Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart the Murderer With Brendan James

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

As we continue our return to season 3, we're joined again by journalist/podcaster Brendan James, cohost of the brilliant Blowback series! We talk a ton about the mafia films this ep parodies and then dig into the first appearance of Fat Tony, as well as some of the best writing and animation the series had seen to that point. PLUS we all learn how to make a Manhattan in this week's podcast, so listen now, patron! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talking of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that features bold predictions about Willie Nelson. I'm your host, the emotionally shattered babysitter, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today in the same room?

Officer Henry Gilbert calling all cars. Come out with your hands up. And who do we have on the line? I'm Brendan James and the only thing going on on this podcast is a lot of male bonding. It's true and this week's episode is Bart the Murderer. I don't

know how to break this to you but Principal Skinner is missing this week's episode originally aired on october 10th 1991 and as always henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby both anita hill and clarence thomas are interviewed in the capital red fox passes away on the set of his tv show the royal family and the fisher king is number one at the box office red fox famously passing away from a heart attack when that was a shtick yes yeah it's it's a classic hollywood story that he's he's on this show no one remembers the show it's a classic Hollywood story that he's on this show. No one remembers the show.

The royal family is only known as the show Red Fox died on, but it was during the first season of it. He has a heart attack, as famously known, Red Fox's bit in Sanford and Son was that he always pretended, I'm coming, Elizabeth. That was his whole shtick. And people, if you do that your entire career and you eventually do have a heart attack people will think you're joking and uh i would bet if

they didn't think he was joking he probably wouldn't have survived it anyway but it's just it's it's a uh a kind of a tragic comic ending to to the life of a very famous comedian. And the show was on Fox. It was on the same network as Simpsons as well. It wasn't part of the Simpsons Drexel's Class block. I think Rock snuck in there too at the end. Yes, yeah. Drexel Class Rocks. Did you say Drexel's Class Rocks, Henry?

I don't think so. No, I don't. I disagree with that. And yes, the whole Cl clarence thomas thing still going on i think uh in between air dates of this episode and the next one clarence thomas is confirmed and uh boy he's still he's still having fun to this day and in the old supreme court that guy you know it really brought the uh the topic of sexual harassment into pop culture and there's been a lot of bad sitcom episodes based on that topic around this time yeah and the simpsons will do one the simpsons will do one homer bad man is a

really great episode except for in all the ways it gets uh sexual harassment entirely wrong yeah like uh in other in in so many other ways it's great uh but the the homer bad man stance that a woman misunderstands something and thus she is wrong and needs to be told by a man that like you just misunderstood what i did like yeah yeah give harassers the benefit of the doubt it could be a fun joke brendan was that um was that a direct response to the clarence thomas stuff that episode well it was just that uh i i see it as uh not directly to that but i mean the clarence thomas thing catapulted even more discussion of sexual harassment in the workplace. And so, yeah, there were I mean, it just brought the idea into the world.

I remember the famous PSA, that's sexual harassment and I don't have to take it. Yeah, classic. That's a mystery science theater recurring lie. Absolutely. I mean, it was hilarious. A woman being harassed. This woman is standing up for herself whatever a concept when we stopped laughing at the old woman falling down we had to laugh at

another commercial and that was the next one and yeah the fisher king it rules i love that movie you know it's so great like i mean robin williams is just so great in it and it's you know it sadly i think his his character who is suffering from you know mental illness and and uh it hurts more watching it now after after his passing i think but also sadly um i love that movie too but i think of it a lot because it's an example of an oscar curse for mercedes rule who i believe won the oscar for best supporting actress in that film and she never really like was in anything again i think the most high profile thing she was in was a frazier for season three she was frazier's uh love interest and a kind of the weakest part of season three right so you know the likes of kubu getting junior and adrian brody and i i put

mercedes rule in there, Fisher King. Say Halle Berry as well, too. Yeah, she's a classic. Oh, yeah, Halle Berry, yeah. But, well, and also the actor, I should just look up his name, but the drag queen homeless guy in it, he is the greatest.

Like, I love him. The song he sings in that is so great. Like, he is just a funny, funny guy. And then he went on Evening Shade, thet reynolds series speaking of frazier i didn't know david hyde pierce in this movie oh i haven't seen it i'm sorry scumbag he's the scumbag agent for jeff bridges's character yeah i completely forgot about that so that's two frazier connections what what else is in that movie i wonder uh oh and michael jeter is the actor I'm thinking of, and he's great.

By the way, man, the cast of Evening Shade, Ossie Davis, Hal Holbrook, Michael Jeter, Charles Durning. What a cast. Mary Lou Henner, Ian Widgeworth. Like, yeah, boy, Evening Shade. We should be doing a podcast on Evening Shade here. I don't want to turn this into too much of a rolling reference fest, but Hal Holbrook also famously,

well, not famously maybe, but in The Sopranos in season six, there's a Hal Holbrook cameo, which connects to the episode where kind of connects to the episode we're talking about today. That's right.

Yeah, man. Well, yeah, this there, there wouldn't just like this episode of Simpsons, I don't think would exist without Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. There wouldn't be a Sop't think would exist without Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. There wouldn't be a Sopranos at all without Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. Now, that's my first question, actually, because this is good that I have questions because,

you know, last time it was my first time on with you guys and I was so negative because it was a season 12 episode or whatever. And I, you know, I kind of had to lighten up a bit and i got more into the flow but this time i have an equal and opposite problem because this is just a wonderful classic episode and i don't know if i have anything to say how much i love the jokes and it's very funny but i have a question first which is uh i didn't do a ton of research i i did listen to the commentary because i have the dvds you know a lot of this is very goodfellas but i think someone says on the commentary they wrote it before goodfellas came out or before they even saw goodfellas was this released before goodfellas or or after it or at the same time exactly i also

listened to the commentary and i think that was al jean being tongue-in-cheek like crap they're joking and i was him joking about like oh could they sue us or whatever i don't think he was trying to claim that they invented goodfellas or anything but goodfellas came out in 90 yeah right number 90 so 13 months before this episode the perfect amount of time to produce an episode of the simpsons and what's interesting about this is this was definitely written like a few months after the movie came out and it's interesting to see that they didn't jump on the same memes everyone else did like it's astounding that in this episode that there is no joe pesci style character yeah uh dan castaneda is doing joe

pesci's voice for uh louis but uh there is no like am i a clown do i amuse you like everyone jumped on that there was a animaniac sketch based on that that was what so many jim brewer's joe pesci character did on snl like it's funny to see what they jumped on in this. And one of them is lampooning a guy in the movie who no one really caricatures, and that's Paul Cicero. That's Fat Tony. Yeah.

Although I will say, apparently, from listening to the commentary, there's a character, he's a mainstay in the mob, into Fat Tony's gang after this episode. He's got the kind of big curly hair he looks to me i always thought that was a goodfellas character they were doing i think his name is carmine in the movie oh yes we got a story we got a story okay okay they said in

the commentary that was supposed to look like joe pesci and to me and i think a lot of people it doesn't really look like joe pesci it looks like that guy from Goodfellas with the big hair. Absolutely. I don't know if that was a misremembered anecdote. No, no, no. But we should properly introduce our guest here. Yeah, joining us once again is Brendan James of the Blowback Podcast. And Brendan, don't feel bad about being slightly negative on your first appearance

because everyone needs to go through their Modern Simpsons therapy with us first as a first-time guest. Everybody does it and we're cool with it it was primal scream therapy I'm opened up now I everything's out I'm at peace I think the next season of blowback is though it's been announced at the time of this recording it's it's coming soon and I mean the Cuba season and all the the extras were great uh I thank you it's it's unfortunate how current events sometimes line up with the releases of your your podcast i'm a little worried about this season three i gotta say well i i think uh you know this will probably be the season where where we jump the shark this is our this will be our season uh 10 9 the end of the golden era much like the simpsons we we had

you know i i was snarky last time but it's hard to make something good for that long. So maybe I should watch what I say. No, we're excited for season three. And yes, I think by the time this comes out, we'll still be working on it. We have more ambitions this season. I don't want to hype it up too much, but it's going to take a little longer, but hopefully it's worth it. And it's about the Korean War. And if you liked seasons one or two, or if you've never heard of the show by all means uh stay tuned for season three i i said it last time but but season one is especially a great listen at a time when people talk about what defines a war crime and what invasions are i think it's a good good time to listen to listen back to blowback season one i think i i hate that this is the thing

we make and enjoy doing is uh tied up in so many negative emotions for people and real world negative things. But I guess you just play the cards you're dealt. Hey, you're great at it, Brandon. You and Noah are great. Thank you. Thank you. But I have to say it's nice to take a break and simply pod about The Simpsons and Fat Tony right now. What do you feel about Mafia movies?

Are you a big Mafia movie fanboy? Mafia television? I mean, I know you love The Sopranos. Yes, I was just on another show called Pod Yourself a Gun, which is a fun show about The Sopranos. I think that's what gave us the idea to do this one with you guys.

And yeah, I don't know if I'm an encyclopedic, but I've seen a lot of gangster movies i i love the genre i get a lot of the gags that i think the real heads are supposed to get in this episode for example and yeah i was actually going to say uh joe montana's uh one of his earlier movies maybe we can talk about him in a little bit but house of games is a really that stars him. It's a David Mamet movie. It's one of my favorite gangster movies, or at least, you know, criminal kind of con artist movies. And it actually stars Joe Mantegna.

So this is a good intersection as an episode to a lot of stuff. You know, but Brandon, have you ever considered that mafia movies could be like a metaphor for like America? I got to stop production on season three right now and consider this heavily uh yeah we we used a lot of um sopranos clips particularly in season one of blowback because sometimes there's just nothing better than to let polly walnuts articulate something that you know doesn't need to be spelled out uh in in real terms one one of my favorite bits and i i just did a full rewatch of sopranos and as much as simpsons it is so of its time and i just love like just little moments like when tony is on a vacation and he's watching just some random tv show that that says well terrorists could come in through the ports and that would be bad then later in the

episode he's like and i heard this story about they caught a bunch of terrorists at the ports and one of his friends says like well thank god they caught him right but yeah that's like no i but i think to your point it's it's of its time in the best way possible you know like the golden era simpsons is because it i think it's quite impressive how much distance they they seem to have when writing all especially the war on terror stuff it really doesn't plug into anything that they weren't drinking the kool-aid you know it was pretty pretty dispassionate and um well written from from the moment that season three goes into the 9-11 stuff and i think think it stands up quite well rewatching it,

especially because that subculture, that Italian-American subculture, the mafia, was a really fascinating group to look at during that time because they were uber patriotic and had always been uber patriotic despite their daily grind and every single cent that they ever made coming from

being on the run from the government, trying to defraud the government, possibly killing people related or working for the government that was like compartmentalized in a way. And I think there's an episode where Christopher says after 9-11, you know, listen to the president, we're going to, you know, mop up the whole world and everything's going to be under our control, you know, as if there's this it's perfectly symmetrical in their minds that they can be crooks every day running away from the government, but support the United States government unequivocally at all times. And they nail that really well in those later seasons. The Goodfellas is, I think, like one of the most perfect movie. It's okay.

More like good movie. Yes, you're right. You said it. And those fellas, they're not so good, folks. You got to watch the movie to find out. I could re-watch it a million times. Last night, I didn't have two and a half hours for you to re-watch the whole thing, but I at least wanted to watch everything of Kid Henry Hill, because that is a lot of

this episode, or at least act two and so and then after it was over i was like man i i could just stay up till one and watch it i didn't but i've it's such a rewatchable movie like every and every movie like it's so many movies ripped it off it almost seems cliche now but it still holds up yeah yeah oh absolutely it's it's the ultimate i know people don't surf channels anymore but if it's on tv playing oh absolutely it's it's the ultimate i know people don't surf channels anymore but if it's on tv playing even if it's censored or whatever you just you just stop and you keep it on because it's like a big warm blanket you can pull over yourself well two funny things i really noticed while watching this episode one is that they never really returned to

the goodfellas well they weren't that interested because you think look after goodfellas godfather parodies and references go away no absolutely not there's like four in seasons three and four I can think of just offhand Fat Tony does not come back until season six with Homie the Clown and the following year they do another Scorsese movie parody and that's Cape Fear and there's more beat for beat stuff in that they're not doing beat for beat stuff maybe they weren't as confident maybe they thought people wouldn't recognize certain references in this. But I was surprised by how little actual Goodfellas materials in this movie. And sorry, in the show.

Yeah, you know, in the Cape Fear one, they definitely were having senioritis. And they're like, you know what? We don't care. But this is the start of season three and the start of the Gene and Reese run. So I think they were a little more cautious of like, well, let's not reference this movie's brand new and and everybody likes it right now but if you get too specific you're gonna lose the audience that's much to the episode's benefit as well i i even in the golden era i i think it's always better when they take something as inspiration and then make their own jokes and and plot twists rather than

i'm not crazy when they they're just doing sideshow bob as robert de niro here it's it there's a lot of great gags don't get me wrong but i i think this is a a stronger way for them to parody stuff is to just take off the first little bit you get the cute little one fine day montage and then it becomes its own thing what i also think is funny from the behind the scenes is is like yeah i don't believe aljean when he says they didn't really base this on goodfellas and he was joking it was a joke no one laughs though that i feel like an idiot for bringing that up but like normally when someone says something sardonic everyone laughs but like there's no it didn't it didn't come off like a gag when he said right right yeah he said it kind of

flats you're right yeah it's like a drive it's very dry in that case he wasn't claiming they invented the idea of goodfellas i mean it was a book in 1985 yeah before this well then but rich moore like is very clear that he was doing goodfellas and there are shots in this they're like well that's a shot from goodfellas they're like this is paste one. I think from looking at it though, they also like didn't have, they didn't have the VHS yet. They didn't have the double VHS box of Goodfellas. I'm just going to steal a thought I saw on Twitter,

somebody, but that's how, movies are longer now, I think because you don't have to sell two VHSs to sell a long movie now. Like a movie can be three hours on streaming or on a Blu-ray and it doesn't cost more production wise to resell. And I think that's why another reason movies are very long now. I should have probably gotten this in earlier when we were talking directly about Goodfellas,

but I will say this, this is a confession. When I first saw, like I watched that movie like 50 times, at least when I was in high school and, you know, viewing 51 that I realized this is so embarrassing but when they're kids the portion you're talking about that's connected to this episode i did not realize that there's a that the kid henry's you know starting crimes with is a young joe pesci right i've got that slick back hair it was so he just i thought pesci was supposed to be a little bit older then watching it it is slightly comical that that kid is like this little like, you know, mini me, Joe Pesci, that almost takes me out of the film in, you know, in the best way possible because it's entertaining. I couldn't I just can't believe I didn't realize that.

