Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart To The Future With Mike Drucker

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

This week we welcome back Mike Drucker for an ominous episode that predicted the future of 2016 in 2000! But beyond the heinous predictions, this episode also gifted us with future Bart as one of the most realistic dirtbags to ever be seen on TV, as well as some pretty dated jokes about tribal gaming. So listen now for some tasty podcast tuneskis, unless you only used to be cool! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! Check out our new shirts on TeePublic! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

Good news everyone, Talking Futurama is coming back for Talking Futurama Season 2 Part 2. Fresher than a summer ham, this podcast comes every Friday and if you sign up at the $5 level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you can hear each episode as it goes live. That's right, sign up today at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for $5 to hear Talking Futurama every Friday throughout the rest of 2020 and also all the previous episodes we've done so far. So head over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons now or we're gonna clamp you! Shut up and take my money! I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, proudly recorded in the United States of dorksylvania. I'm your host, little mooching sack holder Bob Mackie,

and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Hey, it's Andrew Gilbert, and this calls for some Toonskies. And who is our guest on the line? It's me, Mike Drucker. And today's episode is Bart to the Future. Oh, what a bleak, horrible future we live in. Don't you mean present?

Right, right, present. Homer is correct. Today's episode aired on March 19, 2000. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby robin williams is announced to be singing blame canada at the oscar presentation the next week wario land 3 is released on the game boy and in sync becomes megastars thanks to the release of No Strings Attached. Biggest news for me is Wario Land 3.

It's an overlooked, sorry, yes, overlooked gem. Buy it on the 3DS eShop. That's all I have to say. Fantastic Metroidvania-style game. Wario at his finest. Yeah. No, Drucker, you're a big Nintendo fan as well. Yeah, I like the Wario Land games.

They tried to imitate them. I think the last hardcore Wario platform was on the Wii. That's like 11 years old now, I think. None of the later ones were made by Nintendo. They were all farmed out. So, I mean, they tried, but they effectively killed Wario. Actually, the Wii U killed Wario with that game and Wario crap. Oof.

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, that's a shame. I love that series, too. That game just didn't function as intended. Yeah. Yeah. Virtual Boy Wario was great, and no one played it. That's one I have to track down to emulate because it's the missing link in the 2D Wario

platformers for me. Like, I need to touch that one. Yeah, you know, the Wario Land games, they have such a clever idea and then uh they but they were executed brilliantly by like the internal nintendo team kind of like yoshi's island and then for both you know the next generation of stuff both wario and yoshi became the b-tier games you give to a second or third party developer who yeah you know sometimes like uh good feel they do a really good job uh at times on their stuff but it's just i don't want to be mean to those other games but i do feel they're not as good as the originals but then again maybe that's just nostalgia speaking but uh well you

know for me as a hardcore south park fan back in 2000 I was definitely paying attention to there was talk like the Oscars wouldn't perform Blame Canada like the other Oscar nominated songs because it was too dirty. I don't know if you guys remember that controversy during March of 2000. I just remember that

Matt Stone and Trey Parker were very upset about losing the Oscar when honestly, I think having the punk rock cred of losing the Oscar. That comes after that, yeah. I think having the punk rock cred of losing the Oscar is more important if you're South Park. Yeah. Is that the Oscars that they showed up to in the dress? In the J-Lo dresses? I believe so, yes.

And they were also tripping on acid at the time? They did acid for the first time, is the story they said. And any question they were asked they just said we're so excited uh yeah no the robin williams performance was fun and uh he said uh i think he goes like when he tells me to fuck myself the line becomes like tells me to myself that's how they did it but yeah you're right they lost to phil collins for tar Tarzan. And then months later in the Timmy 2000 episode, he comes to town and they imply that he shoves his Oscar up his ass for enjoyment. So a little hurt feelings there on the awards. Even if you still want to win it, even if you have that punk mentality, you still want an Oscar.

Yeah, they still haven't got it yet. If they had gotten that, I think they'd actually be at EGOT because they definitely have Emmys and Tonys. If they made Book of Mormon a movie, and I'm surprised it isn't one yet, it might win Best Musical or Best Song or something. Might. I'm really surprised it's not. But I guess Hamilton is the new fire

yeah even though it's like three or four years old at this point yeah and that in sync album had bye bye bye on it it was called no strings attached because they had just uh freed themselves at great cost from lou perlman awful horrible man who died in jail in 2016, pretty bad guy. But the most they could say is, yeah, we're free of that guy. Now we're employed by Jive Records, a slightly less exploitative record company. And we'll hear them on the show very soon. Oh, yes, you're right. I wonder if they were waiting until they were free of Lou Pearlman

and the Simpsons. But anyway, yes, hey, welcome back to the show. got us a guest hi hi hi hi hi you might have last heard mike drucker on our pax panel that we had to personally record because somebody at pax dropped the ball and i want names damn it but hey at least we i again huge thank you to my husband for going like you know what i'm gonna set up your phone and tape it on your phone just to be safe. Since there are no panels or conventions this year or even public gatherings, Mike is joining us live via satellite. Hello, I'm in New York City. Wow, all the way in New York City.

Where are you watching this episode when it aired? I remember seeing it. I don't know if I saw it the when it aired i remember seeing it i don't know if i saw it the night it aired but i think i saw it like in that early rotation because i remember it i definitely remember seeing it at some point because i think it was actually like a big pr story that the simpsons did where they're like in the future lisa's president like it was one of those things where they like really pushed that specific episode i think i remember it i i didn't remember it again until people brought up the trump thing and And by then I was like, I'm tired of this episode already. Well, it'll come up in our discussion, of course. But we talked to the writer of this episode. We

interviewed him and definitely asked him about that line. And we'll get into the history of Trump running for president in this podcast. And Mike is an Emmy nominated, perhaps even Emmy winning at the time this comes out, comedy writer. You know, what are the dangers of doing jokes that predict a horrible future? Does this kind of thing scare you as a comedy writer? I haven't done much like predictive writing. So I like I it is scary, though, because you don't want to like be like when Lou Diamond Phillips is governor and then that happens. And you're like, did I cause that in some way?

I'm not afraid of it, but it is such a weird swing to get right that I'm terrified. I guess, you know, if you write like 8,000 jokes in a show, sometimes something's right, you know? I mean, I never wrote for television, only for the Internet, but I stopped doing it last year because i couldn't keep up with reality uh just it just was impossible and also like i remember like reality has a pace has outpaced so much of my old satire like i remember in 2008 i wrote an article because obama's like blackberry was taken away in my article the premise was like what if a president was crazy on twitter boy that'd be crazy that'd be nutty. And then it's like, well, no, I went back to my article. It's much worse. It's much worse now. Right, right. Yeah.

God, I love... The thing I do still love is that there's still writers online who are like, don't worry, the president can't do that. Like, guys, we're past that point now. I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Yeah. Don't worry. If we all know this part of the constitution he just

broke it it's like well okay and i know police officers always respect when you tell them you know your rights oh yeah but uh yeah this uh this is an interesting episode about the future that i uh they mentioned on the commentary that like, this was not a liked episode or like they said that entertainment weekly ranked it as the worst, which I'm like that, that really seems, even if we're just,

if entertainment weeklies list was like up to season 14, this is the worst is a weird pick. Like I can see why I think a lot of people were offended that it kind of shits on the legacy of Lisa's wedding because it's another future episode with a kind of worse future for at least one of the characters but they've done so many future episodes since then that this sort of just falls into that legacy of like the future version of the Simpsons line of stories they've done I didn't find that it's not like the worst episode in my mind it's just one of those episodes

that I don't care enough about. Like if it came, like if I had to choose on Disney plus of what Simpsons episode to watch, I will probably not intentionally pick this one, but I don't hate it. Well, I think to the, that future stuff,

like about 10 years after this came out or eight years, they decided to just have a consistent future. They go back right that's right and like they've had like i think three episodes that take place in that future including one that wasn't in uh made as a safety finale in case they didn't get renewed again when they were right up on the line i believe that's uh christmas is a future past something like that yeah before we get started i wanted to do a brief director's corner for the director of this episode he's a

new director but it's one of those guys who was like he started the simpsons and he's kind of still doing it uh so mike mark and tell they basically directed one episode uh a season from seasons 11 to 18 he joined the show as a layout artist in season three's like father like clown he appears to have left the show after 2006, but came back in 2014. And since then has been a storyboard artist and revisionist. And he's done storyboard artist roles on things like the new run of Futurama,

the new run of Beavis and Butthead. The old new run of Beavis and Butthead now. The 2011 one. And also Sit Down, Shut Up. And for some reason, this could be true, he was credited for the graphics on the NES version of The Immortal, which you can play on your Switch, but it's very, very difficult, so I don't recommend it.

