you know be various states of undress and everybody's judging each other's bodies and there's a lot more bullying it just seems like a very toxic and horrible situation bringing back to the nfl i mean that's one reason they it's funny that before the flag thing the thing that was killing me the n NFL was that there was an openly gay player drafted. And that these – I always felt like these guys who were mad that there was going to be a gay guy in the locker room, it wasn't that they were like, you're just going to look at my dick. It's more that they've just grown up in the most homophobic thing in the world, which is a sports locker room. And so now they're just, it makes them uncomfortable that they've been playing grab ass for 80, 18 years with other men that now with a gay guy there, now it's gay.

Well, it's super macho culture, I think. And one of the worst things about sports is how incredibly homophobic it is. Except in US women's soccer, when they won the Women's World Cup a couple years ago, Abby Wambach went and kissed her wife, and it was a wonderful, heartwarming moment. And I was like, oh, that was great. Yeah, but I remember, too, when that happened right afterwards, the women's soccer team was talking about how they have worse grass that they play on. Oh, no, I mean, it's terrible. Bad facilities.

They were actually almost on strike because they were like, this is completely unacceptable. And of course, all of the knuckle draggers were out there were like, well, nobody cares about women's sports, so therefore they shouldn't get

any of the good stuff. The only sport that's not openly homophobic is ballroom dancing. It's part of the Olympics, people. Look it up. What about, well, we'll actually get to some rhythmic gymnastics later, too.

But, well, I've heard it's easier in documentaries I saw. It's easier to be gay in a solo sport than in a team sport, for sure, too. Oh, sure. Yeah, like figure skating? Mm-hmm. Or swimming. There are gay people figure skating? Oh, my God.

Or golf or tennis, those things. But, yes, let's get to our first clip here of uh homer's health watch well your cholesterol level is lethally high homer but i'm more concerned about your gravy level now wait a second you doctors have been telling us to drink eight glasses of gravy a day you're a little confused. Confused, would we? Confused, would we? It's no longer gravy season, though. Oh, I miss it.

I miss gravy already. Homer's had a triple bypass, and meanwhile, he has lethally high cholesterol, and apparently he's been drinking eight glasses of gravy a day. Enough gravy that it shows up in a blood test, in his blood. I mean, when Hibbert says, Lethally high, it's just like, Well, then you're dead. You're a dead man.

Why are you even talking to him lightly here? Get him to a hospital right now. There's a couple of background jokes I missed until looking closely this time. Me too. The lung thing that's being tested by Selma smoking right there. Yeah, and there's one where they miscolor mayor Quimby. So it looks like a random character,

but it's mayor Quimby being given a blood test by a busty nurse. And he's looking at her boobs and she's like looking at her watch. Like there's something wrong with the blood test or the blood pressure test. Yeah. Which I mean, that feels like a frigging Looney Tunes joke. Yeah. It looks like a bunch of old mad magazine jokes are just in the background.

Dr. Nick doing a gender test. Yeah in the background. Dr. Nick doing a gender test? Yeah. Oh, boy, Dr. Nick. I do like the Am I Crazy booth with, I think, Sideshow Mel and Kirk Van Houten. Yes, yeah. That's a pretty funny one.

And then we get a sound scene I will not be playing to save you from scares. Don't worry. It's very funny, though. It's hilarious. I like how Jasper sheepishly raises his hand and Abe just looks over and shakes his head like, no, no head like no oh i'm glad because this would have been the third episode in a row in which i'm here for an extremely uncomfortable sound what was the other one besides

the arm twisting the arm twisting and then there was also whatever it was with lisa the when she's in the military there was some oh right when they do the testing. Oh, yeah. Wow, wow. Now, you're safe from it this time, but the hearing test joke is pretty funny. Jasper doing the little. When Abe waves one of them off, that's when it makes it even better because you know they're like,

oh, they're pranking this woman. That's how they get their jollies. No, I think they're just all deafer than Jasper, and Jasper's less deaf, and he's just like, he's not sure. So Abe is like, you're not hearing anything. No, yeah, they're all deaf. And Jasper's like, I think I'll just be polite. And Abe is like, no, you can't hear anything.

He's like, nah, just put my hand down. The Simpsons will be right back hut hut hike into this break guys and we thank you so much for listening to me bob and our special guest kat bailey talk all about bart star football and other sporting things we had a really good time this week and we thank kat so much for coming on we know she's really busy with a full-time job as the editor-in-chief of us gamer you check her out as the underscore catbot on twitter for all the stuff that she does there on her website and if you like me and bob doing this full time and want to hear next week's episode a week ahead of time and ad free meaning you won't hear this thing that i'm saying right now you only need to go to

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You can hear all of those if you sign up at the $10 level at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. If you're looking for protection, maybe the best thing you can do is buy a Talking Simpsons t-shirt. If you go to shirtsickle.com or the website tiny.cc slash talking shirt, you'll see the two Talking Simpsons t-shirts that we have on sale. Both designed by wonderful friend of the show and official Simpsons artist Nina Matsumoto. There's the Eye on Springfield inspired Talking Simpsons artist Nina Matsumoto there's the eye on Springfield inspired Talking Simpsons logo in a beautiful sky blue it's one of my favorite shirts and our black death metal scary t-shirt that's all about our death jingle with a very reminiscent of Maggie Grim Reaper on the front both of those started 1999 ship relatively internationally and come in lots

of different sizes so you want to check it out for yourself at tiny.cc slash talking shirt or at shirtsickle.com check them out we get some fun marge mom jokes about uh the the first aid i'm not talking about a uh benefit concert and no one like classic live aid humor or farm aid yeah I love I love when Marge gets to be a mom with like you see her mommy

with a mummy kind of gag I love when she's being aggressively lame yeah but everyone does laugh at serious injuries though that scene

feels like it ends too short there like just she says sounds like you need some first aid yay it should be more of like

a skit or a little playlet or something like that. Also, Sanjay is very prominent in that scene. I thought that was interesting, yeah. I think they realized, I think after color, they maybe realized, oh, we threw Sanjay right there in the frame. We better record some Sanjay here in the rabble talk. Well, this was the episode after Apu meets. No, no, that's actually

next. Next episode. Yeah. To You, Miss Nostalgia and Puddle Ons is next. Which, yeah, he's still a single man at this point. He's not a brother-in-law yet. So I was going to be like, well, maybe that's why they have Sanjay being more prominent is because that episode's coming up too. As all that's going on, the kids of

Springfield take their own test. Come on. You can't do one sit-up. I loved your last McBain movie, Mr. Wolfcastle. Quit stalling, fatty. We can wait. Come to papa.

Come on, even my fat mama can touch her toes. Hey Bart, we wear the same underpants. It's a lot of tummy on Milhouse there. Yeah, he's not usually that big. Well, Bart's strong with a bigger tummy in the next scene too. But I like most of the men and boys in the simpsons have like the light ball bodies the upside down light ball body it's an interesting thing they can do anytime they want they like just core to matt graining's design of most males is having kind of a gut and so they can emphasize it or de-emphasize it however much they want like bart is a very active kid when they wanted to have bart be a very active kid on a skateboard

you're like oh that's just like baby fat or whatever then he's just still a growing kid but if they want to say he's inactive and needs to take karate classes they can make it bulge yeah you bulge it out a little bit it was interesting to see udder and Rainier interact. Oh, you're alive. He's back again. But I thought they'd go with some sort of German joke between them, but they did not. I mean, there will be a Nazi joke in like five seconds in this episode, but they didn't do it here. Uter, who also appeared in Lee So Nice. Yeah, boy, he's something about him.

Look at that little fat kid run. He's got bosoms. He's got bosoms. He's got bosoms. Don't make me run. I'm full of chocolate. You're just making me think. Now you're making me want to go watch Lisa Nice. Let's cancel this episode and go watch Lisa Nice.

But yes, Kent Brockman is here to fat shame children. Results from yesterday's health fair are in and the news is not good. Springfield is in terrible shape, particularly our young boys. Hey, Tubby! Want another Pop-Tart, Tubby? I'm comfortable with who I am. You're a disgrace to the family.

In this reporter's opinion, it's time for our lard-laden lads to shape up. Get out and try fun activities like military service, frenetic dancing, or good old-fashioned peewee football. Here you go, Bart. Peewee football will melt away those unsightly pounds and inches. Yeah, but I could get seriously hurt. Then it's settled.

We don't have to play football, do we, Daddy? You betcha. Team sports will keep you away from temptations like rock music and girls. Yay! You know, Milhouse, you are getting a little doughy. Can't I just have the surgery?

I use that phrase, I'm comfortable with who I am a lot. I don't criticize. But your mouth isn't full of Pop-Tarts when you say that. It's not, no. I've given up Pop-Tarts. Pop-Tarts are bad. They're not good for you.

I don't remember the last time I had a Pop-Tart. I mean, sometimes in my darker overeating moments, I've had them. Just I think not in the last place me and Bob worked, but I think at another place I worked, they did have free Pop-Tarts there. And part of that is just like, well, I want to cash in my free shit. I'm not getting paid well here. You don't get stock options to get Pop-Tarts. At our old place, though, my snack of choice was those peanut butter filled pretzel bites. Ooh, those are good.

A lot of those, yeah. That place sucked, but boy, they had quite a snack container. Lots of string cheese. They had string cheese and the wheels of cheese. You had it all. Eating Pop-Tarts out of the box is like the cocaine of overeating. It's not the lowest yet. You're not just eating like marshmallow fluff out of a jar, but you're in a bad place.

Pop-Tarts are on the pizza roll tier. I don't like that there are two in the little sleeve they give you. It's just like, you're setting me up to fail here well and i i've seen uh you know when you see people make unhealthy foods on the internet i i have seen using pop tarts as a sandwich which was a joke in the previous in the king size home oh right right also if you don't want to warm up pop tarts then they really are just like sugary cardboard like if you can't if you don't want to warm up Pop-Tarts, then they really are just like sugary cardboard. Like if you can't eat them, you don't even put them in the toaster. At this point as a kid, I looked down on Pop-Tarts. I was a strudel boy.

Strudels were the upgrade. First class all the way. You get that nice little tube of slime. You drip all over it. After you have your like gooey. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm hungry for some strudel, man.

And if you want to solve the childhood obesity epidemic, don't send them to military camp. Stop subsidizing corn. High fructose corn syrup for soda. That was some good corn. Well, yeah. That was some good corn. When society wants to talk about how obese American kids are,

which, you know, statistically. We are pretty fat. We're a fat country and i say this is the uh as a heavy man uh but so is australia and england but they don't well i mean and all of them are like king food and like processed food everywhere and it's just you can't not buy fast food and it's it's part of the society but you can't nobody wants to blame the fast food companies or the business side you're you're raised to eat that stuff in a lot of cases. The lower income you are, the easier it is to end up with that because it's cheap, right?

