Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart The Daredevil With Dan Ryckert

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

We welcome back our old pal Dan Ryckert (from the podcasts for Fire Escape and Panning The Stream) for a story of childish shenanigans! After some fun pro wrestling chat, we delve into the history of classical music, Truckasaurus, Dr. Hibbert, professional stuntmen, the most replayed moment in Simpsons history, and so much more. Listen now before we send you to the ward of podcast-related injuries! Support this podcast and get hundreds of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

attention talking simpsons listeners we have a new podcast miniseries exclusively on patreon right now for five dollar and up subscribers at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you get talk king of the hill season two part one that's right we're returning to king of the hill once again putting out 11 new episodes covering the first half of the show's second season. Again, that is patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Be there or be not right. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where chicks dig scars. I'm your host, mudpole enthusiast Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Hey, it's Henry Gilbert, and if you're in jail, break out!

And who do we have on the line? Well, of course, it's the dirt-riding dunk master, Dan. Excellent, and today's episode is Bart the Daredevil. This episode aired on December 6, 1990. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, boy, Bobby. At the box office, Home Alone beats the rookie for the number one position. On the Nintendo Entertainment System, TMNT Arcade is released.

And on this very night on Fox Programming, Do The Bartman music video premieres after this episode. The extended cut. I think Home Alone, it's the first movie I remember really seeing in a movie theater was, I think, 89 Batman. But I definitely remember seeing Home Alone in the theaters and like just bouncing in my chair just in excitement for that movie. And everyone at school only talking about Home Alone for like three months. Yeah, we were not talking about the rookie at all. I think we even watched it in school during a holiday like pre holiday let's not do anything today kind of thing like teachers hung over we want to get out of here

let's run out the clock and watch home alone and i remember i didn't have the vhs release at the time but the vhs release came with a blueprint of kevin's house and where all the traps were and stuff so i think a friend had it and i would pour over it and look at all the traps that's awesome and now the nes game was that the tmnt2 the arcade game was that the port but they couldn't they couldn't just call it tmnt ninja turtles like the arcade game because they already put out that konami one right yeah yeah this was the the which i played this one way more than i played the uh the much harder konami ninja turtles game infinitely better and also was one of the better examples of the nes actually emulating an arcade game. Infinitely better, and also was one of the better examples of the NES actually emulating an arcade game.

It actually had big sprites and everything. It did a good job of that. It's really impressive for the time, and it came with a Pizza Hut coupon, which expired in 1992 or something like that, or 94, I forget what. But yeah, if you get a free pizza out of it, let us know. I got that personal pan as fast as I could.

I probably had to split it with my brother. Well, that wasn't very personal. It was a top two-player game for my brother and I. I was, of course, a Leo man. He was usually Raph, I think. I guess that is also our relationship, too. We're a bit like Leo and Raph. Oh, sorry.

The offer expired December 31, 1991. Dang. St, sorry. The offer expired December 31st, 1991. Dang. Stingy. That's also the game where there's literally a Pizza Hut ad in the first level like you. It worked on me because Pizza Hut was my preferred pizza as a kid, and I thought it was sacrilege when the movie had dominoes in it.

Well, I thought I was crazy when I moved out of the Midwest because growing up in Kansas, Pizza Hut was like the king of pizza. Like it was synonymous. If somebody said, I'm getting a pizza, they might as well say I'm ordering Pizza Hut. And then I moved. I went to Minnesota and Pizza Hut was still a big thing. But then when I went out to San Francisco, I would bring a Pizza Hut

and people would be like, I don't even know if we get that around here. And then I moved to New York City. And OK, I understand it a little more New York City. They don't really have Pizza Hut. But I thought it was just like synonymous the way like Budweiser was with beer or McDonald's was with burgers and fries. And it doesn little more in New York City. They don't really have Pizza Hut. But I thought it was just synonymous the way Budweiser was with beer or McDonald's was with burgers and fries. And it doesn't seem to be the case. Well, if you're old and from the Midwest like me,

Pizza Hut was the nice pizza place where you would go and have a sit-down pizza meal and drink out of those fancy, in quotes, red cups. Love those red cups. And there'd be arcade games and everything was made out of wood. It was a nice establishment. And speaking of arcade games, that was a weird thing where the Pizza Hut in Lenexa, Kansas that I used to go to had a Mario Brothers arcade cabinet. And like I know now that it did have an arcade version, but that was the only time I ever saw it in the wild.

And it was so weird because that was so synonymous with NES to me. No, that's so funny because pizza is so connected to my Nintendo memories, too. I remember the pizza chain. We would get Pizza Hut quite a lot, but the other pizza chain in my earliest youth in Arkansas was Mazio's Pizza, which I think is just kept in that state. But that place had a Popeye machine and a Donkey Kong machine, and I was like, oh man, these are the great... I never had a quarter to play them. I would just stare at the attract screens. Do you ever do the thing where you watch the attract screen

and you try to kind of move the stick in conjunction with it and kind of trick your brain into like, oh, I'm playing this. Of course, yes. It's almost like I have a quarter. And the Do the Bartman music video, we talked quite a lot about that in our Simpsons Sing the Blues podcast with Dan's buddy, Alex Navarro. So folks should give a listen to that.

Animated in Hungary by Brad Bird. Apparently just recently it was revealed that Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken also worked on that. I did not know that until recently. They had to get that video out before Christmas. But welcome, Dan, back to the show. It's been a little while. It has. It has.

You reached out to me. Yeah, we're starting from the beginning again. Oh, my God. How far did you get? Well, right now we're alternating 2 and 12. Oh, okay. So you didn't get, like, caught up, right? No. but uh oh okay so you didn't get like caught up right uh no no i think we have at least 14

years to go if we were to just stick with one episode a week from here on out so we've got quite quite a long journey ahead of us but we uh the first time we did season two they were all half an hour long we were doing this on top of a job we didn't like and now we can give it the full attention and with new guests oh nice now out of curiosity have you guys even if you're not doing it for the podcast have you kept up with the show and like you have watched all like 30 31 seasons now actually i was in canada recently uh that's where i got married to my wife nina matsumoto and together because we had a lot of time uh we were quarantining together we were watching the simpsons. And she's actually, she's kept going.

When I was staying with her, we were watching seasons 21 through 22. And she is watching, I think, 23 right now as of this recording. So she's soldiering on. I have not. And we were having a lot of fun. It was like all new to me. Yeah, it's just so weird now. There's like three times as much Simpsons that I haven't seen or something that I have seen.

And it was such the focal point of like comedy. Like Simpsons and Letterman were the funny things for like the first 12 years of my life. And then Simpsons kept going, but I just stopped watching like a lot of people at the same time that I think most people fell off, you know, season 11, 12, something like that. And I am kind of curious, like hearing things like,

oh, you know, Barney got sober, Krusty got canceled and stuff like that for real. You know, like I just have no idea what's going on or who's dead or you know i know all the core uh voice actors are still uh around which by the way last time i was on was this after i sat in on the table read i do believe so actually yeah since the last time you've been on we've finally gotten to do a table read as well but really yeah it was it's fascinating right and i i fear that they might never have a table read again like they're at post-COVID. But it was amazing.

I am still jealous that we didn't get Werner Herzog in ours. That's the one thing. We got Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Hank Azaria, Yardley Smith. Yeah. But no Nancy Cartwright. Oh, no? No, Tress McNeil subbed in for her.

And of course, Harry Shearer is kind of never at table reads from what we hear. So he wasn't there. Right. Azaria wasn't there for us and Shearer definitely wasn't there. So we felt we were told it was pretty big that Azaria was there for our one. We were lucky. But yeah, it was it was amazing. Like, yeah, I got I I've just framed my script I got from it. it was amazing like yeah i uh god i i've just framed my uh script i got from it it

was great oh i should do that that's a good idea uh but yeah which uh again which episode was it that you did it was i we're gonna spend on like two episodes of it he ran some kind of like he was like a doctor that ran a phone addiction clinic or something like that like maggie was getting addicted to like phone usage or something i could be misremembering i never actually saw the episode and uh dan you're you know you're doing a lot of streaming these days and and you've got uh your podcast panning the stream i believe it's still going that's absolutely every week uh wherever you get your podcast it's me and my wife bianca we watch uh you know you got all your hulus and your netflix

and hbo maxes and all that and we do a big mix of like the new shows and stuff that are coming out on there and also we've kind of just turned it into like a movie review podcast where it's like let's watch a bunch of coppola movies because we haven't seen coppola movies so it's it's a big mix of stuff but yeah panning the stream uh wherever you get your podcast and uh and it's also funny to talk to you now since the last time because you now know everything about Dragon Ball before you know anything. I knew nothing except for that there was a fellow named Goku. I think that was the extent of what I knew beforehand. And now I've seen all of Z, Kai at least, still have not seen Super or original Dragon Ball.

But yeah, I have a fondness for Z for sure. Those could all be podcasts. They could be yeah well dan you also have a brand new thing you just launched that i'm super excited about yes uh it is called the fire escape cast and uh you know i spent so long doing video game podcasts back in the day and i really enjoyed doing it and i miss doing it as much as like the twitch stuff is scratching a lot of the gaming itch uh you know i i am very used to long form video game podcasts and it's really nice to be doing that again with the fire escape cast it is me it is mike maharty who's currently at vox

used to be at game spot i also used to work with him at game informer back when he was an intern me and mike go back like 10 years from his intern days you know he followed me to minnesota then to san francisco then to new york so uh it's only fitting that me and Mike are working together legit now. Can't get rid of that guy. No, no, no. He's great, though. Mike is a hilarious and incredibly weird human being that I love talking to. And also Mary Kish. She used to be at Game Spot as well. That's how I met her back when I was working in the same office at Giant Bomb in San Francisco. She is now at Twitch and another of my best friends. And the three of us have just been really, really good friends for many years. And we always used to hang out and talk about games and

have drinks together and just give each other shit for hours. And we haven't been able to do that between the pandemic and us living, you know, Mary's on the West Coast, Mike's in New Jersey, I'm in Connecticut. So we figured, hey, you know, we've all gotten very used to doing this kind of remote recording thing. There's really nothing stopping us from doing our own podcast. And, you know, this is something Mike and I have been talking about for years about doing our own like Patreon type of thing. And we didn't know quite what form it was going to take, whether it was like, you know, when we first talked about it, it was like the full, hey, let's all quit our jobs and start this thing and we'll do live streams and this and that. And like it's a whole business. And now we all have day jobs, you know, when we first talked about it, it was like the full, Hey, let's all quit our jobs and start this thing. And we'll do live streams and this and that, and like, it's a whole business.