Wow, that's a crazy one. That would be really cool, though. I would love that. If you've seen that old wizard, it exploded in many different ways. He might have drawn that. Mark can tell, he's just like the other guy we talked about a a few episodes ago one of those just like film roman lifers that does an epa like kind of does one episode a season not a two episode a season guy just when there's an opening and mostly just like storyboard or layout or some assistant directing stuff like though i did on his linkedin i found two weird ones i wanted to mention as well he's also credited

as working on the uh the jeff dunham tune special ahmed saves america oh well that's just delightful look he you take what jobs you got i'm not blaming him for the character ahmed the dead terrorist of jeff dunham fame but uh but his other one is the show i am so interested in because it never got released and seemingly had at least multiple episodes finished the show murder police oh yeah oh yeah yeah he worked on a show murder police i've known multiple people who wrote on it that have just said yeah it just never came out they just a fully complete show of animation and that fox was like no we're not airing it it was going to be in the fox uh animation domination uh prime time schedule and they just decided no and just but didn't even repackage it to like fx

or anything it just doesn't exist that's bizarre i think they threw it in the same animation of the damned vault with david spade sammy oh god at least sammy got one yeah and that's not that's I think they threw it in the same animation of The Damned Vault with David Spade's Sammy. Oh, God. At least Sammy got one. Yeah. One earring. And that's not the Louis C.K. Cop show. That's called The Cops, I believe. I forgot there were two kind of canceled cop shows. Yeah.

Yes. I wonder if the, I think the murder police thing also fell into the situation of, it was canceled in early 2013 and perhaps in 2014 when it would have been repackaged that's when uh the national conversation on police brutality was uh rose a lot higher so perhaps it was that but anyway i i just want to ask mark cantle like do you have any tapes of murder police i just want to see this thing one one it also could just be like it didn't work it isn't funny maybe it's that right i don't know but all right that could also be their excuse as the network to be like ah we wanted to put it on but then there was police talk and now we gotta

bury it you know like and it just sucked yeah it's like oh it's too controversial yeah we'll write it off on our taxes so yeah you did mention the writer of this one, Bob. When we interviewed Dan Graney two years ago, still very proud of this episode. Like, he, especially his vision of Bart, like, he really stands by that. And the commentary on this is really funny because he is just, like, in his element talking up. Like, even, he's mostly nice to the the animators but he does talk a little crap on them for what his vision of art was versus what they wanted who's to say though with this future they show us that bart won't become chief justice of the supreme court at some time you know he's got a connection he knows somebody on the inside he's a party boy at 40 but that you know there's

other supreme court justices who partied a lot and then ended up there so who who's to say uh it begins with like a mosquito opening that i 100 had forgotten yeah me too uh that's and especially like the weirdness of i guess they didn't want the family to just go straight to a casino it can't i they decided like they didn't want it to be planned that homer would take them to a casino so it has to be an interrupted vacation by an accident and then they go to one i i guess i guess that's the choice i think so but uh i was also shocked at like oh they just had a guy's hand to just be eaten off yeah when i know when i saw the class ring i was like oh i remember this joke because otherwise he wouldn't just be wearing a ring and uh i think we talked about this before henry that around this time it felt like every comedy writer went to a native american casino

because there was like a you know characters go to the casino episode in almost every show and um in my neck of the woods a racist neck of the woods, the idea behind this was, oh, man, what a scam. They don't pay taxes on that. Can you believe that? Not understanding it's like the tiniest bone we throw at people that we decimated. Yes. Yeah. I mean, me growing up in Florida, though, they were so prominent with Seminole-owned casinos.

And the Seminole tribe worked with colleges. So we had a weirdly more like, oh yeah, that's the casino. Like there was less of that weird suspicion because the state had already worked with that tribe so closely on everything. But I remember like when other people would say that, I'd be like, it seems like a casino guys. Like I had relatives from,

especially like Midwest relatives who were like this, like the same thing, like this fucking scam. Like, I don't know, it's casino. You know, my father loved gambling, but did not and we lived in florida but we did not go to any tribal gaming i think because really i think because of um anger like that i think wow i i think it was just the feeling of like yeah that they're they're taking advantage of a rule, which is like, I don't know. I mean, tribal gaming jokes were all in the late 90s, but I also think it was just a way of like using warmed over F Troop jokes. I was just thinking, yeah, it's just like the corniness of trotting out F Troop jokes and also being ironically racist.

Yeah, as was the style at the time. Everybody did it a year earlier peter griffin went to a uh a native american casino in 1999 and i was confusing a lot of the jokes in that one with this one because i've seen the first three seasons of family guys so many times because of adult swim and there's the 1997 episode of duck man roll with it that also just starts with the family arrives at a native american casino duck man the father does a bunch of like uh racist offensive jokes at uh indians and quote unquote indians and then the family is shocked at it like which it follows the same pattern as

this too it's like i mean i'm not saying anybody ripped anybody off but it's just it's just all this parallel thinking of comedy writers speaking of ripping people off in this family episode i forget lois becomes addicted to gambling what all right oh that's right she does peter all right oh my god that's not good no no the lawsuit's coming though i so i looked into the history of it just a little bit and i mean the tribal apparently history of tribal gaming like it had been going on since the 70s like occupants of the reservations had found that you know they have a legal loophole to create casinos on their land and make money off of it but by 1995 that's when it like went around the news stories like it's a four and

a half billion dollar industry like that amount of money i think is when people really took notice of it and and also i mean a complicated thing about it is like obviously you know the it's some people are mad that native americans are getting away with something uh but i mean also you know the the world of gambling and casinos is a uh ugly world full of bad people like that are you saying there's crime in the gambling industry i don't know well like uh noted asshole and uh bush administration friend jack abramoff was like he went to jail for how crooked he was with with tribal gaming and getting into so it's uh but i also i mean for the colonizers of a country to be mad at how the native people use the small amount of land we left them after we killed everybody that seems

kind of bullshit also i what i like is lisa is actually kind of weighing those things and then the show's like no no we're not into that. No, no, no. I will say that, like, you can tell it's more about the Indians and the casino part because all of the jokes are about the Indian part. Like, no one's like, oh, this casino shouldn't be here. It's near a school. Like, every joke in all of the episodes we've mentioned are about, like, people with the name, like, Runs With Scissors or whatever. Like, it's always, like, a shitty name joke and it's never like the casino part and i don't know

where this like native american accent came from but it's just like why in media do all the uh indians sound like they're from canada like oh i'm an indian yeah like what where does that come from i guess tonto like the actor saw Tonto growing up on Lone Ranger stuff. And we're like, oh, that's how they talk. Yeah, I'm sure it's a bit, you know, like minstrel-y type things where it's like it's an exaggeration of something that doesn't exist anymore. But that became the pop culture exaggeration that we just go with now. That's where Hank Azaria, master of accents, comes in. Oh, man, he's really on point in this episode.

I get, you know, one other thing to fully analyze this is a bunch of white guys doing this. I do think, you know, F Troop had all of those, you know, Native American name jokes. But I do think it was the popularity of Dances with Wolves that brought it back into the forefront. Everyone's like, oh, you're Dances with Wolves? I'm blankety blank that's why i couldn't believe when uh adam sandler did that you know ridiculous ridiculous six yeah movie that just uh i haven't watched it but but reading the uh you know the offensive jokes that were in it i just couldn't believe like you're still doing dances with wolf jokes in like 2010 what what are

we doing hey somebody's stepdad's laughing at that uh well also speaking just like carrot scalp not a that's kind of a lame joke but I do I at least like a neon sign gag that is killing the Vegas neon cowboy that's yeah it's's Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians. I grew up outside of Cleveland, far outside of Cleveland, but they're a local team. And for a long time as a kid, I didn't know Chief Wahoo was supposed to be a person. I was like, oh, that's like the baseball goblin. I didn't associate him with the Indians because he looks like a ghoul. Right.

That character design. Is he gone? I know we've just got the washington football team i think they're getting rid of him now as of as of this recording okay yeah yeah or at least they said like we'll take it under consideration which could mean anything uh but yes in our first clip here the family arrives at the casino let's go march come on come on come on oh my you know i had a gambling problem. Well, what better place to celebrate your recovery than amidst the frenzied excitement of the casino floor?

Hmm? Lisa? Uh, something troubles me about Indian gaming. On the one hand, the revenue helps the tribe. Yeah, we can't talk you into it! No minors. Yeah, but I really want... Sorry, son.

Although they seem strange to us, we must respect the ways of the indian hi how are you how are you how are you how are you how are you i gotta get in that casino they uh on the commentary they even throw the writer of that joke under the bus like that was tom game like dan grady's like that was Tom Gammill's joke he wrote that it's a good job going up until that what like we must respect their ways I know it's a little borderline but it's a funny joke about letting a minor into a casino yeah and then it immediately dives into racism you know on the commentary Scully Mike Scully's like yeah we knew it was offensive but we thought Dan was really funny in performing that joke, so we kept it in. Like, that's, you know, again, hey, a different time.