And watching it again, I don't know, maybe everyone else knew it but if you if anyone watches this after this episode try not to laugh when you see this little kid like dressed and who talks exactly like joe pesci but like an octave higher show up in the beginning of the film it caught me off guard if only if only they had the irishman technology then they could have just de-aged him to a 12 year old for that that's what they should do before he really fully retires give me like joe pesci and then like benjamin button him into a a gangster infant and see what we can get out of that one other thing i noticed is that bart seems to have more of like spider's job than good old hank hill he's just serving drinks but he has a much better faith than spider yeah although i was pitching jokes on my head like i want to see millhouse

as the spider character that gets murdered by fat tony uh you call him hank hill intentionally i did i did okay i mean henry hill hank hill that's uh jokes i need jokes explained to me the aljean the aljean thing was just the beginning here hey uh he didn't deliver that joke very well so you're but you're both it's fair that you both assumed it was the truth you know it's so funny and sopranos every time they mention goodfellas, like, that they reference Goodfellas in the world of Sopranos, I'm like, don't any of you people, like, say, like, hey, you look just like Spider, Christopher. You ever notice that? That you look just like that actor?

And also, Goodfellas, by the way, since we're talking a little gangster movie shop, I always, I don't know what you guys feel, I always vastly preferred it to the Godfather movies. The Godfather movies are impeccably made. I'm not being too contrarian about it, but I remember the first time I saw them, I had seen Goodfellas first and I found

the Godfather movies, again, not talking about craft, but just on a personal level, it was all very sort of gaudy and the aristocratic aristocratic angle of these these dynasties in the mafia there's parts where you go back in time in in part two with de niro you know as a young man but um it didn't it just didn't really it didn't have that grit and that excitement that goodfellas had where you're seeing it from the schlubs at the bottom was and and i think the sopranos kind of balanced that well where tony is technically a boss but he's a sort of a jersey as as uh as phil leotardo says you know dismissively of the jersey crew that they're not a real crew as far as the the new yorkers are concerned so sopranos and goodfellas always captured my attention more than the

godfather uh you know um well you know the i think uh i i of course love both godfather part one and two i mean i think they're great great films and you know what i'm kind of different i think godfather part two is better than godfather oh wow but anyway no but i i do think the you know the goodfellas like kind of just explore uh it explodes the genre so much and it's it is hard to go back after you see such a deconstruction of it about how like godfather is uh it's it's kind of about the royal family of a mafia and it's like the kings fighting each other while meanwhile goodfellas is just you know a guy who's not even made in in the parlor it's like he's not that high level of a dude just telling you all the secrets of like,

Hey, these guys, they swear all the time. We murder somebody over nothing. Everyone's lying to your face all the time. They'll all stab you in the back. That's, that's what the mafia is.

Like, it's just the series of lies and head games to you like that. That's what I like more. And then an unfortunate thing for every Scorsese film, which is about toxic masculinity and how awful these collections are, the collection of men are and how brutal they are to each other. Unfortunately, that goes over the heads of some people who just see it as like, yeah, this is about how awesome it is to be in the mob. And I wish I was in that mob. I just think they got too drunk before the end of the movie and forgot how it ended.

Yes. Oh, they're all happy and rich, right? Bang and broads they talk about on the commentary of this episode that apparently they were battling with the network or censors for a second because they the censors were worried that showing bart join the mafia might give kids a bad influence i.e making them go and i guess join the italian mafia if they if they felt like it join join a violence gang as marge would say no i think but i definitely think that sounded like uh one of the usual pearl clutching of censors from a very racially

motivated standpoint because sure as gene put it on the commentary they thought it was bart is joining the crypts or the bloods like as in a modern gang full of scary inner city types. Sure, sure. But they let him make drinks. Yeah, but that's fine. But if he was, you know, if you replace that Manhattan with a malt beverage, I think they'd be coded a little differently and the censors wouldn't like it. Sure.

I guess one last preamble thing I have on this one is just that I think a really interesting mix on this is you have Goodfellas as the as obvious starting point, but a lot of other mafia movies. But you have Goodfellas, which is this deconstruction of the mafia movie by Martin Scorsese, who had not done a mafia movie, a true mafia movie for like 20 years of his career. And here he's finally doing one. And then you have John Schwarzwalderder who his vision of mafiosos are from like 1938 films like that's the mafia guys he wants to write about and so you have like his

classicism meet meets the parody of a meta commentary on mafia films and i think it leads really interesting places yeah yeah it's it's a so it's like a role reversal where you know the simpsons are supposed to be the ones parodying it but swartzwater he even said montaigne wasn't his first show or on the commentary they say he wanted the name escapes me right now but at like a somewhat now obscure 50s classic gangster actor yeah it was actually uh sheldon leonard uh best known as nick the bartender from it's a wonderful Life. Out you pixies go! There we go. That's another thing.

Where do you get off calling me Nick? Yeah, exactly. But he died in 97, and Fat Tony would not have come back after the late 90s then. That's the dangers of casting the elderly and stuff. And Joe Mantegna, pitch perfect. One of the best extended universe characters and uh like like i said before um he's been in a lot of great movies he's he's directed a lot of plays as well some of mammoth stuff he's a real you know career working guy um again house of games if you if you're not a

if you're not a montania montani montaniac i like it i like it yeah and and i came out so effortlessly too just go look up house of games and it's a really great movie where he plays a con man who um meets lindsey krauss who's like a very high-strung psychologist who wants to eventually play things a little dangerous and she falls into his scene and uh he's he's really excellent and not in the kind of funny uh dear parody way that he is as fat tony and and i said this about our first production season three episode mr lisa goes to washington and i feel it even more in this one that this is uh we really loved season two when we redid it but this is a level up like this is like they adapt more to the guests that they like especially phil hartman they know phil

hartman's good at this write this into this episode and also i think james l brooks is busy with his movie now uh sam simon's kind of gone too or he's less in power it's gene and reese and so i don't think out james l brooks is around as much to say but focus this back on the family, because this is a crazy-ass third act that it builds to. It's such a different kind of flavor than what aired even towards the end of season two. It's like they're firing on all cylinders now. Yeah, I mean, compare this to

When Flanders Failed. Oh my god, yeah. It's a different series. Like, oh my God. Oh, it's... The Simpsons will be right back. At last they're here. New Butterfinger ice cream bars. Hi, dudes. Crispity, crunchity outside, creamy ice cream inside. Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger.

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Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a podcaster and i welcome you all to this week's break for talking simpsons a big thank you to our guest brendan james for coming on again we really enjoy his stuff listen to blowback it is a great political history podcast and it was so awesome to talk about mafia movies and the simpsons with brendan and if you enjoy this week's podcast you should know that as always talking simpsons is brought to you by the wonderful subscribers at patreon.com slash talking simpsons because without those subscribers me and bob couldn't do this as our full-time real jobs and if you sign up at five bucks a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you not only get the satisfaction of assisting me and bob but also

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to see it all right now. uh you know in the commentary nancy cartwright is there for her first commentary ever and she does bring it more than other cast members usually the other cast members there and we love them they're great but they're usually just there to like laugh along it didn't really prepare all that much it's like julie kevner it's just like hanging out with julie kevner oh bart's such a troublemaker but but nancy seemed to actually like dig out her old script and have notes on it and like i remember this i remember that like that i gotta give it to her for being more prepared than most the actors are in the commentaries i was gonna going to say, listening to it, I did not realize that they say Cartwright and presumably Yardley Smith, et cetera.

Is it Yardley or Yardley? Yardley. Yardley. Yardley. Sorry. Yardley Smith. They were not at the time publicly revealed as the specific characters they played. Maybe not by season three, but around that time.

Was that another joke I'm not getting? No. No, you're right. That was true. They would appear in like baseball hats and sunglasses. And people wanted to know like which person did which voice because they're always credited. Everyone but the guest stars early on. But in one episode we did in season two, it's like they literally said Dan Castellaneta as Homer. They showed you who played everyone in the credits just because people wanted to know oh that's old money old money right it just seems wild um that you

know nowadays even if a show was really popular an animated show was really popular there would be no ability to hide from people which was kind of a smart thing to do especially that bart mania you know the simpsons the first two seasons was when it was such a craze that it's just sort of shocking that they even were successful in keeping people from knowing who who Bart was and who Lisa was for a while you know back then you really in this pre-internet age you really had to be in the know like you had to be like reading Variety or LA Times pieces yeah the trades yeah to to know production on really anything like in that I think that is also why like there was a real tension in the staff of mac rating getting credit for everything on the simpsons but at the time in

the public imagination they could remember one name associated with a tv show and it was mac ratings the one that they memorized you know one last thing about you know disguising the actors you know trying to make that a mystery this is the fall season in which Herman's Head premieres in which Yardley Smith plays a character with the voice of Lisa because that is her voice right when you tune in you're like that's Lisa Simpson and Hank Azaria is on it too using his normal voice but yeah just like they really couldn't hide it anymore you've got a sitcom on the same network with two of the main actors of the show right right and uh and if i mean if you were a super fan like of the simpsons you probably knew dan and julie from uh tracy allman from that though

i mean i was six when i watched tracy allman so i didn't associate those human beings with the cartoon characters but but that's just me uh but okay the episode begins first with a little chalkboard gag about explosives in schools which not so funny now the but the episode begins like i in general like i say this every time but rich moore like he it's not surprising he went on to be like an oscar-winning uh theatrical animation director because he's like his episodes are great like he's i don't know if i'd say i personally like his more than jim mearden or west archer david silver, because I think those are like the three kings. But Rich Moore does like amazing stuff every time.

And he, I mean, he did the monorail, which is like the most filmic episode of the show they ever did. And Cape Fear. That was his last one he did for the show. Truly, maybe the peak of animation in the series. And this opening of like, it's a pan across the room to bart in his bed and it's so i just love that it's framed it's framed with a poster of crusty and then as you pan over you see more crusties up to bart's bed like this is this episode is not about crusty and bart's love of crusty but you it's it's just a great little

character thing for a pan across the room crusty is not involved with the mafia quite yet. Not yet. In the series. That was shocking. When you, because I looked that up too, of like, okay, then Fat Tony, he must come back next season.

Because just in my head, I think of him as all the time around, but no, it's season six. Three seasons later. Yeah, that surprised me when you told me that. And is that Homie the Clown?

Is that the one where he comes back? Yeah, another John Swartzwater script. And I think he remembered, oh, right, I have those characters I created. Why don't they show up again? Why make up new Mafia guys? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I love the cinematic. Because this is still the Klasky Chupo. This is the last season of it. Yeah, yeah. Because it has that. I feel most comfortable in that kind of season five

through seven zone where everything's been normalized as i'm sure most people do but there is something pretty great about seeing these earlier seasons and the there's a little bit more expression and a little bit more kind of creativity you have to admit you know going on in the drawings oh yeah i love season three things are less clamped down you can get some milder expression some more interesting camera moves uh it looks really good yeah you know i i think uh it was gonna be splitsville for claskey chupo and and the simpsons after the first season like i think i think their original deal was just for three seasons and once that was over like they they didn't get along with claskey chupo at gracie's uh but I they were doing so well in this season like not

the the film Roman people do a great job and I think season four and five especially look great also but I think they did lose a little something there's just a little magic to this this season in its its animation definitely uh but yes Bart uh jumps out of the wrong side of bed and steps on uh the pointiest of of dinosaurs the stegosaurus and you know as a little kid this sadly did not teach me to pick up stuff off the floor of my room i just uh i would still i would just uh you know a spider-man action figure is smooth anyway it's not it's not gonna hurt you like a stegosaurus that's why we love that's why he's the most popular superhero is how smooth he is oh man uh a batman with his pointy ears that's stabbing you right through the heel

the spider-man have that's why i'm not that's why i'm not seeing the new one spider-man have to have like pointy villains like electro see pointy oh electro's all points he's got like five stars around don't leave that on the ground kids and uh oh and green goblin's long pointy nose and the point on his hat yeah it's pointy ears as well as a goblin you're right pointing all over the place again really just great animation of his like stepping on his hurt foot like it's just very well observed but i i love the uh when the uh the dog ate his homework and i didn't know dogs really did that but the equation that santa's

little helper spits out as an isolated equation is wrong also like bart's homework he didn't do well on it we can actually see it like that's the classic simpsons that i know going back in because i haven't watched it since the last time i was on the show and it it felt it felt nice to see just that multi-layered gag just unraveling you know so beautifully it's it's a great extra level to that joke which is already good yeah he'd uh he'd have been screwed anyway if he had put it in exactly yeah but yes it's a bad start to bart's day in our first clip here good morning lisa what are you so happy about why shouldn't i be happy it's a beautiful day my homework is done i got my mojo working and we're going on a field trip this afternoon. And looks like I got me a genuine glow-in-the-dark police badge.

Hmm. Hey, it's not in here. You stole it! No one wants your stupid police badge, Bart. Hey, look what I got. A genuine official police badge. Calling all cars, come out with your heads up. Hey, that's I got. A genuine official police badge. Calling all cars. Come out with your heads up.

Hey, that's my badge, Homer. That's officer, Homer. Oh, man. That was another thing I noticed in this episode. Swartz Welder really gets Homer. This Homer is the Homer. Like he's a big dumb child who does not understand the dangers and things and he just he's he's just a comedy cartoon dude in this episode you guys have been you know obviously uh you're you're embedded in all this and i know you've been going back to these earlier seasons

like one and two what is is this like early season three does it snap right in or are there episodes where he's not quite this homer and then in by four or five it's it's it's achieved do you see like a transition point for homer i think by the end of two he's kind of this guy well so in in the end of production season two with when flanders failed homer is still kind of like just a dumber sitcom husband who has a very sitcom-y thing though in the more wacky uh blood feud at the end of season two where homer homer has like i don't know like that he's getting dumber and on bart's childish level but yeah i think with the upcoming episodes like say you know we've got flaming mo in a few episodes which is another big homer episode he's just a big dumb idiot who hates being like paying

any attention to his family like he just abandons his kids at a moment's notice this is where they assimilate with homer they're like no we know what homer is now like no more why are we pretending he is like a regular dad in any form at this point yeah the homer i think of before this more than anything is just a a jerk i mean i know jerk ass homer ironically came way later but i'm thinking of the flanders one where i know he does the right thing in the end or whatever but one of my favorite gags is when he's imagining flanders increasingly in trouble and then he dies too far yes like that that that is uh he's more just kind of mean and irresponsible but you're so. When he walks in as pleased as a child would be at this toy, they've achieved a new level.