And now we all have day jobs, uh, you know, that we're not planning on leaving. So it's like, why don't we go ahead and launch fire escape as this, uh, this big podcast and just be, you know, every other week, you know, it's a smaller scale in terms of like, it's not the full, like, Hey, this is our new full-time thing. It is definitely a side gig. But, uh, when we sit down to record the first two episodes have been like three and a half hours long each so like we are we're we're getting into it for sure uh so it gets pretty off topic a lot of tangents a lot a lot of silliness and stuff but video games are still at the heart of it and uh i i just think it's been a great time so far and the first couple episodes we put out uh holy crap the uh the response has been amazing we've been actually number one on the uh charge for like top video game podcast in america like since we launched

basically which is we did not expect it to come out of the gate that strong but uh we're very very happy to see all the support we've been getting that is awesome it's it's great to hear you getting back to video game just conversations anytime you guessed it on on a podcast or you did i i guess they were like the test case for fire escape looking back on it but it was the your your game of the year chat over over twitch totally yeah we did uh we did the game of the year and then a few months before that we did kind of like a halfway through 2020 uh check-in and it really was those streams on my twitch channel and the response to them that made us kind of get the ball rolling on kicking this thing off legit uh because people just loved it and it's like well you know it's one thing to do a twitch stream here and there every few months apart but like

people made it very clear they wanted to get this type of conversation on a regular basis so uh you know we put our heads together formed the llc did it all right and everything and uh we we got the thing going now. Nice, nice. I think we all probably remember seeing this episode. I mean, I would have watched the new episode of Simpsons, whatever it was that night. Me too. But especially tying it to the debut of the Do the Bartman music video. It's right ahead of the Black Friday release of the Simpsons Sing the Blues album, so it'll be the big Christmas record.

Boy, how much of this did they cut out of the episode to make room for that? How much footage did they cut out? It's funny you mentioned that because the Gilbert family taped this off TV like every episode. And this was the only version of this episode I had in my head.

So every time I watch the DVD or Disney Plus version of it, which restores all the stuff that was cut to make room for the music video. It's so weird to me. I'll note each one, but like it really is two minutes of this episode is not burned in my brain like every moment of the first 10 years of Simpsons normally is. I feel like with that night concert scene, you could just cut a lot of that out because there's no dialogue and mostly just animation of children playing instruments.

Surprisingly, that's not where the cuts are really wow okay no i mean dan you must remember uh or did you watch this uh live at the time i definitely watched it live because i remember like you know in the history of watching funny things i've had this is like if i had to make a hall of fame of like the funniest i found something at the time there is a moment we'll obviously get to when we discuss the episode where i just remember as a kid being like how is something possibly this funny like top 10 funniest things at the time you know yeah so we'll get to i do remember watching it live i never had the albums or anything i do remember this was probably several years later i had to be but those encyclopedias i used to love those encyclopedias because like that is where i would learn so much

about like movie like references to movies and stuff I wouldn't see for another 10, 15 years. But I would know like, oh, OK, that part where Bart gets pelted with all the snowballs. Apparently that's in The Godfather. And like I just saw The Godfather for the first time like a month ago. And it's like, OK, well, now I can finally actually see the real thing that The Simpsons was referencing. That's happened throughout my entire life. Like, OK, this was Apocalypse Now. This was Clockwork Orange, etc.

Have you seen Citizen Kane yet? Not yet. We just got done with our Coppola stuff so we watched the three godfathers we watched the conversation and we are currently obsessed with apocalypse now and watching it again uh tomorrow but uh no i i should get citizen kane for sure when you see citizen on top of it being a great film i've heard it's pretty good it when you watch it it will unlock like 18 different simpson scenes like oh it's that reference yeah i'm watch it, it will unlock like 18 different Simpsons scenes. It's like, oh, it's that reference. It's that reference.

I'm sure. I know about the like Rosebud stuff and all that. We did do Casablanca a few months ago for the podcast. Oh, great. When I think of like the classic films that I never saw, despite having a film degree, I think Casablanca and Citizen Kane are one and two. And I finally knocked out one of them. So I guess Citizen Kane would be next.

But yes, this episode begins with a very accurate for the time vision of late 80s wrestling, though the opening to it is much more of the style of like regional southern wrestling. It does not feel to me like the then world wrestling federation style it feels much more like the uh like mid-atlantic really is what i get or memphis style i i've been watching a lot of mid-south wrestling lately and uh that rang pretty true to me except for why is rasputin wearing the belt during the match what main event star doesn't know to take off the damn belt you're right see that's uh there's a couple real animation goof-em-ups that ignore the rules of pro wrestling. Now, I was watching at the time,

and on the commentary, Jake Hogan is there, one of the writers of this episode. He said that wrestling was experiencing a boom at this time. Is that true? Was this a big time for wrestling? Because I just know I was watching it. 1990?

Yeah, I mean, it's the tail end of Hulkamania. It totally is, yeah. So I guess you could chart the boom of our childhoods. Starts with Hulk Hogan becoming the champion, and they have WrestleMania in 1985. And it kind of starts to go down. I think it's pretty steady until Hulk loses the championship to Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VI,

which would be 1990 as well. And then it picks up, like, 97 to 01 is another real kind of hot period um yes but yeah yeah hulkamania was one and then the attitude error which is like typically seen as 97 to 01 is the next one which for me was the pulled me back in wasn't stone cold steve austin it was no finding out that hogan had become a bad guy because i i was a hulk a maniac and so seeing him turn evil i was like whoa that's so interesting what i i also heard on the commentary walla darsky he sounds like he was actually a fan uh he says something that is was really interesting to me and he said that he remembers at the time he had gone to see Hulk Hogan versus Ric Flair in San Francisco and Los Angeles and what's so funny is like this can actually be I know which ones he went to because those matches were rare

like I don't know if you know this in in wrestling history Dan but this is the cow palace that is right yes so uh the quick story here is that Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan, it was the dream match for the entire 80s because Ric Flair was the top star of a lot of the Southern wrestling and Midwest stuff. But Hulk Hogan was the biggest star of the WWF. You always dreamed of seeing them against each other. In 1991, Ric Flair leaves the WCW company, comes to WWf and starts challenging hulk hogan and it seemed to be going to a match that didn't happen on any big shows but they did do local non-televised wrestling events to test that were like you know one-off matches to see how they do and they did them in the cow palace and in los angeles among other places so i that Wale Darski was such a hardcore fan

that on October 25th, he went up to Oakland to see that match. And then the next day on October 26th, went down and saw it in Los Angeles. You forgot one thing, Henry. He went with Gavin Pallone. That's right, yes. Famous writer, no, agent. Producer, agent at the time, now producer of things.

But that just made me laugh so much. He's like, that he says, oh, I had just gone to that wrestling show. I'm like, no, you didn't. That was 1991, Wally Walidarski, not 1990. I hear the announcer, and I know it's the commentator from Dead Putting Society. Yeah, I mean, the joke they liked was the very sophisticated announcer giving commentary over lowbrow sports. But he does sound like the classic announcer, Lord Alfred Hayes, I will say. But yes, the kids and adults are all enjoying wrestling in our first clip here.

Live from the Springfield Center for the Performing Arts, the wrestling match of the century. Today, Rasputin, the friendly Russian. No, didn't he used to be the mad Russian? Yes, but I'm afraid the forces of history have changed wrestling, perhaps forever. And the challenger from the University of Heidelberg, Professor Wernher von Braun. That's Braun with a W. Two titans at the height of their careers. Oh, if you ask me, this is going to be one hell of a match.

Oh, Bart, I hope you're not taking this seriously. Even a five-year-old knows that this is as choreographed as any ballet. Rasputin's got the reach. But on the other hand, the professor's got his patent at Kovalak. If you ask me, this is going to be one hell of a match. Oh, look at that shower. Kissing his own muscles. Boom!

So as a Simpsons arcade game expert, I've podcasted about it. I've written about it. I've talked about it on the last time we did this episode the first boss of that game is professor verner von braun wow you're right except they make his skin yellow his skin is brown in this um in the show i never put that together that that's a deep cut that definitely would have lined up like when he was on the show and in the game like wow i never thought i just thought it was like a random big dude man they must have sent that character design to Konami in like the last second. Yeah.

Here's the wrestler design we have. You could make him into a boss, I guess. I guess the game would be out in March or February of that year. But yeah, I just assume that we talked about it on our podcast about that game, but they didn't have enough villains. So out of the characters they were sent, they were like, that could be a villain. This could be a villain. A giant bowling ball. Why not? Yeah. Let's go for it for it but yeah he's one of the bosses show that was

filled with villains outside of like burns and you know he had the occasional like hank scorpio coming in but that was way later but yeah not a bunch of people i'd classify as villains a bear you could fight they had to go like well a bear growls at homer they could fight bears but and i feel like that was a uh greening thing that it had to be like these are men in suits i don't want to actually have them punching bears in this game yeah but so one i love the joke about lisa saying how the fall of the ussr made they had to change russian gimmicks because that actually is what happened in real life like there there were many evil russians of the 1980s who into the 1990s became our good friends, the Russians.

A lot of mileage out of Russian gimmicks back then. Yeah. Yeah. And then same with like, well, also, I recall soon after this episode aired as Desert Storm would begin, an Iranian character became an Iraqi sympathizer instead. Because they're like, same difference. But also I like that how Lisa is kind of heartbroken by it. She's like, perhaps forever.

Like she's sad at this change. But Homer and Bart are very much on the same page. This is the era of the show where Marge would say, your boy idolizes you. So they're on the same page. I love how,

we'll get to it soon, but I love how Bart comes outside anticipating Homer coming home because they have a psychic link about this thing that they saw they they have all the same feelings yeah i i also feel like it is a it uh the joke is that like homer and his friends are stupid children brained men for still watching wrestling what adult would watch wrestling it's just silly as as an adult man who still watches at least two hours of wrestling a week and it also listens to hours and hours of pro wrestling podcasts i well the first season of

this show had the joke an adult in an arcade what is the world coming to yeah uh in the name of the german wrestler werner von braun that is a reference to the nazi scientist who would go on to help found nasa yeah he sent us to the moon he did yeah but uh but yeah so during the wrestling match i i also love that mo is the perfect like fan because he's like he's kissing his muscles boo like that is i love that you want him front row in that mid-south wrestling show next to the uh the granny who hates all the bad guys. It just feels like a very realistic scene of kids hanging out together and watching TV and stealing your friend's seed

and tricking him into getting out of his seat. Also back when the question was, who are Bart's friends? Oh, right, Richard and Lewis. They'll be there. Richard and Lewis would not be included in scenes like this even a year later i think now i think in the future martin would be there yes yeah or nelson would be there nelson yeah yeah richard and lewis is one of them the sunglasses kid that was popping up that i didn't remember no that's uh that's yeah the white-haired sunglasses

kid that's another the doc brown child Doc Brown child. Yes, yes. They actually do the 10 punches in the corner even. They have real spots from wrestling. I like that. Classic, classic. And a cocky pin even, the guy putting his foot on him. That's like, I miss one of my favorite things to do in a video. The thing that made me love the Aki wrestling video games was when I played

as Jericho and I thought like, well, this won't be a good game unless you can do Jericho's cocky pin. And you could, that's how I knew the game was great. The old flex. The Simpsons will be right back. Tonight's the night right after The Simpsons catch the exclusive world premiere of the Do The Bartman music video. Bartman. Don't miss it, dudes.

When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. We care about you. We care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care

and get insurance that's really big on care. Care, care. Did I mention that we care thanks again for tuning in everybody this week's podcast is as big as truckasaurus thanks to our guest dan reichert always a pleasure to have him here if you guys aren't checking out his brand new podcast fire escape where he talks about games, you should be doing it. And don't forget his other podcast, Panning the Stream. It's always fun to have Dan here. And you know, if you enjoyed this podcast, Talking Simpsons is brought to you by awesome subscribers at patreon.com slash talking simpsons.