But I also... We talk about the year 2000 as a different time, and it's so funny. Like, remember the year 2000? It was supposed to be the future. What happened? It was supposed to be the future. I mean, I was thinking about that in this episode

of doing the math, but like, oh, the future they see. The Simpsons will be right back. Welcome to the break on this week's podcast where none of us used to be cool. And a big thank you to our guest, Mike Drucker. We really appreciated having him on. Recorded this weeks before the election. So I hope you guys had some good laughs with it i'm recording this uh the you know a week after the election and hopefully it's all over now so

hey isn't that nice uh but yeah follow mike drucker on twitter by the way you guys should know that this podcast is brought to you by listeners like you who subscribe at patreon.com slash talking simpsons the talking simpsons podcast and its sister podcast what a cartoon come out every week thanks to the support of the followers of patreon.com slash talking simpsons who for five dollars a month get tons of bonus stuff not only every episode of talking simpsons what a cartoon a week ahead of time and that free but also they get a ton of exclusive podcasts only for them including right now we just launched it the talking futurama season two part two as we cover the second half

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ones two years of what a cartoon movie podcast available to you at 10 bucks a month over 120 hours of classic podcast to listen to so please sign up today and give a listen to the what a cartoon movie podcast at the 10 level at patreon.com talking 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 you know that the kid not being allowed to casino thing too that reminds me of like uh

i went to vegas last year and it still struck me of like yeah they can't kids have to walk through the casino floor because they want everybody to walk through the casino floor it is a very different rule in las vegas than in in other casinos i call like what's homer doing though is he just abandoning bart he's like well see you later i assume so like it's kind of a sit in the car moment for him uh though it's also a very of this era for homer and bart to just walk away from marge and lisa and be like you're not fun. We're going away. You guys, maybe you'll get a story.

And, uh, and another thing I forgot about in this episode was a return of a certain character. Two characters. Uh, Gabbo and Arthur Crandall are back. Uh, they're doing a lot of callbacks in season 11.

It seems. Yeah. You know, it's their 10 when they were writing this, the show had just turned 10. So maybe they were getting more reflective than ever, but yeah, seeing Gabbo in this, I again, forgot Gabbo's their 10. When they were writing this, the show had just turned 10, so maybe they were getting more reflective than ever. But, yeah, seeing Gabbo in this, I, again, forgot Gabbo's in it. I love that he is – him and Arthur Crandall have really fallen on hard times,

and the Gabbo puppet is in disrepair. And for Bart, it had to be very satisfying to throw Gabbo in a dumpster. And this is a minor point, but I guess no point is too minor for our show. When I saw Arthur Crandall, I was like, Oh, he looks weird for some reason. And it's because he has blue hair.

And I think like after 1995, no new character was designed with weird colored hair. And I missed the weird colored hair. That's right. I didn't even recognize that change. You're right, Bob. Yeah.

They never make a character with like, and same with like the extreme overbites too whenever well you talk about how you much we love sideshow bob and every time you see him like he looks like no person they'd ever make now anytime sideshow bob returns so bart stows away in gabbo's suitcase i i love crandall's reaction to hearing noise in there. He's like, quiet, Gabbo. He's still insane. Well, yeah, he thinks he turned into a real boy. And also that Bart almost suffocated in his Scooby-Doo-like antics.

I like that too. I love that joke so much. There's something so pure about someone who's that hopeful that it's not like, who are you? It's like, you've become a real boy. Like, just that joy in that moment i know that it's not real but just the world that's built with that character in those few scenes is so much fun for me it's always everyone yeah it's like quiet gabbo like he's to him to arthur crandall gabbo is just real well i mean it also fits with like in the crusty gets canceled episode i remember aljean remarked of like it's weird how crandall is just like by himself with gabbo talking with him like he as far as gabbo yeah exactly

uh and so bart is caught he also says a classic eep there's a lot of a lot of fun old stuff they used to do in this uh and he's taken to the manager's office, which they say they credit Ron Hauge for a lot of the specifics in the office design. Like the giant buffalo nickel on the wall and the hanging rug that's like slot machine stuff. At least, I mean, it's stereotypes, but at least it's creative. I haven't seen that before. And then Bart finds out that Homerer has uh signed away his mortgage which that should be illegal i suppose uh but the casino owner then starts basically taking on the role of the fortune teller like that i that's what it really hit me what a sequel episode this is

because it's not just they've shown us the future before but this is an outsider character in a weird or in a different place for the simpsons showing a future to someone my issue with this is like i don't know what uh motivates him to show bart his future because he's not a like come to the field come to the fortune teller tent like lisa did just like why did he suddenly decide like oh here's your future bard because this child in my casino because he's the magic, proud Native American who's worried about the pains of a young white child. I get it. So he has to fix his problem. I mean, that's pretty.

He's just taking on that role of so many fictional Native Americans who only exist to help white people. I was so distracted by the fire in the middle of the room. I know that that's unused for the vision quest type thing he does. But as soon as the scene started, I was like, he has a a fire in his office and i couldn't get off that point in my head for some reason i also do like that he he asked parts to give up a treasured item and he's like oh firecracker it explodes i gotta say even though it sucks uh the joke about crazy talk that's the best version of that joke you can make. Sure, yeah. And it still sucks, but it's good.

But yes, Bart is told he's warned about his future, and he needs to be shown a vision. I'll play the clip in just a sec, but yeah, I always think of this as like, I thought it was supposed to be now, but it's 30 years in the future. Bart's 40, Lisa's 38 38 which would make it 2030 then though if it's 30 years from when the show premiered then i guess it's 2020 but so if you if you're watching this in 2020 and you're like oh this didn't come true it's like well it's not 2030 yet give it time we have to resurrect helen thomas and Alan Greenspan. Oh, gee. But yes, here Bart is told of his future. You like to sneak into casinos. I wasn't going to gamble. I just wanted a Bloody Mary.

Listen to me. Unless you change your deceitful ways, I foresee a life of bitterness and failure for you. Bart Simpson. How'd you know my name? Your father just took out a second mortgage downstairs. You're listed as collateral. Oh, I thought maybe you were some kind of Indian mystic who could tell the future.

Who says I'm not? Whoa! If you want to see your future, throw a treasured personal item into the fire. Okay. What? Not a firecracker! Hey, I bought it from a guy on your reservation. That's crazy talk.

No, it's true. No, I know. That's my brother. Crazy talk. We're all a little worried about him. Now, look into the flame. Look ahead 30 years to the man you will become. So then we see the horrible fate of Bart.

And I think people hated this episode i don't think it's the worst episode in fact i kind of enjoyed it upon this viewing i think they hated it because lisa's wedding was such a sweet episode and uh greg daniels wrote it and of course it's a collaborative effort but greg daniels all of his stuff has such love for the characters such heart to it like even if you wouldn't get along with a character he likes to show like deep down they're good inside and maybe good things will happen to them in this episode just like no everybody is not doing very well and especially bart bart's fate is especially dark and i've come to like this episode more that in the 20 years since that has aired i have known guys like this and it is such an accurate

depiction of this kind of dirt bag yeah yeah one thing i'm also struck by is how much i like ralph wiggum like in this relationship those two have and i know we'll get to it but like bard is like you're right he's like one of your friends that you grew up with that you're like oh this is like who you are now and ralph wiggum i'm like oh that's me i'm just kind of frustrated and a little bit sad and i used to be a dumb kid yeah i yeah i ralph in this i created the head canon that bart and ralph are a couple or used to be i want to imagine that but the only cheat i don't like is like i think lisa's wedding worked a lot harder to make the future seem uh plausible in terms of how the characters are acting in this one just like no bart ralph nelson and Milhouse have still the voice of children. Oh, yeah. So, for whatever reason.

But, yeah, I think as I've gotten older, I've come to this. I've been honest when I didn't like an episode when it first aired, like Saddlesore Galactica or The Alone Again. This one, I didn't. I thought it was all right. I didn't hate it. And the older I get, the bart version is just so perfect like when when i saw this when i was 17 my friends who would become this bart were also 17

but when i've seen them in their early 30s or even late 30s and i'm just like oh you did become bart this exact kind of guy who says like i had that idea but it was stolen you're like i could be president but i'm too real for everybody everybody is ripping them off all of their friends are suckers for doing certain things that everyone is expected to do it's uh it's great i love every part of this character if you break something it's like way to make a thing play like it's nothing nothing is your fault and and just it's such a perfect mix of like narcissism with mixed with loserness like that he's he's a guy who's accomplished nothing and knows he hasn't but his narcissism won't Bart can't admit that

he screwed up he has to be like every person was against me everybody dropped the ball it's not my fault and he's always like one scam away from being where he wants to be yeah that but it'll never happen and his grainy tells the story uh he felt he was partially uh in in friction with the animators on how bart would be portrayed here because you know he uh he had nothing but nice things to say about the animators, but he did think the animators saw themselves as a grown-up Bart and didn't want to make a grown-up Bart a loser

because they're not losers and they're not like this type of guy. So they didn't want to draw Bart that way. And Graney said he was very insistent, like, no, Bart needs to be fat. He needs to have lines under his eyes a ponytail one earring he needs to do all of those flip flops yes yeah uh though he said unfortunately he lost the battle over that beach bungalow he's like no they insisted on that but uh mike you're

right ralph is also the perfect version of the best friend of this type of guy who's like you know in this codependent relationship with him who supports him even though but also complains he's like i do everything around here but you're not cutting off contact with him you're just like well maybe maybe the band will i mean also bart being in a failed band at 40 like that is perfect as well a cover band too yes jimmy buffett cover band no less ah so great you know jimmy buffett's popularity is strong now as it was in 2000 i consider more of a restaurateur than a musician these days uh i once worked with a comedy writer who is a non-ironically a massive jimmy buffett fan, and would get angry when people made Jimmy Buffett jokes. He was like, you guys don't get it.