Yeah, I guess in Flanders failed like Homer harbors a resentment for Flanders deep down when we know now he's like just too easily distracted to be to have like a vendetta like that or to even like him after that yeah he just he just thinks he's annoying as opposed to the earlier more like adult homer with more adult reasons to dislike flanders i guess yeah before he was stewing with like class-based resentment now like flanders will appear in the window go shut up flanders and then he'll go away and homer will be happy again like in those in those early flanders episodes homer has like the cleverness to say something snide under his breath. And it's like, well, that's not Homer, which is scream it. But yeah, in this case, he's like basically he's Bart's older brother who stole the he's not his father anymore.

And I also love the inside the the cereal box shot again. Just amazing shot. Yeah, we go inside the cereal cabinet and then inside the box just these needless touches we don't need to be inside of these little compartments but they put us there it's great type of stuff they wouldn't do on the show anymore you know i i hate to say well i used to say uh though uh also negative henry uh they also shout out that swartz welder wrote the gag on the box of crusty saying only sugar has more sugar but what a great line love that i also love lisa lisa's uh eating jackie o's yes yeah in keeping with with her well i guess i don't know if that's at least a specific

joke but you know it's it's a democrat uh famous democrat woman i can see that i the stretch pants joke seems a little mean like isn't that a fat joke at her expense that you would need stretch pants because like are they saying that that jackie o gained weight i looked at photos of her like 90 or 91 and i don't i don't think she was particularly overweight but i mean people were mean back then i don't know if she was a famous stretch pants wearer now they're just called yoga pants or spanx people love them we all love them yeah i when i searched uh jackie o 1991 news stories it was one that was a story told many years after 1991 but it was apparently a friend of jackie o said about her posthumously that in 1991 she asked her friend to hook her up with alec baldwin and she went on a date with alec

baldwin in 1991 so which uh yeah she she was like 51 then and baldwin was 33 so good for her yeah apparently it didn't go didn't go more than one night with uh with her and baldwin sadly though that is sad uh give her a break her husband was killed sorry sorry wait what would you say i said give her a break her husband was killed yeah i was about to say that sounds like one of the things the psychic would say in this episode it's not looking good for alec baldwin and jackie o and they were so happy so happy uh also it's funny for an episode where bart joins the real mafia he couldn't be a fake cop this is what happens you know if you can't become a cop you become a mobster that's uh there's only

two options in the in the italian immigrant world back then but but anyway the uh yes sam's little help reads his homework to bart's shock that a dog actually does that his excuse came through then he it seems like auto really screws bart here because he should realize like hey lisa is on here i should probably wait for bart but lisa is oddly vindictive with this just sarcastic wave to bart and then her at the candy factory saying he needs to learn his lesson i know this will teach him uh that also feels more swole swole swoldery of like uh the way women are written in this one in general i think are there women in this rush besides lisa i can't even think of march says i don't know if that's a good idea exactly

she's serving her uh role in this in this uh early part of the show uh this is also one of those moments on the commentary where i was like god damn they didn't they didn't save any of the deleted scenes for klaski chupo or their tech. I still think it's possible. They're technically owned. The footage is owned by Klasky Chupo and they don't want to make a deal with them, but they mentioned a deleted scene on this and they fully animated in color, not cut at the animatic of what sounded brilliant.

And I bet Rich Moore and his team did a great job of it. If like the park gets splashed by one car, but he's supposed to be splashed by cars, like almost every step of his way to school and and they uh richmore says they got all the way to color and it got cut and i think that was just fun of like it sounded like richmore was getting his shots in of like yep you cut it it looked really great and you cut it he said it was really hard to figure out yeah he was he was mourning the loss of this joke then bart arrives and uh this is just a quick clip, but anytime I'm late, I think

of the way Bart says this. Bart Simpson, you're late. Go fill out a tardy slip. But I'm only five, ten, twenty, forty minutes. That's pretty damn late. Just the acceptance of like that you're about to make an excuse, and then as you're counting the time, you're like,

you know what? That is pretty late. You're right. You know? I feel bad. We're about to lose casually swearing Bart, though, in the show. Yeah. Yeah. Because he was a bad influence in that respect. I know. Yeah.

It wasn't that the censors told that, as we were told by John Beattie in our interview with him, that to take a shot, I mentioned to go back to an old interview listeners. But in our interview with that, he said that it wasn't censors coming to them but it was their colleagues in the comedy world who did have children who were like well thanks for teaching my kids the word bastard and hey so they themselves pulled back on it if or for that very reason that is exactly why as we discussed last time that is exactly why i was not allowed to watch the show my mom thought thought that if I watched Rugrats, Simpsons, whatever, kids are talking sass and that I would immediately do the same thing. And for all I know, she's right. I never ended up watching them until I was older.

So that was why. We did the South Park movie recently, a whole podcast on that. And definitely the film is about like, you know, moms shouldn't care so much about their kids swearing. But the start of the movie does clearly make the point of like, oh, yeah, if kids went and saw an R-rated movie, they would say every swear word they heard over and over and over again. They would instantly repeat it. Yeah. Which I did anyway. I just threw osmosis.

You know, I didn't see the primary source. But yeah, it's I'm glad I'm a grown-up now and i can watch whatever i want uh bart splits his pants in front of all the girls saying hey girls look at me a lot yeah that's great i just love look at me like it's such a stupid it's not really clever or funny it's just really it's where it is funny to me that he just goes look at me and his pants immediately split it's not like classic simpsons wit it's just very funny that it immediately happens to him and he's a laughingstock i love that you can stop looking at me now that's great uh and then bart gets just smashed right in the face with a kickball crashes to the ground and probably concussed i would guess and and you know they don't do this animation choice i like it though like the reddening under his eye is is really well done

it's like a little airbrushed almost that's not how they do like a black eye later in the series but it's it's very realistic and then then bart thinks finally though he's this all this pain today will be worth it because he's gonna get to go on the field trip well it's nearly one o'clock and you know what that means that's right it's time for our field trip. Well, it's nearly one o'clock and you know what that means. That's right. It's time for our field trip to the chocolate factory. I trust you all remembered to bring your permission slips.

Ah! Oh, what a day. I'm going to eat eight pieces of chocolate. I'm going to eat chocolate until I burp. Don't worry, Bart. We'll find to eat eight pieces of chocolate. I'm going to eat chocolate until I burp. Don't worry, Bart. We'll find something fun for you to do.

Ah, here we are. There's a whole box of unsealed envelopes for the PTA. You're making me lick envelopes? Oh, licking envelopes can be fun. All you have to do is make a game of it. What kind of game? Well, for example, you can see how many you can lick in an hour and then try to break that record. Sounds like a pretty crappy game to me yes well get started i mean this was my greatest

fear as a child in school uh one that gave me even more anxiety about this this whole forgetting your permission slip it never happened to me man i figure you could just call your parent now and their parents are much more reachable and just say like yeah if you forgot it but yeah i uh i never missed a permission slip though also now i think as an adult this episode i had no questions about as a kid as an adult i'm like come on a trip to the chocolate factory that starts you don't do any part of the school day you go there like 9 a.m you get on that bus you don't go there one but i i also really liked how the permission slip is beautifully and pristinely laid out uh right under his pillow like just waiting to be remembered and he somehow missed it and just that real i mean it is very we've all been there of like just in the middle of the day

it hits you like i left that at home like i didn't bring it with me god damn it just and then you scream yeah then you scream man what a scream by nancy too i speaking of people like getting out aggression on the commentary i like she mentions like boy we worked like from 10 to 6 on a lot of these episodes back then and al jean is kind of like well you know we just wanted a lot of good lines we were probably overdoing it then i'm sorry uh but yeah great scream uh and i love like his face kind of the way his face splats into the book like that's another just like great animation bit there and also when the pan to his house like i love all the crazy like squiggly lines they do for like long pans always great

it's really cool zip pan yeah i would think that think that the Harvard nerds who write on this show probably went through a lot of high school envelope stuffing things for transcript boosting purposes like this. But yeah, also when I talk about things leveling up for this episode, I absolutely feel that with Skinner as well. So Skinner definitely was a nerd who loved his mama even even in the like the his second or third appearance in season one but he still was like he's the stern principal even in season two in this episode while he is bart stern principal he also is a big nerd who loves stupid boring games like this and and science i was gonna say at the end where i don't want to skip to the end fully, but at the end, I love that it sets up every type of detergent in front of him slowly like

this is that skinner like this is them uh leveling up skinner to the character we love like yeah this is just so many it's just so magical to see once they start season three like just them figuring out like finally locking it all into place for so many characters. Yep. The only thing that's just a little bit older style is his voice is a little bit more kind of hoity-toity. He's got that kind of like... It's more stern. More deeper. Yeah. But then, but yeah, his character at this point is pretty much the Skinner that, you know,

Skinner's one of my favorite characters. I can't imagine that's unpopular. And yeah, it felt like it didn't feel like they were still figuring them out when I when I turned this on. And they apparently got that crappy past the censors because they said it's an adjective, not a noun to describe, you know, feces. It's crappy, which we head to the all fudge chocolate factory. Sadly, you know, they never all fudge was not a consistent thing. You know, from then on, if they wanted to do like candy it's the crusty bar like they yeah they kind of centralize all their businesses around crusty after that coco beanie never returned

oh i love him the way he goes like god what a great little sound he made coco beanie himself i just love that millhouse has been thinking about this for years he's been dreaming of it he is he is the nerds who love the mascots going to stuff and by that i mean us as well me at least i'll say but uh so i i've never toured the chocolate factory i have as a kid toured the coca-cola factory and as an adult went to the jelly belly factory in california uh which is known uh for its painting in jelly beans of ronald reagan it's a very pro reagan uh well that's his favorite that was his favorite food and i mean if you're a california republican which i'm sure the owners of the jelly belly factory are uh then you he's like god to you

ronald reagan speaking of that this is a little bit of a tangent but fun fact scott walker former wisconsin governor is such a uh reagan freak that on his own birthday which i don't know if because he shares a birthday with reagan maybe that's why he like dresses everyone up you know in like america stuff and has everyone come and he serves jelly beans and he like plays reagan movies and it's like he reenacts all of reagan's favorite things to do it in his life that's creepy and uh you know tracks with his with his personality he pretends to have dementia towards the end of the day talks about how he liberated uh you know death camps that he never did yeah all that stuff if it's like 4 30 in the afternoon he doesn't recall a lot of stuff he's like yeah exactly yeah it's it's a sunset but uh yeah i always thought that was one of the most disturbing things i ever heard

is that you serve jelly beans on your birthday because reagan liked them oh god that's uh it is creepy but hey jelly belly they make some good beans i bet they do yeah but but yeah the uh the off fudge i just love it's called off fudge like what a funny name for it and yeah all right and talking about leveling up stuff okay so yes troy mcclure had appeared before he even said in his first appearance you may remember me but what he didn't do was host a video for children to watch like this it was an infomercial like this is them really figuring out troy mcclure as well i think and phil hartman didn't know if he wanted to do this again uh his response to them was yeah it was kind of fun guys but i don't want this to

be a regular thing but then he eventually like leaned into it embraced the character and we'd be back countless times so many times like in the early parts of the show they have him playing multiple characters throughout just like when john Lovitz would come on earlier. Yeah, yeah. He's the guy who says, I did not know this, he's the guy who says the wonderful line, what have I done to deserve this flavorless Manhattan, apparently. I wouldn't have even necessarily guessed that. No, he's great.

I miss hearing him as one-off voices in later episodes, but I can see why they're like, you know, it's distracting now if you hear a Hartman voice as somebody else. But yeah, I love hearing him as secondary one. And that's why Hutz is back too. Yeah, oh God. And yeah, this also is kind of a sequel to, you know, the second episode ever of The Simpsons is the kids touring the nuclear plant

and they get pretty similar sequence to this, except it's hosted by Smile and joe fishen this is a way better version of that also like just so good and it's and it's made that way because troy mcclure is perfect like he's just the way he walks up to the podium that's shaped like a chocolate bar and leans over it like just i love that perfect uh but uh but yes let's let's hear good old Troy, my man. Welcome to the Chocolate Factory. I'm Troy McClure. You probably remember me from such films as The Revenge of Abe Lincoln and The Wackiest Covered Wagon in the West.

The history of chocolate starts with the ancient Aztecs. In those days, instead of being wrapped in a hygienic package, chocolate was wrapped in a tobacco leaf. And instead of being pure chocolate like we have today, it was mixed with shredded tobacco. And they didn't eat it. They smoked it. You didn't believe me when I said it would be fun, did you? No, sir.

Sorry, I want to get just a little of that in there. You know, Troy's a professional. I love his, welcome to the chocolate factory. Yeah, it almost sounds like omin ominous he says in a very low rumbling voice almost sexual i'd say yeah yeah he loves it i uh you know my internal uh guess here i may be just making up canon here but i think all fudge is owned by laramie cigarettes and that's why they have such a long sequence of showing kids how fun it is to smoke tobacco oh i like it and in case you totally i totally agree with that i thought that was kind of the underbelly of the gag that

if you if you're really it's just like why are these kids being shown so you know meticulously how to smoke and if you didn't get the chief wahoo gag he just does the smile at the end yep yeah he does which which i i definitely view as them mocking how blatantly racist the character of chief wahoo was even then i i agree it's one of those gags that um you know because it's an old i don't know how old it's supposed to be troy mcclure is not that young in it but like it's it's an old stuffy video where you would see that kind of dated stuff in school and so i think it's one of those gags that actually ages better you know because as as that stereotype gets you know ages more more and more poorly you know the uh a gag like that you just go oh my god and the shock

value like kind of hits even harder i think think I said this before on the podcast. I grew up in Ohio for the longest time. I didn't know Chief Wahoo was supposed to be a person. I thought he was like a baseball demon, because if you look at the the Kansas City Chiefs or, you know, the Redskins, the head looks like a person's head. It's still racist. But this is like some 1930s caricature that does not look like a human being at all. I know that's the point. But I was like, this is a person.