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and a giant back catalog of more episodes of Futurama King of the Hill also covering all of the critic and the entirety of Mission Hill. So many awesome shows you should be checking out. You can only hear if you are a $5 and up subscriber at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. But if you want a real premium fringe benefit, you should sign up at the $10 level to get all that $5 stuff I just mentioned. But for $10 a month at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, you also get our monthly What a Cartoon movie podcast.

You see, we have a sister podcast, What a Cartoon, where me and Bob cover an animated series super in-depth like we do with The Simpsons each week. But we also also once a month cover a feature film super in-depth often for over four hours long that's the what a cartoon movie podcast this month you can hear us talk about ralph baxi's final film cool world the month before that the 20th anniversary of shrek and coming next month we're talking about 1997's disney feature hercules if you sign up you get over 130 hours of what a cartoon movies that we've been covering each month for the past three years you will enjoy it we cover films as broadly as the end of evangelion to spider-man into the

spider-verse to beavis and butthead do america and tons and tons more please sign up at the ten dollar level to check out the entire back catalog sign up today one more time check it out at patreon.com slash talking simpsons But yes, then we get very accurate commercial that if you're watching a pro wrestling show, you probably would get a commercial for a monster truck event, which this one is an amazing commercial. I'll just play the whole thing. This Saturday, for one night only, your life will be changed forever.

Saturday. Saturday. Saturday at the Springfield life will be changed forever. Saturday. Saturday. Saturday at the Springfield Speedway. Speedway. Speedway. Don Crusher Woodard. John the Skunk Tremaine. And the team from the Matsu Dirt Riding Dunk Masters

and the year's biggest Monster Truck Rally. One night only. Flaps the amazing. The astounding. The unbelievable. Truck-a-saurus. 20 tons and four stories of car crunching, fire breathing, prehistoric insanity. Whoa.

One night only. One night only. One night only at the Springfield Speedway. This Saturday. If you miss this, you'd better be dead or in jail. And if you're in jail, break out. Be there. Be there.

Be there. Be there. Be there. Be there. Oh, so I mean, I know everyone has done this parody, but they were the first. Yeah, yeah. And nothing beats the dead or in jail line for me. It's still one of the better ones for sure.

And like, unironically, if I had seen that exact commercial as a kid, I would have wanted to go immediately. Oh my God. Yeah, I think as a kid, I must have seen this exact type of commercial just because my family went to one monster truck night uh in my arkansas childhood and i think it was because i saw a commercial it was like bigfoot gonna be there against grave digger the one thing missing is tickets pay for the whole seat but you'll only need the edge yes i love to have a homer's reaction despite like it looks like it might even be daytime

he has to sprint out of the bar and like you and leave the dollar on the table and sprint home. Like it's happening right then. They said it's going to happen on another day. He's like, I got to get home right now. He can't focus. Everything has left his brain, but Truckasaurus. And this was the thing. I went to a few of these.

My uncle took me to a few of them. And they seem like they'd be fun, but they're really loud. And you have to sit through a lot of things before you get to the monster trucks. And the monster trucks don't really break anything most of what they do is jump over things i want to see them crush things but i guess those are very expensive machines and they can't be damaged well i was really surprised because i went to one back when i was in minnesota working for game informer they used to put out those monster jam games and it was one of the few things that was actually like developed in minnesota so the developers you know came to

the office and they had tickets to monster jam at the Metrodome later that night. So we went and I had not been to one maybe since I was a little kid. I didn't realize that they had like pro wrestling theatrics, not just in the like pyro and music stuff, but they would do a race at the beginning that was like, oh, here's hometown hero, Steve, whatever. And here's the guy that hates Minneapolis. He's's gonna let you all know that this town stinks and then like they make it seem like that guy's gonna win and at the end there's a huge dramatic thing and the hometown hero wins i'm sitting there thinking like wait is this a work is monster jam always been a work wow that yeah you're right it is it's got to be the same i didn't even catch that as a kid until once i saw that there was like the undertaker of uh monster trucks great digger yeah i was like oh this is this just is pro wrestling i

didn't i yeah i was so happy to have a uh i had a little bigfoot toy like that was my favorite i remember renting the bigfoot like bigfoot's greatest hits vhs tape on one of my uh rental trips there was an nes game too a bigfoot nes game i did want to talk about truckasaurus though because very important now this commercial was one of the first parodies of this kind of commercial and this is like the first parody of robosaurus who was built in 1989 so that about less than a year before this episode yeah now on the commentary, it sounds like the creator of Robosaurus wanted to sue the Simpsons because I believe this guy had big hopes and dreams for this creation,

which was very popular with kids. There was nothing like this at the ones I went to, but Robosaurus starred in a made for TV movie on NBC in 1992 called Steel Justice. So Wikipedia says it centered on a cop with the magical ability to turn his deceased son's Robosaurus toy into a real fire-breathing robot

to help him fight crime. This was going to be a pilot for a series, but the series was not picked up. So I think that's why this guy wanted to see the show because he had a dream of the Robosaurus TV show

where his dead son's toy turned into a giant robot dinosaur that helped him fight crime. I watched some scenes from it on YouTube. It all on youtube it's the craziest thing like it has to be seen to be believed like because like that already is silly enough that idea of like yeah my my son's toy turns into robosaurus it also is a ripoff of robocop and highlander because it's in a post it's like in a near future so it's like a cyberpunk police state-ish thing and they're fighting he's a cop fighting a collection of criminals who are

very similar to the boddicker gang in robocop and then he's being told about the magic of the monster transformation by an old uh african-american man who very much is in the role of sean connery in the highlander films so it's it all leads to the transformation of robosaurus showing up and robosaurus is cool i think it looks cool but it has like two tricks like how could it be a tv show it can't really do anything hey kids love it I don't know man I've never actually seen this thing until I just googled it and it is incredible looking I'm sure in action it probably is limited at

best but it's a pretty sweet look on this guy if you are bored enough during lockdown like Henry said you could watch this entire movie on YouTube it's just there it's amazing and it's Riff Track has got to do this I was thinking of DMing our friend Connor, but I'm sure the thing he likes the most

is getting recommendations for movies they should do. That's true, yeah. I also saw that Robosaurus appeared on a 2012 episode of Pawn Stars where they were like, hey, pay a million bucks for this. You'll make the money back instantly. And the Pawn Stars turned it down.

And it's too bad. But that Robosaurus, I think it's still going around. Well, I don it down and it's too bad but that robosaurus i think it's still going around well i don't know what it's doing now but i mean i've seen if you put that in a parking lot people will drive by it in their cars even even in the lockdown times they'll they'll want to see robosaurus picking up stuff and crunching down on it also that commercial is just a thing of beauty this was the first time hearing it just now i was like i thought it was just hank and harry but dan's in there too you have the three of them talking on top of each other it's so great saturday saturday saturday like all three of them in a row like there's so much energy to it and matt graining said he was so impressed by the

animation on this that he wanted to make a show with very good animation yeah yeah he said he said that the especially the slam dunk by the motorcycle guy he's like oh the animators make stuff look cool if they want to draw it so uh maybe if i do a space show they'll do that it's it's funny on the commentary in general they're kind of all goofing on him like stop bringing up futurama like they because none of them work on it they they think it's uh they they kind of clown on him i bet it had also been recently canceled at the time oh yeah i don't watch any actual basketball but i i am uh maybe it's just the nba jam fan me but i just love seeing any like harlem globetrotter or dunk contest or a mascot jumping off a trampoline or uh or this motocross thing it's like okay that seems awesome likeks seem super cool, regardless of your knowledge of actual sports. I don't need to see a game be played.

Just cut straight to the dunking. See who dunks best. If mascots were doing it, I'd be there. Oh man, seeing a mascot somersault into a dunk while keeping the head on, that's amazing. Bob, you're right. It's so sweet how, and well executed, that Homer and Bart, like Bart just runs out the door

thinking like Homer will be somewhere so I can tell him Robosaurus. Truckosaurus. The better name. Yeah. It should be called Truckosaurus. Robosaurus is a worse name for it. They punched it up with Truckosaurus. So next scene after Homer and Bart have met in mind on this,

Homer announces that they're going to be going to this on Saturday night as a family growth thing. And I love that Lisa tries to set him up for like, you forgot something. He's like, family growth thing? No, no, I didn't forget anything. And the scene opens with a lot of noisy eating, even from the pets. Even the pets get noisy eating noises. I think that's why I didn't want to play it. Because'm like that's too much like slurping from from people and it's just the pile of purple goo it's the purple goo era of eating food on the show but i as uh i definitely feel for lisa in this scene because she completely planned out a saturday she staked

out this plan in a long time and now she's being told like well we're gonna change the plan because your brother and your dad saw a thing on tv and they have to do it that night well there's a part where she says what time does your little truck game start and that gave me flashbacks to so many times as a kid when like older relatives would be like you know hey you know the family's over it's thanksgiving Come do a thing. And they'd be like, oh, stop playing your little game. This is a link to the past. This is a masterpiece. But the way Marge said that totally reminded me of that.

Yeah, I like that it's sweet, but also condescending on her part. Yeah, like if I wanted to watch something or I had to go because something was on TV, like, oh, Bobby needs to watch his show. It's Mystery Science Theater, and it's important. Yeah, my ex-stepmom would always say, oh, oh, you know, quit playing with your toys. It's like, dude, this isn't a toy. This is a serious video game. How dare you equate this to an action figure?

This video game, it's better than a movie, Mom. Well, also, you'd have to explain the function of saving to a parent, that you couldn't just stop at any time. Yes, yes. function of saving to a parent that you couldn't just stop at any time yes yes i think i think parents might get that now but also uh it seems like auto save is just so ubiquitous that you know it's understood oh yeah i mean the kids well and also like if it's an ipad game for a kid it's saving it every second and is always online so they they actually could just switch off the ipad and be like it'll be there when you get back there's a little moment in the scene when marge is just calmly pointing out that okay yeah the recitals at five this thing's at eight we can

go to both and homer goes marge you're a genius just this very simple time math it's it's homer anyone could have thought of that but i also like lisa being very clear of like if you miss it on saturday i'd advise you to find a child therapist on sunday yes she's had to put up with a lot of heartbreak but i think this was like the last line for her she's like if you really can't go to my i i do think um in a more bitter show they would have just had like leah homer actually in like a season 12 episode they would have said oh then homer and bart are just gonna go to this thing your thing's dumb we're not gonna do yeah then like they'd throw food at lisa or something uh i love homer also just is sobbing like oh cruel fate why must you mock me

they were so into having homer just be all over the place emotionally like they're they're already super into it uh and so with the compromise made they head off to the recital and it's like a sequel to the how the christmas special yeah it surprised me how long this was and how few jokes there were i wasn't bored but i think they were just showing at the time that they could do this in a regular sitcom couldn't one of these long extended scenes with just you watching a lot of music it's so long it is really long really long it might be too long because we don't actually get bart's uh the catalyst for this until about halfway like kind of more than halfway through the episode is bart becoming a daredevil

and then it's over so fast yeah i feel like with 21 minutes to work with you know every minute is kind of precious there so that was going on a bit long by season three they would have been like we cut down three minutes of this and make it work for the put in a b story in there you know yeah yeah i and i can't believe that how long this is that this isn't where they made the put in a b story in there you know yeah yeah i and i can't believe that how long this is that this isn't where they made the cuts in my local airing of it so no cuts so far no not yeah yeah it's uh but i i think actually skinner saying don't make me flick the lights on and off i think that was not on my tape but uh even to the x-men special vibes not just are there with skinner mispronouncing stuff and introducing it but also like the crowd around them is mostly a re it's all the same drawings

but they're like in different spots to make room for flanders like flanders wasn't there in the original same people who they never meet again because they're just background mutants the guy homer steps on his galoshes yeah i do like also in skinner's introduction to it that he thinks it's not just parents but music lovers there which is like the only people who are here a family to watch their kids play music though no adult would go to it without a kid there there's a pitchfork journalist in the crowd though this seems to last three hours long which i'm like you know what i i'm with homer that's too long to make parents sit through for these things i think when i had when i was in band my parents maybe had to sit

through one hour i think like maybe 90 minutes i hope my parents appreciate that i had no extracurricular activities to torture them with so i gave them lots of free time well i went to catholic school so we just had every year the big christmas program of you know your silent nights and all that stuff. Oh, me too. Those seemed like an eternity back then. And the only thing I remember is don't lock your knees because that was the thing. It's like, oh, if you lock your knees or you're standing up there, all the I don't know if this is a real thing, but they're like, oh, yeah, all the blood is going to like rush your head and you'll pass out and ruin the Christmas program.