It's about relaxing. He was so into him. He was also the most stressful man I've ever worked with. He was so obsessed with Jimmy Buffett, but he was like a stress golem. Someone had made a wish and stress became a man. My first concert was a Jimmy Buffett concert because of of my parents and all of those parents had a great time yeah knocking around beach balls it's it's the most parent rock of all and it's also like the

uh it's it's nice and centrist like i think you know he supports democratic candidates but it's also just like hey we just all like to party and maybe do a little doobage you know like you haven't smoked weed since you were in college let's get high at the jimmy buffett concert i also think them giving bart like the creator of like spurious lawsuits that make as a moocher like that definitely is a late 90s view of like lazy people like there's there's there's more than a little like complaining about lazy people yeah I think I think the joke about the over

salted fries is a riff on the hot coffee scandal not not the Grand Theft Auto one but the woman who had hot coffee spilled on her and it was McDonald's fault yes they blamed her it was a legit lawsuit yeah yeah I think we talked about it in some episode where they directly referenced it. Yeah. Of something.

She had what? She had like serious burns and like they had been warned about it. Like I know that you've already covered it. That was a legitimate lawsuit and it always makes me mad. The two things of that era that make me mad just like in a non-rational way are that and people who are like Y2K wasn't anything. It's like no we fixed it. Yeah. yeah yeah it wasn't anything because we did it like it we worked hard it gave every like dennis leary style comedian a bit like oh your hot coffee was too hot yeah it's called hot coffee that's what's wrong with it like it gives you the perfect

like setup for what's wrong with america today like yeah it's uh i think at least you know now we you can find the context for these things if you wanted to and the news at the time without the internet it was just like well jay i had the same thought like jay leno or david letterman made jokes about this woman suing over coffee being too hot and how stupid that is so i guess that's the end of the debates like that uh but yes in this future everyone is smelling people later way to make a guitar sears hey bart any clean towels nah use this i'm sick of having to dry myself with a newspaper you could at least do some laundry. I pay the rent. Dude, you know I'm good for it. I'll have plenty of money when my lawsuit pays

off. You mean the spider bite at Disneyland? Or the incident with the over-salted fries. Hologram for Bart Simpson. Hey, Dingus, Your band can play at my club tonight. Yes. But I can only pay you in popcorn, shrimp. Smell you later. I can't believe smell you later replaced goodbye. Smell you later. Smell you later.

Right, we got our first gig. But you traded your amplifier for a boogie board no prob i'll just mooch some green off my folks should we take the hover bus or the non-hover bus non-hover so we oh go ahead no hover buses yet still no hover bus i feel like that's what you guys have in san francisco with like the google buses versus the normal people buses they're more like toilets on wheels for the most part uh so we talk about there's all these bad articles like simpsons predicted uh these are inaccurate predictions in that they predict in 2030 both sears and disneyland will still exist

i think very unlikely yeah i i'm shocked sears is still around now, honestly. They also erroneously predicted that people would invest in public transport to make buses that could hover. Like, no way. They make a great note on the commentary that they're like, they wanted future-y stuff, but for it to be pointless. People can send each other holograms, but it's still like a 1930s delivery boy. He's like, telegram, but then it's a hologram. Virtual reality involves sucking on a live wire. Yes, yeah. That's attached to like an Atari 2600 also.

I love the design on that. I like the idea that they're wearing like vision headsets and they're just looking at fudge they're eating. Like they're sitting still sucking a straw. It is lots of fun to hear Mar just looking at fudge they're eating like they're sitting still sucking a straw it is it is lots of fun to hear march say cyber fudge yeah i i gotta be honest i was i was recoiling i was ready for like when they say virtual fudge tastes like crap i worry what direction they're going into that joke with hope like homer that is crap your virtual crap you're eating not the fudge something thankfully i didn't have it i i i will say my headcanon that bart and ralph are lovers like it that is supported by the casualness that ralph just walks around naked which i guess that's like dude roommate stuff

i suppose but i never happened with me yeah i i've i well i've never been in a two men uh unattached roommate situation so uh when i lived with a woman who we were both roommates neither of us walked around naked we were not we were not comfortable in that regard uh but yeah so that's why i think ralph is like yeah what do you you see me naked what do you care i've never heard this theory but i i totally buy it i feel like like ralph could do better like that's what i'm getting out of this even if he loves him ralph could do like ralph has like got his life together kind of but he still has that like this guy was cooler than me as a kid so i gotta keep hanging out with him because he's cool now and ralph could do better you know we see where millhouse is at

clearly at some point Milhouse made it. It would be natural that this would be Milhouse with Bart instead. Yeah. So at some point Milhouse made the break in his life. He's like, I have to get Bart out of my life. I need to succeed without that. Or he just followed Lisa to Washington because he's in love with her. I guess what's weird is that there's no adult Milhouse and adult Bart interaction in this episode when they were best buds.

And I just hit me. What's weird is that there's no adult Milhouse and adult Bart interaction in this episode when they were best buds. And I just hit me. I think the one thing that's missing is like the mention of an ex-wife or ex-wives with Bart. Yeah. Because he had that in Lisa's wedding. It's true. And also like you're right. He could be this could be a gay relationship because like Bart is not like a horny party dude. He's not talking about babes or anything like that like you would expect him to.

Right. He's you know he's wearing that hawaiian shirt but homer suggested it uh but yeah so they they arrived at home honestly that homer would be alive in 30 years from then is is an insane he's he's looking much worse for wear than he was in lisa's wedding yes yeah even well i guess that prostate's keeping him busy i I like that just off screen, there's a bulging robo-prostate on Homer. But yes, Bart asks them for a little Loneski. Oh, what a bleak, horrible future we live in.

Don't you mean present? Right, right, present. Anyway, can I get you some Soylent Green? Isn't that made of people? Oh, here we go. Hey, Dad, my. Anyway, can I get you some Soylent Green? Isn't that made of people? Oh, here we go. Hey, Dad, my band finally got a break. I just need a little moolah to get my imp out of hot. How about a little loonski?

Oh, I'm tired of giving you money. Why can't you be more like Lisa? I am so sick of hearing about Lisa. Just because she's doing a little better than me. She's president of the United States. President-elect. I could have been president, but I'm too real.

People can't deal with what I'm laying down. They're just like, whoa, dude, you can't say that. And I'm like, watch me. We're not giving you money.

Oh, but I want some. You should have done that before you dropped out of the DeVry Institute. You know, DeVry's still around, but I don't hear jokes about DeVry anymore. Yeah. We don't even hear University of Phoenix online jokes anymore.

Yeah. Well, now every school is online. I think college has all been revealed to be a fraud anyway, so it doesn't matter where you went. All those Harvard people paying like $30,000 a semester to now still just have virtual courses are feeling pretty ripped off, I think.

The one element of Bart that I totally forgot about is he's like sort of a Pauly Shore figure as well because he's got like the button up with a wild pattern unbuttoned and like the kind of beach bum sort of vibe to him as well and things like tune skis. Yeah, you're right. It is very weasel

you're right he's not mentioned munching on grindage but uh that might have been a cut line and he does surreptitiously ask lisa to legalize weed it's so funny by the way i know that this is later in the episode like looking back the things that they like have to surreptitiously mention they can't like really be clear with what they're talking about you're like oh it's weed okay great yeah uh that was that is one where they were off by like uh 15 years like i mean it's not nationally legal yet but it's it's getting more and more decriminalized as we go despite what i think um both presidential candidates say but yeah what you gonna do um i i do really one of my favorite jokes in this episode is the great like homer's reaction to ralph's moral objections here we go here we go here we go again that's like but kind of the most accurate thing to the future now where you're like isn't

this all right here we go masks again yeah exactly exactly that that just shows that that was a really good at predicting stuff because like the reaction the interaction is kind of like uh meeting a vegetarian in 2000 yeah it's like uh do you know don't you know they put hoops in jello i'm not eating jello and you're actually here we go but instead but instead it's ralph going like no we all know soylent green's made of people now we don't eat it he. He's like, here we go. Get his soapbox out. Also, Bart's wrong.

We do call this the future now when we complain about it. Like, oh, this future sucks. We're living in the bad future. Yeah. I also really do like there's some good animation acting in Bart of like the second they mention Lisa, just this bitterness in his face comes in and you you can tell that he has been you know the over the 30 years just driven nuts by having to be compared to the ultimate overachiever and that it does bug him but he also doesn't want to try hard so uh i just love that he's like i'm too real to be president but

i definitely would be but people aren't ready for what i'm too real to be president but i definitely would be but people aren't ready for what i'm laying down i am the good i am the good sibling in my family and it sounds pretty frustrating but i gotta say get on my level sister catch up get good uh and uh as i looked into i couldn't believe devry is still around despite like decades of lawsuits. Of charges of deception and unlawful practices. Yet still around. But then Bart. As Bart heads over to the Flanders house. We do get to see that the outside of the Simpsons house.