I mean, Mountain Dew. The cheapest source of calories, yeah. And then you have rich people saying, like, why can't you just go to Whole Foods and make your own healthy dinner every night? Like, who has the time? Well, they're getting shamed for using food stamps on this stuff. And it like well i mean it's cheap i mean come on how about i i need to pay i need to feed the maximum number of people possible and i'm giving them crap unfortunately and they're ending up fat and sucks the nazi joke was when he said military service it's it's goose stepping it really was goose stepping yeah just to make it funnier when you see the interpretive

dancing uh you know you bring up lisa on ice and it is very true that homer in this is about as bad as he is in lisa on ice yes slightly worse than lisa nice actually but well in in that one he's just bad sports dad they're taking a look at the over competitive parents in this one he's just an idiot he's too supportive dad like i was glad when i realized I was bad at sports, I believe my parents probably did too, and they were like, let's not do this anymore. Also, no parent wants to sit through your sports games.

Dear Lord, how boring is that? I hated it as a kid when I had to go to my brother's soccer games. Like, can you just leave me at home? This is where the TV is. That's where the TV is. A podcaster I listen to has two kids in organized sports, and he's driving like multiple hours a day to watch his daughter play in her soccer tournaments

and giving up his entire weekend. And I'm like, oh, that doesn't sound great, actually. And if you go there, but you're not watching, then you're a bad parent. I commend all of our listeners who have kids and are doing this, because it sounds like a nightmare for me. Someone who needs to be distracted at all times.

But Homer is extra awful here, too, and are doing this because it sounds like a nightmare for me. Someone who needs to be distracted at all times. But Homer is extra awful here too because he's like, he's the heaviest person in the family, but he's fat shaming Bart and eating all of his Pop-Tarts while he's telling him he's a disgrace. Like there's multiple Homer. I mean, one of the meanest Homer moments ever is in this episode too. He's pretty bad to bart just here even before football season begins also that flanders the flanders kids are so happy to be kept away from rock music

girls that's which i hey i stayed away from girls and i didn't need football what's your secret so then they go to uh the sporticus store which i do I do. It's a clever name. Yeah. I feel like Mike Scully and his team love making Marge say things she normally wouldn't say. Yeah. And it happens twice

in this episode. And in the Halloween episode, too. Yeah. I do kind of like them pushing that on her. Yeah. But I mean, this also, though,

is a very schoolyard scene here. It feels like it should be Bart tricking him into saying that, not the guy doing it of his own free will. And the guy's not drawn to be Bronson voice man, even though he's Bronson voice. He's going to need, you know, protection.

Sure, one helmet coming up. I was thinking more like protection for down there. Oh, why didn't you say so? Kneepads, you got it i'm talking about his personality ah ah see no more i read you loud and clear the old shoulder pads look i want a cup cup could you spell that c up i want to see you oh my god that's a very just base level joke but it works because of marge's reaction to it yeah that she doesn't see it coming like she's as innocent as a nine-year-old when you're caught in that joke it takes me back to one of my least favorite moments in the clerks animated

series because in that show kevin smith was very insistent on getting an i-cup joke in there uh where they prank call somebody they have to say and they prank call the president he says icup it's uh like kevin smith was like no i have to get this on tv and every other professional writer in the room was like this is stupid it's It's not funny. Did he think he invented it or something? No, but he just giggled that he'd get it on television, I think. I believe that was his drive for it. And the joke was on him because it

never aired on ABC, that episode. The guy's smirky reaction to it is, it makes a joke good, too. Like, oh yeah, I just don't know why they didn't draw him as Bronson Voice. Do you think they did this scene before without bronson voice and they revoiced it maybe or maybe they just like that voice so much doesn't matter who has it you know yeah like i can work at a lot of places it could also be a different person i look at that sports equipment store and i can almost

smell the locker room yeah yeah yeah i mean when i played i believe baseball for the first time i was all i was also amused at being able to punch myself in the crotch and be like, yeah, I'm impervious to danger. You know, jockstraps had dual interest for me. Ah, I see. Well, we're not going to talk about that. Anyway. I find jockstraps disgusting. But what they contain is cool.

I guess. And you get to show your butt. Like, I mean, come on. You get to see a butt, and then you present the genitals in an interesting way. That's fun for me. In a cup. In a cup. Present the genitals.

I want to make a gif, though, of Milhouse kicking Bart in an endless loop. Oh, man. That's great. It goes on for a long time without the loop. Without the assisted loop. And then their reaction to Marge telling them to stop is a great kid reaction, too. I like that. I mean, Mike Scully, he brings, I'll probably say this every episode of his seasons,

but he really does bring an understanding of parenting and children to it that really isn't a perspective that isn't really there from childless Simpsons writers before him. And he has, like, what, five daughters? Five daughters. He has, like, an older father running the show. I believe Al Jean was, like, a newer father when he was doing his season sports fan yeah yeah and a sports fan and yeah well also donna carrie wrote this and he's also like he could remember playing sports as a kid which again that's just not the heart most harvard guys probably didn't

play sports as a kid mike scully actually playedully actually played football, too. I think so, yeah, in West Springfield, Massachusetts. So he was a real jock because he played hockey, too. And hockey, yeah. Oh my god, football and hockey? Where's your time for wrestling? That's why fans hate him. The kids get on the team and we get to see

good old Ned is the most wonderful coach you ever done seen. Okay, Nelson's our quarterback. Thanks, Four Eyes. Ralph, you'll be on special teams. I'm special. And Bart, you'll be a tackle. Cool.

Careful, Bart. You'll break my calculator, by which I mean my head. What position have you got for me? That's right. A girl wants to play football. How about that? Well, that's super-duper, Lisa. In fact, we already have four girls on the team. You do? Uh-huh. But we'd love to have you on board. Well, football's not really my thing.

After all, what civilized person would play a game with the skin of an innocent pig? Well, actually, Lisa, these balls are synthetic. And for every ball we buy, a dollar goes to Amnesty International. I've got to go. It's a bit cruel to Lisa's character to make her so insincere, but it's also very funny in that it's a fake out where you think that's the direction the episode is going, where it's going to be like, oh, it's going to be about Lisa trying to get on the team, and that's going to be the plot of the episode, but it's also very funny in that it's a fake out where you think that's the direction the episode is going, where it's going to be like, oh, it's going to be about Lisa trying to get on the team,

and that's going to be the plot of the episode, but it's immediately dismissed. On the commentary, they joke that Lisa runs off crying because she's mad she's not the star of the episode because of that rejection of the plot. I like that interpretation, too. It's a very funny scene, also, that they include, like, oh, they're so open-minded. They have four women

on the team already. Very progressive of them to put four girls on the football team. I remember I had a friend of mine who was a transgender male actually, and really wanted to play football, and they would not let him. They just straight up would not let him. The only time I've seen an instance in which a girl was allowed to really play football, she was a kicker. And please do not look up what happened to her because the stories are really terrible all right that's good i mean darkness i we had hazing in your last episode so yeah i know i know a few i feel like i've read a few recent ish stories about like female high school football players like one that took her

girlfriend to the prom or whatever too it sounded really cute i think it's still i mean there's still anger about like girls doing amateur wrestling too in high school even if they can like qualify for the team and everything but there's an extremely like negative attitude toward women athletes in general and like in america very condescending unfortunately yeah this scene, though, I don't know how much you guys interact with alt-right memes on the internet, but this scene is actually

a big one of the Pepes. I saw it a few... I hate even going into those spaces. So Lisa is virtue signaling. Am I right? And when she tries to be upset about something and then is told she's actually wrong and reality's different,

then she runs away crying because she can't have her SJW way. So Ned owned that lib. That is exactly what this scene is used for. It was much more innocent in 1997. I definitely don't feel like that. It's meant to... I mean, they like hurting Lisa in this show

and making her idealism be hurt by reality. She's a shrill, annoying, idealist vegetarian. And it was very much the end of history period in which it's like, well, I don't care about things. We fixed everything. It's fine. We fixed gender. We fixed race and gender.

And sports. It's all good. Well, and with the alt-right that used this scene, I think a major part they misunderstand is that the reason that she leaves crying is because her dreams have come true and this diverse open-minded football team exists which that's not the case if you're talking about say the video games industry or comic books yeah or rail football this is a fictional situation

where that doesn't exist so i just it made me sad that i'd seen this scene memed a few times to be to be mad at women on the internet it's too bad i've never seen this well you count yourself lucky then yeah it's what brought me down when we finally got to this scene i was like oh i just like i like lisa's reaction i take her tears not as i take her tears just a little bit not as jealousy but it's like oh i got everything got everything I wanted. Nah, they're teasing her. They're saying Lisa is an annoying shrew who is always trying to

find something to be mad about, and she wasn't able to find something to be mad about, so she's upset. And she doesn't even care about football, just like girls who want to make video games don't really care about video games. They don't even like video games. Yes, which is all bullshit, just in case you're new to the show. I don't agree with that feeling at all. We don't really care about video games. They don't even like video games. Yes, which is all bullshit, just in case you're new to the show and don't agree with that

feeling at all. We don't really believe that. You're in the games industry. Hi, welcome to Talking Simpsons. Speaking of controversial jokes, I'm special. They knew what they were doing. I think this was still a funny joke in 1997. Yeah. It was. I mean, they're leaning into

the whole, quote-unquote, short bus era of Ralph jokes at this point in time. We're firmly in short bus Ralph land. Well, I mean, though that— Had been for at least two seasons at this point. Bill and Josh engaged in it for sure as well. And you only move twice. That room of special kids was all supposed to sound and look like Ralph. They were very careful, though, about why all those kids were special.

Yes. all supposed to sound and look like Ralph. They were very careful, though, about why all those kids were special. I mean, there's a scene where the PTA disbands, and they're sitting with all the kids are coughing, and Ralph is just sitting there staring straight ahead. And that was like, what, season six? That was season six, yeah. Also, I bent my Wookiee, and Cat Pratt smells like cat food. But I think at this point they're now... And there was that episode where he's like, I dress myself.

I think they're now definitely coding him as intellectually disabled. Yes. Very much so. Meanwhile, I was definitely the Martin. Martin shouldn't even be on that team.

He's like, watch out for my calculator, by which I mean my head. So it's Martin on the team to see people in jockstraps, to see little boys in jockstraps. Look, he's not pre...