Oh, geez. I got in trouble practicing for that one year this probably would have been like first or second grade and uh my dad would always do this thing to make me laugh where he would sing songs like bob dylan and so while we were practicing i started going holy nate like doing that no no kids in 1991 knew what i was doing uh but the teacher got super mad and i remember getting in trouble for that ah that's he should appreciate that yeah kid knows what a reference yeah in the early 90s uh so there's also a good joke of homer learning that it's a series of things like series like he he knows that this is hardly his last saturday he's gonna have to spend here there's not a lot

of uh you know knee slappers in this one but i do like how homer calls the unfinished symphony a piece of junk oh yeah uh and then he also thinks it'll be shorter because oh i'm finished i can't take long a very season two joke of skinner mispronouncing sherbert uh schubert as sherbert but uh they also play the 1812 overture so i think they're kind of all over the place in this uh they They also say on the commentary that it was difficult for Alf Klassen and his orchestra to play the music like children would. Like it still sounds pretty good. Like it doesn't sound like second graders playing music. And yeah, it goes so long. Like there's some good shots of like Lisa doing her solo.

Then we see Todd playing his solo. And it's I like the ned this is right after dead putting society ned is fully the churchy weird weenie who cries about his kids he's he's not the yuppie neighbor anymore he's he is the flanders we know and love though maude's not at it which is like hey what's going on here she's where She's where she was a Bible camp learning to be more judgmental. Had Rod and Todd been named at this point? Yeah. Yeah.

Because dead putting was just before this. So that that would be when there were two Flanders kids. I think there was only one until that episode. And it was also the first appearance of Maude, too. But I also think it's funny, dear listener listener that i barely needed to put research into all that pro wrestling stuff but and i could put research into this classical music and have trivia for that but i don't want to so this music's on youtube you can find it schubert royalty free yeah he's fine uh but yeah so it then ends i love homer's increasing pressure. Like, I mean, that is how I feel. He's pointing at his watch and like looking at the stage.

It's like this. They can't play faster. It'll end when it ends. Like this music will last that long. It ends. Homer runs to the stage and pulls Lisa off to go there. They're leaving at like 750 or something. And there is a little funny joke as they're rushing there there's some good action during that sequence too of him weaving in and out of the cars it's uh

but yeah the i i like lisa's little i reached him like that's that's sweet apparently that was a james all brooks line it sounds like him yeah yeah they they call them little jimmies in the uh there but uh not to be confused with our truth's little jimmies but uh but yeah i also uh wes archer one of the best directors the show's ever had and there's just so much great action in this. Like, just him weaving in and out of traffic, and then to end the act with Truckasaurus. Like, that's amazing.

They should have really figured out the layout of the stadium more in the world of The Simpsons, because if you could just drive into the arena where things are taking place, that's a real security hazard. This is pre-9-11, by the way. Put up a gate or something, at there should be sources in there it seems like a very informal uh muddy arena and that leo g clark guy presumably controlling truckasaurus should know which car truckasaurus is allowed to eat ones without people in them it's a real goof up on truckasaurus's part yeah i also though the whole situation of it feels very shorts

to me that just the family all arguing in a car together and they take a wrong turn and a crazy thing happens that yeah yeah very shorts to me yeah they drive in the truckasaurus then confronts them and uh here here's a very pedantic thing i'm gonna to say. All right. Dan, you made a great point that this feels like pro wrestling and how you stage out a show and you have events. And I remember when I went to the Monster Truck Rally as a kid, how long I had to wait for the main event, which was Bigfoot. And it drove me crazy as a kid. Yeah, it took forever to get to that. Sorry. But yes.

But so Truckasaurus is seemingly doing his thing at like eight o'clock, like right at the start of the show. That's terrible pacing. It's true. Yeah, we had the exact same experience. And you're waiting for the monster truck thing to happen, but you have to sit through the mud pool and the motocross and all of this stuff. Oh, it's like, you know, seeing a band or something and there's like four openers and

it's like, all right, come on. That's why Homer shouldn't have been wrestling himself too much at eight. Because he's like, ah, there's the opening acts. I mean, that's why I've been to wrestling shows where we had to wait an extra 30 minutes. Because they're like, well, there was bad weather or whatever. People are late. We don't want to start without them. But to start with Truckasaurs, I'm just saying that's bad pacing on the promoters doing that.

And one thing that's a joke that I only just sort of picked up on now is that they're all wearing formal wear to this event. That does make it funnier. I guess I never really thought too hard about it, but I was like, oh yeah, they're all really dressed up for this because they just came from the concert. Well, I do love the soda that he gets. You can tell that was meant to be comically large, but it's not even really an exaggeration these days. I feel like you can get like 64 round sodas fairly frequently. Oh yeah. Yeah. All of the food from this era that was supposed to be satire or parody has been outlapped by reality several times over. Oh yes. Yeah. Triple chocolate. We're far beyond triple chocolate ice cream at this point. Well, I remember there was like an

onion headline maybe like 20 years ago that was just like oh you know gillette spokesman fuck everything we're doing five blades and now it's like five blades is basically the standard for a razor blade yeah yeah the the onion headlines every time they catch up with reality i i i laugh sadly i guess but uh but yeah the the amazing act break like the truckasaurus attack is so well done and really scary. And yes, it is, like you said, Bob, ridiculous that Truckasaurus is treated like, well, yes, the living creature Truckasaurus was confused and tried to eat the car. I do like Homer rolling up the window as the flame hits the car, too. Oh, that's great. A little joke in there and how they're

all like uh moving back and forth in their seats except for maggie who's strapped down like i forgot that they drive this car home it is so destroyed when you see it when the act break is over it's insane the car is totaled beyond repair but they i i wonder if that was them just going like we don't want to change the reality of the simpsons they have to keep the same car so just just say it got repaired uh but yes we come back from the commercial break and the family has survived a truckasaurus in this next clip pull pull you dogs well let's see here right windshield melted bumpers punctured radiator teeth marks in the trunk on the plus side it doesn't seem to be any frame damage. This check should take care of everything.

Thank you so much. Mrs. Simpson, I'm Leo G. Clark, inventor, owner, and operator of Truckasaurus. Let me just say that Truckasaurus feels very badly about what happened, and everyone here at Team Truckasaurus would like you to enjoy this half bottle of domestic champagne for being such good sports. Well, thank you. Gee, everyone's so nice here at the Monster Truck Rally. Look, Homer, champagne! That was Truckasaurus Private Reserve.

That's great. I love the design on that Truckasaurus bottle. And when he says half bottle, it means that it's clearly been opened and they put the cork back in it. Of domestic champagne. Yeah, to make sure you know that like, oh, it's a worse champagne, I'm telling you. So yes, Leo G. Clark never, I didn't see him until I got the DVDs because he was not on my tape. What a weird looking character that is. He's like proto-Frank. Like this would be Frank by the end of the season.

You're so right uh frank comes up in what uh blood feud or whatever old okay old money that's right now when uh marge took the payoff check and put it in her hair i was trying to remember was that a frequent gag back then that they kind of tapered off on it was yeah that is where she put money she put it into her hair in simpson and delilah when homer needs money because he lost his hair growth formula, he searches through her hair. Yes. Yeah. I feel like that's an easy gag that they probably did in the early seasons.

And then they're like, all right, we've gotten the mileage out of that. Right. I could see them going. It's too cartoony that Marge always hides things in her hair. But I think in general, they just stopped doing any jokes with her hair. I think they were like, oh, we're tired of her hair. It's just treated as Marge is a woman and you don't even as a mother, like you don't think of her as a person with big hair or not. Like it's very rare.

I remember there's that visual gag. I can't remember if it's when they move and she doesn't have anything to do around the house. But like when she's losing her hair and it's shown by like giant holes in her hair. Yes. Yeah. Well, and also we talking about that Simpsons arcade game again. house but like when she's losing her hair and it's shown by like giant holes in her hair yes yeah uh well well and also we talking about that simpsons arcade game again that they had jokes with her hair and they're including having the lightning when she gets electrocuted you see the bunny ears in her hair and if you attack too quickly the her hair gets caught in her vacuum

right yep yep yep uh man classic that's uh but Leo G. Clark, um, not on my thing. So I didn't know about him, but he's, he is a reference to a, uh, producer on the Gary. It's the Gary Shanley show. Oh, wow. Kogan and Wala Darsky knew from working with him. I looked him up, uh, sadly passed away at age 60 in 2018. Uh, but he was a line producer or like a non-writing producer on many live action sitcoms.

It felt like a too specific non-comedy name. Totally. Yeah. Like same, they joke about it. It's just like Frank that they named Frank after one of their friends. That's right. Right on the show.

Although Frank is a funny name. Yeah. Leo G. Clark. That's just kind of a boring name, but I was sad. I was sad to see he was no longer with us. He, recent thing he worked on uh was a dog with a blog that one he sure does the the car is destroyed i also think when they hand off her that check right before we saw it

she had signed a liability waiver or something and just like well if we give you this check you don't sue us for almost killing you and so yes we then head to the monster truck show proper again here's another big cut uh that i never saw until dvd the whole miss monster truck section like the i i really love how lisa is excited for a woman getting the spotlight and how marge is like oh is the world ready for a woman truck driver i didn't for our first podcast on this, I think I didn't look up this word, this mud pool driver, because there wasn't a mudding at my monster truck shows. And mudding is driving a vehicle through a pit of mud, and the winners make it furthest through the mud.

So it's called like mud bogging or mudding or mud pool, but it's just it was never at my uh monster truck shows so just the one that goes farthest in the mud before the car just gets too bogged down or something i think so and it's like a set period of time i think well there's a thing behind her car that's like weighing it down so yeah you know i didn't have it either we had we had like the drag race thing of like going fast. And that was the loudest thing I've ever heard. Loud?