Yeah, like that's what again, it's just it's so it strikes, especially the modern eye is just so out there and bizarre that this is this was supposed to be like a normal depiction of anything, which, of course, you know, it wasn't. It was a fantastical racist image. So, yeah, it is. It is ridiculous. But I love that that that's that's a really good early mcclure video and i love the wackiest covered wagon in the west and according to wikipedia the aztecs and cocoa beans nothing to do with tobacco like i think they just like make it up like certainly the aztecs used it a lot it was uh some of the people they conquered would be forced to uh make it uh and grow them as part of their crops they were used as like money

as well and they they drank their chocolate cold as well the aztecs of course and and they would be used as rations for aztec soldiers so and hey it was from wikipedia so it must be true and it's totally totally fine to source it but yeah as as bart i also just love bart watching these slow seconds get slower and slower and then tick backward again just amazing joke such a good joke excellent joke i i love how just awful and and um ragged his tongue has become that the little like bumps the like yellow bumps just showing like it's sandpaper at this point oh god yeah it's it's so painful and and you know what i look sometimes when your glasses drop you do have to say my glasses like it's what else can you say in those moments you're letting

everyone know don't move yes my glasses stop my glass yeah it's just what you got to say god all that stuff is so gross with the chocolate mayhem disgusting like especially i think it's just what you gotta say god all that stuff is so gross with the chocolate mayhem disgusting like especially i think it's a very intentional choice that it's wendell the barf kid who's swimming around in the chocolate if it could be any kid it's wendell doing it uh and the shot of the shot of ralph on the conveyor belt that's another great shot yes ralph is coming into his own too like everyone is emerging in this episode really the simpsons got a lot out of going to a factory humor. Because you mentioned they've already done it once.

The box factory, one of the best things. The cracker factory that No House's dad works at. They did not run out of factory stuff for a long time. Let's not forget the Cider Town as well. Of course. Oh, my God, yeah. And, yes, also, they were really into harry shearer playing effeminate men who tell people like play sanitary children like he just was so

they they had him do at least one effeminate voice an episode this is a smitherless episode so they have to get the gay voice out of a different guy he's he's in it but he's not saying anything oh that's true he says he he does say something, even though they reuse old footage. Yes. I barely count that scene. I don't like that. We'll get to it. You're right.

You are. I stand corrected. But yes, the kids beating and kicking Coco Beattie, like that's also just great. And then, yes, the sound of the sandpaper against Bart's tongue. I just have a quick clip here of it because, again, I think Nancy does a really... I'm glad she's on the commentary because she is really great this whole episode.

Can I go now? What? Can I go now? Well, there's still a minute to go. No, why not? But don't you tell your teacher I'll let you go home early. I don't. That's so great.

And Bart does right with his left hand. I'm on left hand watch since we just did the leftorium one. But yeah, just is that seymour again what a great nerdy skinner thing that he like he's thinks it's delightfully devilish to let bart out 30 seconds early from school he's like like it's so it's so cute there's his dorkiness uh and so yes bart leaves it instantly starts raining on him all the kids are in the bus coming back from their fun chocolate factory splashing bart how can it get any worse bart like the wheel breaks off his skateboard and he tumbles down the stairs right

in front of the legitimate businessman's social club and bark gets a whole bunch of guns pointed at him which oh great shot yes that if somebody has that cell it must cost like eighty thousand dollars it's a perfect cell it's so great i and i not to brag but i did use it for a slightly viral post about simpsons opinions i said hey what what i i look i i was scrounging for it i wanted to go viral i was like okay everybody's got the knives pointing at people spot uh i know there's a scene like that from simpsons i'm gonna take that shot and ask people for their uh what simpsons opinion will get you this thing like and everybody fell for it and it was great it was a great day for me genius that's all that matters now yeah hey it's engagement you just ask an open-ended question with a good

picture that's that's playing twitter now that's how it is uh don't hate the game yeah all right so yes you wonder why bart is has a bunch of guns pointed at him. It also is like this is the beginning of the Simpsons love a cocked gun. Like there's so many, so many jokes in the show about cocking a gun at somebody. Well, it's it's it's and it is funny. There's something just it immediately ups the stakes in a way that is somehow comical where now if life or death is involved you know where it wasn't a second ago it is it is funny every time and so yes we get our first introduction to fat tony and the rest of his mobster regulars which there wouldn't really be a consistent new member

of the crew until season 12 with uh johnny tight lips and what about jimmy the scumbag and jimmy all right jimmy the scumbag and ninemy all right jimmy the scumbag in nine you're right yeah but but yeah fat tony based on paul servino's goodfellas character uh and yeah i think you know if they'd gotten sheldon leonard he'd be dead by like the after his second appearance he'd be dead and there's some interesting fat tony lore because technically he dies in the season 22 episode donnie fatso, but the big gimmick is he's replaced with Fit Tony, and the stress of being in the mafia makes him overeat. He turns back into Fat Tony.

So as a gimmick, it's sort of like an Armin Tamzarian kind of situation, but no one freaked out about it. It's just like, he's a new character now, but it's still Joe Mantegna. We're still doing the same jokes. And that happened now like over a decade ago. Snowballs 2 has been dead for a long time also. Yeah, that's great i have to remind myself in canon this fat tony's been dead for about 12 years now i think or so at least a decade because homer was uh it's called donnie fatso because homer's um he's turned uh he's wearing a wire when meeting uh fat tony yeah you know what

i'm sad we never went there but his burbank restaurant eat chicago or sorry taste chicago closed in 2019 oh no oh wow i would have figured the pandemic would shut it down nope it was open for over a decade wow oh that's too bad man i i would want uh you know i'm gonna have a uh an italian beef sandwich from anywhere i'd want it served to me from my job hunting uh at least you know i hope the danny trejo restaurants we ate at in burbank are still or in hollywood are still open those were both the donut place and the taco place were really good and do you think they went to him because he was in godfather 3 that that's the reason right yeah godfather 3 was also 1990 which i mean

godfather 3 i thought there was like a slight critical reappraisal of it as not that bad uh recently or there was a re-release of it but it was like a recut um version Coppola put it out and called it the coda or something yeah yeah I didn't really understand I just saw an ad for it I didn't look into it further and everybody was really mean to Sofia Coppola about that too which she showed them yeah she should yeah uh it's it's insane that the coppola is just like it's it's like they own hollywood they own a chunk of hollywood their entire family of them like there's there's too many of them jason schwartzman's one of them too yes don't forget that let's talk about oh sorry one of my favorite uh lines from the larry sanders show is when hank is making a uh goodbye tape for lar tape for Larry and he has Bruno Kirby and he keeps giving Bruno Kirby notes to shoot this dumb little happy birthday wish on tape.

Bruno Kirby's like, I was in the I can't believe I'm getting notes. I was in The Godfather. He goes, Hank's like, I don't remember you in that. He goes, yeah, Godfather Part Two. And he goes, well, I've only seen the third one you know we have to talk about let's talk about it frank severo he played frankie carbone in goodfellas you know honestly a very minor character uh oh so my little my little weird obsession with that character is an actual topic here absolutely i didn't even realize this no absolutely he's a very unique looking man this is a caricature of him i don't think legs is a caricature of anyone in the movie though maybe

i should look through all the mobsters and try to place them i couldn't when i watched you know legs with his slick back hair and all that to me the one he looks the most like is tony cicero the future polly walnuts who's in the movie like he has the very slick back hair and his hair was that color then okay not the perfect you know gray wingtip uh hair we all love a poly walnuts and sopranos and and in the movie he does do the listeners can't see but i'm doing the poly walnuts index and pinky hand wave he does that in goodfellas that's true yeah well frank severo uh tried to sue the simpsons in 2014 so 13 years after this airs he tried to sue the Simpsons in 2014 so 13 years after this airs he tried to sue I guess Gracie or Fox it was Fox television yeah

for 250 million dollars because they drew a caricature of him based on how he appeared in Good Fellas yeah yeah which I had no idea I had no idea and again it's so funny on the commentary knowing that because the commentary I believe is 2002

they don't know in in 12 years they're going to be sued by the guy but they're just like rich moore saying that he al jean is like is that supposed to be mike reese and then because they every character they drew like eight characters that look like mike reese on the show he's a fun looking man uh and then rich moore's like oh no no i i thought i told him to do Joe Pesci, which I was like, wait, what? Because it's not just his poofy hair looks like Frank Civero, but it's like the cheeks. He's a very hatchet faced man. Yes.

Yeah. And he looks like he's a dead ringer for the Goodfellas character. That's why without knowing this entire story, I just assumed it was him. And yeah, that Bob, you linked me to a great deconstruction of the whole thing from Cartoon Brew that kind of put it all into perspective once his final appeal went through in 2018. But he lost that lawsuit to Fox. I think he had like never seen The Simpsons before because he made some wild claims. Like I think in his head, Frank Severo thinks this is the the louis show because he said oh yeah in in 89 i was living near some of the writers and they obviously saw

me and got ideas for this character he he thinks this louis guy is just like the biggest he's like he's like another like skinner or flanders on the show louis is probably has like a hundred lines total across 30 years i bet that yeah that's really funny i bet you could find if you were searching for merchandise that featured louis like i'd say at best you'd find like three toys tops of him or like yeah maybe a car trading card or whatever and louis is always dan castellana doing a joe pesci impression in this episode and in um homie theown, it's Hank Azaria doing a kind of De Niro for legs. But after that, Harry Shearer plays legs. Oh, right.

I forgot they swap. Yeah. Also, that cartoon Bruce story you linked me to, Bob, they make a great point about how, like, from a cartoon production standpoint, it's really good that he had no chance with this lawsuit but if it had actually succeeded it would have kind of fucked up all cartoons because yeah he like the judge was like this is a transformative work and it's a free speech thing you are a public celebrity and they drew a caricature of you even if they intentionally did so it's no different from you know the eight million bugs bunny cartoons where he meets like clark gable or hunk free bogart you know they couldn't show the sherry bobbins episode anymore yes yeah it's uh it it would it would have destroyed a parody law if the guy had won so i mean hey i think they should just give him give him two million bucks

disney what's it to you you know yeah throw him something yeah he's not not not 250 million or whatever you said and it's extra funny though, to read how the court case was settled because it's exactly what Marge describes to Homer at the end of this episode. Like that's that legal precedent is so that's that's an extra funny end to it. But but really, I'm shocked they didn't make him just Pesci. Like Pesci is like the most who remembers Frankie Carbone from Goodfellas? You remember his death. That's the only thing I can think of. He's on the meat hook.

Yeah. But Joe Pesci was so good at Goodfellas, he got cast in everything to just like, can you just do that? Can you just do that in this comedy now? It rules that just a few months later, he was one of the web bandits. Right. Just a few months later in cinemas. And then came back for a sequel.

Yeah. He loved being a wet bandit. But yes, let's hear it. Why don't we hear our first ever appearance of Fat Tony? Hey, what's with the kid? Hands off the material. What do you know? The kid's tough.

He's got spunk. I wonder if he is lucky also. Pick a horse, kid. Shelbyville Downs, Doid Race. Make it a good one. Eat my shorts. Eat my shorts. Ah, okay.

Let's see. Hey, wait a minute, you little punk. Eat my shorts is in the fifth race. I said the Doid Race. Don't have a cow. Don't have a cow in the Doid. Put a deuce on him. While we are waiting to see how lucky you are, let me show you around.

This is our bar, and over there is our slot machine and card tables. Cool. Hey, boss, here's the call for the third race. As they come out of the turn, it's Suffering Suckatash by a neck over Yabba Dabba Doo. Two lengths back, way higher sticker, and that's all, folks. I am what I am, can see them all, but here comes Don't Have a Cow, flying on the outside and at the wire,'s all don't have a cow hey i like this kid i can't believe we were gonna shoot him can you mix drinks i don't know i'll have a manhattan make legs a manhattan

i'm not sure like again the second time in the episode a joke is punctuated with guns cocking like that's such a simpsons again it's it's been a little while but um eat my shorts is in the fifth race that whole setup still caught me off guard i thought it was gonna be a cute little joke how bart's being sassy and then it's like nope they they always go the extra mile they always take it to the logical conclusion we were talking about how good this episode looks one thing i associate with season three uh is like lots of shadows it's a lot of extra work it's an extra layer. It's an extra bit of figuring things out.

And they're always in shadows in the social club. And also when Fat Tony is showing off both sides of the club, the in-camera animation move, it's not just, it's great. It's not just painting across one piece of artwork. It's like drawing a new frame for every time the camera is moving across the background. That's a lot of work they didn't have to do, but it looks so good. And most people won't even notice it it's it's so opulent like even even in a great season like season eight i don't think they do that shot they would just say like over here is

that cut to just a shot of that and over here is this and then they just cut to it and and you wouldn't miss it you wouldn't be like oh that looks cheap because the joke would be expressed but this extra sauce like is just so great like sauce yeah it's gravy it's extra gravy but yeah i i so agree that's what i meant watching this this is a this has been observed before i'm sure but it's like the simpsons isn't really a show where you need that extra craft or like cinematic touch. So you like you say, you don't miss it. There's even something maybe funny about the kind of more direct hard cuts that would happen in later seasons of that kind of very. That's a very Simpson like thing to just then hard cut to something rather than do a kind of flowery cinematic lead up to a joke. But we get both in the golden era, I guess, because these earlier seasons, it is lovely to see i that's shot you're talking about really stood out to me i thought

it was so so cool looking and they have so many great jokes in the series about the show's popularity but this is a good like underrated one that bart bart's cartoon catchphrase is now on the level of all those other ones in universe that don't don't have a cow is and also this is like a joke about don't have a cow being tired and and the thing yeah from t-shirts i i think uh this is the last time bart says don't have a cow himself or at least for years and years i think i think the next time it said is when lisa says it as a joke pretending to be him in season seven and then they do it in the simpsons spinoff showcase when bart sings his verse he's like eat my shorts don't have a cow

so uh then they instruct him to uh make a manhattan which oh and also put a deuce on it it's it's definitely uh a parlance for a bet but i couldn't find like in horse racing terms what a deuce means deuce and other scenarios, it means certain other things. I assumed it was like 200 or 2,000 or something like that. I think so. The best I could find was there was a 1965 Sports Illustrated article about this new thing in horse racing, which is looking at statistics of how many times a horse has won. And it's like, wow, you need a computer for all this stuff

and the headline was before you put a deuce on a horse you better run the computer and that uh so it was used in the same way he did which that is more of the swartz welder old timey mobster movie way of talking they give these characters and yeah so bart is instructed to mix a drink uh so on the thing bart has in front of him i believe that is an is instructed to mix a drink uh so on the thing bart has in front of him i believe that is an accurate way to make a manhattan but it asked for an italian whiskey which i mean would fit for what the mafia would want though i think more commonly it is rye whiskey is the main risky whiskey you use in a manhattan i've i've never mixed one for myself i probably ordered them at a bar just because I was like, oh, I should have one of

these from the show. But it's not my preferred cocktail. I think, though, I mean, hey, I like a little fruit in a cocktail, but I guess I like a little more fruit. Instead, just the hint of cherry. Who are you kidding, Henry? You are a girl drink drunk. I am a girl drink drunk. It's true. Yes.