Is the same as it was in Lisa's wedding. Even with the window box extra room on it. I noticed that the side addition to the house is what they retained. But there's also more. They built more things onto it in the future. So they retain like Homer is improving the house in very bad ways. But one thing that Lisa's Wedding had that this doesn't, Maude. There was an elderly Maude in Lisa's Wedding.

Oh, you're right. But Maude's already gone by this point. So I would be lying if I said that this joke about laser eye surgery didn't scare me away from doing laser eye surgery in my youth. I mean, you're a fellow glasses wearer, Mike. Have you ever considered laser? Have you had it? I have. I've considered it and I've heard good things about it.

But it's that it's that weird price point where it's just enough money where i'm like i don't know if i if this is worth more than glasses are and i feel like i also have like a weirdly shaped head that glasses give a good little focal point to to like move away from the potato surroundings and so i kind of like having something to accessorize with uh you know you're selling me on glasses more now yeah no i uh i've i've considered it too i've had multiple friends who've had it who say very nice things about it like no it's great or it's uh uh it's crazy to wake up and just see instead of like i'm just used to like yeah waking up i'm blind until i grab my glasses like that's just how the morning is but you can see yourself in the shower frankly i'm over it

i i don't want to know what my naked thighs look like, honestly. But yeah, I think at the bottom of it all is this joke that like, well, you know, 10 years after you get laser eye surgery, your eyes fall out. LASIK was like new then. Now, I read a 2019 article on WebMD about like it is pretty safe. It said like maybe a 10% risk of like eye pain that will subside over time from, you know, getting lasers blasted into your eyes. But it's not, you know, we've had 20 years now, 20 plus years of popularized LASik surgery and people are fine so i will say uh because she tweeted about it i wasn't sure if it was public knowledge but our friend of the show maddie copp who's done some of our art she had like pretty extensive eye surgery in 2018 and

before that her glasses were half an inch thick wow i'm looking at a picture of them on twitter so it helped her a lot that's good yeah and she recovered remarkably quickly from it i thought my glasses were thick and that's dang man she sold them to the antique coke bottle store but uh but yeah bart shows up with his mooch and sack and uh ned still doesn't want to give it to him i love to bart does the ultimate dirtbaggy move of like this is a dirtbag last resort of saying like you know what you're right you're right and this is the last time i'll ask for it so i'll turn around uh i like the he brought only the small mooching sack he was being a little humble i guess actually i kind of have that mooching sack now because all right my uh i bought that designed by a friend of the show nina matsumoto that wallet of bury me with my money from sunset writers and it

came with like literally that mooching sack around it of the classic dollar bill bag yeah i kind i do like the designs of rod and todd uh their future designs i think it's funny it's a little cheap joke i guess that they're like both closet gay men but again they couldn't predict conceive a future where in 2030 them being gay would not be a big deal there'd be no need to stay in the closet but going to your theory bart already knows they're gay and no one else does based on the fact so maybe bart is within that community as well oh that's how he knew to not out them you're right he saw them at the same club or who know maybe they they there's some uh romantic history between them i'm enjoying

this made-up mythology more and more so bart then goes to his uh crab shack show at nelson's uh place i and there's some fun jokes about just plugging in an amp wrong though i spotted a yellow carl in the reaction shot there's a little goof him up there carl is briefly not black for a few seconds in the show he shows up later with his proper skin color yeah which i love him lenny and barney are just like they're all like 70 and still drinking together not at most but they will be in most later and uh i'm very impressed by them like uh seven years after i Love Lisa, they finally get another Willie being Scotty on Star Trek joke. It took them.

They've got two. And this time it's actually about shields. I like that. The laser chicken wire is very funny. Yeah, I love that. It's a good, you know, it reminds you of like the Blues Brothers, the original Blues blues brothers movie except it's lasers now that i do think the elephant in the room when writing this for them must have been futurama because futurama second season like aired as this was airing and i wonder if there was some thoughts of like is this too much like futurama like especially the the laser chicken wire and that

and the news vision laser after this i i think i mean i want to say that on the commentary dan graney was like we are we were fighting as to how futuristic to make this so in a way like it's kind of a screw you to the viewer because it's not like lisa's wedding where it's like what will the future be like and this one it's like well there's some future things but also bart has a cassette deck and uh they're still watching bewitched and things like that so it it's very, like, mixed up. But why don't we give a little listen to a Captain Bart original? Now we'd like to play a Jimmy Buffett song, but he uncoolly charges people to cover them. So here's a Captain Bart original.

Wasted once more in Decoritaville. Rip off! Get off the stage! Hey, you suck! I also love the sloppiness of Dockerydaville. It's a Dockery, but then a Readaville. He's still attached to it. I love that. And that he defines charging to do covers as uncool. I just love it. And that he's big enough for Jimmy Buffett to notice.

Oh, yes. Yeah. I mean, Buffett's probably sued him like twice at this point. Yeah, how many Margaritavilles has Buffett shut down before he built his own? Oh, my God. uh yeah how many margaritaville says buffett shut down before he built his own oh my god i bet he's more litigious than like nintendo is with a used game store putting mario in their side oh yeah totally uh and uh there's also a good return of the hover bus joke so we see a bunch of hover buses drive by and then a shitty old regular bus drops off bart and ralph uh yes

they they arrive that's where we get to see like it is a really fun bungalow they have there which uh and i do love that bart loves bewitched like specifically reruns of bewitched that again is so there's another bit on the commentary where they seem to be going like they want to say this reminds them of like a brother-in-law or something but they they go like oh this doesn't remind us of anyone we know no no no like yeah watching uh bad daytime tv reruns was the hallmark of being an unemployed loser in this time period yeah i could go for some bewitched right now though but uh you know bewitched is pretty camp going more to my bart is gay theory but uh but yes bart is told smell you later forever by Ralph because they've been evicted.

It's all falling apart. And Bart knows there's only one way out of this mess. No, I've got to have a beer in there. And Bewitched is on. Now we've got no home, no money, and our band's going nowhere. And it's all your fault. Smell you later, Bart. Smell you later, Bart. Smell you later forever.

Oh, he's right. I'm a loser. There's only one way out of this mess. From around the globe to your frontal lobe, this is Brain Vision News. Tonight's winning lotto number, 4-4-6. Damn, I was so close. I had 3-2-7.

In other news, President-elect Lisa Simpson moves into the White House tomorrow. The 17-bedroom home features free long distance, laundry service, and three food kitchens. So I'm the president's no good brother. Moochie moochie. Oh, man. They do so many great suicide jokes in this yeah you know i say every time self-harm not something to joke about but they really love this suicide joke here of just the or the fake out of it i suppose i should say yeah i i love free long distance as well free

long distance in the future that was quite an amenity in the late 90s we were still the long distance wars now we have all the long distance i could handle and i don't call anybody i should i should call my mother more i know i know but i yeah i also love the kent kent describes it as the from a freeloaders perspective that's how he describes the white house food kitchen is a great uh pointless descriptor yeah yeah great grainy credits that one to meyer george meyer just a fun george meyer word and same uh the president lisa we see there it's kind of a mash-up of her wedding look and also in her monster island fantasy oh you're right uh where he's like president elect actually both of those have a president elect

that's right uh but yeah she kind of has the the wavy yeah the wavy hair of her wedding but she's like uh 16 years old i took her as like 22 in the lisa's wedding so and she's 38 here so the elephant in the room uh not just trump but what were you actually thinking about Hillary being president at this point? I feel like that was talked about in some form. I think she was still like pretty respect. Like, I think she's still ranked high on those like respected women lists. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there.

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and your world brighter find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie yeah I think you're right i think it wasn't until she was in the senate that people were like well naturally the next step is the white house well you know a month before this was when hillary announced she was running in new york for the senate so i think there was definitely more talking for like aspirations and as i recall before you know gore did it there there were occasional news stories of like but what if it was hillary that ran instead of

gore and all that stuff so and and i do think the for lisa's first straight female president line it does feel a little like a wink towards isn't Hillary a lesbian kind of joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, yeah, we all, why wouldn't you assume Hillary's going to be president? We all did, like, first in 2008, I think, before Obama rose up in the polls, I think we all were just like, yeah, it's going to be Hillary. Yeah, I mean, she was president in the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon before the simpsons movie right in 07 yeah so this whole stuff here though is very much about uh they uh the commentary they say donna carrie is a big roger clinton fan so that where this really came from though it's it's crazy this also feels like a what a quaint kind of time of like jokes about

billy carter roger clinton of like the you know the fuck up brother or the less famous brother specifically brother not even sibling of a president like then you know right after this you know the bush administration is just the whole family was there yeah and we elected the wrong carter and uh and let's not forget malik obama the half brother of obama who's like a white right wing crank guy yeah uh and uh and now it's just the entire family just occupies he can't of uh like i wish there was just a trump brother you're like yeah trump's brother that weirdo it's like no it's the it's an extended family a very very large family of trump weirdos yeah you kind of want like there to be a zeppo trump who's just like this side character who's just kind of fun and out there but they're all evil they're all even like mary trump that book i'm like you could have you could have done this earlier yeah or release this information for free maybe not in a book you sell like uh you know

if joseph biden were to be elected look up his brother because he looks just like him they're like weird brother twins so were he to be president that would be our next presidential brother and it's really strange how much he looks like him we get like a dave situation if joe biden like something happened and we needed to replace him, but we didn't know what to do? Like, could we Dave him? That's what I was thinking immediately when Henry said that.