I've been, like I said, at many wrestling shows with indoor fireworks. That is nothing compared to the sound of those cars. Maybe it's also because I was like seven and things seemed louder back then. And it wasn't fun to watch a car go in a straight line for a few seconds yeah it's i've i've been to bull riding events and that those several seconds are more exciting than watching a car drive that fast but yeah it's it's sweet how lisa's excited for it so excited she actually like knocks over maggie in her excitement but uh but yes then it comes back uh this is where my episode resumed where

homer comes in with a giant pile of food he's mad there's no uh they forgot his corn dog he also has a glass that says i survived truckasaurus that's the that's the big soda uh and yes then there's another bit here so they then introduced that they've got a surprise guest which i think they put in that line to explain why he is not advertised on the truck of source okay okay yeah i never noticed that before but you're totally right about that which i think that's a mistake on the promoter's part if you're gonna have a major if you're gonna have the equivalent of evil kenevil show up at your show don't have it be unadvertised yeah front and center on the poster and his name is lance murdoch they don't say it on the commentary but i wouldn't be surprised that they would have named their daredevil character over the marvel

comic books character daredevil whose real name is matt murdoch okay yeah i i think it's possible but obviously it's an evil kenevil parody yeah it definitely is evil kenevil but like in my head i've seen so much more super dave and i love super dave so that's where my head went right away i was gonna say dan yeah i mean uh the people who wrote this growing up they were born in the late 50s early 60s and they grew up when evil kenevil was targeting them they he was a stunt guy they would watch on tv and then this episode is all about that but we grew up with the parody super dave and now modern kids uh probably know evil kenevil and similar stuntmen through toy story 4, that character. There has never not been a parody of Evil Knievel.

That's true. God, I loved Super Dave so much as a kid. But I don't think I fully got that they were jokes. I think it took a couple viewings as a kid of Super Dave to realize it was a comedy and not just like action. He should be dead. They squished him again. Yeah. and not just like action he should be dead they squished him again yeah i i think it wasn't until much later of uh seeing him show up on like you know talking to norm mcdonald or being in the rest

of development and being like oh my god bob einstein is hilarious or kirby enthusiasm he's amazing yeah r.i.p he's god just hearing him say larry i can't make my voice dry enough to sound like he was he was a dry man, wasn't he? But yeah, you're right, Bob. This is like baby boomer content. That's what we grew up with. Like these are all these guys who grew up during the 70s. They make all these references through these things.

And we got to grow up through that. And now as our generation makes content for kids, they have to sit through very specific anime references. Like Street Fighter 2 references yes yeah every and every cartoon show i watch be it duck tales or craig of the creek or steven universe they all have to have their wrestling episode now because the kids of the attitude era are making cartoons now well a lot of this episode is also partially based on the 1971 uh biopic starring george hamilton as evil knievel but i will say there is another evil knievel movie you should check out it is called viva knievel and it stars evil knievel and the only way to watch it in my opinion is to watch the riff tracks of it that you can just download it's it's great okay i'm watching that yeah viva knievel and a lot

of this episode is about his failure to jump snake river canyon we'll talk about that when bark gets to the Springfield Gorge. But that was like a big moment in his career. And yes, actually here, let's learn all about Lance Murdoch and his amazing stunt he has planned. For our last event of the evening, we have a special surprise guest. The world's greatest daredevil. The man who's no stranger to danger. If he's not in action, he's in traction.

Captain Lance murdoch ladies and gentlemen and especially little children i'm glad you're all here to witness what may very well be my grizzly death tonight my most dangerous stunt. I will deftify both nature and gravity by leaping over this tank of water. Filled with many great white sharks, deadly electric eels, ravenous piranhas, bone-crushing alligators, and perhaps most frightening of all,

the king of the jungle, one ferocious lion. I almost forgot to add a real element of danger. One drop of human blood. Now, chance I don't survive. Let me just say, seatbelts save lives, so buckle up. I love that that's his last words, that seatbelts save lives, so buckle up i love that that's his last words that seat belt save lives so buckle up i just thought it's very funny that dan is on this one because lance murdoch returned

in viva ned flanders right oh my god wow dan's last episode was uh when he almost died or maybe senior lance murdoch correspondent here god like dan's voicing of him is so good like he he sounds like this guy who's like he's been everywhere he said this pattern a million times but he's like i just like oh i almost forgot one drop like just uh vaguely southern kinda it's uh just dan plays him so well the terry Funk of Stuntman. Yes, there is. There's a lot. There's a bit of Terry Funk in him. And of course, I mean, it's one of the funniest jokes in the show is that he combines a tank

full of salt and freshwater beasts that could not possibly coexist. Like a shark and a crocodile. One would kill the other, likely the shark killing the crocodile. And a lion. And then a lion just to make it fully likely the shark killing the crocodile and a lion and then a lion just to make it fully ridiculous and only the lion is really what hurts him and the lion isn't eaten either and it's fine like the lion swims happily which is not the lions are known to do it's so amazingly ridiculous i love it oh god and and yes so he does his stunt there's a great visual gag of everybody but bart it can't

stand to look and bart has to be the one who says he made it i on the commentary greening is upset to see there is a very similar to lisa looking character sitting right behind she is very distracting and i just thought like yeah this episode has two instances of extreme violence yes and this is one of them god so much like he's it's it's also great that lance survives but then waving on the edge is when he just falls in and is torn to pieces i mean the lion jumping out on top of him is amazing i love that shot it is so funny and i think very deep blue sea yes yeah and i think that he's okay is from that hamilton movie not not hamilton but the george hamilton movie about evil kenevil uh his little thumbs up i mean

if you're watching performers at live events sometimes that little thumbs up uh from a stretcher is all you can go on just like oh thank you like i i went to a wrestling event a few when you really care about someone you shouted from the mountaintops so on behalf of desjardins insurance i'm standing 20 000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you home and auto insurance personalized to your needs weird i don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Just a couple years ago

where a wrestler was able to walk backstage but then would take two years to get back into the wrestling ring. That was Hiromoma takahashi and he fortunately he's okay he's doing better than ever he is okay folks but i mean he like for real i watched him he broke his neck in that match and he finished the match i thought it was a neck thing yeah yes yeah but uh and dan i know you've seen you've seen some things too but uh yeah but yes uh so they all clap and it's funny that bart is

inspired by this heart like he sees the worst he didn't see just the success he watched the worst accident that could happen afterwards and he still is inspired to be a daredevil and uh and homer ignores the obvious warning that this is going to be happening to bart it's so funny how his reaction after bart telling him it is like, kids say such stupid things. Not cute, stupid. But yes, actually, the quick clip of Bart's dream of being a daredevil himself. What a fun-filled evening.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 10-year-old who's brave and bold. When he's not in class, he's risking his ass. Beware of the daredevil, fight, super son. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. All right, we're home, son. Dad, I want to be a daredevil you'd say such stupid things i his fantasy is so well done too and apparently they they laugh on the commentary and how much they fought the censors to get ass on tv and now they're like what a dumb why'd we fight so hard on that who cares

well i mean i feel like it was that type of thing that back then made parents freak out about the show because the idea of a cartoon saying ass was like this is like pre beavis and butthead it was just unfathomable you know i think it was the first time i heard the word ass unless i i mean my parents did let me watch like dan actually no i learned the word ass from the dan akroyd john candy great outdoors summer rental no the uh the one where they can't they go that could be great outdoors yeah uh like they shoot a bear in the they shoot a bear in the ass to run and make him run away and like they they say the word ass and that's how i learned that meant but i learned a lot of swear words from my favorite movie space balls when i was a child oh yeah i remember a couple years after this episode i was in fourth grade

at the catholic school and they had a school meeting where everyone had to come and the teachers had to explain like listen there is a television show that is very popular right now and it is never to be discussed here we can't even say the name because one of the words in the show is very very wrong to say and it was beavis and butthead but like even like the idea of butthead they were just like we can't believe that's in the title of a show. Wow. On the commentary, it's very funny because they're recording these commentaries and probably like early 2002, late 2001. And Matt Groening is talking about how everyone freaked out at The Simpsons.

But now there are things on TV like jackass that are way more influential on young people's behavior. But it's just a fact of life. Yeah. You know, I was thinking about that when they get to the Hibbert section and it's just it's more in the hibbert section yeah but but but but definitely bart's vision of becoming a daredevil it shows how impressionable kids are and it's but it's them reflecting on their impressionable youths and absolutely like for our age when i was a teen seeing jackass it did teach me all the wrong lessons like me and my friends like yeah we're invincible like the jackass guys like i i would figure most suburban boys of that age probably at least tried to do the shopping cart thing once if not more we we went behind the target uh in kansas

and we went down the hill and went over the curb and everything we we got a bunch of we went to home depot and bought trash cans and went to the tallest hill we could find and we like i still have the video of us all like getting stuffed into trash cans and going down the hill and running into trees and stuff. I could have had severe injuries. Yeah, all my friends became jackass heads as teenagers. And I was the kid, the very Milhouse-style kid saying, we could still play Mario Kart, right? Let's all head inside. You can do both.

Trust me. I only wanted to do one. I still have never broken anything. You know, I did break it. Not from that, though. We've heard about Henry's backyard wrestling. Yes, yeah. Injuries.

Don't try it at home. They told you. I should have listened. I know. Well, that is also the extra imitatable thing about Jackass, which is like, if you were a kid who saw even evil kenevil stunts yes you could be like oh i can do that on my bike but the shows that evil kenevil were on weren't about evil kenevil showing hey here's how you could do it if you had a bike and i'll do it right now in front of you but like jackass really was here's a shopping cart you can find that you also probably

have one friend who has a vh recorder. Just make these videos yourself. Do you have a stapler? That's all you need. Exactly. You can walk into a hardware store and poop into one of those toilets. It was sad when the Jackass guys during season one got so famous that they couldn't do a lot of their craziest stuff. Because if they tried to do it, people would just go like,

hey, it's Johnny Knoxville. I'm on a Jackass thing. Well, I feel like that was going to happen with uh sasha baron cohen and stuff but uh he he did get too famous but the one who didn't was nathan fielder i feel like even by the end of the run of nathan for you people didn't like i don't think people now know who nathan for you he's basic cable famous which is not famous yeah it's like being a podcaster but uh but yes bart is so influenced by this fantasy uh he is gonna try to jump a car on his skateboard he goes straight up in the air a great action scene of him on the skateboard i love that shot and then just is up and then back down and smash into the ground and his friends abandon him like accurate childhood

behavior no one wants to get in trouble for this it's a test of your friends to see the ones who actually stick around for when mom and dad show up after an injury bart then is taken to the hospital and we do get quite a first appearance oh yeah one of one of the most uh beloved and long-running characters in this year he doesn't do that yet yeah he's uh but it is the first appearance in this clip here of dr julius hibbert mrs simpson bart tells me he injured himself training for a career in death defiance yes well we saw daredevil last night and well you know monkey see monkey do i think i know something that might discourage him from this sort of behavior bart in this ward are the children who have been hurt by imitating stunts they saw on television, movies, and the legitimate stage.