I'm not really into Manhattans, but it looks strangely appetizing in the show. It's like how in cartoons everything tastes like candy when you're a kid. You're like, oh, that probably tastes like... Think of that Peep Show moment. Sorry to bring up Peep Show on the Simpsons podcast, but where Jeremy is taking someone out to dinner and he accidentally, or he ends up buying a really expensive bottle of wine

and regretting it because it's too pricey. And then he finally drinks it and he's trying to hide his disappointment. He's like, yeah, really delicious. I mean, not actually delicious like Coca-Cola or hot chocolate, but for wine, delicious. But the Manhattan looks, it looks tasty in this. I'll give it that.

Speaking of bad influences, when I was a kid watching this, I thought, those look pretty good. These drinks look good. And here's a 10-year-old just like me making them. I bet it looks really great. Yeah, I think. We just shook loose this memory in my mind that I actually got a call to my parents in fourth grade because I wrote a story or just some activity where I said, eat my shorts in it. Like my character said it because I hadn't watched The Simpsons,

but I heard Bart say that and I wanted to look cool and for my and for my friends making a funny line. So I stole the funny line from a popular thing. And then it was naughty. And that doubled my mom's opposition to The Simpsons because I had been, you know, gotten in trouble for saying something naughty in school. So these are coming back to me as we talk. It's so funny because Bart didn't invent Eat My Shorts. They gave him just like a corny old thing he would have seen on TV or something like Eat My Shorts is such an old catchphrase. It took me a long time before I realized shorts means underwear. Right, right. It doesn't mean like the shorts I'm wearing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's a really what always sounded like a really nasty one that's in a wholesome show is sit on it.

Yeah. In happy days. Sit on it. I mean, I don't think it takes. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter.

Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. That much imagination to imagine what you could be telling someone to do. Yeah. It's in the wholesome 50s universe where Ron Howard and Potsy are saying it. That was their way of saying, get fucked. Exactly. That's what the gritty Happy Days reboot will be. Fonzie saying, get fucked.

When they do the Riverdale version of Happy Days. Hey, there's like. You'll's like like sit and spin motherfucker there's like a dramatic uh fresh prince of bel-air show on now so let's get the dramatic uh gritty happy days yeah they weren't all happy days marge we can't get too sidetracked but i am so curious i'm so curious what the fuck that is i assume it's like the riverdale thing but what is going on what is happening i heard i'd heard all right stuff about it but i haven't i haven't watched it yet either i it may be good it's just baffling to me i i mean hey you gotta remake something you can't make a new thing so you gotta remake something you know no you're right you're right well i mean honestly i think about how uh many saints of newark just came out and I've been thinking to myself, if Tony Soprano's actor was still alive,

they would just be making it. It would just be, they'd just do a new season. They would flush away all the thoughts of like, yeah, I know what you thought the ending of Sopranos was, but you know what? We just decided that's not the ending and so we're just making more of it. And Tony's old now.

It's a terrible, it's a terrible truth, but there is something, I don't know what to say but there's something there's a bright side there's a silver lining to the tragedy of james gandalfini's death and that his most iconic and celebrated role cannot be fucked up by trying to do a cash grab on on the series it's true you know they did it anyway but not with him yes yeah with you know that many saints if they just didn't have christopher do the car that movie would be like 20 better if he wasn't doing voiceover in it i that's what i think i think i didn't see it i didn't even know he was doing it yeah i was told it was pretty goofy the one thing that um i respect i this isn't a totally original thought my friend was kind of saying this and i do respect it as well that chase has contempt for you know most fans of the show oh yeah and so what i've heard

sorry this is a spoiler i haven't even seen it but i'm spoiling the movie um is that well i'm kind of spoiling is that at least the kind of narrative satisfaction at the end is centered around a black man who has nothing to do with the rest of the series and is his own character in this movie and it is emphatically not some kind of like you know fan service to how tough italians have to stick together or whatever it's like the exact opposite of what all those guys would want and even though i don't think that justifies doing some shitty follow-up to the sopranos i like that he still has the hate in his heart and put that in this highly anticipated among that crowd highly anticipated sopranos send off that's pretty great that yes i i agree with that though i think it did there

still is a lot of fan service in it a whole lot which hey i i was whooping it up at home of like a junior finally said he doesn't have the makings of a college athlete. Like, I love it. Though, again, I got so soprano-pilled. I'm now done re-watching Sopranos, Bob, so I'm not living Sopranos as much as I did. But when I think of these Manhattan's, I was like, oh, yeah, lately I had been just drinking like whiskey or cognac on the rocks straight because that's how Tony drinks it in the show. I was like yeah i'm like tony drinking my straight whiskey out of the glass i'm such i'm such a cool guy like

tony you're gonna get a tattoo a really really awful tattoo like a photorealistic tattoo of james gandalfini that says like respect is the is family or whatever on you uh man why why isn't anybody like gary cooper anymore well whatever happened to gary cooper that's why she got across my heart yeah but can i just say to get us i think i ripped us off track i love montana's he's he's doing it's that halted speech with with fat tony where it's like a very insightful way to because he could have just done the the joke and a lot of other characters is you know well absorbed and you know support and all that but his way of finding a funny way to personify those uh mob guys where it's that kind of really sleazy halting dialogue

it's a different episode where he goes you crack us so consistently up yeah when he's talking across you like that's a really really great way to have your your funny simpsons mob guy sound and apparently he based the voice off of an uncle who has since passed away but i believe that uncle got to sit in on a recording of him doing the voice and the uncle really appreciated it yeah yeah lovely lovely uh and yeah they they say that like joe montana they love working with them they say i believe the famous lg line is if if fat tony sneezes joe montana is love working with them they say i believe the famous lg line is if if fat tony sneezes joe montana is playing it like he's gonna he does this he's he loves coming back and

then uh so bart comes home he tells his parents he's got a job fixing drinks picking horses cutting cigars you know a job uh but uh this again i was like, this is such perfect Homer. Like this is Marge is distrustful, but in an innocent way. And Homer is just shoveling ice cream out of the thing into his mouth and just going like, what? Like he doesn't care that he's in this episode. He doesn't give a shit. Like so funny. And that line, I make more than that, is just is awesome. Yeah. is just is awesome yeah i got it's just and uh and bart's uh 30 a week would be worth 61 now

according to an online inflation count he's being shortchanged well you know what it's really a lot of tips when he says 30 a week i mean you see he's getting he's getting the tips that's that's where the money's at and then so this sequence here this is the good fella fella east scene in in the whole thing they uh apparently they originally wanted to be my baby which is a better song than one fine day but probably more expensive but that song wasn't in goodfellas uh frosty the snowman the ronette singing that wasn't goodfellas i think it's the only ronette song you know again the needle drop soundtrack of goodfellas like ruined movie soundtracks after that like everybody's like oh i can just put like

back to back like back to back to back to back pop hits uh that people will recognize and sets them in time you know it it like so many good things you know it created a sub-genre that is 90 garbage or predictable crap uh did you guys ever see the the guy e from Entourage made a movie? What was, oh, the Gotti movie. That's what I'm thinking of. Gotti, yep, yeah. God damn. That was, I think I watched twice. I've only seen clips.

I've only seen clips. I think the marketing for that was basically reviewers don't want you to see it. They think you're stupid if you like it. Yeah. Everyone's saying this movie is shitty and it sucks really bad. That means that the critics, we touched a nerve. Everyone actually wants to see. I remember,

sorry, this is a gangster related show. Figure, you know, it's somewhat related. I went with some of my, you know, former colleagues,

Will and Felix to go, to go see it. And we were like making jokes on the way there about like respect. Well, it's all going to be about this really dumb version of like, like we're saying, like good fellas, you know,

for toddlers, it's all going to be respect and family and new york my city and the movie opens it's like accordion music uh there's like you know mulberry street and john travolta literally he's at the he's on the river and he turns to the camera and says new york my fucking city it's about respect and we're just like our minds are like melting that it's in the first five seconds, it's everything we've just been making fun of that we didn't actually think was going to be in the first five seconds.

Just YouTube, like, Gotti intro, and you'll be overwhelmed. And then you'll be overwhelmed if you Google also the ending, where it's just like real footage of all these insane people who loved Gottdy and like staten island being like he kept the city safe you know blah blah blah um that's just watch goddy actually is what i'm saying it shows you what movie christopher moltisanti would have made after cleaver that's really what it would have been because another amazing soprano's like

self-crit or um just very very tactful way of of doing that I love the whole cleaver plot it's pitch perfect uh but yeah I mean these scenes are very similar to like just him training uh in uh in Henry Hill's training montage I guess I almost called it but uh in Goodfellas of him uh you know he gets handed some money he's just like I never seen money like this everybody loves him like just it it's a great sequence to just explain why people join the mafia why people like it why it's cool why how they also indoctrinate a child to be their child soldier in in their group yeah yeah also my guess is that one fine day this is a cover song my guess is the singer sally stevens because she's usually who they would hire to do a female cover it was kip lennon if it was a man usually and most famously i think

she sings the scorpio song scorpio yeah yeah but uh yes and and just like in uh you know in good fellas too uh like they find money and like hey where'd you get this money yeah no don't you don't you worry doll and uh and also yes i did so here's something i noticed for the first time though among the nondescript mobsters once the song's over it goes to the itchy scratchy thing at the bar with the other mobsters watching it there's a bald guy there who i think is just a pair i think it's meant to look like dan castellaneta i was thinking the same thing okay good he's an italian guy we know what he looks like let's draw him into the show i know that's that's all right why not uh that's good all right i wish he kept showing up maybe maybe dan was like hey i don't like that yeah no absolutely the guy at the far end of the

bar that's dan castellaneta 100 yeah yeah uh they do a line up against the wall in the itchy scratchy cartoon and just shoot them all which I think is a real reference to a thing. I always enjoy when the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons are just artless and bad. It just wants in violence. There's nothing clever about it but everyone still laughs. The bloody D through

the guy is great. And yes it being a bunch of guys lined up by a cop and then shot with Tommy guns. That is what happened to the St. Valentine's day massacre in Chicago in 1929. Two of the shoot. Here's the, from the wiki.

Two of the shooters were wearing police uniforms while the other wore suits, ties and overcoats. Uh, witnesses saw the man in police uniforms leading the other men at gunpoint out of the garage after the shooting. So there you go. That's, that's why it's funny because it's true is uh is literally true but man that bloody d on the cat like it's so violent i i'm a little surprised they got away with it i mean i'm amazed they got away with most itchy and scratchy especially in the seasons to come i mean i don't know if they got you know more latitude after it became you know just sort of a darling but um it's it's insane what they get away with sometimes i i think also as a little kid i thought that champagne waterfall was so cool i was like man that's

nice i've never done it yet but uh i think i've been i feel like it in my video games press days i went to one fancy party once where somebody was doing it. But it always looks cool. And then black-haired Wiggum comes in. This is maybe the last time he's got his season one black hair on, I think. Another character they're figuring out because he is barely in season two because they're being very literal about who he is and what he does because they would think, why would the police chief be on all these routine calls? Why would he be working a beat he's behind his desk so we see him uh like running this

investigation and that's where they find all the jokes with him before he is just like an authority figure in the world but now they can have fun and make him stupid it makes sense for wiggum to uh as police chief that he would get in on these busts because he thinks it's going to be like big headlines for him if he can arrest Fat Tony. But they've realized, I think, with this episode, how funny it is for him to just be with the other cops on any old arrest. And so like, you know what? He just have him be there.

It can't just be Lou, Eddie and Lou going to the people's house. And he's, his voice, talking about voices again, like it's a little more it's still that sort of edward g robinson it's more faithful it's not the complete like almost pig-like voice that he eventually gets um and is a little bit more goofy and and flanderized i guess i i love his line until one of us is behind bars you like you uh and i feel like you know he takes his free drink but i feel like you know by another season wigum will just be directly taking bribes and not

not even pretending to want to arrest fat tony that's another thing is they develop the you know both socially astute and comically superior role for him as a corrupt cop and that he's just basically never solving crimes and when he's even approached about it he's dismissing someone and busy either eating or taking a bribe yeah he does sound a bit more like uh the initial impression for hank azaria was david brinkley and then it transitioned to edward as edward or edgar i always mess that up oh i think edward g edward ed G. Robinson. I love the man. Double Indemnity. Great movie.

But, and that's like, Mo started out as Al Pacino and then morphed into his own thing. So Hank is having fun, like evolving these voices. And I also love the way Fat Tony says to him, good for you. Like, that's such a great condescending thing. Okay. Then this cigarette scene, again again this is like homer perfection like this is schwarzwelder really getting homer at the level of stupidity that's perfect for him this is this and another scene after this are so perfect of like homer thinks he's in a regular sitcom

and will not notice how how much bigger things are on him now. Bart! Have you started smoking? No. Don't lie to me, boy. Aha! Cigarettes, just as I thought. They're not mine. My boss said his warehouse was full. Yeah, right. Son, I'm going to teach you a lesson. I'm going to stand

here and watch you smoke every one of those cigarettes. Then maybe you'll learn. Fat Tony sent me over to pick up the goods. Right in here, my man. Hey, kid, you look good with that cigarette. Kind of sophisticated. Son, I'll never doubt you again.

Bart was using the old I'm holding it for a friend lie, but in that case it's true. He actually is. So great. The way Homer goes goes yeah right and then i laughed so hard this time when homer has a clearly labeled carton of cigarettes in front of him and when he opens the carton and pulls out one pack he's like aha cigarettes just as i thought like what a great great line there's a mountain of, I guess, all hand-drawn, as they say in the commentary, background.

Homer has to squeeze past them. There's so many. I wish they explained what is written on the back of that guy's jacket. You see the patch on his shoulder is like an OK symbol, and there's like a joke company name written on the back of his jacket. But you don't actually get to see the entire thing, and I wish they would have said what it was.