I think so. I think I was just thinking of that because somebody very funny on Twitter. The Lincoln Project, Henry. Oh, okay. The Twitter account Buck Lepard did this very funny collection of just people watching Jay Leno in their movies where he's two separate clips of kevin klein reacting to jay leno joking about his character and just turning it off like that's great you can just count on jay

no i guess you see jimmy fallon in movies sometimes or other other hosts but i feel like it was always in the 90s and early 2000s it was only jane leto who did the uh fictional scene stuff yeah here's a fun behind the scenes fact about those scenes is i have seen a specific host say no to that and yes and it depended on the movie oh okay i didn't know they there was so choosiness about that interesting not the host i worked for nobody asked us to do things but i you know there's something about those scenes i do love they're not i mean with jay leno i don't even laugh at them they're not funny but he i always i also would like larry king shows up even larry king and ghostbusters oh yeah ghostbusters right you know who loves that is wolf blitzer now wolf blitzer will appear in like every

sci-fi film being like and that's when the monsters invaded and they'll have like a panel with neil degrasse tyson saying something stupid i'm sure he's reported on the transformers before in the past absolutely well you know uh warner brothers on cnn and superman and in the batman versus superman movie it's like char Charlie Rose is talking to a fictional, like this was before all that, but Charlie Rose is like, how far does Superman get to go? And then Bill deGrasse Tyson is like,

I don't know. Superman can do anything. Superman then shows up and throws Charlie Rose into the sun for being a pervert. I saw so much with my x-ray vision, Charlie Rose. you're a monster anyway so yes lisa is now the president and she's uh giving her first official address to the press corps yes i am proud to be america's first straight female president

helen wasn't i wearing a hat? Yes. Yes, you were. Now, in conclusion, my administration will focus on the three R's. Reading, writing, and refilling the ocean. Thank you very much. As you know, we've inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump. How bad is it, Secretary Van Houten? We're broke. The country is broke?

How can that be? Well, remember when the last administration decided to invest in our nation's children? Big mistake. The balanced breakfast program just created a generation of ultra-strong super criminals. And midnight basketball taught them to function without sleep. What about my pledge to build the world's largest bookmobile isn't there any money left for that no so well well first

helen thomas right am i right about helen famously a white house press correspondent for a number of decades started with jfk and she'd always be very uh vocal in that room with the best uh or funniest questions and uh she would not make it to 2030. She died in 2013. If she was still alive in this cartoon, she would have been, sorry, 110 in 2030. You know, in the late 90s and in both the Clinton and Bush administration, it was a fun thing if you were a news viewer to see a Helen Thomas, the late Helen Thomas, just pop up and be like, Mr. President, why do you do that? That would be funny. I had forgotten why she had left the White House in 2010.

She said a lot of stuff about a certain group of people that control everything and uh that many people felt was very anti-semitic and so in 2010 she was not invited to the white house press corps anymore and i don't think she i completely forgot that when i saw this helen thomas joke i was like yeah helen thomas jokes from like 2004 and then i went to wikipedia i was like right yeah when you said it i just remembered and you know you know it's what you're gonna do she got old also as far as predicting the future we have too much ocean now it's not we need to refill the oceans we got too much get it out of here i also like that the trump administration uh their issue was that they spent like too much government money on like educational programs. That's true.

Yeah. But also there's sort of like an echo of the super criminals thing in there. Striking me. Like I kept going back to that being like, that's an interesting choice in some, because I feel like, like we said,

that was a big conversation in the nineties where it's like, are we like coddling these urban teens to be super criminals? And it feels like that's the joke here, but in a very weird way. Yeah, no, I definitely, I wrote down super predator in my thing.

Yeah. Cause it does the, the programs millhouse is referring to were the ones that were like, you know, the social programs that were intended to fix the super predators that we were being warned about from like both sides of the aisle in the 90s and so having that come up here of just like oh that midnight basketball actually just made them able to stay in the dark like a function without sleep which is like okay who are you scared of

here who are we supposed to imagine when you talk about midnight basketball it made me slightly uncomfortable uh but yeah okay president trump yeah she said it i feel like our uh so like the escalation of craziness in terms of who got elected like it started at uh governor jesse ventura when like that's a wrestler is a governor. And then we get Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it's like, well, nothing is crazier than this. And then 2016, obviously, President Trump. But I do remember like a lot of celebrity camp. Well, not a lot, just a few notable ones.

Like, oh, the celebrity is running for something. How zany. And one of those was Howard Stern potentially running for governor of New York. My uncle was a huge Howard Stern fan, and I was keeping up with all the Stern stuff when I was far too young. But he was appearing on Letterman talking about running for governor with a lot of the same Trumpian promises because Trump was on Stern's show all the time.

Yeah. I mean, they all speak to a same kind of populism style of just like, these clowns in Washington can't't do it i'm a businessman or i'm a regular guy i could fix it like they all ross perot spoke to the same thing too the same kind of outsider status but and and yeah i mean this uh the trump thing like it wasn't this became the ultimate simpsons predicted article thing like just just the screenshot of Lisa sitting at her desk. I've seen in so many like thumbnails for articles online, but Trump had been very open about publicly toying with the idea of running

for president for almost 20 years before he ran for president. Like there was an NPR article I uh that charted like all his appearances saying it like there's they they were like no in 1980 he appeared on larry king and oprah and was just like oh i'd like to run for i'm not doing an impression i won't do it but but he's like i would run for president but i'm very busy but i think america needs me blah blah blah that was 88 when he was considering it in the you know dukakis bush then we come to 1999 and he's saying the same thing he's he's talking up a potential vanity run i do think you know they didn't just pull it out of thin air the idea that trump could be president

or the ridiculousness of a president trump yeah i guess we can uh this is our time to get mad at young people because i do see like younger people surprised. It's like, oh, there's a joke about Trump in this. Wow, that's crazy. It's just like, no, when I bought my first Mad Magazine in 1989, it was full of Donald Trump jokes reminds me of Trump. It's like, that was the joke! And then when you were showing me these clips, Henry, when he's on Larry King at age like 41 in 1989 the same year that movie came out, I'm like, yeah, he is Biff Tannen. No, no, no, yeah. I was once yelled at by someone online

because I write for a political comedy show where they're like you guys just, like, late night show hosts didn't used to be like this. And I found like a clip, a bunch of clips of Johnny Carson carson doing trump jokes it's like no people have done this forever yeah there were trump jokes there were trump jokes on like tiny tunes yes yeah yeah and when they did it in the early 90s it's like well we've all known about donald j trump for 10 years at this point he's just well like him being president in a way is like the all the final 80s throwback and i'm just like no more please no uh but but yeah like i have a quick clip here this is trump in on the larry

king show in 1999 and it's all about what he'd do if he ran for president we're back with donald trump we're going to be all over the board tonight talking about lots of issues as he announces the formation of exploratory committee to possibly seek the candidacy of the Reform Party. Do you have a vice presidential candidate in mind? Well, I really haven't gotten quite there yet. I love Oprah. Oprah would always be my first choice. Oprah. Oprah. Your competitor, right? Oprah's competitor. You know what she's i'll tell

you she's really a great woman though she is a terrific woman he is so different now yeah yeah i think larry king is holding up better knock on wood we're gonna launch this podcast in two months yes yeah it's uh so he'd always been talking about as grainy told us in our interview he's just like yeah we just thought it would be a ridiculous thing to think and how silly it would be. And obviously it would never happen. They just they thought what would be a funny person for Lisa to say was she was succeeding as president. And boom, there you go. And and as as 2016 roiled on, people were talking about like, uh-oh, The Simpsons said this.

And I know Matt Groening in one interview was just like, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think we predicted it. And the chalkboard gag for the episode that aired on November 13, 2016 was, being right sucks. So, yeah. All right. But anyway, all this stuff about the country being out of money, too, that is a very late 90s thing, too.