They're all presexual on this team. Well, except for Nelson, I think. Could be curious. He wants to see them present their genitals well nelson definitely is the kid on the team who has just physically matured faster and is basically a man playing with children who can just smash all of them that even though their ages also i feel like nelson is always supposed to be read as two years older than everybody in his grave i think think so. And there's a Wildcats versus Wildcats joke.

Is that a Rough Riders joke? No, it's more of a seemingly every high school team is named the frigging Wildcats. Yeah. So, I mean, it seems like there's a Wildcat team in every league. There are multiple college Wildcat teams. It's just a very popular name. I just knew that in Canadian football, there were two Rough Rider teams, and they could potentially play against each other.

The Wildcats is the most generic name that you can possibly come up with. It fits for any town. You don't have to have an animal that wouldn't be in your town, or you don't have to have a Confederate soldier, perhaps. This is one of two lines that I remembered from the original airing of this episode.

It was one of the ones that I often quoted. Do you have a Nets pep talk? I do. Okay. Who were we? The Wildcats! Who were we gonna beat? The Wildcats! Hey, Flanders, you're the worst coach this team has ever had.

He's the only coach this team has ever had, and the season hasn't even started yet. Yeah, well, he's wearing that hat like an idiot. You know, Homer, it's very easy to criticize. Fun, too. All right, Wildcats, are you ready to give 110%, take it

one game at a time, and go the whole nine yards? Yeah! Nine yards! Oakley, let's put on our game faces. I just realized that nine yards is Yeah! Nine yards! Oakley, doakley, let's put on our game faces. I just realized that nine yards is kind of funny. Yeah, I didn't get that joke at the time, like until now, actually, that the kids are taking it literally. Yeah, we'll do nine

yards. We'll run nine yards. Only nine yards. Not ten. And I looked that up because I was like, what does that even mean, the whole nine yards? Is that a football expression? Apparently, no one knows the origin or the meaning. At some point, it was the whole nine yards is that a football expression apparently no one knows the origin or the meaning at some point it was the whole six yards it's one of those expressions where it's like the whole enchilada the whole magilla it's like trying to say we're going to do the entire thing but no one really knows why it's nine yards or why it was six yards there's no definition

interesting there's no origin i look this up there's a lot of history about this saying back in 19-dickety-two the football was only nine yards instead of ten. The Kaiser stole a yard from the football game. I mean, I only associate it with Matthew Perry films, but... Right. You know, maybe it never even had anything to do with football at the start. Maybe it was

about, like, yards of cloth or something. Like, I want to buy all the suits. Give me the whole nine yards. It could have been something like that, yeah. But it suits give me the whole nine yards it could have been something like that yeah but it's one of those many expressions of the same type but if you watch a lot of sports you hear cliches like yeah 110 percent to the point where i think it's a bit of a dead horse but your job as a color commentator is to say all of the cliches well no the athletes say that it's like all right so how did you feel about this game? Well, we gave 110%. What?

Full nine yards. I can't breathe. I'm really tired. I got to go to the locker room. There's a great joke about that on King of the Hill's first episode. And you can listen to all of Talking of the Hill soon on Talking Simpsons Patreon. Patreon.com is Talking Simpsons. Another great spin on that joke was the film Be Dazzled, the 90s yes it's very underrated i was gonna say that

that was what i was thinking about every time i hear 110 percent uh in his dream in his wish to be a successful athlete he uh has he's just a very stupid giant basketball player who says like no gave 110 percent everybody did a great job. 110% did it. But then the joke is that his cursed wish is that he has a micro penis. There's actually an episode of Duckman where Duckman runs a baseball team. And someone is asking him, actually somebody is interviewing him after the game. He's like, we're here to win. We're going to give 110%, go the whole nine yards.

He does every sports cliche. And then they zoom out and he's reading a book of sports cliches during the interview like 101 sports so everyone has made jokes about 110 but they're still funny and uh in the crowd bumblebee man is there for some reason he likes he likes peewee football perhaps he has a child with this new wife but he's in full costume as always too yeah well why wouldn't he be football is extremely popular in Mexico. And I definitely agree with, wait, American-style football? Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah, the Raiders are one of the most popular teams in Mexico City.

I did not know this. The only football I will engage in is the anime Ice Shield 21. Sports anime is great. They keep teasing that the Jaguars are going to move to London because, you know, the British rich guy bought them, though. Yeah, you can't make the logistics of moving a team to London work. Making them fly all the time. The time zones just would not work.

Oh, for broadcasting. Are they going to dump hot tea on the coach when they win? It's hard enough flying a team from the East Coast to the West Coast and dealing with jet lag there. Flying them from London to the West Coast, yeah, that ain't going to happen. Did you know the Jaguar family just started a pro wrestling league? No idea. They did.

They want to have a challenger to the WWF, so the Khan family is pouring all the money into it. They have billions, so $100 million to a wrestling league? Who cares? Let's go for it. Why not? And they did their announcement. It made me so sad as a super wrestling fan who hated living in Jacksonville, Florida,

where did they announce their league and have the big event? Right in Jacksonville, Florida at the fucking stadium. That's not surprising. I mean, he does own that stadium. Yeah, he does. Yeah. You said it before, Bob. But I definitely, we all agree that it's fun and easy to criticize,

which is our entire careers. Yeah, we're making a good buck off of that. So Homer should say, yeah, also, not which is it's our entire career yeah we're making a good uh good buck off of that so homer should say yeah also not only is it fun but also uh monetizable and then we get a quick very underrated ooder joke of him running barefoot but kicking with the shooed foot that was a thing in the 70s barefoot kickers but that's not really a thing these days cats kickers i looked this up there was a trend of barefoot kickers, but that's not really a thing these days, cats. Barefoot kickers? I looked this up. There was a trend of barefoot kickers. They weren't that common, but some people thought that the shoes you would wear would impact the length of the kick you could do. Oh, interesting.

And I guess in the late 90s, special kicking shoes were developed for kickers. They're very expensive, but they're available. So they do not affect the velocity or the impact or something involved with kicking. But for a time, randomly, there'd just be a few barefoot kickers in the NFL. Oh my God. Yeah. That sounds extremely painful. It sounds awful. Also, weather was a big problem for those guys.

I can just imagine my foot falling off while trying to kick in the cold weather. Just shattering. Yeah. Kickers get some hate in the NFL world. Well, they're not real athletes no actually i had a kicker on my previous rpg podcast role players realm because the minnesota vikings had a oh yes famous nerd wrote an expose actually for deadspin uh calling out their special teams coach as a homophobe which is interesting but yeah he came on my podcast and we talked about World of Warcraft.

The only Vikings player I know is the one that was on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I don't remember. Whoever that was. But the thing I remember most was him saying, I could play video games. My dad would have me do 100 drop kicks and then I could go play NES.

Wow. Yeah. That's one way to do it. So that's how, and apparently he was being treated trained to be a kicker from an early days so wow to be that specialized you always figure like a dad would want him to be a a quarterback and then you just uh pull back those dreams no no apparently it was like i'm gonna be a kicker iter. It's my dream. The kids play their games. Nelson, you see, is the ultimate player.

He's an amazing quarterback who basically can just pass to himself, as we'll see later. And his own blocker, too, just he can do anything. He is what a future pro athlete is essentially on a peewee football team, where they're so overwhelmingly good and so big and so strong that the kids are just hanging off them and they're scoring multiple touchdowns by themselves yeah i like him using bart as a human shield and going out of his way to knock out one last player that's not even in his way yeah that's uh he

damn it he spikes bart too along with the ball i've never played football for obvious reasons but i've read stories about being on the field i guess and the stories always talk about how you look up and you see a kid like nelson running towards you and it's like getting hit by a freight train yeah and they love that ralph i'm special line so much they use it twice they just say and somehow he has a broken leg too there's got to be a cut scene or something i feel like there must be Maybe they broke his leg and went Maybe that's too violent Nelson does what racist NFL fans call

Hip-hop style dancing Such celebrations were banned for a time But now they're back You can do them again? You can do urban celebrations in the end zone? They did Duck Duck Gray Duck Famously for the Vikings It was great.

That was one of the reasons they called the NFL the No Fun League, right? You also get to do those dances in Madden as well? Yes. Just recently, a player paid homage to a famous celebration. One of the most famous celebrations was a player ran to the goalpost, dug out a cell phone, pretended to call somebody. Wow. And a player just this last year for the same team ran and found an old-style flip phone, same phone and everything,

and did the celebration. It was great. I want players doing one-act plays in the end zone. Has anyone done Fortnite dances yet in the end zone? Yes. The floss dance and everything? Oh, yeah. They've totally done Fortnite.

Okay, yeah. Fortnite dances are everywhere in sports now. But now it's Henry floss dance and everything? Oh, yeah. They've totally done Fortnite. I'm sure. Okay, yeah. Fortnite dances are everywhere in sports now. But now it's Henry's time to shine. Oh, man. Well, just briefly, because Bart says it's clobbering time, which that is, of course, a reference to the- Swamp thing. Oh, different thing.

No, the Marvel Comics character, The Thing. That's his catchphrase, which also was the catchphrase of cm punk the pro wrestler who with permission i bet uh well actually no yeah he's oh so they ripped off the hulk and it's clobbering time yeah they they pay for the hulk but they don't pay uh hulk hogan pays for the hulk you don't own clobbering sir well that was uh it it hit me that that was the case as when I would go to video game events for the WWE games. And I would go to CM Punk first because he was one of my favorites. And he'd do his entrance motion. And when you should hear him scream, it's clobbering time.

It is silent because they don't want to be sued by Marvel. And they also don't want to pay Marvel for it. So you just got to say it for him in your living room if you want to. But apparently Simpsons can get away with it. They're not afraid like 2K was. It's parody. It's parody. And yes, they win the big game pretty easily there.

Though there is a little bit of an animation error there too. I don't know if you guys caught it. When they go into the huddle, you see it's 27. Then Nelson gets the winning play with Bart, though they didn't need it to win. But then the, and the guy even calls it a touchdown. So that should have added six points to it.

But when the get, when the buzzer goes, not buzzer, whatever, when the game's over, it's still 20. The football siren. It's still 20 to seven instead of 26 okay wow so they really

fucked up was carl doing the scoreboards he does the scoreboard last episode i don't think in all of them yeah it's it's very random i like bart being a lead blocker but with nelson just being like boom boom boom boom boom well when you're a child who has to be a blocker it is just like i love the idea of bart being an offensive tackle because he's tiny. They're putting him on the offensive line. He's like this little kid. Maybe Ned is a bad coach. You would think Nelson would be a running back or on the offensive line,

but I guess it's just that he's so big that he can do literally everything. He's every player. He's literally untackleable. He should be playing defense as well. He can throw a ball hard enough to injure Ned. It's hard to imagine where... I would imagine Bart being a receiver, actually.