Is that his voice? I can't see the video when you're playing the clip i don't remember if he does he look like a returning character or is he just that voice that they sometimes use it is the bronson voice but it's not the rafael design as we've learned his name is in season 12 yeah yeah oh interesting okay yeah i love that voice and i love i love that line kind of sophisticated. Yeah. What a great thing to tell the kids at home. Like, yeah, you look sophisticated. They slip that in. Like, that's flagrantly telling people or telling kids it's cool to smoke. I also love that Homer says that he trusts Bart entirely now. And then when it cuts to Bart filing his nails while sitting on the couch, while meanwhile, Homer has the blanking expression on

his face with a beer in his hand. He is not thinking at all when he sees all this stuff. He has no thoughts on Bart and Lisa right in front of him talking about, hey, is your boss a mobster? He doesn't care. Homer does not give a shit in this episode. Yeah, this is the end of press conference Wiggum. I guess he still hosts press conference after this, but like you said, Bob, in season one and two,

that's mainly what Wiggum does. He's a press conference guy on TV. By the end of the season, he's returning Maggie to Homer after she goes missing. Right, right. He really takes a journey down to beat cop level activities. And it's so great that to assure the smokers, he just lets the Laramie representative come up and just do a commercial on TV for cigarettes.

Is this the one where they'll be ignoring all stop signs and crosswalks? Yes, that's so good. And that's Jack Larson, one of his two appearances. He's also the guy in charge of Laramie in the Lisa Beauty Queen episode. I wish he appeared more. He's a great slimeball character. Like, he's a great slime ball character like he's great yeah but yeah we hear that that this would not stay the same even in uh classic era simpsons episodes but i really love this name of uh fat tony his real name please suspect the involvement of reputed

mobster william fat tony williams fat tony is a cancer on this fair city. He is the cancer and I am the... Uh, what's your cancer? Bart, is your boss a crook? I don't think so. Although it would explain an awful lot. Me and the boys wish to thank you for hanging on to this stuff for us.

Thanks. Uh, say, are you guys crooks? But, um, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family? No. Well, suppose you got a large starving family. Is it wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them? Uh-uh. And what if your family don't like bread?

They like cigarettes. I guess that's okay. Now, what if instead of giving them away you sold them at a price that was practically giving them away would that be a crime but hell no enjoy your gift that's so great he so directly describes a crime to bart and barco's like hell no like that's so good i it's he's a good he's a good salesman he's a persuasive guy and uh you know in many saints of newark there's a very similar scene of this of not to this extent but of dicky moltisanti explains to a young tony soprano how you

compartmentalize things and just say to yourself like oh well just tell yourself this is the last time i used to steal anything like this just tell yourself this is the last time I steal anything like this. Just tell yourself that and you can do it. Yeah, I just love Bart's. Oh, that would explain it an awful lot. And also his reaction shot is, again, just great little animation there. As he's using the Embry board. Yes, yeah. I wish they'd have stuck with it.

But, I mean, his later name would be Fat Tony D'Amico. But that his name is William Williams, which, you know, if in the world of the mafia, he would instantly be called like Billy Will or Will, Bill, Will, Willie Will or something like Bill, Big Bill, any type of name that would have to do with such a perfect name is Willie Will, William Williams. But then they call him Fat Tony. Like there's a story there. I just love there's an untold story there of how he got that name so i didn't realize that they changed his name that's that's too bad was that was that when he reappears in uh homie the clown or is that even later i believe it is in homer they the homer they fall in season eight he's uh michael buffer interviews uh introduces him as fat tony demico yeah that's sort of stepping away from a a joke because like D'Amico isn't a joke that's just an

Italian name why you know like it's I get that they that it would scan you know more easily for people but don't don't care don't get rid of your funny joke it's more of a Bill and Josh thing of just like well what's a boring name yeah like what is a boring but unknown uh Italian name like D'Amico let's go with that uh and yeah you know the stealing of the cigarettes uh and reselling them that is what uh henry hill gets in trouble for the start of goodfellas so again with the miniature joe pesci he does it that's right yeah and he grant and it's his graduation day just like bart he's uh you know he he stayed strong selling the cigarettes and that's when he gets his suit it's funny that again the things they they borrow directly are not the

most memorable things from the movie they do the you look like a gangster moment with marge and a bart but yeah i get which you know is a memorable moment but not nobody repeats you look like a gangster although frankly goodfellas is so chock full of quotable and or memorable moments that it's a it's one of those movies where you can just take your pick you know there's so many good things but i like that they didn't i guess it was so contemporaneous that maybe they didn't even know what was going to be yeah totally memefied at the time although you're probably right the joe pesci stuff was was obviously you know the the thing everyone was tapping into but i yeah i wish that they uh you know i wish a lot of things about the later seasons but like it's it's it's refreshing that they're they're not going for those easy with those low

hanging fruits it's kind of that that's what you would want them to do is eschew that but then as we talked about last time you know by the time they're doing say the the in sync episode it's like matrix gag you know where they're flying in the air like all the stuff that is nine months late you know in general this is like the opposite of that which is kind of interesting bart asked for three fingers of milk which is a kid i had my mom had to explain to me that that is a an old-timey measurement of alcohol that it goes up to the height of your fingers this is another just great very swartz weldery scene of Marge being like, I'm a little worried,

but about something entirely ridiculous. I know it's good for a boy to have a part-time job, but I'm not sure about the people Bart's working for. I think they're criminals. A job's a job. I mean, take me. If my plant pollutes the water and poisons the town, by your logic, that would make me a criminal.

Well, Bart's been acting very strangely. And that pizza delivery truck has been parked across the street for two weeks. How long does it take to deliver a pizza? Looks like our cover's blown. Let's roll. See? It was all your imagination. Homer, I want you to go down to that club and talk to them let's see what kind of people they are please homie oh all right flowers by irene what great i but i mean that also does feel like a goodfellas parody because

like that film perfectly captures the feeling of like wait is that is that helicopter is that it is that it like just that uh paranoia yeah uh and you also just i love homer's like by your logic that would make me a criminal homer is ready for the internet it's true yeah also just as the car drives away as marge was saying that homer goes see it was all your imagination. Like, what a great shitty Homer. It's like jerk Homer line. Yeah. Yeah.

And yeah, so Homer, I guess Homer made a few hundred bucks winning that card game that they let him win. I guess that's part of their bribery, which this is, you know, similar to. Well, actually, they get a little more direct with the the getting involved in a boy's life thing from Goodfellas. But I think it works fine. Them saying, Homer, you're a hell of a father and just Homer being satisfied, that works enough. I think Al Jean was second-guessing things too much of like, no, we need some scene of Homer and Marge resolving that Homer's not worried about it anymore. And so they just take out the ending shot from Lisa's substitute and put new dialogue over it I don't I don't know

do you guys think it's needed like there are some things in here uh that aren't needed I think they're still thinking in the old way of writing the show uh being too literal trying to justify things the scene coming up with Burns and Smithers I feel like they're trying to justify a crazy choice they would just let happen at the end of the season. Yeah. But yeah, again, I think you're totally right about that, Henry. I think, you know, we talk about I fear that Al Jean second guesses himself too much in his later era of the show. But I think a little of that even is in the classic seasons like this.

But and then also. I agree with you bob i think it's it's just sort of like a transitory thing where they're moving out of an old style of formal conflict resolution or plot where like beating out stuff that they would certainly go on to at times go out of their way to ignore those things but here they're still somewhat tailored to them and they then call back to bart the genius with an i am the wiener i am a wiener spray painting of Skinner on the wall. I like that Bart tries to bribe him and that he just completely rejects this. Very, very similar to Henry Hill getting a beating at home when his school narcs on him that he's not been to school in months.

Except in this case, they don't beat up a postman. No, they try to have a very nice meeting with Skinner. Yes. And he's the aggressive one, which I love that twist coming up. Yeah. So Bart has to stay for detention and ride on the chalkboard. We then cut to the big mafia meeting. This is the most direct Godfather 2 stuff in the episode not not only the kiss of

death but that hartman is absolutely parodying frankie five angels uh the actor michael gazzo from godfather part two which what have i done like what when i finally watched godfather part two after seeing this as a kid i was like oh that's the that's why everybody talks with his raspy voice what i do for for that's very good that's really good henry i'm a master of voices for blowback season two little little shameless plug we uh did a movie episode about bad movies made about cuba and one of them was kind of like a sleazy, you know, almost trauma level film called, well, it had two titles. One was actually, funnily enough, one of them was Sweet Dirty Tony. And it was the name of it. The other one was called Cuba Crossing, a little bit more boring. But Michael Gatso is in that like in

the later part of his career, probably not that much later. But the things that make that a strong voice and performance in the Godfather movies make it incredibly grating and hard to deal with in any other not very good movie. But yes, this is definitely a Godfather direct, like Godfather reference here. That's a great episode of your podcast with Bill Corbett on it. Yeah, Bill Corbett from Mystery Science Theater, I should say. Yeah, go check it out if you want to hear about bad Cuba cinema. And so, yes, they give the job of mixing Manhattans to Louis instead, and, well, doesn't go so well. So, Fat Tony, you invite me and my associates to your club

with the promise of the finest Manhattans in all of Springfield. Now you say your bartender isn't here? I don't know what happened. He's never late. Louis, make up some Manhattans. But I only know how to make wine spritzers. Now. What have I done to deserve this flat, flavorless Manhattan? manhattan come on boys the kiss of death that's all i need you know credit to phil hartman whenever i see a manhattan on a menu i think of him saying that you don't want to drive for flavorless

manhattan it's worth it's worth killing over if you're giving a crappy Manhattan. And a white wine spritzer, or sorry, a wine spritzer is just wine and soda water. It's just like, anyone can do this. It's what got Ned wasted. That's right. You love spritzers. The mafia does love them. It's funny, but it's also true.

The way he walks off i it also uh the guy playing jacks like that feels like a very swartz welder script direction kind of thing too uh and so yes the the monsters you know fortunately for fat tony he is not killed over this and he continues to live in the series but this is not don victorio dimaggio i guess behind the scenes this phil hartman voice guy gets replaced uh and taken over usurped by wax oh yes yeah and uh so yes bart then uh you know tells them that it's because uh principal skinner made him stay like oh well really this again very quick scene but their confrontation with Skinner. This is such perfect Skinner here. You are late for work.

Of course I'm late for work. How can I be on time when Principal Skinner keeps me after school? This guy Skinner causing you trouble? He sure is, Patron. Hmm. Perhaps we should go to meet and greet this individual. Come on, boys. Some large men to see you, sir.

I don't have an appointment with any large men. You Skinner. I'm Principal Skinner, yes. And how may I ask, did you get past the hall monitors? One of the top five lines, maybe of of skinner in general for me i don't have an appointment with any large there's so much great lighting in this episode for no reason skinner is just sitting in a dark room so when the door opens it's like noir lighting spread across him like this this big like maybe he's having a uh a vietnam flashback

such such a great little cut there too like oh you this man's murdered like this is the assumption you're jumping to there and just though though his secretary would be a witness to the murder i guess they're going to escort him out and kill him somewhere else that's the never go to a second location yes that you're right you're right oh and a little thing i meant to mention too another little tiny thing i love animation wise is when fat tony is watching his boss drink like he kind of purses his lips out of like that he's that's how much he's like oh what's what's he drinking like what a great little thing like uh so good uh but yes this is when uh the very next scene edna krabappel comes in crying she's more emotional than usual in this episode and they're planting the seeds that will

blossom years later and uh this is when she announces to the kids that he's missing all the kids yell in excitement even martin which feels you know and martin shouldn't be he should be concerned about he shouldn't he shouldn't yeah i for a second in my head thought is this the because one of my favorite scenes is this is this when skinner is cracking open the door and says a bokeh accident like i was just you know crossing my wires but it did remind me that this is not the last time poor seymour skinner is going to have a run-in with the mob although i guess the second time he actually is successfully captured and tortured they get directly violent with him in that one yes yeah

yeah yeah he's not as stern i guess he's his spirit has been whittled down by that point and they actually successfully get the better of him uh so the next act of the episode begins with uh wigum starting the search uh you know he has the most advanced scientific techniques in the field of body finding i also like just a great gag of them fishing the scuba diver out and then skinner having to look at the picture of seymour first to be sure it's not him and willie talks to the media and then we get a one of two appearances by princess opal i wish this fortune teller appeared more in the series and hey funny speaking of like finding characters and characters emerging willie returning from his first appearance?

Yeah, you're right. The second speaking appearance. His first return. Yeah. Last seen in Principal Charming in mid-season two. They assumed

they would never use him again. But here he is. Man, yeah. I guess I always think of season three as when things took a step up as far as the style

and the tone. but i didn't realize that so many signature characters had only appeared once or twice until that season and it was also like a universe building thing as well yeah the break between two and three i think gave them the real or the writers a real chance to appraise like well we saw what worked and what didn't in uh pretty much every episode would have been done by then or at least in in some level of completion so they could say oh well this this is the thing that works better like let's and will he's very funny once we finally see his ridiculous look in crazy face uh but so i wish they thought princess opal was as funny because she i mean her one joke

is in this episode and there's not much more to it but uh her let's hear some of her predictions please i can assure you we'll be using the most advanced scientific techniques in the field of body finding i see wedding bells for vanna White and Teddy Kennedy. Please, Princess Opal, if we could just stick to Principal Skinner. Chief Wiggum, I am merely a conduit for the spirits. Willie Nelson will astound his fans by swimming the English Channel. Really? Willie Nelson?

He loved fire drills. Will you get a hold of yourself, yourself last for the weed balance. Hey, look at me. I'm Skinner's body. That is not funny, Lewis. Well, I heard Skinner's buried under his parking spot. I heard he was ground up in the hamburger and served us at lunch. I heard Bart had Skinner killed by gangsters.

That's not true. It's just a rumor. You're engaged in speculation. I know the law. You can't prove anything. I love how Wiggum easily gets on board with just being entertained by these celebrity predictions. Just like, oh, really? Wow.

Brendan, sorry. That's a flash of future Wiggum a bit there, like just suddenly being bamboozled. So here's a question. Are we to think that Nelson, maybe from his being on the wrong side of the law, of elementary school law law at least that's how he actually is savvy to bart's involvement or is that just purely a gag like that could have been any kid coming up with the exact uh right answer for where skinner has probably gone you know if it was millhouse saying that be another thing but yeah i think you're right that

this is the bad kid saying maybe he has a little intel you know maybe maybe i wouldn't have thought about it except that it's nelson like it's nelson for presumably for a reason maybe it's not i think so yeah you know with his name months then he must be in with like a german gang german immigrant gang as well but yeah he's he's well and nelson's does nelson have a dad was his dad like oh he's got a couple dad yeah there's two different versions of nelson's Was his dad like dad? Oh, he's got a couple dad. Yeah. There's two different versions of Nelson's dad. His dad has a lot of lore. His dad appears at the beginning of Brother from the Same Planet as the soccer coach. Right.