This little boy broke his leg trying to fly like Superman. This boy's brother hit him in the head with a wrench, mimicking a recent TV wrestling match. I won't even subject you to the horrors of our Three Stooges Ward. Gee, I never realized TV was such a dangerous influence. Well, as tragic as all this is, it's a small price to pay for countless hours of top-notch entertainment. Amen. Belbard, has Dr. Hibbert made his point? He certainly has, Dad.

I learned a real lesson here today. Thank you, Dr. Hibbert made his point? He certainly has, Dad. I learned a real lesson here today. Thank you, Dr. Hibbert. So the origins of Dr. Hibbert. So in name, Dr. Hibbert was named after Julia Hibbert. Dr. Hibbert was going to be a woman. Turned out he turned into a man named Julius Hibbert. So we've talked about this

before, but Julia Hibbert is also known as Julia Sweeney, the SNL alum. And actually actually i was looking it up this would have been her first season on the show so this was written before she joined the show but jay cogan knew julia from the groundlings and hibbert was the name of her first husband she was married to until 1994 so julia hibbert julia sweeney this character is named after pat from snl basically it's oh wow it's uh they they joke on it mike reese has a great joke on the commentary of like julia sweeney walking around and pointing at pictures of dr

hibbert like hey that's me dr hibbert but i think the reference that's lost to time is of course the simpsons moved to thursday to compete against cosby we talked about that and this is their answer to cosby it's the inverse of cosby what if our black doctor character on the show was not a goofball was not mugging at the camera was not doing silly voices what if he was stern and serious and absolutely humorless and he would be that for a very short period of time because that is not a fun character yeah eventually they just like like his thing turns into laughing at it But it was, yeah, it was totally a choice to make him the Cosby answer.

Like, I think the next time we'll see him is when they call his home, and he's like, well, I was sitting down for dinner, and you see an entire Cosby show style family with him. And it's literally the set of The Kitchen from that show. Yes, yeah. I never put that together. He's even wearing a Cosby sweater in it, even. Now now it's uh you know a bummer to talk about that but

i mean yeah it would be inaccurate to not talk about dr cliff huxtable in 90 cosby equaled hilarious show and great comic i like yeah yes it was a happy word to say the thing that kills me here is i i love the idea of there being so many kids in 1990 watching the three stooges that the hospital needs a whole word for it yes yeah i was still watching three stooges oh it's timeless but it's not like it was like the thing kids were talking about at recess in 1990 kids now i don't think but when i was a kid in this time period i was watching little rascals and three stooges and whatever you know old crap tnt wanted to throw on the air see or nick at night yeah nick at night too i didn't watch three stooges because i played that nes video game and i hated it so much i was like this must be as bad as the

as the show is but you would have hated gilgan's island based on nes you know i never played that one i did not watch the bullet it's so ambitious though but it's bad but uh yeah this this whole section here is uh i think this is the reason graining uh on the commentary says this is i think his favorite or one of his favorite episodes because i definitely think graining grew up being told all of these things will influence you and the dangers of tv like his generation was the first tv generation of kids and a lot of parents were worried about these things so the the things they bring up is like kids imitating pro wrestling matches kids imitating superman and kids imitating the three stooges all of these things and it was it was a fear and And like, look, I definitely watched TV and repeated everything I saw on it.

That's true. But, but I mean, kids, I didn't, I turned out TV. That's what I'll say. Yeah. And of course, kids would imitate Bart no matter what. Yeah. Is graining of the age where like he would have like Ed Sullivan, Elvis, shoot him from the waist up type stuff.

Or is that a little too old for him? You know, I think he was born in 54. Yeah. You know, this is a Google search away. I'll look it up here. i think he was born in 54 yeah you know this is a google search away i'll look it up here yeah he's born in 54 so he called it no no googling necessary he would have been like uh aware in maybe like 1959 1960s so yeah he'd be alive for sullivan and a little kid that that stuff still happened with sullivan in the 60s with like you know jim morrison and mcjagger and stuff so that's timeless through television i think yeah but but again this whole bit about kids imitating tv like it's it got easier in the jackass age and now i feel like the line between the kids whether the stars kids watch and

you is kind of nothing like a kid a kid can like i'm gonna sound so old saying this but a kid can like a tiktok influencer a lot and know, well, technically I have all of the things the TikTok person has to make this. Like when I watch. Tide pods. Yeah. When I was a kid watching TV, I was like, well, I don't have the ability to be on TV. I don't have someone to film me and put me on TV. But it's just the follower count that makes your TikTok different from your

favorite TikToker. Potentially we're all on the same platform. Yeah. Well, yeah. And in a kid's head, I mean, he might think like,

well, that's how they got big is I need to do big, crazy things to get that big. I know we're going to sound like old men here talking about the young TikTokers, but you know, uh, yeah,

that, uh, I, I mean, in a way I'm jealous that like, I, I, I probably would be deeply ashamed if i could have made videos of myself at 10 but i when i was 10 i would have died for that billy

like i i did do the lame-o thing of making like my own radio shows i did too me too me too yes i guess that's why i sold them i sold them in sixth grade on cassette tapes. And now we're doing it for money. Hell yeah. We made it, guys. But yeah, Hibbert here, I do like his much quieter acting, like his little, hmm, as Bart clearly lies to him. Big pauses, too, with Hibbert here. Oh, man, and the shoes, the loudest of shoes. They were still over-foliating these things.

Clump, clump, clump. But yes, Bart doesn't mean anything about learning his lesson as hibbert realizes bart walks away and then does the exact same stunt again the second he gets a chance to but this time he succeeds and we get a fun montage of bart jumping over things jumps over a car a pool a bunch of dogs laying down and then his own dad and somehow the parents have no idea of this uh but yeah i i like too that very quickly bart uh falls out of love of performing like the high of performance just goes away and he constantly has to up his danger level it feels like he gets 20 seconds to bask in being a successful stunt boy yes well yeah we're

talking the pacing of this episode it's at the 50 mark bart even decides to become a daredevil and they have to speed up his stunt stuff so fast when they could have spent a little more time with it yeah that could have been the second act of him doing various stunts and then falling out of love but it all happens like right at the end of the second act and then into the third act is his final stunt it's a concert the concert shoves everything else forward yeah uh but yes bart finds new inspiration on a field trip in this next clip okay field trippers off the bus what's the matter bart, I'm running on empty millhouse. The kids get a kick out of my jumps, and I love you for it, but it's all too easy. There has got to be a challenge out there worthy of me. Hello, children, and welcome to Springfield Gorge.

Wow! Man, this thing's pretty gnarly. I bet you could throw a dead body in there and no one would ever find it. Otto, I'm gonna leap over Springfield Gorge on my skateboard. You know, Bart is the only adult here. I feel I should say something. What? Cool!

So I have one thing to add. I had Julia Sweeney's Wikipedia page open still. And to step back and give useless information, she is very, very distracting in Pulp Fiction. Oh, yes. It's very distracting to see her in Pulp F a speaking role and that's all i'll say she and that uh she's the wolf's girlfriend yeah oh yeah which is such a funny or i guess well they seem to be a couple but she's she's the woman who i shouldn't define a woman by who she dates

she's the woman who runs the uh auto yard right uh place that that is going to trash their evidence of of an accidental killing right uh the weird one in the full fiction for me is phil lamar uh as uh marvin in the back of the car because that's uh the voice actor of vamp for metal gear solid 2 uh and hermes on futurama uh yeah and he was on like mad tv right yeah he's he's an incredibly accomplished actor. I got to interview him once and I popped him good at the start of it saying like, as in I made him happy.

When I say popped, I was using wrestling terminology when it made it sound like I punched him. Dead at 52. He was entertained by me starting the interview by saying like, I'm so excited. I'm talking with Phil Lamar here, Marvin himself himself and he's like i i hope that entertained him and he wasn't giving me just like a friendly like laugh but uh but yeah i i remember that she the wolf says to her like

she's like hey i'm a i have character he's like no you are a character it doesn't mean you have character just seeing her on snl that's my only context for seeing julia sweeney having her pop up in that movie it just took me out of it completely you know it feels like a very life in hell kind of joke for auto the way auto sets it up you know as the adult here i feel like i should say something cool that is a more kind of like three panel kind of set up to a joke and auto was very much the sounding board for bart when he had child problems and auto would be the adult he would turn to for advice that would quickly fall apart yeah it's the auto show that kills it yeah uh but yeah it's the it's a interesting commercial break of them just like silently standing on the edge of the gorge and the wind whistling through it and i also love

bart's kind of like he's within two weeks it seems seems like he just goes, you kids get such a thrill from it. And I love you for it. Like he's just tired of it at this point. I did want to talk about Snake River Canyon. Oh, yes. It is in Idaho, which I didn't know. I thought it was a southwestern location. But on September 8th, 1974, Evel Knievel tried and failed to leap the mile-wide chasm on his specially engineered rocket motorcycle.

What happened was his parachute opened on his way up the ramp, and essentially it allowed him to fall gently to the ground right before he hit the river. If he would have fallen in the river, the parachute probably would have drowned him. Oh, wow. So he failed. For some reason, I thought he made it, and that was his greatest stunt ever. But apparently, no. But stuntman Eddie Braun did what evil could not in September 2016.

So after we recorded this initial podcast, a year after, this guy did it. That's amazing. Yeah. Wow. Man, I didn't know a guy completed it. I'm glad somebody did it on Knievel's behalf. Do we ever see the gorge again? Yes.

Yeah, we do. Not too often, but it comes up. It is especially used for a big joke in the movie. It made a big comeback there. Wasn't it filled with waste in Marge on the Lamb? Was that the Springfield Gorge? Oh, no. That's the Thelma and Louise thing, right?

Yes, it is, but it is a chasm. Homer says, don't drive into that chasm. So totally different from a gorge. It's the Springfield Chasm. I see. elman louise thing right yes it is but it is a chasm homer says don't drive into that chasm so totally different from a gorge it's the springfield chasm i see well apparently it appeared on brother from the same planet oh yes they uh they hang glide over it and tom points at it and is like hey see that but yes it mainly when the gorge comes back it's in reference to the end of this episode whenever they bring back that but i think that's where smithers uh father dies that's right yes i'm almost positive in in the um blunder years blunder years thank you did i say corpse

shoot i meant innocence too oh god that's not that's a good joke we then come back and i spotted another thing i didn't catch the first time we did this the shots there's actual padding that they take from a season one episode the shots of the bus driving down the street and driving by the prison you spotted it too bob i could tell because it looked bad yes yeah it's it's taken from homer's odyssey which is it's the shots from them driving to the field trip to the power plant so yeah it does look bad it still has the gradient backgrounds they didn't alter it in any way but i think they wanted to like pad in two extra six extra seconds of yeah of uh auto humming humming a non-copyrighted song i thought it was edward sorry i thought it was edgar winter's frankenstein

but it's not i thought it was foxy lady but it was like you know what it might be foxy lady but it's just indistinct enough that no one could sue them for using a song they didn't pay for. So I think, too, this third act actually feels a bit padded because lots of beats happen twice. We get to see for the second time Bart tells all the students he's going to jump. We get to see Homer argue with Bart twice. And he gets shown around the hospital for a second time. It's a lot of redundancies in this storytelling wise i think this is a great episode but if i if i'm

being a story editor on this i'd be like well why is why are we doing all these things twice also you can spot a queasy wendell in the front seat of the bus so it's making the most of their wendell jokes still doing jokes about the kid who throws up but uh but yes lisa finds out about it when bart announces that he's going to be doing the stunt uh she's very upset about it this is another line that was cut from my version of it where bart says i get the same thrill you get from reading that's a good i like that line lisa does not want bart to die he says she's going to take him to see somebody who might talk him out of it and this is when they head back to the hospital Hibbert I think breaks some rules by allowing

them to visit uh Lance Murdoch in the hospital I think that's kind of I think that's illegal but uh but yes they present Lance Murdoch him giving a thumbs up breaks his thumb the last bone that was not broken and then now watching it i laughed every second that his signature lasted longer i just laughed and laughed i forgot how long this takes and how unnecessary it is and then i the reveal of when he gets it back always makes me laugh i anticipated it yeah that well and the construction of his writing is so good too because you if you put on writer's brain you can edit it for him when he says, thanks for visiting me. That's all he has to write.