He's not tall enough. Frankly, he shouldn't be playing football, is what I'm saying. Neither should Milhouse with his glasses on. But yes, the game is won and then we get to see Homer's not too happy about it. I've been carried out of Moe's like that hundreds of times.

Yeah, I'm telling you. Flanders can't coach at all. Now, I'm not the type to have a grudge for no reason. Sir, if I could just break in for a moment. Yes, Roy. Do you have a question for Sandy Koufax? Yes. Mr. Koufax, don't you think Flanders is a big jerk?

Hello? Hello? Yeah, Homer again. I think we got cut off. Hello? I haven't seen this one in a while, and I only realized just now that roy firestone is a real human being he's real so i didn't know much about roy firestone because i'm surprised he was popular before i became a sports fan on espn he quit espn i think in the mid to late 90s okay he had a couple

of embarrassing moments he did an oj interview where he was like they're painting you as a domestic abuser oh no oh you know i think i remember seeing that in the uh the mega oj documentary and then there was also a bit where he interviewed bob bobby knight the indiana basketball coach after he choked a player and he was obviously extremely nervous and he dropped his stuff and later they did an interview with him. He's like, look, I don't want to ask aggressive questions. I want to be like Oprah. I don't want to ambush people. I'm like, oh, okay, so you're a fluff reporter. He's like,

I don't really see myself as a journalist. I see myself as a communicator. But a lot of Google was like, whatever happened to Roy Firestone? Because he kind of fell off the face of the earth after ESPN. According to Wikipedia, he currently has a show on AOL. What?

I don't know how that's a show. That's very appropriate given he was a thing in the 90s. I can say it will exist. Well, Roy Firestone, his resume of guest appearances is also very 90s. Mid to late 90s, though. Married with Children, Jerry Maguire everybody loves Raymond and of course this I thought there'd be a home improvement in there somewhere

apparently not weird apparently not we're saying Marv Albert was the original guest star or something proposed guest star yes

Roy Firestone was definitely a replacement and apparently they did drop Marv Albert because at the time he was going through his troubles which involves something with a sex

scandal and I think sex workers and biting them and wearing women's underwear. It's like, hey, look, whatever Marv Albert does to get off in his private room, as long as it's consensual, I don't care. Consensual biting is fine. That's our official stance. But obviously,

maybe basketball fans don't want to hear that or think about Marv Albert doing those things. Or think of Marv Albert in Mammon's underwear. Yes, yeah. I'm not liking that visual right now. Yeah, no, not into that. Hey, if it's your thing, it's your bag, baby, then full steam ahead.

But yeah, on the commentary, they couldn't, on the commentary they couldn't resist one little joke about it where they said they had biting commentary for him. And Sandy Koufax did not do his own voice or any voice in this episode, but he's still alive at 83. I found that incredible. So Sandy Koufax,

obviously one of the greatest pitchers ever, started... The facts that I know him best for is that he refused to start Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it was Yom Kippur. Oh, sweet. Ah, yes. And the 1965 World Series was against

my team, the Minnesota Twins. And the Dodgers beat them anyway. And Koufax beat them in Game 7. Man, Homer's not even calling in during a football segment. So, sports talk radio. I have been known a time or two to call into sports talk radio. Oh, my.

But this was mostly in the late 90s when I still listened to sports talk radio. I do not listen to sports talk radio anymore. I listen to a major innovation. It's called podcasts. Tell me more. Yeah. listen to a major innovation it's called podcasts tell me more yeah i i listen to my favorite sport personalities talking about sports on podcast now talk radio now is kind of the knuckle dragging version of like let's give every single hot take i possibly can about the sports and then

the dumbest people like homer actually call in and be like well i i just think that we should fire this extremely successful coach i mean we lost one game. They shouldn't be on the team anymore. I'm extremely mad. The plot twist in this game did not work for me. When I think of sports talk radio, I think back to, I never sought it out, didn't want to listen to it. But there was a comic book shop I would frequent that they would be playing sports talk radio specifically this one baseball one and i just remember being in there and uh jay moore i believe was the guest host at that time and they were uh talking about how a they were annoyed that a japanese player was given like rookie of the year because he you know just came from years in japan but was

a rookie to the mlb and you can imagine what kind of voices they put on for this japanese player what japanese people know about baseball yeah uh but so yeah that that definitely turned me off to it the closest thing i have to sports talk that i have actually stopped listening to uh is this pro wrestling podcast that does have call-ins for it and is started as a radio show and is now he says you download the radio show actually one of my good friends from minnesota is a sports talk radio person whoa a fairly well-known one as well he's also friends with various game informer people because he's a gamer and so he discovered my work and discovered that i was a minnesota sports fan so followed me and started retweeting a lot of my stuff.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And he was like, yeah, if you're ever in Minnesota, come on the show. And I was like, I think I will, but I haven't been on the show, sadly. Well, the interesting thing with the sports calling guys on that wrestling podcast I would sometimes list to is that the callers, half of them have an antagonistic relationship with the guy where they're just like, you again?

Come on. Oh, let me guess. You didn't like this person. Yeah, that's right, Brian. I didn't like that guy. I don't know why Vince McMahon still does these stories. God. And it's just you get to know them because you can't, like, ban them, I guess.

Well, you're calling in. You're calling in because you want to vent. They're calling from their cars waiting for their family court appointment well you guys have seen the pat noswald film big fan yeah yeah it's pretty good pretty good about these types of guys i didn't like it but let's not get started okay uh so then they uh they go to play the football game and uh the we get to see one of the meanest things Homer's ever done in the show, I think. Flanders! Flanders! What? Flanders!

What? What is it? Games out there! Made you look. They're just words, Neddy. Words can't hurt you. That's it. Dad, that was really mean. I know, sweetie.

And I got him right in the... Uh-oh. Hey. Hi, Flanders. Go wild, cat. Do you have a problem with the way I'm coaching? Hi, Flanders. Go Wildcat. Do you have a problem with the way I'm coaching? No, no, no, no, no. It's just that, well, like I was yelling earlier,

it seems like anyone with half a brain could coach better than you. Uh-huh, half a brain, huh? Well, you know what? It sounds like you just volunteered. Me? But you were doing such a great job. It feels like a mini sequel to Hurricane Nettie, where Ned is letting people know when he's mad.

He's like, if you tick me off, I'm going to let you know. I'm going to run you down with my car. He never goes that far, but also- Homer should be watching us back. I think so.

That Daryl, I mean, that Flanders chant, is that like the Daryl chant from Homer at the Bat? It is. The callback or something? As a kid, I definitely thought that at that moment. I mean, so Scully was very much into Homer being too mean to Flanders.

As in our Mike Scully interview, you can hear him talk about how he was a believer that, to paraphrase him, that Homer felt like Ned is the man he could never be and so that kind of makes him extra jealous of him and so i think that's definitely what's being played up here he hates ned because he wants to do ned's job or he knows he could do it better and so i mean throwing a full beer can at him that hits him in the neck. And when Lisa says, that was really mean, I know. And I hit him right in the... He doesn't care that it was really mean. He likes that it was really mean.

Reminds me of Homer and the hat episode where he wants to be the town crier during the Jebediah Springfield thing. He's like, oh no, Ned has the hat and it belongs to him and also he's the town... Homer's like, absolutely not. I'm going to be the town crier

and I'm better at it than him. That was older Ned when he was happy to be just abused. But he didn't mind as much. Scully's Ned has a shorter fuse for sure. He yells at Homer more often. Need more of that University of Minnesota spankological protocol.

Well, and also the anger of Ned too is like that came out in treehouse of heart we just did where yeah though his anger is about that uh he wouldn't that his wife would not commit acts of carnality that'll be the day uh and it's a very late act one break in this one it's actually pacing in this is interesting to me because i feel like there's two act breaks in act there's two possible act breaks in act one and two possible act breaks in act two. When Bart joins the team, that could be the end of the act. Yeah, it's like 10 minutes long, the first act.

And when Bart is told by the rest of the team he's going to kill him, that could also be the end of the act instead of waiting for him to quit the team. It's interesting pacing-wise in this. Pretty much much everything the entire arc happens in act three it really does and i i don't like adr jokes normally unless they're convincing enough to work but i really hate when an act break goes out on an adr joke and this is definitely one of those so adr of course is when they just rework the mouth movement to record a different line that doesn't quite fit the mouth movement so there was another line there that was meant to be the act break line but we don't know what it was but i don't like how it goes out it just looks awkward too that one and you're going to heaven are both kind of like yeah they're kind of just like yeah uh and yeah although i do like homer's statement

of like well uh it's like i was yelling earlier when we come back from the act break we get um another scully standard which which is Lisa being injured. You're not going to make the team with that kind of attitude. I don't want to make the team. Then why are you running the obstacle course? Are you wearing my self-defense whistle? You never use it. Good morning, everybody.

Wipe that smile off your face. What did I do? I'm tired of watching you dog it on that football field. From now on, I'm going to work you like a dog. Now go fetch me 20 laps. Oh, man. Do it. You shouldn't pressure Bart like that.

Well, if you know a better way for me to live through my son I'd like to hear it I knew it slowing down already huh how can you treat him that way don't you remember how bad your father made you feel when you played sports so yeah that line about the self defense whistle

I just kind of got it this time where i mean it's funny enough that homer used it and took it from marge but it's the line where he says well you never use it he should be happy his wife has never had to blow the self-defense whistle yes yeah it's a very callous line that i think is funny uh and and i'm really glad they use the word self-defense instead of another word they could have used for that oh my god which uh that well that one i might chalk up to matt grading saying we're not saying that word for a joke on this show or the censors yeah it could be the censors didn't they use that word on rest of development oh yeah they said the they said

rape whistle yeah yeah and then uh to make the joke even darker, Buster says, like, anybody who's want to R her. That's right. Oh, my God. Yeah. Hey, they go there, man. Jokes don't care about your feelings in this show. No, just it's funny that they were making those jokes at the same time that Jeffrey Tambor was screaming at people and hurting them on set. But anyway.

Football. Football. Football. Poor Lisa, though, that falling down. I mean, that's meant to kill people, those tires on the stairs. And Homer's wearing Tom Landry's hat from You Only Move Twice, right? You're right. He pulled it out of storage. That's pretty good.