Yeah, he picks Nelson. And yeah, I remember that. And then he disappears. And then much later in the teens, I believe, they do the return of Nelson's dad. And then he was instead a deadbeat dad who like abandoned his mom for her uh addiction to cough syrup i believe it was and uh yeah you know teddy kennedy gone but vanna white is biggest star as ever on wheel of fortune every night everybody everybody loves her did you see that clip the other day of the people not getting

uh another feather in in your cap that yeah that's saying that was uh that's really that's the point of wheel of fortune is to drive you insane not to feel it's you know you watch jeopardy you feel dumber than the competitors if you watch wheel of fortune you're supposed to feel smarter than them it's that's why it's a great combo shows no that uh i think that what's so funny in that clip was in the feather in your cap one there's one guy who definitely knows it. And twice he hits bankrupt. So he can't guess it.

And so it keeps going to the two idiots who don't know. Yeah. The Simpsons did, did this, did that joke like last season, three loins in the fountain. Right. Instead of three coins in the fountain.

So even back then they were aware of how frustrating that was. Yeah. That's great. The timelessness of a wheel that was yeah that's great the timelessness of uh wheel of fortune it's uh but that's ajak also i'm surprised he hasn't like gone on a rant that will get his career uh cut short because he's a big right winger yeah isn't that funny that like the he's he it always feels like he's about to be on the chuck woolery level but i think yeah he's got some handlers who are just able to keep him at

like the chris pratt level of acceptable famous republican you know just i mean i mean that's if there ever was a golden goose for a man of pat sajak's talent it's like don't screw with the wheel of fortune gig just his handlers yeah exactly they they must be begging him to not to not go there he's not gonna going to implode like Gina Carano. You know, he's smart. He knows where the money's at. Exactly. Also, man, that slap on Edna. I think it's actually very well animated, like the way it is.

But it's intense to see Willie just slap. I mean, it's like from a 1940s movie, which is why Schwarzwilder put it in there. Like, you slap a hysterical woman. That's what you do. Not in front of the bairns. Yeah, the bairns. Yeah, but I also, I do find it funny when the kid is like, look, I'm Skinner's body. It's just such a funny thing for like,

like even a fourth grader to be making fun of. It's just like, I'm our principal's corpse. Isn't this fun, guys? It's a great observable kid thing that they'd be like, oh, I'll pretend to be a decapitated body by putting leaves over my head. That's such a funny thing. That and Bart ripping his pants are the juvenile bits of the episode that I genuinely really laughed hard at.

And then we have a very season one thing of a minute long dream sequence. And I think it is executed perfectly. Like so many great animation animation bits here like not not a ton of great lines a little couple but yeah just like bart coming across zombie skinner in so many different spots like so good and the meat locker skinner that's how frank dies yeah in the uh in goodfellas i mean he's in a truck but there's there's meat hanging yeah it's the meat hanging which again that has to i'm not saying you know people weren't the bodies weren't left on meat hooks in other movies before that but him being a frozen body in a meat locker is in his suit is a goodfellas reference there's

no two ways about that a good another good version of that i believe is road games if anyone wants uh a lesser known classic stacy keach who was in gaudy in a much better film with jamie lee curtis called road games where a killer puts a bunch of people in a i think a a freezer truck with with hooks um earlier than goodfellas yeah i was gonna say the shot of skinner coming out of the of the locker is so squiggly it almost reminded me of home movies like the it could have been a frame from home movies there it was it was approaching squiggle vision levels yeah exactly exactly and then there's a great design of where bart's in jail in the death house and big neon like that's

so great love that i love that and bob's got it as his background but homer chanting kill my boy what a great with no real lip sync just like that's that's something that in this season as much as they're getting homer in the show is still a dream sequence in a couple seasons that would just be taking place in reality homer would just get swept up and then actually be advocating everyone to kill his son homer sort of becomes this uh kind of uh character in court when he turns on bart though like oh it's all true in a way he does kill yeah yeah yes that's that that's another i guess i will wait for it but that is another one of my favorite lines in this episode coming in that scene uh and i love love

joy uh in bart stream covering him with they're there they're there they're there and bart being electrocuted is kind of funny but but the deep deep trouble music video does animate bart being sent to the electric chair a little funnier so it's hard for me not to think of that as a better bit but but they had a bigger budget it was music video budget on that i i understand why but bart's jump out of bed and scream that's great i i know they say it on the commentary but i don't think so i mean okay yes a guy screaming and then a cut to an establishing shot of a house that is a godfather horsehead reference but they do so much more explicit horsehead jokes like 17 of them it

feels like in the history of the series there's one just around the corner too yeah pony maybe after they like halfway do it in this episode there once they get to Lisa's pony, they're like, let's go all the way. Let's just go all the way with the horse head bit. And so Bart comes in early for work in this next scene. You're eight hours early for work. I like that. Did you kill my principal?

A Chinese guy with a mustache? No, my principal! That Skinner guy? No, we didn't kill him. Nobody more. You're all under arrest for the murder of Seymour Skinner. What's a murder? Don't play come with me. Cuff him, boys.

Oh, Bart. Why couldn't you have gotten a paper rule like other boys? Wait till I get you home, boy. What's that guy doing here? Lionel Hutz, court-appointed attorney. I'll be defending you on the charge of murder one. Wow, even if I lose, I'll be famous. You know, not enough of Hutz being a bad lawyer,

but he wasn't as crazy as he would be at this point in the show. But this is them getting him. This again, when Bill and josh i think especially write him so well in their season four episodes but they're referencing really how he's written in this one more than in uh yep in the previous markets but hit by a car yeah yeah because i mean there's there's not a lot of screen time for him but murder one and uh at the end where he goes uh do i still get paid yeah it's like classic classic huts i also really laughed hard this time in homer saying wait till i get you home boy because

this is him thinking he's in a season one episode where it's like you you're not taking bart home he's in jail for the denied bail like this is bad yeah uh chinese guy with a mustache i choose to believe that's a reference to the cassavetes mobster film the killing of a chinese bookie that's what i they got it must be it must be i do believe the guy who gets shot in the hot tub in that movie does have a mustache who's uh the spoilers in that film a chinese bookie is killed but that's not really the plot of the film it's it's a pretty aimless movie in a cassavetes way but i i like it but uh and this the scene with uh burns and smithers uh they love burns and smithers they

want to work them into everything at this point in the show but it feels like they feel the next idea is so crazy they need to have a character comment on like can you believe it smithers they're doing this yeah it's it's act three though it feels weird for burns to be the guy who's like people are too crazy with the the trying children as adults which boy this is a depressed this was a depressing thing to search guys guess what there's been several people since this simpsons episode who were uh 12 or 13 or 11 uh tried for first degree murder in america and uh they uh the four stories i could find when i searched the wonderful search term of youngest person first degree murder they were all in 1999 these these uh three three cases one uh one of the cases had two defendants 112 113 another 11

in 1999 two of them were in florida one was in michigan and uh yeah it's depressing and i uh i bet you guys can guess a unifying similarity in all four of these people who were tried as adults despite being children in america i bet you can guess yes they're all african-american that's that that is the reason like yes they they are tried it's like they're horrible stories you can look them up if you want to, but it's just tragic things of people that failed the system. Like, yeah. So, unfortunately, when Burns jokes that, like, could you believe this would happen in America? Like, no, it happens.

It happened all the time. I guess for that reason alone, there's a bit of added value, you you know social commentary to what was otherwise kind of like an unnecessary little shot yeah yeah it's uh though though now you see now it's uh it's so routine like those lawyers didn't become famous but uh yeah yeah yeah though i suppose if they were white children like bart maybe so yeah i so. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more.

Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub at electricireland.ie. Instead of... No, I mean... It's funny that I was watching it and I didn't know that was reused, but it was kind of like subconsciously I did.

Like I didn't even remember that scene with Smithers and Burns. I just sort of... It felt so like tangential. I forgot that was even in the episode so i don't even remember what they said i was thinking uh speaking of minors being tried for murder uh kyle rittenhouse that his lawyers become famous or were they already famous yeah i think it was the famous lawyers already okay and he is he's certainly on the touring ticket uh he's touring around too well that well that's a difference too because uh he was found not guilty as opposed to all the people i mentioned there they were found guilty uh some of them one of them went to jail for five

years and then was released on appeal two of them went to jail for 15 years and were released in 2014 in insane to me and again 12 and 13 i just i mean you know even even in the cases like where it is an open and shut case of of guilt in that like they're they're children this is not i i well it's a bummer i don't want to talk about it but but yes they're definitely not put in the same cell with adults no it's certainly not with a giant buff sideshow bob as well which honestly looks it looks like someone's fetish art honestly of like which is also weird because that that you know bart and him are not nemeses yet it's kind of a strange i'm sure they were obviously they didn't know that that was all gonna unspool the way it did but it's yeah it's weird it's a weird moment just because of what we know will happen yeah when he comes back in black widower bart's like we were sellies right

remember oh oh no he doesn't reference it no he doesn't reference it no but uh but yes after a brief clip of uh brush with greatness uh and burns and smithers talking uh It's then people take to the stand, also pretty similar to the end of Goodfellas of Fat Tony is basically Henry Hill on the stand pointing at his boss, except he points at Bart. I didn't order to skin a guy killed. But aren't you the head of this gang? No, I just stop by the club occasionally to read the complimentary newspaper. Then who is the kingpin, the capo di tutti

capi? That's the guy. Ooh! Hey! Forgive me, Don Bartholomew. We tried to stop the kid, but he wouldn't quit. It was like he went crazy. Prostitution, loan sharking, numbers, the kid liked the word is weak and everything.

Mr. Simpson, you've been the boy's father for 10 years. Do you really think he could be the leader of a murderous criminal syndicate? Well, not the leader, I mean. Oh, it's true, it's true. All the pieces fit. Now, if this was real life, Bart would never forgive his father ever for doing this to him. I really just think that is one of my favorite Homer lines is not the leader.

Like, you know, of course, he's probably mixed up in organized crime, but he's not. He's not that bad. That's just perfectly delivered. It's also funny hearing blue haired lawyers say capo di tutti capi like such yeah and there's a there's a fun little inside joke that's on the commentary rich moore talks about the uh the bad sketch the artist's drawing of bart apparently that was a bart that someone had drawn for them in a submission packet to work on the show oh my god i mean even the the effort like the attention to put in that gag at the time, it's like every possible opening, you know, they would use.

Even though no one, like, it's only because I listened to the commentary or appeared on the show that I would ever learn that. But it's cool that they did that. Just them taking a swipe at an artist who, like, probably at home was like, wait, what? They do that though i i'm also surprised that the fox lawyers kept that in there because it almost sounds like a lawyer would be like this is might open us up to a lawsuit of us like this artist could sue that we used his art without paying him that's an interesting point i i yeah i guess they got lucky maybe but uh yeah they didn't shout out the artist's name and say hey this guy sucks yeah that's true and and also another inside joke fat tony's prison number 8 f03 that's the episode code for the

production of this one so yeah they show the chart with bart at the top uh it was a godfather reference but now i can't not think of sopranos that has a very prominent chart in it as well when when uh with the uh song by um exhibit yes and you know when he when legs wipes his nose and says uh wet his beak and everything that's the bit where it really reminded me of tony uh cicero slash uh polly walnuts that's the that's the one but i also love the in the newspaper the editorial drawing of Bart is like the standard oil octopus holding everything in his tentacles. That's so great. Yeah. After I read all those depressing stories about actual children in court, seeing tiny little Bart in chains with the judge looking above him, a little less funny to me.

It's just more tragic. But it's a great drawing and yes this part is about to be sentenced uh skinner reveals himself principal skinner i thought he was dead i suppose you're all wondering where i've been it all started a week ago i was at my desk revising and updating the school dress codes when I was suddenly confronted by a gang of toughs acting on behalf of one Mark Simpson. Or so they said. We really think there's promise in a boy.

Get out! Okay, okay, you don't have to yell. To get my mind off that ugly confrontation, I went home and began bundling my old newspapers. But suddenly the pile fell. I was trapped. Let this be a lesson to recycle frequently. For the next week, I stayed alive by eating my mother's delicious preserves

and maintained my sanity by dribbling a nearby basketball with my one free hand. I made a game of it, seeing how many times I could bounce the ball in a day and then trying to break that record. Occasionally, the police arrived to search my home. Find anything this time boys no sign of the chief princess elbow i see nothing here but i'm afraid it's splitsville for delta burke and major dad but they seem so happy bob every time you say that makes me laugh we checked in on it last time but it's it's true this time as well uh gerald mcgraney and delta burke happily

married since 1989 take that you know all these people thought i hey i wouldn't bet on any hollywood marriage lasting any single one and uh to put us to put us in the early 90s we get references to major dead and macgyver yes yeah this this uh they you know we talk about it a ton in the later seasons in the teens but this is so true for this like they say that this came in pretty late uh in in the third act writing and it actually is like such a it is a very simpsony thing of they have written themselves into a corner but there's the only logical explanation is skinner is definitely dead and murdered by the mafia and so he has to then explode into the room and it becomes a completely different episode and just a lengthy parody of a MacGyver series.

And they had a real bone to pick with MacGyver, which was at this point entering its final season. Like it would be a plot point in Black Widower. Patty and Selma defined as MacGyver fans. And Richard Dean Anderson would even appear on the show in 2006. Patty and Selma hold him hostage in the episode Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore. And of course, we all know this best through the parody MacGruber. Of course.

But there was a MacGyver reboot. It ran for 100 episodes from 2016 to 2021. I think they were trying to take it back from MacGruber. Unbelievable to be a man. Well, because MacGruber, it's really just the name. He doesn't do MacGyvery things in MacGruber. That's true. I love that movie. I don't know if theyver-y things in MacGruber. That's true. I love that movie.

I don't know if the new show is good. I'm sure it is. It rules. It rules. If you love the movie, watch the new show. It rules. Okay. I was like, the movie is one of those movies where there's no reason this should be good.