The deficit. Yes, the deficit, right? Every human being owes $40,000 to China. Right. And what if they come to collect? The truth is money is fake and we could just make as much as we want we pretend it's real though yeah god I remember those conversations I haven't

thought of those like those those again we owe so much to China our country's failing conversations and again Lisa's the one who's bringing this up this is an issue where she's not like money's fake she's like well we need to find a way to pay back these people because the budget's all there is yeah Lisa is like the perfect neoliberal candidate in this episode i mean west wing is very new at this time yeah this is i don't i won't say they were influenced by west wing but this was uh the vision i think it's cut from the same cloth as president bartlett of like a hyper-competent president who takes seriously the deficit you're just like look they they're liberal but they also know the deficit's nothing to joke about you gotta you gotta pay stuff back like uh but but yeah i mean i i'll just suggest people listen to friends of the show citations needed that podcast has a great

episode a couple episodes about deficit trolling and how people only make a big deal about it for social programs we spend billions trillions on wars and and all that stuff that is not that meant money is meaningless but i it's it's a very late 90s thing to be like what about that we owe so much money america's broke like we print the money we're not broke like that's that doesn't happen but yeah so as lisa is trying to govern bart moves in and i i'm shocked to get out that close to lisa before being tackled by the secret service and uh it almost feels like a slight reboot of the show just like the simpsons living in the white house together and it's just suddenly like there's no explanation but suddenly like homer and marge are there yes yeah they also they make a great point on the commentary not for homer but

this extends to bart too once you uh a relative of you gets elected to president you are rich for the rest of your life and you have nothing to worry about and i'm sure like secret service is guarding you as like the parents of the president what bart should be doing is writing a tell-all on lisa growing up and he's like that's he's a millionaire like that like no he has no money problems honestly he's being pretty nice just being a freeloader in her house instead of like selling out to the opposition party with secrets on her but i feel like that would like his band would be better if he worked at it i feel like he needs a success pattern that someone else does something for him which i know for me sounds like a very conservative view and is not.

I just think that she is a freeloader. Yes. Yeah. I mean, Bart is the ultimate freeloader here for sure. And I also do like that they instantly just fall into their childhood antics of like, Mom, Lisa won't share. That's great. So then the family is eaten together in the old West Wing. Sorry I'm late.

I've been racking my brain trying to think of something to cut from the budget. Hey, where's Maggie? Here she is. And look how big she's gotten. Oh, just like her mommy, Maggie Senior. So what did everyone do today? Appointed a Supreme Court Justice. Oh, bewitched marathon.

Search for Lincoln's gold. Dad, that's just a myth. Lincoln didn't hide any gold in the White House. Then what is his ghost protecting? Hey, that's my helicopter yeah i said it to pick up ralph no one was using it i fell out two times bart you do not send a billion dollar helicopter to pick up your drinking buddy you've changed lisa you used to be cool no i didn't she's the only one to rebuff that comment i love that yeah the used to

be cool thing works on everybody until he he tries it on a nerd who's like no i i've never i like she's like no i didn't i didn't used to be cool it's like it's even a nerdy reply of like proper grammar i do really like that maggie joke because it's it's a troll to the audience of like yeah we'll never show you grown-up maggie like but there there was a cut scene you showed me right yes yeah they they had fully animated a scene of maggie senior she's visiting the moon and she's there are little green moon men like classic 60s style little green moon man that she's visiting i i wonder if it was cut for being too futurama i don't know maybe and instead of talking she's got like the kind of like scuba rebreather in her mouth or whatever and still pacifying uh up in space and uh and yeah also

the the lincoln's gold thing it was really funny to hear on the commentary because dan graney is is honest he's like i did not like that you added this to my story and this is mike scully and george meyer doing it and he's like hey we're all friends now but he he didn't feel a b story was needed i do like how they they cop to it in the in the show itself like oh they thought it was a little thin but barton leaves his stuff that's how it works in creed in the writer's room sometimes you know you you write you write your script and then the boss is like hey this need this need something else homer's quest for gold is pretty pretty wacky town it's it's it's like barely a b story it has

like what three scenes it's it's it's just cute it's it's fun and cute at least like uh what else are we gonna see homer do like eat or also be that's the thing homer you know i think it's it's fun and cute at least like uh what else are we gonna see homer do like eat or also be that's the thing homer you know i think it's a smart move homer can't be lazy in this episode because then he's like stealing bart's bit so they give him a proactive thing there actually should be more of a connection made like yeah of course bart's lazy his dad is the laziest mooch in the world but i don't know homer went out and got a lincoln hat for his search for whatever reason i gotta think he stole that from the smithsonian i think that's truly lincoln's hat i'll tell you what another joke i had forgotten the joke that the desk that the death sports of the future are segregated i was like wow though shocking that they're like oh yeah there'd still

be segregation oh so dark then the Then as Lisa is giving her presentation, she gets smacked in the face with a Frisbee, which is a real failure by the Secret Service there. And I love Bart's insistence after they shoot his Frisbee. It's like a new one. Or that it was not even a new Frisbee to begin with. He just like found it. Right.

And also the, I do like in the design on the Washington Monument, there's jets and rings around it. That's fun. Yes, I love that detail. Another great, I just have a quick clip of it. Bart's speech about looking for a job is, again, perfect, perfect for these type of guys. Relax, Lace, you'll live longer.

I can't relax. Being president is hard work. Maybe you should try doing something with your life. I'm gonna. Yeah, did you even call about that messenger job yeah but they said i wouldn't get my first check for two weeks meanwhile they're making major interest on my salary it's such what a dick yeah oh god so it's like that's how every job works bar you don't get paid for two weeks and he's implying like you're a sucker for having a job they're making all that money off of you not me uh i'm not falling you're not i'm not part

of your system yeah that he but uh i mean just also the way lisa phrases is like did you even call back on that messenger job like that's that's just how you talk to the the fuck up in your family that you're just like come on dude not that i have any family members i would name who are like that no you know honestly my brother and i i think we're leveled off he makes i think he makes a little more than me but i'm not part of the system man you're more famous on the internet so that's true show him no but i love my brother we're just uh we're both good good pals honestly i should talk to him uh sometime i should just have him on uh like a quick interview of like

hey remember when we both watched the simpsons together like because we i'd say for a time me and my brother were equal simpsons fans i also do love in 2030 bart is still using a tape deck boom box that's so good but as retro it came back it's cool again man yeah everyone's gonna be throwing their lps in the ocean by 2030 and buying cassette tapes like no this you can act you can hear all the warmth with this the hiss how did we listen to this about the hiss uh the hiss feels so wonderful yeah i uh yeah the uh then there's a quick scene of homer and marge searching for gold i i i do like the march points i like you just started counting from an arbitrary place uh and and homer's dickish like gold bars found by marge like that is just a line george meyer says in the right to shut people down, as they say.

Then Lisa is planning to address the nation. She needs a big tax hike to pay off this deficit. And Bart is here to help. My fellow Americans and voting illegal aliens, I will not mince words. Your country needs you. That's why today I'm proposing a temporary refund adjustment. Refund? Hey, sounds good to me. Sure beats a tax. We love you, President Simpson. The months ahead will be long and arduous, but it is only through arduosity that if you like refund adjustments and the music I play, send a check to my friend Ralph, and he'll mail you a tape.

Uh, this is my brother Bart, who doesn't seem to realize this isn't the best time for his music. He's one of the people I want to help with my programs. Hey, Lise, my music is going to make it a lot easier for America to swallow your big tax hike. Tax hike? Hold the phone, phone mabel you know i never trusted her don't blame me i voted for chastity bono and we're out. Why, you little... Help! Secret service!

Was Chastity Bono the former president? It sounds like they ran against Lisa and lost, I think. Though, actually, that would fit with... That's what I was saying. At the time, yeah. At the time. Now, obviously, Chaz Bono is his name now. Yep. So let's keep...

But in 1995, Chaz Bono came out as a lesbian and i believe his transition uh you know very public and uh brave transition in 2009 like as i mean poor chas bono has been famous from the second he was born has had to go through like the public divorce of his parents and just like a whole lot of bullshit so i i wish chas nothing but the best more on the line and not intended to be as ugly as it feels now but voting illegal aliens are just like yeah that joke is a lot more loaded i mean it kind of was loaded yeah yeah it's uh but i guess that's one of those like at both sides he kind of jokes like hey we'll make fun of uh we'll mock immigration as well sure but also did you know this future mo in wedding he had an eye patch and now no eye patch a better future for this mo let's assume he got a glass eye but then

again you know what nobody's talking about the world war three that britain saved us from what what like there's like i like the the head canon that there's one specific event that changed the entire future of the simpsons and we don't know what that event is what hat yeah something you know maybe the hugh parkfield thing never even happened or like some information that the well no because the fortune tellerer told Lisa that future is immutable. Try to be surprised. Right, yeah. The whole temporary refund adjustment thing is pretty funny, too.

Colossal tax grab. Salary grab, sorry. I love how Milhouse says, well, if you want to out and out lie, and Lisa just has a blank reaction to that. He's like, okay, the temporary refund adjustment. She likes fiscal solvency. Again, a perfect West Wing style neoliberal yes yeah well hey look it was the end of history who knew in 18 months after this aired how much everything would be different you know but also that lisa i find it hard to believe even in the progressive 2030 that an unmarried woman would be allowed to win the presidency like i feel that that would just not be trusted by by middle america and yet she seems to be unmarried this lisa

especially since millhouse is still hopeful but i also love that the phrasing actually did work for a time until bart says tax nobody realizes it's a tax i also think that hold the phone mabel thing is a reference to the wife of alexander graham bell mabel bell i think i believe was that like an old saying i mean hold the phone is this current saying i guess but maybe mabel was part of that maybe i think i think it is an oldie time saying uh one of those classic uh simpsons bringing back old time sayings there and i I do like the drawing of the Secret Service strangling Bart. So then we come back from the commercial break.

They're talking the tax hike has been so rejected by the public. They can't do that. What can they do? I love one of the- The mass suicide payback plan. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah.