Yeah. At the Springfield. And then he explains the name of the hospital. Like, well, here, I have the whole thing. It's really good. Thanks for visiting me at Springfield General Hospital. Your visit was a ray of sunshine on an overwild, cloudy day.

Your pal, Captain Lance Murdoch. Wow, man. Thanks, Lance. You're welcome, John. Now, take this thing out of my mouth now. Mr. Murdoch, my brother is thinking about jumping Springfield Gorge on a skateboard. Could you leave me with the young'uns, please? Now, let me start by saying, good for you, son.

It's always good to see young people taking an interest in danger. Now, a lot of people are going to be telling you you're crazy, and maybe they're right. But the fact of the matter is bones heal chicks dig scars and the united states of america has the best doctor to dare devil ratio in the world but captain murdoch thanks lance you're welcome little partner on your way out tell the nurse i'm ready for my sponge bath another fringe benefit nurse at least they call some captain murdoch yeah she respects his position i i gotta rank i have to think that he's a made-up captain i think so god that whole section i mean also like he gives him

the worst advice like this this third act also is classic early simpsons of them going against what a sitcom would do like in a very special episode of a regular sitcom like on say facts of life they would visit this character and they'd say please like they give a bunch of wisdom to them they wouldn't tell you the exact wrong idea and something else they repeat henry is an adult character giving bart bad advice so otto and lance murdoch yeah you're right bob yeah it's uh they there's it feels like padding i mean they're both funny but it feels one feels unnecessary i i i love his stance too like united states has the best doctor to daredevil ratio in the world uh and and the way dan acts with having the mouth in his uh the thing in his mouth to just uh and

it's taught me the term fringe benefit that's also that bart would still be inspired seeing his performer like the guy he looks up to almost dead and probably i know lance does recover because it's a cartoon but if we're to treat it as realistic once you're in a full body cast you're not much coming back from that like there's the uh the crippling opium addiction afterwards yes yeah we saw homer suffer through and behind the laughter you're right so yes we cut to the next scene with homer yelling at bart and saying i thought we settled this like uh and i like that bart calls her out on being a squealer and then she admits that like one she could see the benefits of bart being dead because she would get more attention but she would miss him so she she

doesn't let it happen also as a kid it did bart's speech after homer says it's over and he says you can't watch me 24 hours a day i'll do it that was a i as a kid i was like oh yeah wait my parents can't do that i i was definitely too much of a goody goody or anxious to ever try anything me too but that did tell me something like these are the limitations of my parents they have to have jobs and if they punish you they have to enforce it and that takes a lot of work it's a lot of work that's a lot of time on them it's funny when you when you get old enough to kind of test that stuff i remember one time i was like throwing a little fit and probably like fifth grade because i didn't want to do the chores my mom was telling me to take the trash out and i remember thinking like you know what what if i

didn't and i said it out loud i was like mom what if i just don't want to i'm not going to and she gave me this death look like don't even fucking try this shit okay i never tried it again oh that's that's nice that was the nuclear option what if i did nothing yeah it turns out i have to do it i uh i like that when homer is pushed on that he instantly folds he's like he's right just sobbing in his head it's like he's as good as dead like oh god it's so funny marge convinced homer to not instantly give up and so homer heads upstairs and tries to reason with bart what are you doing you were on your way to jump the gorge, weren't you?

Maybe. Look, I know I can't stop you. The only thing I can do is ask you to promise me you won't jump the gorge. Okay, I promise. Don't!

What's the matter? You didn't mean that! Bart, this isn't one of those phony baloney promises I don't expect you to keep. If you make this promise, you have to keep it.

Why? Because if you don't, I'll never believe anything you say ever again. Oh, come on. I mean it, boy. Well, okay, Dad. I promise. I will not jump Springfield Gorge. That's my boy. How'd it go, Homer?

You know, Marge, we got a pretty good kid there well he's got a pretty good father and bart just lied to homer's face he really did homer said please don't lie to me he's like okay i won't and then there's not even there's nothing clever about it he just lied which i like uh and i love the music behind that there makes the message of like this would be the end of another uh sitcom but they'd roll the credits, right? Roll the credits. Cause Homer had his heart to heart with Bart, but in this show, no Bart just straight up lied to his face and instantly went out the window.

The second Homer went away and, uh, Homer's you didn't mean that is said. I think it's actually just reused in the lisa's pony because he takes lisa oh yeah out to ice cream to apologize and she says okay i forgive you he says you didn't mean that and she says no i didn't like but i i don't know if it was dan just doing the line perfectly again or they just literally lifted it out but sounds angrier in this scene from what I remember. Yeah, yeah. But it's all the same intonation. So I don't know if it was an intentional callback, but it's just, it's always funny to me to hear Homer said,

like, you didn't mean that. It's a very Jim Brooks speech of saying, like, if you lie to me, I'll never believe you again. Like, that's what it means. Like, that feels very much like a Brooks kind of thing. And also, I mean, this way of saying, of saying like well he's got a pretty good father like that would just be the end of like a uh an 80s sitcom like on uh kurt cameron one what was that growing pains growing pains that would just be an end of an episode of growing pains uh so we head to the gorge the background designers really did a great job here yeah it's like it feels like their version

of the simpsons doing a roadrunner background you know another funny thing that's very subtle and i just have seen this so much that i don't even think about it is this gorge has a natural ramp built into it yes yes perfectly smooth perfect for a skateboard when you really care about someone you shout it from the mountaintops so on behalf of Desjardins insurance I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you home and auto insurance personalized to your needs weird I don't remember saying that part visit desjardins.com care and get insurance that's really big on care did i mention that we care

it was it was like god made it for barn how could he resist i don't blame him i there's a little animation goof there that had to stay in i think probably because it's too long yeah they couldn't redo it uh it's that mill when nelson says i thought he said noon millhouse and nelson's mouths move at the same time saying the words so i mean it's uh it's a it happens you know and bart's arrival over the horizon is a very specific reference to the film lawrence of arabia right film i still haven't seen i didn't watch it five years ago we did this the first time still haven't seen something that al jean and mike reese loved to reference oh god yeah were they playing the music too like a music okay if it's not the exact music it's a good imitation okay yeah i think it's a fox film so i bet they have the rights to it but yeah it's just i've never i still haven't

lawrence of arabia i think is a film you got to see on the big screen because it's like a 70 millimeter movie but if you don't see because i so i've never had that opportunity for it and whenever i think of watching it like on my my TV, I'm like three hours. But you've seen all those Marvel movies. Of course. Oh man. I sat through, I'll sit through Endgame again right now. If you put it on.

Homer then is going to go play catch with Bart just as he did so many times in season one. But he sees Bart has escaped and, and it's, it's funny. Homer's just consternation sound too of seeing that he says I was gonna play pickle with him and pickle is like it's like a baseball kind of training game where I actually I finally looked this up because I had no idea what pickle was I think we talked about it last time we did this episode but it's basically training for what to do when you're between two bases and they're trying to get you out in the game of baseball but don't they need a third person to so oh it's the throwing back and forth they would do or would bart be the one running

between homer throwing it in another that i don't know but there's an entire web page about how to play pickle oh that's it means as if you're in a pickle i see i you know that that baseball training game was not in the uh rusty Sluggers Real Deal Baseball. It was not. But you could carve a baseball bat. And, yeah, so Homer rushes there. Bart's at the top. Homer arrives.

And it's like a Roadrunner even kind of background as Homer runs up to grab Bart. It's so well done. And he tackles Bart, prevents Bart from doing his jump. All the kids boo. And Homer has a final heart to heart with Bart. Hey, what gives? Boy, I tried ordering you. I tried punishing you.

And God help me, I even tried reasoning with you. And the only thing left for me to do is jump the gorge myself. What? Why? Because that way you'll see what it's like to witness a family member stupidly risking his life for no good reason. But, Dad, you'll never make it. Don't you think I know that? And this sequence, too, is like the end of another sitcom. It would be like they have a heartfelt thing.

I'm like, no, don't do it, Dad. But, of course, The Simpsons touches to keep going from that moment homer must do something stupid uh and so we come to one of the most well-known and seen scenes of the simpsons ever it is homer's gorge fall which i both liked it a lot as a kid, but also the violence of it did make me as a nine-year-old feel uncomfortable, eight-year-old feel uncomfortable. And internally, they loved it too, which is why they reanimated it twice. So in the clip show, and we talked about this back then, but they added a segment of animation to show you what happens after Homer falls out of the ambulance down the gorge again. In this episode, we only hear what happens.

We see the shot of the kids peering down, but in that one, we actually see his trip down. It's even more violent and bloody. And then in Behind the Laughter, which we just did, we saw that they reanimated that. And that explains Homer's crippling painkiller addiction. I would have been six years old, and this was the funniest thing i'd ever seen uh and like i feel like this type of joke had been done it has been done way more since then like i'm not a big family guy fan i haven't seen many of them but like i feel like don't they do the thing where it's like oh this thing is going on far too long like peter is holding his

knee or something yep but back then as a like six-year-old i was just like how is this this funny and it does this thing that immediately made a lot of things make me think of mcgruber the movie but uh it definitely made me think of mcgruber in that it's this thing that cracked me up so hard homer falling down the first time uh that in mcgruber was the first sex scene with kristen wigg that i was laughing so so hard and losing my mind laughing at it. And then it gives you just the slightest breath to like you're barely even starting to recover. And then you realize they're doing the joke again with Homer falling down again. And then with MacGruber, as he puts it, porking his ex-wife's ghost in a graveyard. It's like, oh, my God, we're doing this again.