And yes, him just like dogging you out on the field. Now go fetch me 20 laps. That's a fun. That's a fun. I'm going to work you like a dog. If Tom Landry's hat doesn't motivate you, I don't know what will. like dogging you out on the field now go fetch me 20 laps that's a fun that's a fun i'm gonna work you like a dog and tom landry's hat doesn't motivate you i don't know what will and uh so yeah we go to a little flashback here where they're basically in their way we was designs too but they're more like in the late 70s than 1974 well because they're even homer is dancing to a song

released in 1979 Not 1974 So yes the song Which I just realized Is a real song Is called Music Box Dancer By Frank Mills It's an instrumental song

That was an international hit In the late 70s And we have a clip of the song And you know what It ain't bad It's very soothing. Yeah, I like that. Yep, that's it real song real song frank mills looks like a very nice man in that video what a nice man this is beginning to sell you a car or something i think so well this is beginning the

era that i don't like of tv writing where all the characters now have grown up together like they're they all grew up in this. They went to the same high school. Mo grew up with them. Smithers grew up with them. Lenny grew up with them. I just, I think it's kind of lazy. I get what they're doing,

but yeah. Well, I mean, you just modify the character models a little bit, but was Lenny going out with Marge? It looked like he was trying to, it looked like he had his arm around her or something. he was just relaxing.

Maybe he was trying to get into her personal space in his bull shirt yeah but i believe adventure brothers called this super crazy no way school yep yeah this device which it was based on marvel comics dr doom and reed richards and ben grim all went to the same college and fought over a dorm room like that's how the like they expanded from there so that was their origin story that's why they hate each other so much uh reed richards was proving to be smarter than him at empire state university so victor von doom cursed richards to that very day i know exactly two people from my high school i know zero and none of them are important in your life now or one of them is mildly important i guess but they're not your employees or bosses no co-workers or yes this animation of homer's routine is so cool and good though they spent a

lot of time and effort on this i like how it looks yeah and it's uh well it's also a stock comedy thing to give a one of your more masculine characters a uh a girly or a more feminine uh sporting background and young homer is not in good shape in this clip it reminds me of when young homer is being a choir singer and oh yeah it's like hot diggity balls dropped yeah Yeah. But in this case, Abe is just an asshole. I do like this. We're a bad dad podcast. We're anti-dad. So I like this anti-dad sentiment in this episode, too.

Well, then Homer had a horrible father, and that led him to be a bad dad to his son. And then when he tries to change it, it's his half-assed over parenting, basically. Abe is just unapologetically like, no, you disappoint me and I don't like you. That's who he is to Homer in this episode. You were an accident. You're never supposed to tell the child.

My father never believed in me. Well, I'm not going to make the same mistake. From now on, I'm going to be kinder to my son and meaner to my dad. Quit running, son. I just want to give you a big hug. It's got to be a trick.

Run like the wind. I believe in you. Hug me! No! Will you hug me? Hug me! I like him throwing down all the debris in his way. It's like that gag in Austin Powers

where Dr. E was like, hug me! Hug, hug, hug, hug. The circle they're running is very well animated. Dominic Pulcino and his team did a really good job there. But just how Bart knocks over a new thing that Homer has to jump over. I mean, if my dad started all

of a sudden going like, you should hug me, I'm like, no. What the hell's going on? What is this? The trick. And I do like, as an anti-dad podcaster, I do like Homer's resolution to like, and I'll be meaner to my dad. Good resolution. This was definitely

seemingly the writer's favorite joke of the episode, but Homer cutting kids is, his heartless cutting is very mean, but I do like, it is funny. Okay, it's time for the easiest part of any coach's job, the cuts. Now, while I wasn't able to cut everyone I wanted to, I have cut a lot of you.

Wendell is cut. Rudy is cut. Janie, you're gone. Steven, I like your hustle. That's why it was so hard to cut you. Congratulations. The rest of you made the team! Except you, you, and you. Bart didn't get cut. What a surprise!

Now just because I'm his father, he'll get no special treatment. He calls me coach just like everyone else, which he'll be doing as our new starting quarterback But coach what is it sweetie nothing's a great quarterback he's carrying this team Not anymore Now on you're my main man. Okay now everyone everyone, give me five laps and hit the shower. Oh, Rod, you don't have to. You're cut. So if former were smarter, he would just make Nelson the running back and then have Bart hand off to him every play.

Yeah, just always do a handoff and clobber right through him. He doesn't even put him on the field. He just puts Nelson on the bench. I think Bart knowing he's bad at the sport is very observational because that's how I was. I'm like, put me where none of the action happens. That's where I want to be. I don't want a chance to be a star. I don't want opportunity. Just let me be over here.

So you want me to run the team? Absolutely not. Yeah, Homer is also, they found an interesting place to take Homer because they said on a commentary, they're like, well, what are we going to do? Just another Homer's a mean dad for sports thing. But instead, he has to be good. By trying to be good, he's actually worse. Plus, you get to do jokes about the very real thing of parent coaches who favor their kid over all else.

Yeah, that's what makes it a little different from Lisa and Ice. It's a nice twist where him being supportive is bad, and he promises to not do it in the end. One, parents coaching the team and playing favorites with their kid, who wouldn't do that? It's your kid. I don't care about any children, but if I had a son, I'd be like, well, I definitely only care about you.

I don't give a shit if these other kids play. I think my little brother had that on his soccer team where it was just accepted like, yeah, the coach's son, he does all the stuff. Thanks, Dad. So here's my grand unifying theory of the Simpsons.

Go for it. My grand unifying theory of the Simpsons is that it's the same year every time. That's why they graduate from the same grade multiple times. That's why they graduate from the same grade multiple times. That's why you see weird things like, Bart's a hockey star in one episode, and he's a football, not very good at football player in another episode.

It's because it's the same year, but in different universes. There are multiple, it's the Simpsons multiverse. I like that theory. Or it's always 1989. It's always, or 1992. And the years can uh vary but they're always playing out the same year uh but that that that turns away from my beloved continuity the continuity some episodes have continuity i want a homer verse movie now some some universes

are set in the same universe and some of them are definitely are not and this one is very much a different universe from the one where Bart is extremely athletic and very good at hockey. I mean, being good at hockey doesn't necessarily translate to football, though, I would guess. I don't know. I think this episode is showing him being completely...

He's not coordinated at all. He's very bad at sports in general. He's fat. Well, on the hockey team, he's actually very accurate with his shots. And as we'll see later, he can't throw that football. And he's fast. He is a good skater. Yeah, that's true.

And Letterkenny, you should go watch Letterkenny. It's a great show on Hulu. They make a lot of jokes about hockey players doing leg day. Leg day. Because if you're going to be playing hockey, you better be in shape with your legs and so you would think bart would be able to run around at least but boy i never thought about that with hockey players having to have good legs i like leg day like i love my wife a lot uh but

homer cutting the kids i love just how heartlessly he does it and i just like i didn't cut everyone i want but i did cut a lot of you mart Martin is sad to be cut from a football team. And this is like angry, sarcastic Martin, which is something you never hear. What a surprise. That would have been me on the team. I got to get a passive-aggressive dig in before I leave. I would have been Milhouse happy to be cut. All right.

Yeah. There are some numbers jokes there that Millhouse is zero and that Rod is 66 and Todd is six, making them 666 together. Ah, that's good. I got to get a thumbs up to the Simpsons World app is horrible, and I would never suggest really using it that much, especially if you have DVDs. But that one I didn't know until i read it in their trivia

things on the side are fun facts uh they they almost make that night that full minute of forced video before watching anything worth it and you know what they do you can't even switch tabs because they're like oh you close this tap that we're stopping this we gotcha how dare they i love how b says, oh, they all call me coach. And then Bart calls him coach. He responds by calling him sweetie. And then there's an odd joke

where they're driving home and Lisa's reading a book called Sports Injuries. Well, she wants Bart to be injured horribly. I guess that's it. She's excited about it. It's just weird. Well, it reminds me of the videos from the 80s and 90s.

The greatest sports bloopers were invariably it was somebody getting horribly injured, but it would add doink sound effects. Doink? There's an episode where Homer watches one of those, like early on. Yes, exactly. Maybe it's Joe Theismann. Right, oh my god.

But it pays off well when Lisa takes the wheel. She's like, I got it. That should be. Instead of people saying Jesus take the wheel, they should say Lisa take the wheel. She's literally a backseat, just in the backseat from now on in this episode. It's like, well, I had my moment with the gag where I'm trying to join the football team. Now I'm just in the backseat.

I'll take the wheel periodically if you need me to. I also have a line of like, since when your mother yelled at me anyway how about that hug and he just loses all sense he's like well i gotta get this hug i don't know where i am right now but i have to hug you they they go to the next game and when net is like no hard feelings and homer's like yeah you're not so talkative now it's very funny but i really don't like jokes about homer being a it abusive in the way like that is uh identifiable to me too realistic well yeah it's just like i had many an argument with my dad where he just pretended things that happened before did not happen or say that you said something he said and you just just had to accept it and that's the kind of gaslighting space yeah

that is the gaslighting space that these funny Homer jokes are coming from. But Ned being cheerful and not fighting back against Homer's weird response is classic Ned. That is, yeah. He's just, everything bounces off of him. He's let it go. His neck is healed from getting hit with a full beer can. Well, we're firmly into jerk-ass Homer territory now. It has resumed, yeah.

I resist that narrative the difference the difference between homer when he's being sweet is there's a fundamental insecurity about him and he kind of wants to do the right thing but he doesn't know how when he's in jerkass homer territory he just does not care about anybody uh he can get extremely mean and yeah it's very much playing up these different traits. And that's one of them is his rivalry with Flanders, where he's just being full on, well, mean. I would say he was a jerk ass in Lisa on Ice, though. Oh, he was a huge jerk ass. And that was also a Scully episode. Yeah. Well, yeah, no, you said it on a previous one, Bob. But I think Bill and Josh wanted to

resist the clear momentum of Homer being meaner each season and making him a more likable guy who actually, say, treats his wife to a spa day. All those things like that. So why is Marge with this ogre? Yeah. So once Bill and Josh are gone, I think they listen more to the evil Homers on their shoulders and do more jokes do more jokes about like it'd be funny if homer was extra mean here it'd be funny if homer gaslit somebody or didn't listen to marge or told it called her a liar like that's funnier well he wants to be he wants to do the quote-unquote good thing here with bart but it's from a fundamental place of selfishness which is why

he's really bad at it he's doing it for him he's's doing it for him. He's not doing it for Bart. And we get to see Bart's tough game as the quarterback. There's even some first-person view of what it's like to be on the field with trying to find somebody to throw the ball to. That looks terrifying. It captures what it must be like on that field. Wasn't there, Kat, this is a Madden question, wasn't there at least one year there was a first-person mode in Madden? Yes, and that was actually NFL 2K.