It should be like a passable SNL spinoff movie, but Will Fort is just so amazing and they get an amazing cast. But the name is almost misleading because he's not a Macgyver parody right it's just the uh it's just the aesthetic right the macgyver aesthetic yeah and it could be any 80s action hero though i think as well i think like like decker at the end of the movie he does one thing macgyvery he macgyvers together one thing i but yeah the as as the sketches were invented it was mcgyver is about to put a shoelace with a piece of gum or whatever but then he acts stupid and gets distracted by they go like mcgruber we've got 10 seconds okay but like so yeah it it

definitely was a mcgyver parody very directly in the original sketches yeah and all the sketches were like 90 seconds long right yes yeah yeah you're right about that I'm not enough of an SNL head to remember that it was based off uh MacGyver initially but yeah I guess they just uh I mean I I love this whole sequence with Skinner it makes me laugh every time I especially love which I forgot that it's a callback to the beginning of the episode where he is because when you first watch it you're like oh maybe Skinner's just like coming up with something almost maybe even mean spiritedly to tell Bart to do. But no, he really does love the idea of whenever you're in a tough spot, make a game out of it and see if you can get your score higher every time. And I totally forgot it was a callback to the beginning of the episode makes it even better.

I love his little look at Bart when he says that, like, see? Yes, he looks right at him like, see, I wasn wasn't just fucking with you that's a good thing to do and bart rolls his eyes like oh god yeah it's i love when he ends with that's my courageous story yes yeah and everybody applauds like god i uh i'll see yeah i i just love too that they're tearing apart his home over and over again like skinner says they go there more than once and they never look in the garage like the drinking of his beer and eating of his food is really nice too i'm in here well that's good oh god it's also good but again this is so wacky town like one the mafia has to act in a way that they've never acted the whole rest of the episode of like, hey, oh, don't need DL. And then they have to the police have to be so stupid that they have missed him in his own garage for two weeks.

Like it's which is perfect. Like, though, you know, they're not talking about if this was a season 12 joke or 13, they would talk about Skinner having to relieve himself while under that pile of newspapers as well. There would be something scatological in there, but, but yes, the, again,

another of my favorite, like one word lines ever in Simpsons in this next quick clip. I formed a crude rocket from a discarded cigar tube. And remembering an experiment from my days as a fourth grade science teacher, I concocted a fuel from baking soda and the juice of discarded lemon wedges. The rocket took off with a mighty blast of carbon dioxide, striking behind at the end of a vacuum cleaner cord. I grabbed onto the vacuum cleaner, pushed the cord retractor button,

and was on my way to freedom. That's my courageous story. Here I am at the prosecution moves the principal Skinner's testimony be str. Here I am. The prosecution moves the principal Skinner's testimony be stricken from the record. Denied! Casey Smith!

You're on. Do I still get paid? What a gambit from, what, the district attorney? Yes. Let's just forget that this man is alive. How about that? You know, it works sometimes

in the Law & Order show. Characters will say that. That's the same attorney from Krusty Gets Busted. It's the one with the B on it. You're right, yeah. He must be the boss and blue-haired lawyer just works for him in this case. But, man, I just, the way Judge, well, later he'll be called Judge Schneider, just goes, denied!

Like, just so good. I love that, too. I have that in my little one page of notes here i just just the word denied in all caps it's so great uh and then uh they come to what i think in a season two episode would just be the ending which works perfectly fine of like bart says uh the very like you know obvious moral to the story crime doesn't pay and then he sees that actually it pays very well for these mobsters and they completely undercut the moral that would work great as a season two ending but they need a little something extra for for this season three now again this is them leveling up

but just i also really love the pacing of when fat tony says yeah you're right and he gets in his limousine legs and louis walk off screen and then the two limos drive past like that's so good and on his limousine there's a bumper sticker saying mafia staff car if we go back to treehouse of 401 homer's wearing mafia staff apron apparently that kind of merch was popular around the time godfather 3 came out it's crazy i had no clue like the mafia staff themed like bumper sticker or like shirt or whatever paramount just give it pr department just giving that out for free to to the comedy writers back then i feel like they would these are all just bootlegs like hey you like mafia stuff well here's well we got ninja turtle bart but here's mafia staff t-shirt ninja turtle bart for you if they if they cut the um bart getting

splashed sequential gag to make room for the limos sequential gag i guess i i guess i'm glad they did and even a good trade yeah it's it's a similar joke and it it made me laugh that i i was expecting the scene to be over like you said and you're like there's another limo and they're all riding limos every single member of the crew has a giant limo but then comes a perfect fourth wall shattering ending, which also works great. And it is the Jean and Reese special for the critic as well. Like this is pretty much a scene for the critic. And I mean, that is a compliment.

And also like Rich Moore was the series director on the critic and he's the director of this episode. But let's have one final clip here of Blood on the Blackboard. Blood on the Blackboard, the Bart Simpson story. Starring Richard Chamberlain as Principal Skinner. Joe Mantegna as Fat Tony. Gene Seymour as the woman he loved. And TV's Doogie Hazard, Neil Patrick Harris as Bart Simpson.

Bart, I'm scared. Let's get out of here. Shut up. Where do you want it, Skinner? Not smart. Cool. Hey, when did we get to check for this well they said they changed it just enough so they don't have to pay us oh you know who the real crooks are those sleazy hollywood producers frank carbone vindicated yep Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly his problem.

I was thinking of that after I looked up the history of him suing the show. It's like maybe he saw the end of this episode and he was like, you know what? Homer's right. Yeah. I got to admit it. I like how like in the writing of this promo within the universe, they realize like Neil Patrick Harris is stunt casting. So they have to say TV's Doogie Howser. Like, oh, don't you want to see him play a bad boy oh so good and that's i also like how the the the sheerer voice is very drama um you know um crime story but then for doogie hauser he gets a little bit more he kind of like hurt a little bit when he says doogie hauser it's more

fun and then he goes back into crime voice woman he loves and doogie hauser yeah yeah yeah and if you like if you would have asked me was neil patrick harris ever on the simpsons i would have said no because i always forget the episode ends with this yeah yeah i'm still shocked with neil patrick harris who has been a constant in our lives like pretty much famous i'm uh our entire lives i mean there was like a low point of like oh he's famous and then he's a little less famous and then he comes back and it's you know he's the internet zone neil patrick harris but he's in all that time never again on the simpsons i was sure if i looked it up i'd be like oh in season 28 he came in and did not he's never been on the show since then which is crazy to me in my opinion on mph is yes i think he's a bit extra he's a bit of

an online liberal celebrity but i like him in stuff i really liked him in matrix resurrections like he's i love that the uh one of the most evil things uh to lana wachowski is a sellout cis uh homosexual white man like that's so great to me i love that but uh but yeah he's he would have been 17 or 18 at the time he recorded this uh and ironically enough six months after this aired he would be the lead in capital critters the uh the simpsons ripoff show oh you reminded me of capital critters henry we did an episode about that for other podcasts it was one of the most painful things we've ever covered yeah i've never even like glanced at at capital critters it's all on youtube and it sucks but you can watch it uh it's uh yeah it's look up

our what a cartoon on capital critters especially if you're a simpsons fan i think you'll learn a lot about how it only exists because of the simpsons and steven bochco thought it would be easy to copy the simpsons and make and you know he got a bunch of money i'm sure but uh and yeah joe montana playing himself that's great i also think yep richard chamberlain for 1991 that's great casting for for seymour skinner perfect perfect it's also um it's it's something i'll never quite get and even listening to the commentary why is it okay you know that there was concern over bart joining gang why was it okay for a popular you know young person on tv to then cap someone five times in a row with a gun like okay they don't show the literal corpse you know get riddled with bullets but they did show that earlier on itchy and scratchy but like it's just funny to me like

where these lines were and why certain things were were permissible i also love the design of neil patrick harris wearing bart's costume and his hair is up in the bart points like it's uh it's a great character model for him too yeah all reenactments in in in that that eight season run are great you know the one in homer batman is actually one of my favorites that we mentioned earlier with yeah it's a living being i don't care it's just one of my favorite lines with a man in the white house i missed the era of not likely like a provocative title the blank story so homers was portrait of a nascrabber yes yes it's too bad you know the tv movie world it's different now you know it's uh the rip from the headline stuff.

Well, I guess technically, like, there's just about to be that Elizabeth Holmes movie thing. So these things do happen, but it's not the speed isn't as much like usually about 10 years. Yeah. And they're not as trashy and fun. Like that one looks very pristinely made and all that. Like the I was just thinking the last era of that where there were jokes to do about it reminds me of arrested development in the early 2000s with the tobias me thinks an attic i shall seek right right you know running dramatization also a perfect uh parody of the

fox programming especially like both both took great swings at fox the one yeah yeah yeah you're right yeah the one i can think of that's similar to this but yeah you're right they have like a prestige tv sheen to them now but they're there's the recent one about joe exotic which i heard is okay yeah that one and they're uh there's like a pam and tommy one they're still kind of doing these for uh yeah well yeah but that's like looking up looking back yeah pam and tommy you know i guess i guess the joe exotic one is pretty as much more recent yeah yeah though i think with all of those and same with the elizabeth holmes one another thing that makes it different from this era of these true hollywood story type deals is that they wait for

like a documentary like there's a seven hour documentary first and then once they're like well most people know the documentary so then we can do the shortened version of it in dramatization this and that gives you more perspective and like you know if you do it instantly you're like well what are we reading the headline okay let's just you know what did we hear instantly that happened to joey buttafuoco okay great then let's just make the movie on it right now the long island lolita that was the uh that was the uh the was the OJ FX show model. Absolutely. ESPN documentary came up first. And by the way, I love that American Crime Story season because it is trashy and full of kind of slightly past their prime celebrities.

Ryan Murphy knows what he's doing with that stuff. Oh, yeah. Definitely. And that's the last time you'll ever see cuba gooding jr again yeah yeah well i well i talked about him for other reasons why he hasn't been around so much at the top of the show yeah but yeah i mean nothing but great things to say about this episode oh yeah this is this is the show getting itself like this is them i i felt it a ton in mr lisa goes to washington even more in this like this is just them going like this is a show now we we're free of having to have like a moral lesson

at the end or like a big hug we can just and we can parody tv shows and movies all we want the animation is perfect like homer and everybody's coming themselves and they're understanding the wide swath of springfieldians they can put in the series like this is just so good and i always forget it's at the beginning of season three in my mind it's like well no they figure things out more towards the end but no it's like from the very beginning of season three the show is becoming what we love yeah uh so much it was the first in the production run as well wasn't it uh second only second wow yeah okay yeah so which means that they you know they hit the production run as well, wasn't it? Second. Only second. Wow. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So which means that they hit the ground running. But yeah, I couldn't agree more with you, Henry. And like we said during this episode, it surprised me how many, hearing from you guys, how many things were just returning for the first time, like Willie and the kind of higher definition we get on certain characters. But it was great to go back and see,

as also a Joe Mantegna fan, the first Fat Tony episode. I wouldn't have guessed this was his first either. And the only one he'd be in for several seasons as well. So yeah, I was very happy to come back to specifically talk about this episode. Thanks. Yeah, thanks for joining us, Brendan, for another very long episode. We're glad you enjoyed this one. Please let us know where to find you online and more about your podcast, Blowback,

and perhaps when it will return. Yes, of course. You can find me sometimes on Twitter at, at deep underscore beige. You can also just follow at Blowback Pod. Is it Blowback Podcast or Blowback Pod? I don't know.

Just, you'll figure it out. But we have our season three coming this summer. I'm going to say, I'm going to give us a little wiggle room and say this summer, definitely. Think in July. Awesome. And it will be about the Korean War. If people don't know, our first two seasons are available everywhere.

The first season is about the Iraq War. And the second season is about the war on cuba uh specifically back in the 60s we've got in it's a it's a narrative show but we have bonus episodes with interviews we have some cameos from performers and funny people that you might like as well and we're excited to be going into this third season so thanks for giving me a chance to to shamelessly plug it no yeah blowback is is great me and bob love it you guys do such great like history stuff and then on top of that the the side episodes you know that are range from you know deep investigative like interviews with with other reporters or people on the ground in situations or then just fun stuff with bill corbett or other comedians and just like goofing

on movies you know it runs the gamut and i i love that about it well we love doing it and i don't know how we're how we found this this little corner to do it in but um it's it's it's very nice and uh you know we're just trying to make sure we don't screw it up um this season will be this season will be good though i'm pretty sure so thanks again awesome can't wait to hear it hey your third season could be as good as the Simpsons third season. That's right. This was a good third season of something. Yeah, exactly. They really figured out Brendan in the third season of Blowback.

We really figured out the capital flight to the colonial territories and really just made it the funniest character, you know, finally at that point. But thank you so much, Brendan. Thank you, Brendan. Of course thanks so much to brendan james for being on the show please check out blowback an amazing podcast that we love but as for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these podcasts one week at a time and add free please go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons sign up for five bucks a month you get just that but also everything behind the five dollar paywall that's over a hundred bonus podcasts but you also get access to monthly episodes of talking to the hill and talking futurama our regular patreon exclusive monthly mini series that's all happening behind the five dollar paywall at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and there is a ten dollar level as well when you sign up for that you get all the five dollar stuff of course but also access to one

huge immensely long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level or higher and what is that henry bob is talking about the what a cartoon movie podcast where we do a deep dive into an animated feature film just like we do on the simpsons each month often for over five hours long at this point we have covered recently in april we did roger rabbit who framed roger rabbit a classic that we have long feared doing because it's just so full of history but we uh did a great job with that i am assuming also uh we before that did the disney golden age classic pinocchio and there's a giant back catalog of them including also this year South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut which we had a ton of fun talking about all of that over three years worth of what

a cartoon movies I'd say over 230 hours of podcasts at this point are available to you at that $10 level in addition to all the $5 things Bob mentioned it's a big special premium podcast we do once a month that is totally worth your money i dare say check it all out at patreon.com slash talking simpsons so as for me i've been one of your hosts bob mackie you can find me on twitter as bob servo and my other podcast by the way is retronauts that's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games you can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, what about you?

Follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. I'm always tweeting up a storm there. And also follow the official Twitter account of this podcast, at TalkSimpsonsPod. If you want to know when new episodes go out on the free feed on the Patreon, or if there's any news going on in our lives, follow at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter. And of course, you should always check out the official Talking Simpsons website talking simpsons podcast.com to find a library

of all of our previous released free episodes of talking simpsons thanks so much for listening folks we'll see you again next time for season 13's the blunder years and we'll see you then I think this is something Bart would really have enjoyed. But it's the only way he'll learn.