This is going to kill me. This was a new kind of joke. And that's why it blew all of our minds because the context is, and it's so obvious. I don't want to, I'm not mansplaining to the audience or anything, but the joke is, you know, you see characters fall down cliffs

all the time in cartoons, but this is a real person. What would happen if a real person fell down a cliff? It would be awful. Homer's body is destroyed. His knee, like once he hits the ground, his leg is pointed in the wrong direction like you can see bones are broken skull is fractured like homer it was they definitely said on the commentary was to not do a wily coyote fall because as a statement on the show that this is not a cartoon like those cartoons this is a realistic

vision of like homer and also by season five homer literally does do a wily coyote fall they've given up on that yes uh when he tries to destroy the trimapoline but in this case homer is destroyed and yeah i think it is so funny to me the the height of the joke is the sound of the ambulance turning on and going and then just boom smash into a tree and he instantly falls out like you you think the ambulance is the end of the scene and then it hits a tree instantly like i wish i could watch it again for the first time yeah yeah god the it's the immediacy it's like the zero to 60 of the ambulance going directly into a tree that they clearly could have seen just killed me uh and actually i have the clip

of his entire fall you probably can see it in your mind as you hear every every amazing noise uh castlet all the rocks hitting them with his with their jags, as he would say. Wait, Dad! Don't do it! I won't jump anymore. I promise. Thank God. Thank God. I love you, Dad. I love you too, son. You know, boy, I don't think I've ever felt as close to you as I do right...

Huh? What? I'm gonna make it! I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make it. This is the greatest thrill of my life. I'm king of the world. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!

I... Ah! Ah! oh the skateboard hits them i forgot about that yeah i i also i if we miss said this before uh i apologize but i think there was a misconception that people thought the simpsons clip show that showed the second half of it was just a deleted scene that they then played. But I think it maybe even got close to boarding if maybe they'd started sketching it out. But it was fully animated original for that season four episode. And also another time they brought it back, the gorge scene was, I think, done pretty well at the end of the simpsons movie homer and bart after saving the town on the motorcycle jump the gorge together yeah and successfully land and the ambulance is there and it's still

there like the total the ambulance is still there that's and they even do like the floating scene but they but they survive this time and yeah the in the second version on the clip show when that gurney hits him in the head, like that is so painful. I forgot about that. Homer's lucky he almost cleared it because then he would have just fallen like straight down, but he actually had like the cliff to break his fall. You're right.

Yeah. That's some reality to it. Do we remember Cliff Wife? This is one of the first wife guys when wife guys were invented. Cliff Wife is the husband of the wife who slipped down the cliff yeah and she just kind of rolled 10 feet down into a ditch it wasn't that dramatic but it was as if she had fallen down homer's path wow i forgot that viral it happened in like may of 2019 but we that's when like wife guys were invented that's when the term wife guy came

about i think one of the first ones oh god and so uh but yeah actually there's one last joke in the episode it's a very brief clip but i'll play it here you think you got guts try raising my kids and uh on the commentary they're still fighting this old battle where matt granning is very mad that it's a blackout gag they don't fade to the credits they just black out and the writers are explaining to him it got a bigger laugh when they blacked out but he says after that to make you know to be fair we never do blackout gags on Futurama. And I think one of them asked, what's Futurama? And his answer is, it's this show that Fox used. And then he just kind of trails off.

So still like 10 years after this episode aired, he was still mad about that ending. Yeah, it's still weird for me to think of the commentaries as not recent, but actually 20 years ago. They're 20 years old now. I love that gut punch in the ending. I think, I think Graning's wrong. I think it's, in that case, Simpsons can often just fade out, but to have it go like,

try raising my kids, like it made me, it made me laugh more. Every Futurama ending is like that. So he eventually got used to that kind of editing, I guess, for ending your show. So, all right. There's one last big thing about this episode. Oh yes, it involves the nazis it does uh so if you're a simpson super fan you may have heard of one of the biggest uh most

infamous deleted scenes ever which is nazis on tap which uh if you haven't heard of it before and we've talked about it before on here there there was an episode that ended with Flanders having a short in it because the episode ran short. It was the front. Yeah. It was the front. Yeah. So on this episode, well, here, I'll just read the explanation from Mike Reese himself of why it happened. Back in 1990, a second season episode came in much too short, so we banged out a filler piece, Nazis on Tap.

It was supposedly a simpsons cartoon short from the 1940s it seemed like the simpsons but everything was a little different mr burns owns an aircraft plant making planes for the war effort bart's spiky hair is replaced by a pointy jug head cap mo the bartender is a dog who asks rough day at work homer and so it was meant to play like an old looney tune short from the 40s and they were gonna they act like it's oh it's a found short from the simpsons and uh what happens in it is i have a so audio of it is out there right yeah because it was boarded and then cut but uh I'll play the audio for you listeners first. This is from posted online in 2006 by former Simpsons storyboard artist John Mathot.

And here's the end of it, where it is right after Homer accidentally reveals Allied plans to Hitler, and Hitler runs off. Good work, Bart. Thanks to you, the Nazis are on the run. And Homer, I hope you learned your lesson. You can talk to me, Homer. I'm the president. Prove it.

We have nothing to fear, but fear itself. Ooh, sorry, President Roosevelt. Yes, I learned my lesson. Suspect everyone and trust no one. Exactly. Wait a minute. Who's that guy over there? Wait.

Come here. No. I got him. I got him. No, no, Homer. That's Joseph Stalin, America's best friend. Uh-oh. Catching.

Hitler was neato. Next stop here, Ojito. I'm Bart Simpson, the wisecracking kid. Ha-ha. So there it even ends with a Popeye song. Next stop here, Ojito, I'm Bart Simpson, the wisecracking kid. So there it even ends with a Popeye song. Now, why did they not do it? Well, I'll first read what Mike Reese said in his book, but me and Bob have our doubts. Oh, yes.

So Mike Reese says, Mac Reigning nixed the piece because it was too weird and came too early in the series to just throw at people. I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem with it now. So that's the end of that quote. And our theory is, and I think this holds water, is that the writers were frustrated with certain things that Matt Groening would impose on them. So they wrote this to piss him off. Because Matt Groening, I think his role in the show is often underestimated. He had a great impact on the show. He policed the show in a way that made it better. He was looking at storyboards and adding input.

But from our talks with writers and other interviews, we have heard things like Matt wasn't always there, but if he would duck in with an idea, we'd kind of have to do it. Or he could just veto anything they wanted to do. And two things Matt Groening hated were Hitler uh hitler jokes and nazi jokes uh you know jokes even at the expense of nazis and uh jokes about animals not acting like animals and the fact that this entire short is built around that and that there's a talking dog in it for no reason makes me feel like they wrote something for fun to kind of poke at matt graining and see if they could get it on the air and clearly matt graining

nixed it i i mean from reese's account of the event you would think that it was graining i would think that it was graining knew they were needling him with it and that made him cut it even sooner yeah but uh but yes so that is the story of nazis on tap but a thing has changed since the last time we recorded this uh it, which is it never was animated, and if it was boarded, the boards haven't been released. But in June 2016, a legendary Simpsons artist by the name of Phil Ortiz, who in addition to drawing a ton of classic Simpsons comics,

also was a designer in the early years of the show. He designed Ned Flanders, hibbert's and several other characters he in july 2016 was at a comic convention and handed out a four-page mini comic he drew himself unlicensed that was this sketch word for word it was like him drawing it as a comic but the entire same thing and it is really something like it looks like the real it looks like the real thing because the real simpsons artist drew it and you can just read it online yes yeah look at somebody scanned it it's very easy to find just search nazis on tap simpsons and it would likely be your first result and was this written or printed in tv guide that

this would be included or something like how did we find out about it so i definitely did read that nazis on tap was included was mentioned in like a tv guide or uh like upcoming simpsons thing also nazis on tap so i don't know how far it got but that would assume it's in color i mean that could if we want to think more about people trying to piss off matt graining it could be somebody was like put that in the episode description that'll that'll piss him off like if we want to imagine that I it just sounds like a fun prank like obviously nobody they're all friends on the commentary so it's not like these are negative feelings they still have but on many commentaries when a Hitler joke does appear Groening goes oh boy another hit like he's always mad at a Hitler joke if we ever interview him uh Matt Groening i would like to

ask about this to see if he remembers it or like what state it was in but i think he was right i think this would have been too weird in 1990 it is too early in the show for him but i think uh it works better in the silly times yeah i mean this is the first i've i've heard of it but when i think back to like season two simpsons this seems like it'd be a little out of nowhere for that i mean they're trying to promote their new album and and Hitler is tricking Homer that's true yeah conceptually it does seem like a thing that would really entertain the animators like if you tell that uh I'd love to ask Wes Archer about this too because this was his episode if you tell that generation of animators do something like a Tex Avery short or an old Popeye short

they love to do that like that kind of opportunity I'm sure I I would bet there were some animators that were definitely dis maybe Phil Ortiz was one of them of just like I really wanted us to do a big Tex Avery parody and now we can't do it that is new information on Nazis on Tap since the last time we did it and it's one of the show's uh biggest lost episodes it's conceptually it's funny it would totally work in a season four episode on that night in 1990 probably wouldn't have worked wow the uh the album came out two days before this episode aired wow man i wonder i bet i didn't get it until after i saw the bartman thing, which came right after that joke happens and you see Homer's injury. That's also weird that you watch Homer get horribly beaten

and then the next thing you see is the Do the Bartman music video. That's the way to rehabilitate your body is to do the Bartman. Although, again, he never tells you how to do it. It's a bad song. We've done this. As far as an instructional song to tell you how to do a dance it's a bad song yes we've done this as far as an instructional song to tell you how to do a dance it's bad do the mario is better yes i know how to swing my arms from side to side uh what else can be said about barth the daredevil it's one of like the most iconic episodes of the show even if it feels definitely padded out and like as a weird

structure yeah and definitely could use like a b story yeah i it's hard to not say it's one of the most important and well-remembered episodes of the show ever any final thoughts dan it's just you know i i feel like this was if not my first memory you know what it might have been my first memory of the simpsons like because i was enough of a fan back then to be watching weekly but if i'm trying to like trace back my earliest memory of the Simpsons like because I was enough of a fan back then to be watching weekly but if I'm trying to like trace back my earliest memory of the Simpsons I think it is losing my mind at home or falling down the cliff so yeah I mean I would have been six years old I can't imagine you know there's there's much earlier than that so yeah I think it held up and I think you're starting to see more of the humor that the show would show going forward than it did like in

the the Ullman shorts because I look back at the olman shorts now and like i can appreciate i appreciate them as like historical uh relics basically but they don't really make me laugh at all uh this one you know there's jokes there where you can kind of see like okay they're going to run with this stuff further in in subsequent seasons so no i i enjoyed it a lot thank you so much dan for coming back on it was great to have you back and one day and one more time where can folks find what you're up to oh well i got the the three things there i got uh your your twitch.tv slash dan reichert i stream at least a couple times a week get real silly there i got panning the stream the podcast with my wife i referred to at the top and also we talked a bit about uh fire

escape cast at the top that's the new gaming one so twitch dan reichert panning the stream and fire escape cast uh those last two are on your podcast app of choice this will be a few months old by the time listeners hear it but i did enjoy your recent uh playthrough of the golden eye mod with mario characters oh that's nuts right yeah just seeing the animation and stuff but it's like uh it's like a koopa troopa it's very well done yes yeah yeah it's a lot of fun as a huge uh mark for mario 64 stuff and uh goldeneye it was it was pretty cool well thank you so much dan thanks dan anytime it's always fun so thank you so much to dan reicher for being on the show be sure to check out all of his stuff but as for us if you want to check out more of our stuff and get all these episodes one week ahead of time and at free please go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons sign up there you'll get just that but also access to all of our paywall podcasts behind the five dollar paywall

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