Oh, okay. One of the most famous games, NFL 2K5, considered one of the best football sims ever, had a first-person mode. It was not good. Okay. It didn't sound good. It was very, very bad. It's worth a try. It's worth a try.

It was a fun novelty. Yes, Bart is having some trouble on the field. No, please, Bart, don't! Help, help, help. Get up! Look at him go! Excellent boy, son. You panicked,

but you didn't lose your cool. Does Homer even watch football? Because that was obviously a safety. Alright, what's the between a safety and a touchback? A touchback is If the ball rolls Out of the end zone Whereas a safety would be

I'm holding on to the ball But you've sacked me into the end zone That's a safety and it's two points And I lose the ball They should call it ball rolly and ball holdy That's better. Well, though, you know, partially the blame goes on Milhouse

for not accepting that lateral or handoff or whatever. That should have been. I thought Milhouse got cut. No, he's getting cut. Later. Later he got cut. Okay. Poor Bart also even ends up getting Nelson beat up for once

by passing to Nelson on the bench. I mean, they were all wide open. Just throw the freaking ball, man. He's tensed up there. He knows he's about to get creamed again. Also, he's probably at least concussed once this far into the game. Well, you were asking me, Bob,

why do I like sports? And I think one of the things that constantly amazes me is that these people can take the ball, drop back, and in the space of two seconds scan the entire field see who's going to be open or know who's going to be open and make the release while large men are coming at them to kill them i honestly don't know how people

catch footballs i've never been able to do it successfully it hurts i don't know how they throw the ball like the way that they can release the ball almost effortlessly, like a flick of the wrist, and then it's going down 60 or 70 yards down the field. It's incredible. I can't throw a football or catch a football. I would be like Bart. They would be coming after me.

I'd be like, oh my God, I'm just going backward. I'm holding onto the ball awkwardly. Help me. I'm sorry. Please stop. Yeah. That would be my reaction too. So Bart had a pretty tough day.

Homer tries to cheer him up, which only makes the team hate him more. Do reeky players get the game ball? Hey, everybody, let's hear it for Bart. Give me a B. I won't give you a B, but I'll tear you a new A. If I wasn't your friend, I'd tell you you sucked. You ruined our undefeated season. You ruined everything, Ruiner.

My sister likes you. Listen here, daddy's boy. You cost us one more game and you're dead. You're going to heaven. That's not the best line to go out on, You're going to heaven. That's not the best line to go out on. You're going to heaven. Ralph's had better non-sequiturs. There are better Ralph lines than that. It's a very sweaty Ralph line.

I mean, he's saying instead of saying you're going to hell, he's happy he's going to heaven when he's dead. Also, according to Simpsons World, it was Sherry who said that, so it's Terry who has a crush on Bart okay canon let's do it uh it's all it's hard to tell otherwise but and yeah you really do feel for poor bart just being hated by everybody on the team and again homer homer is such a bad coach he just walks away and

doesn't notice that everyone hates bart and gives him the game winning ball which is just like an added game losing ball oh yes yeah he must have stolen that from the winning team then they're the ones who should get to have that ball hey everybody we lost 52 to 0 but here's the game ball to remember it by it's a pity ball oh there's a I forgot to mention there's a cute sign joke I only caught this time too when they're beating the team that has a zero on their scoreboard their victory city and that they have oh okay that's a cute guy i like that now we go to commercial break and when we come back we've got our big guest like a cat who is joe namath okay joe namath was the quarterback of the new york jets he was was Willie Joe Namath, and he had that wild hair that made

Homer's mother become a feminist or something, I guess. Exactly. Homer didn't know, but the man who radicalized his mother, it was in his backyard briefly. Wow. He looks like a girl. He was the original party animal, a celeb. He wasn't just really good at throwing the ball. He was a superstar. he was in playboy he had the mink coat he had a fu manchu and he got paid 10 000 bucks to shave it off he was a tabloid play guy oh didn't he also advertise like nylons once and said they make me look this good

imagine what they look like on a lady yes he did uh so he was a ladies man and of course famously he made the guarantee that uh so his team the jets were playing the baltimore colts who were widely regarded as one of the best teams of all time at the time and it was the afl versus the nfl and there were two separate leagues they were playing in the big super bowl and the past two super bowls the teams had just kicked the living crap out of the AFL team. So Joe Namath responded to a heckler by saying, I guarantee we're going to beat the Baltimore Colts. And that's what they did.

And it famously gave the AFL legitimacy. It paved the way for the merger that became the modern NFL. Joe Namath continued to be a superstar, though he was a famous drunk. Oh, okay. Yeah, a huge alcoholic and it wasn't vapor luck he shouldn't be yeah that was just a drunk driving accident uh there was a story of how apparently uh he had some thugs hold down a journalist and beat the crap out of him in a bar while he was extremely drunk oh years later in like 2003 2004 maybe he was at a jets anniversary game and he was being interviewed

by suzy colbert of the espn and he was like i don't care about the jets i just want to kiss you suzy on the air and he apologized and a couple weeks later checked into rehab so boy man what does it mean to you now when the team is struggling i want to kiss you i couldn't care less about the team struggling yeah and did he injure himself in some way is that why he limps away at the end of the scene did he have a football injury or something uh a famous injury i think that he was oft injured perhaps uh i think he had knee problems was yeah they make him limp away as if he has like some sort of knee well perhaps he as a professional footballer probably going to have extremely sore and stiff and painful knees and that kind of thing i remember there was that great

gag in the next football episode of the simpsons of the the world's oldest nfl player uh yes they're getting a little older these days, right? I mean, Terry Bradshaw must be in his 70s or something now. Tom Brady's still playing. He's like 42. Wow, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, but there's some players who will definitely live a long time, and there's some players who are dying not long after they get out of the NFL

and start. Well, Joe Namath's still with us, too, I believe. Still with us. Should I play the anti-death jingle? He's not that old. You never know, these football players. I want to exercise our powers. Okay.

We'll find out if they work. Well, here's Joe Namath making quite a funny appearance here in this great parody of a sports commercial. It's going to take a miracle for me to become a good quarterback. Excuse me, son. Wow, Joe Namath. That's right. My car broke down in front of your house.

I cannot believe you are here. Do you think maybe you could give me some pointers? Sure. There's only one thing you need to know to be a great quarterback. Joe, honey, I fixed it. It was just vapor lock. Oh, hey, look, I got to run. Remember what I told you. Okay, Bart, concentrate. Remember what I told you. Just one thing. My car broke down. I'm Joe Nam one thing my car broke down i'm joe namath my car broke down it was just vapor law vapor law vapor law

i'm dead that's so great it's my favorite scene in the show i love that i also like the episode uh sure yeah I like it a lot. That's the joke. I do love the rotating head device, which is something that Al Jean and Mike Reese used a lot. We haven't had that in a long time. We have not. And I love the two different readings for, my car broke down. My car broke down. I'm Joe Namath. I'm Joe Namath.

And I think he gives a very natural line reading of like, oh, hey, I gotta go. It's a very real, you know. He's good. He's good at this scene. It feels like he said that a lot of times. Like, I got to get out of here.

Sorry, I got to go. He's did a lot of commercials in his day. He's on film. Donna Carey jokes on the commentary that they're like, oh, yeah, we'd worked with him. I'd worked with him on Late Night and know that he's a guy who will say yes if you ask him to do something. So we got him. And that woman looks kind of like his wife at the time. Okay.

Yeah. Kind of. But it's Bart's imagination of her. He's imagining a woman. He knows what Joe Namath's wife looks like. He's a little boy in 1997. I mean, he knows who Joe Namath is when Joe Namath never played a game while Bart was alive. Yeah, he's heard of him. I he's famous yeah yeah i though bart also doesn't care about football so but this is

the kind of thing where like mike scully grew up watching joe namath yeah or of course he's gonna have him come on well it's also this is a hilarious scene but it's also a very mike scully thing that when he would cast famous people they were very overtly themselves in most cases uh though this wasn't like for like star power like hey come see in sync on the show or whatever but it very much is like we got joe namath he's playing joe namath we're not hiring an actor to play a character we got joe namath to be joe namath but there was a bit earlier where sandy koufax is on the show but he never says anything she's like you think Sandy Koufax is the coach? Nope absolutely not

it would be funny if the only guest in the football episode would be a baseball player just as like just one thing and so after this Bart decides that he's got to get out of it and he's going to need to lie

to Homer. And quite a lie he has cooked up here. Dad, I got some bad news. Oh, your mother's not pregnant, is she? No. I got hit by a couple of cars. I won't be able to play today. Yes!

Oh, boy. Well, I'll just have to go to my backup plan. Nelson, how's your arm feeling? Great! Good. Take this note over to the referee. We forfeit? What? Forfeit?

Come on! Come on, guys. We can't play without Bart. He's the heart of this team. No, I'm not. I suck. It's true. He does. Yeah, he does. Don't listen to them, son. I have total faith in you. You't get it do you i don't want to be your stupid quarterback i quit what well i got news

for you mister you can't quit you're cut you too millhouse all right i was Milhouse. Throwing his jockstrap down in freedom, which I guess it was Velcro together how he rips it off so easily. How'd you take off your jockstrap without taking off your pants? I don't know.

And then Homer's immediate thing is like, another kid? Oh no, is that the bad news? When Bart is covered in band bandages that maybe should be what homer thinks and uh also the way it's there's a lot of uh they remind me of dave murkin era again of just there's so many great misdirects in this and one of the ones is like yeah it shows your arm great then hand him this note this episode ends on a great misdirect. We'll get to it. One of the best. And yeah, that Bart has to be so,

and says, I'm not good. Stop it. Actually, that's not the act break, though it totally feels like it is. It should be. Go out on Millhouse, throwing his jockstrap down. But when we come back, we've got an uncomfortable dinner.

Oh, God. So like I said, I've never had a tick burrow in so deep. Little guy's just got a mind of his own. Mom, please, we're eating. Well, at least I'm making conversation. May I be excused, Mom? Oh, so now you're quitting dinner, too. Homer, please.

I didn't raise him to be a quitter, Marge. It must have been you. You've quit every job you've ever had. Cop, pretzel vendor, church counselor, professional gambler. He's doing what he thinks is best. Well, if quitting is the best, maybe I should just quit my job. Hoi, hoi. Mr. Burns, this is Homer J. Simpson, the father of the big quitter.

Well, I just wanted to tell you I'm a big quitter, too. And I quit. Homer, Mr. Burns can't see you winking. So. I love that so. Isn't there an episode where Homer tells Bart thatth he's like yeah you quit kid you quit yeah no when he tells him that if something's hard to do you don't do it yeah that's what he tells him about his guitar playing uh but this homer is turned around well i mean homer is

inconsistent in all things so i am not holding that against him but i i also do i love a great joke about uh referencing previous things episodes so he brings up all the jobs marge has had recently how many jobs does homer quit uh there's a joke coming up where he names all his jobs including homophobe yes yeah uh that's uh we've got a few a couple season nine it's time to get self-referential well i definitely mike scully is feeling the weight of the series here and also they're all're all feeling like, well, the show's almost done. It's been on so long. And they aren't even a third of the way through.

I'm here to shut off the lights. Oh, wait. In fact, when I was looking up this episode, it said Simpsons classic, Bart Starr. It is classic at this point. Oh, my God. That's so long ago. How often does Marge get attacked by ticks? That's great.

She just thinks they're neat. She thinks everything's neat. She's very positive in that way. It keeps her from going crazy. Though she's going to get Lyme disease in one of these times from a spirochete. Does that mean you're crazy? No, it means she's faking it.

It's a little both. And there's a nice little return to a hoi hoi. Oh, that's great. And that by hanging up buff and there's a nice little return to a hoi hoi oh that's great uh and that by hanging up on birds there he did just lose his job like he didn't tell burns it was a joke he just has to count on burns sundowning at this time and that he's not gonna remember it anyway yeah he doesn't remember who homer is in what the next episode or actually later in the season sorry yes yeah it's it's still most of the season we come into the game without bart nelson is winning there he's doing awesome he passes a football to himself he's gotta quit

smoking he's i wish they'd shown him smoking on screen that would have been funny and uh and then we get a big time cameo in this one i to quit smoking. We drove 2,000 miles for this? We're in the championship. Way to go, team. Gee, thanks, coach. Great game, son. Come on. I'm taking you to Hooters.

I don't want to bother Mom at work. Well, Bart, looks like it's just you and Oh So yeah Hank Hill Boy Hank Bobby Luan And Peggy are there

But that's Mike Judge And Bill and Boomhauer I think are in the background too Oh yes Yeah Maybe Dale too Yeah But they're all drawn

To look like them In their show With their skin color too They're not yellowed Like say Jay Sherman was So I saw Mike Judge Just recently But they're all drawn to look like them in their show. With their skin color, too, right? They're not yellowed like, say, Jay Sherman was. So I saw Mike Judge just recently. Really? Yep.

Oh, I think I know why. I have good news for you, by the way. He talked about going on InfoWars. Oh, okay. And he said that he called Alex Jones, quote, a local kook, who was kind of funny at the time, and now he's, quote, gone completely nuts. All right. That's good. That's good.

We saw him a few years ago doing a King of the Hill live reading, which was great. He was cool there. Yeah, he was talking about office space. That was a lot of fun. Oh, at the NSF Sketch Fest, the show that we also did? Yeah. Not to brag.

We're as good as Mike Judge. It's official. We're equals. I was also at that show, and that was fun. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Guys guys listen back to that and see if you can i was the one going yes oh that we changed your mind that was yeah you changed my mind awesome but yeah this is kind of risky because i assume this was being written just before king of the hill was premiering so they didn't know like if this if king of the hill was like a

like a notorious flop or like a major failure i have a feeling that scene would be cut out completely easily yeah it's easily chopped out but king of the hill was a big hit in its first season and it's next two seasons too so yeah season two was airing right beside this episode too i yeah that's maybe too why so it's so easy to cut out they don't even have him interacting with like homer or any character. It's just that they beat Arlen, that they came 2,000 miles. Though that doesn't let you know where exactly Springfield is because Texas is all tucked away down there. But it's 2,000 miles from a lot of America.

It's a radius you can draw around it. But yeah, look forward to Talking of the Hill, our entire first season exploration of King of the Hill, only on the Patreon at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons coming up in March. So this brings me to my other point

of the grand unifying theory of the Simpsons. I think that the Simpsons are on the East Coast. I mean, there's evidence to point to that and evidence to point away

from that. They've gone through hurricanes. It's snowed. There's a lot of East Coast kind of seaside culture uh it it's i mean obviously they live in all parts of the country at all times because the springfield is teleporting around and actually i think it's based on portland some lots of it is i mean it's met was matt graining envisioned it early it was based on the portland he grew up in so yeah

so when hank says we drove 2 000 miles for this that tells me that they're on the Portland he grew up in. So, yeah. So when Hank says, we drove 2,000 miles for this, that tells me that they're on the East Coast. But if they were in Scully's Springfield that he grew up in was in Massachusetts, I think his Springfield has a more East Coast vibe to it, which then I think I would bet Massachusetts is 2,000 miles from Texas as well. And also Homer has a huge grudge against Massachusetts.

Taxachusetts. Yeah. He really hates Massachusetts. He wants Sideshow Bob to go back to Massachusetts. Go back to Massachusetts. People don't... Now California is taking over as a scapegoat. I was going to say that.

Yeah. People are so afraid of California. It's great. And they should be. We're very scary. We got all the money we got all the food you got nothing the best legal marijuana money can buy take that denver uh but yeah it was it was interesting to see them there though it and they got mike judge it annoyed me on the commentary you were watching we were watching the commentary a little beforehand and when they go like hey there they are i was like this is a commentary tell me how you got mike judge on

the show what was their conspicuous silence i forget there were a lot of silence yeah that one it's hard to wonder why i mean they could just be talking about specific coaches and naming them by name and maybe that gets cut out or scully saying fox made us put hank hill in this episode could be that could be that uh and we do get to see that is nelson's dad as he looked in brother from the same planet but not voiced by phil hartman who is still with us at this time he could have done it we talked about this before but in 2004 nelson's dad comes back with a new design and that episode is very much about where his dad went ah okay sleeping with the enemy 2004 episode he drives off after dropping him off at hooters to get cigarettes we go to the quickie mart homer is looking for some skittle brow perhaps he dreamed it and uh so i did look this up there according to google there is no like beer with candy in it that is commercially sold.

What was that dumb soda that had little orbs floating in it? Little candy orbs? I forget that one. It was of the Furtopia 90s kind of weird hippie soda crap. In Japan, I have had a canned soda of that type that had gum balls in it, or gummies in it, not gum balls. I think Boba Tea is just what homer wants now how do we feel about boba tea at this table i'm pro boba tea i'm not a big fan damn hate it i don't like the big straw oh but i hate the um don't you like feeling that slippery glue hit the back of your throat like eating tadpoles i hate the tapioca yeah you drag on the straw too

hard then it just slams the back of your throat and you start coughing. Where I used to live in San Francisco had, I swear to God, at least two bubble tea joints per block. They were everywhere. Has that come down some? A couple have closed here that I used to know about. Well, I mean, they hit critical mass, and at least a couple had to close, I guess.

In Berkeley, where we live and record, there's like seven poke bowl places. I love them. There's a lot of them. I wish I could also- There's a lot of them. I wish I could nuke that from orbit. I hate poke bowls. Whoa. It's just yummy fish.

No. In a bowl. What do you want? It makes me sick. But what? You don't like sushi? I don't like sashimi. Okay.

Well, you're wrong. Yeah, I'm about on this one. Your feelings are wrong. I'd rather just have nigiri. You could eat sashimi on top of rice and eat it with the rice. This is the most California conversation we've ever had. Sear that tuna. It's even better. Okay. If I had to pick between sashimi or nig of rice and eat it with the rice. This is the most California conversation we've ever had. Sear that tuna. It's even better.

Okay. If I had to pick between sashimi or nigiri, I'd pick that. I'd pick nigiri, but I still like sashimi. But I mean, the pairing with nigiri and the rice just feels right to me. I like that more. I will say from my Google search, though, it says uh one beer snob website had a list of halloween candies and what beer pairs best with them oh uh yuck well bob what what i can give you the answer but what in your opinion would be the best uh beer to pair with skittles skittles i would

say something not that sweet so maybe a stout my first thought was oatmeal stout really okay yeah like a chocolate stout well according to this brewery site it is a white ipa no no not an ipa no i like ipas but ipa and skittle together that's just like it's too much there's a reason they call it skittle brow this is brown beer oh yeah well i guess guess try it for yourselves at home, folks. Let us know. Apparently, people have tried to make Skittle Brow. I've seen it on the internet. It's gross.

I have no doubt. It turns out they dissolve in beer, and it's disgusting. It's like people who tried to make their own butter beer. Ooh, that's dangerous. You can only do that if you have magic. Or if you go to Disney. No, Universal. My bad. Oh, I'm turning in my nerd cred right now it'll be disney soon enough don't worry they'll buy it too

it's also well a nice design on the bag homer gets he asked for you know a couple six packs and some skittles and the bag when it moves around looks like it contains a six pack of beer in it yeah so you know plus there dominic pulchino bard and homer makeup and the only thing that dates this is just like i mean does a 7-eleven have in 97 did they even have arcade machines in them anymore i would figure they'd become unaffordable i think that i mean they would still be a few hanging around from the earlier 90s i definitely never seen an arcade machine in a 7-eleven really okay but? Okay. But also, I had never seen a 7-Eleven. We didn't have 7-Elevens, but there were arcade

machines in the mudroom or whatever of a convenience store or the entryway or whatever you want to call it. I'd seen a few. I mean, not as much as you'd see, say, in a movie theater or a pizza parlor. Yeah. I saw them in pizza joints, and that was it. I want to apologize. I just got so caught up trying to

encourage you, I was blinded to your stinky performance. If you forgive me, I promise I'll never encourage you again. I've got lots of quarters. This thing only takes dollars. Uh-oh. You know, tomorrow's the championship game, and I could sure use a good offensive tackle. I thought Uder took my place.

Consider him cut. That is very late 90s to be like, oh, this arcade machine only takes dollars. I liked, as a kid, I liked that joke. They weren't getting that expensive, depending on what you wanted to play. Well, it was like you had the biking game with the balloons, and that was like two bucks. Or something like Time Crisis.

Or Jurassic Park, the game. Yeah, Japan. That's why Japanese arcades are so alive. You just plug in a couple hundred yen, and you're like, whatever. It's just two coins. Boom, boom. Yeah, I mean, that's just a difference in currency and culture there. A hundred yen coin. When I vacation in Japan, I always have

a couple hundred yen coins. I always have a few thousand yen bills just kind of around and be like, just stick one in. As opposed to, if I put ten bucks into a machine, I'm like, absolutely not. It's way too much money. It feels like Monopoly money when you're in another country. It's true, yeah. Take my colored paper. But especially in Japan.

Money's not even real, guys. That feels like one of Scully's kids told him at some point, arcade machines don't take quarters anymore. Dad! Oh, no, they take quarters. You just plug in eight of them. You need a lot of quarters. And the catfight machine machine that had to be

the first time skank has been said on the sim not to be confused with the ben stiller character skank or the dance we're seeing the progression of video games cat fight yeah so this is their mortal combat joke or a newer mortal combat joke because they did that with bloodstorm or bone storm somebody was making a game like this in like the, probably around like 2012 or 2013. Feels like the kind of game that would come out in 1997. Yeah, I remember writing about it and getting people mad at pre-Gamergate times.

Good times. We get a quick little electric football joke, which I only got because the critic did an electric football joke. Yeah. Never, I didn't grow up in the 70s. I didn't have an electric football machine. Baffling, baffling toy. Video games exist now.

Don't worry about it. Video games existed in the 70s, too. That was more of a 60s toy, I think. True. I mean, it was probably cheaper to get electric football than a pawn machine, I would bet. I would gather.

Wow. Homer coaching in the championship game. You must be pretty proud of your son. You'd think so, wouldn't ya? Time for one last play, coach. Hold on, I'm working it out. Okay, half of you vibrate that way. Two of you fall down.

Nelson, you just spin around in a circle. All right, I've got an arrest warrant here for Nelson Muntz. Which one of your little punks is Muntz? Oh, no, my quarterback. What are we going to do? It's okay, Dad. I can fill in for Nelson. Are you sure, son?

I knew I could count on you. And it's a great cut to what happens to bart i laugh every time i knew i knew it was happening i knew the twist but i laugh every time it happens just a smile on all their faces they know bart is saying he's going to turn himself in for nelson but they're all fine with it but just is as you think that it's going to be him finally fulfilling, he's like, I am ready to be quarterback dad. I can do this. Also in this alternate universe, Chief Wiggum is A, confident in his job and B, doesn't know who Bart is.

Doesn't remember who Bart is from all of his experience or even just his son being on the same football team as both Nelson and Bart. But it makes you feel a lot better just thinking about it in terms of alternate universes. I just can't let go of the continuity. It has to be one universe for me. The continuity! Wiggum is stupid, though. He is pretty cool. I can get away with this joke.

And, yeah, also the quick gag about one last Abe is awful gag. Just him saying, like, you'd think so, wouldn't you? And then he just falls asleep. Like, that's funny, but what makes it funnier is just how hurt Marge is by she just looks to the ground so sad. He's wearing a lucky red hat.

Yeah. He stole it from Ned. Thanks for ruining red hats for us forever, Donald Trump. It's true. Uh-oh, they have a new meaning now. It's now the racism hat. If I see red hats now, I tense up and I'm like, oh, wait, no, that's just a random sports hat. I had that today.

I had that exact thing. Like, red hat, oh, okay, cool. I mean, people wouldn't proudly wear red hats in this area you would think that we live in in our liberal bubble. Yeah, also don't think you're clever with your parody hat of that because it just looks like that hat. I hate any MAGA parody because I'm like, this is not funny enough to make it worth

reminding me of uh of that here's my swastika parody so hilarious is swastika okay well anyway the last the last bit here bart bart turns himself in nelson wins the game and uh we get uh we get one last screw you done. Poor old Bart here. So what's your charge, Chief? Vandalism? Smoking? You know what you did, Munch. Burglary and arson.

You're going away for a long time. What? Poor Bart. You know, we had a lot of fun tonight, but there's nothing funny about Vaporlock. It's the third most common cause of car stallings. So please, take care of your car and get it checked.

I'm Joe Namath. Good night. Oh, he's so great at that fake sincerity. He's like, I'm Joe Namath. I love his, like, poor Bart. Anyway, it's got so funny i think that was a callback to joe mamath being a commercial pitch man but also having him be so aggressively lame that he cares about vapor lock goes completely against his image as playboy joe namath who gets

all the gals right i also think it's funny that this episode jokes about a lot of dark topics but the one thing he says isn't funny is uh it's vapor lock like we joke about a lot of things but you know it's not funny vapor lock all the slightly inconvenienced him and it's the number four number four that's right car car stallage it's a pretty good cameo yeah it's really you know uh there there are some there are some uh lame celebrities in the scully years but joe namath is one of the better ones i really like this whole appearance they had a lot of fun with them i think over the credits homer cuts everybody yeah some great i love just letting dan go wild with the improv my favorite of them is saying

that like joe namath you stay like that's the one person he doesn't cut. He has that much sense, at least, that he should not cut Joe Namath from the team. Kind of reminds me of the Homer at the Bat where he's cutting. So you're benching me, coach? Oh, yeah. It's how smart managers win ballgames. And we'll hear that over the outro of this episode, too. So don't worry, folks. You'll hear it. This was Bart Star, named after

Bartlet Star. We buried the lead there. It was the thing that Humber was watching in Brother from Another Planet. Brother from the Same Planet. He was retiring and the team was like, Bart, Bart, Bart, Bart. And then Sanselot Humber was like, Bart, Bart, Bart. Wow. I totally forgot that. Yeah, it's like, we say goodbye to Craig Bartlet Star. And everyone's chanting Bart. And then Sansa Hubbard was like, Bart, Bart, Bart. Wow. Yeah. I totally forgot that. Yeah.

It's like, we say goodbye to Craig Bartlett Starr. And everyone's chanting Bart. Yeah. Craig Bartlett. Yeah. But also screw Bart Starr. What did he do? He played for the wrong team.

Oh. String him up. I think he's dead. But this was a funny sports episode. But they've done so many sports episodes to this point on The Simpsons that they're kind of retreading some things. It's nice, but it's not punched up enough. Well, but Homer wasn't the coach there.

Yeah, I know. And it's a different episode, but I got the same sort of vibe. It's like kids sports, doing that kind of thing. It's football instead of hockey now. Also, put your tweets down. I know it was Brian Bartlett star. Ohlett star oh okay good and he's still alive i mean it's i think the episode gets better as it goes along because i think the health uh a lot of the health fitness center

jokes are kind of aggressively lame but it's a weaker opening yeah which is kind of the reverse a lot of the scully years are more about a wild and funny opening that then it like minute nine gets to the plot of the episode instead they're at the hell of fitness fair for like maybe three minutes and then they then it's football time the the joe namath head fakes for i think easily the best part of this episode yeah i do think uh it's not the best sports episode or like best kids in competition episode that scully does best, but I think it's a pleasant episode, and I love the name of the stuff. I also like all the fakeouts, including the Lisa fakeout, even though it sells her out a little bit. So, yeah, I'm enjoying Bart Starr, even though I don't like football. ESPN ranked all of the sports episodes slash sports moments in The Simpsons, and I think this one came in number six.

Okay. That's fair. Fair. This has been Talking Simpsons. Thanks for listening, folks. Kat Bailey, you're our special guest today. Where can we find you online and listen to all of your stuff? And read it, perhaps.

I'm Kat Bailey. I can't remember if I said Willie Joe Namath or Joe Willie Namath, but... It's Willie Joe? It's Joe Willie. Joe Willie. Joe Willie. Please don't have every other comment

on this post be about... That's why I corrected myself, too. Yeah. But yeah, if you enjoy my appearance on this show, you can find me at my day job at US Gamer. I don't talk about sports that much, except when I'm reviewing sports games, which I also do. Inappropriate.

If you want to see me complain about my sports teams, you can go on Twitter at the underscore catbot. Right now, I'm complaining about my soccer team, West Ham, because they're, well, they're not good. But that's all of my sports teams. Well, thank you so much

for your jock insights. Jocks. It's a very jocular discussion. I am very jockey. As for us, we are part of the Talking Simpsons Network. It funds everything that we do.

And if you want to support the show and get lots of bonus podcasts on top of that, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons Network. It funds everything that we do. And if you want to support the show and get lots of bonus podcasts on top of that, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And for the low, low price of $5 a month, you'll get all kinds of bonus podcasts,

exclusive miniseries like our upcoming Talking of the Hill that we just mentioned. That's us giving the entire first season of King of the Hill the Talking Simpsons treatment. And it's only available to patrons

at the $5 level, including all the bonus podcasts we've done over the past nearly 18 months of this patreon experiment henry what else do we have well we have a ton of awesome interviews at patreon.com talking simpsons for five dollar and up patrons you can hear us chat with mike scully the executive producer of the season plus previous showrunners like mike reese bill oakley josh weinstein and writers like dan graney and directors of the show like david silverman and mark kirkland tons of that is there and plus if you'd like to step on up to the premium tier for ten dollars a month oh boy do you get a bunch of great stuff

you get all the old premium videos we did like me and bob going through the original simpson shorts in their entirety and also last month we did the season eight deleted scenes commentary you can see the video of that if you sign up at ten dollars but the king of the ten dollar pledge is our what a cartoon movie podcast where each month me and bob go through a different animated film in the same talking simpson style we've done akira we've done kiki's delivery service we've done batman mask of the phantasm and another one's coming up soon in february so please consider upping your pledge to ten dollars a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons as for me i've been one of your hosts bob mackie find me on

twitter as bob servo and my other podcast i do is retronauts it's a classic gaming podcast it's at retronauts.com or look for RetroNauts in your podcast machine. We've been doing this since 2006, so I'm sure we talked about something you like. If you like video games, you know what? You should like video games. They're better than sports. There, I said it. I'll say it again if I had to. I'm not going to disagree. See, exactly.

Even categories. And if you want to hear some more anti-sports bias, you can follow me, Henry Gilbert, on Twitter at H-E-N-E-r-e-y-g i also tweet out when new podcasts go live both for what a cartoon and talking simpsons and other things that are happening on the patreon follow me there one more time that's h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g thanks so much for joining us folks we'll see you next week for the two Mrs. Nahasa Pima Petalons. We'll see you then. Scully, you're cut.

Brooks, Groening, Simon, you're all cut. Castelletta, gone. Kavner, cut. Cartwright, cut. Smith, sorry, cut. Nazarian, you're cut. Firestone, you're cut. So is Judge. Namath, you stay. All of those people are cut.

Bill Shelton, Wolf and Silverman, Bo Fryer, O'Brien, Doyle, Solomon, I don't know what you, Elliot, I don't know what you're doing here because you're all cut. D'Angelo, Rich, and Kawawa. Now, there's so many cuts here, look, I'll just post them up

and you just see what your name is. Ooh, look at how many cuts there are there. Oh, boy! You you're cut all of you jeez god i cut you you're cut too shushy that's what i get for having faith in you