There's so many. You're right. There are so many suicide jokes in season 11. Yeah. I guess this era specifically. Just like, wow, suicide. What a concept. Yeah.

It's, again, Homer planning to kill himself after the pharma didn't work out. Again, I just have to say, like, I don't think these countries can ask for your their money back to the u.s because we have all the nukes like yeah it's just yeah i heard tim allen once talk about like hey you know this deficit thing america's like a family and we you know the father earns this and i'm just like can the father like rob a bank whenever he feels like it and with no punishment like because i think the right response is i don't think so tim yeah i'll tell you another joke that stuck with me too the secret murders jokes oh me too i love it you get three murders uh kearney uh really moving up in the world oh yeah

he really he really overcame his status as like a single teenage father yeah what he's 60 at this point probably yeah no you're right i mean as nelson the best he could do is like sleazy nightclub owner who can't pay people but kearney's fully secret service i every year they visit the grave of jimbo i mean the three secret murders jokes it feels very much like a Whitewater kind of joke at the time. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's very professional as a Secret Service agent. Like, he's kicked off his childish ways, and he's super profesh. He's like, this is the situation.

I can kill someone or not. It is your choice. And also, he lets her know, like, it's a limited time, you know, once you're not a former president. Don't get it. You only get to do it then uh i i like to imagine you know every previous president on the day before they're just like oh i gotta pick i can't waste it all right three three free ones right uh and then even just brag that he never used them and everyone's like we get it jimmy carter you're good uh you're so full of yourself

i think you're so great because you didn't use the secret murders and when bart comes into the room too and he complains about his moped he's like a dollar's worth of gas like uh when i put like three dollars of gas in my car just to get somewhere i did feel like uh i felt like i failed i failed in my life technically the uh being on e is just a warning sure you got time left suggestion yeah and then we get a like a high five to alan greenspan who he died six years after this aired but they imagine greenspan like he was nobody i when he was alive i don't remember people may he was treated as like an apolitical figure i like i remember on the ucb sketch show they were just like he's just the guy in charge

of money whatever his politics are are meaningless he's just the money guy and he would have been 104 in 2013 or he would be yeah if he survived uh though though then after his death that's why i found out like oh yeah greenspan was like an objectivist it he's he was a a hardcore libertarian i think uh and plus they're like he he passed away before the recession hit that he partially caused that lucky bastard yeah and uh bart is proclaimed secretary of keeping it real as he sent on a bullshit mission to camp david i was just thinking about how you never hear camp david in the news anymore uh yeah yeah like i i think trump uh he goes he just he goes golfing he doesn't go to camp david in the news anymore uh yeah yeah like i think trump uh he goes he just he goes golfing he doesn't go to camp david like golf i think just just like

golf replace camp david as like your retreat i mean why would you go to camp david when you could go to mar-a-lago like it's such a beautiful place full of like sweaty floridian businessmen i've heard about those good cakes uh god uh i i looked up uh there was a new story in may of this year where they're like oh trump went to camp david that's weird he never does that like that it's uh apparently he's only done it a handful of times in his presidency you hear about camp david all the time back then like every all the peace summits at camp david and then we get a Kissinger joke and he is still alive unfair can you believe that hey you know two months from now when this goes live I'm not knocking wood on that no no no oh man like here's the thing though is I don't want Kissinger to die now because you know that Biden's

gonna be like what a great man like there's gonna be a tweet that I'm like no yeah he's gonna wrap so many rent medals around his neck before he passes. God. Yeah. You're right. You know what? At the very least, let's wait till after the election. And if Biden, I want to always say if on these things, if Biden were president, then it's like, fine, then I can roll my eyes at it then.

But please don't do it before the election. And then we cut to Camp David. I also really love the beer guy turn here sign like that's a little a little balloon taped up and like uh crusty is there uh in his old groucho get up from lisa's wedding yeah they i'm glad they didn't think of like some new design for him it's funnier just to see him as this like uh honestly like sack a kissinger style sack of skin that's being carted around in a wheelchair i think his only line at lisa's wedding was uh yeah you're right you're right uh and that is white makeup is turned green at this point so yeah well then there's another joke too that's

like boy this is some pre-9-11 jokes about pakistan and india yeah oh yeah that it like the biggest fear pre-911 was well obviously we're all fine but pakistan just got a nuclear weapon and they're definitely gonna nuke each other like that's another one not to say there are never hostilities between those two countries now but there were so many jokes in the late 90s about like well they're gonna nuke each other any day now. Like that, that there was the concert to bomb Bangladesh. 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. Oh, right. In season 10. You're right, yeah. And also, you know, another design I really like, the future Otto design.

I wish he had a line. He has a Brent Michael-style headband on now, which I just love. I'm glad Otto survived. Yeah, honestly, he probably is the one who turned Bart on to all that weed. I guess revision, maybe Bart Lives with Otto would be a fun one, too,

in this dirtbag scenario. Maybe Otto's kicked him out already at this point. Yeah, Otto got his life together a little bit. And then the other folks added, they're not identifiable enough. It's just like there's just a couple of guys there. I wish they would have aged up more of the regular characters to hang out with Bart at this coolness summit. What's adult Wendell look like, you know? Oh boy, now jokes about the hidden pornography of Bill Clinton.

Don't, do not go in there. Less said the better there. I do like in the show how now there are these false stakes, like Bart's not going to get to write his report on coolness, so no. They really play it up like it's a real thing sorry

mike no no no i was just laughing at what you were saying but yeah i do like how there's like dramatic music and bart is like it's like no this is all just a giant ruse bart's like you're just being sent away to waste time you're right yeah that's so good there's also so many turns in this episode that are so such easy turns where it's like you're gonna go to camp david and in that scene it's like you gotta go back yes yeah there's it does feel like there is obviously bart gets i got the clip for it but bart gets a speech from a helpful ghost but that doesn't it doesn't end with an emotional change where he's like i've got to prove lisa wrong yeah i gotta go home it's just he just appears back at the White House the next time you see him and did anyone else get like a shining vibe from this scene it doesn't feel like

they were they were doing that but it's like well if a ghost bartender serves you something alone you're in the shining yeah I think that trope at least was there it might not have been like a direct one-to-one but I think it was like yeah that's how I felt too I think at the very least I I'd love to see the script for this to see if they indicate it i think at the very least i i'd love to see the script for this to see if they indicate it there but at the very least when the animators were given the script and saw there was a scene of a guy alone at the bar meets a ghost they saw it as a shining reference and drew it in there like i think i think he's even dressed the same billy carter as the uh helpful bartender that tells him to kill his family.

Or I guess that's Moe who says to kill your family, too. Kill your family. But, yeah, Billy Carter, the late Billy Carter, he passed away in 88. He barely even got to enjoy the thrills of being a famous president's brother. It's fitting he's serving beer because he's the inventor of Billy Beer. Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of pictures of him online uh wearing the billy beer t-shirt i that's why we never even got to drink it because he was gone by the time there there should be a billy beer return but i guess nobody wants to remember like 1978 anymore uh but yes bart is visited by a friendly ghost l Lisa's counting on me for this coolness report. Coolness report?

You've been had, boy. Billy Carter's ghost? Damn straight. And I'm here to tell you, you've been sent on a wild goose chase. You mean Lisa wanted to get rid of me? Well, that's a big 10-4. When my brother Jimmy was making peace in the Middle East, he sent me to Belly Flop Academy. I guess

I am an embarrassment. You sure are. Hey, there's an embarrassment to riches at the caesar's powwow engine casino you can bet on it you put an ad in my vision yeah crazy talk came up with that he got idea from dancers with focus groups but they should have just stopped the crazy talk i feel like you get one joke about the name thing yeah to bring it back for dances with focus groups that's uh i mean the idea that he inserts uh you know paid a promotion in his dream sequence like that's kind of funny but well though also that when it came in here i was like act two started with revisiting

bart in the present but act three didn't so they they needed to cut back one more time i think before it ended just in case you like tuned in in the last act you were distracted by those ads for stuffed crust pizza or something uh the oh man what the wonderful days of stuffed crust pizza i think we were in the pizone area perhaps oh yeah more dough uh all they got all of those things were just like okay we've got dough and toppings at a pizza hut we can't add new things to it what more can we do what if we folded the pizza what i also love that bart recognizes jimmy carter's brother like immediately it's just like wait a second i know you the guy from 78 i think bart has been unfairly compared to billy carter several times in his life yeah uh man the bart and bart you're right the the stakes of bar like i gotta write this report it's weird he takes this seriously for a change, too.

It's funny that he's like, no, guys, we have to take this seriously. And they're all just pawing around in a box of pornography. Even Krusty gets a lot of energy to go through that porno box. Again, there's no real state change for Bart. Bart should say out loud like, oh, I do i'm gonna prove her wrong i'm going back to washington or whatever but uh but yes we get a quick cutaway the only clip i have from the gold side thing because it really is just so slight yeah this one is the one memory i have of this episode bothering me because i knew it was going to be a metaphor the second they started doing it or i

predicted like is it going to be a metaphor and so my reaction was totally homer's reaction in this clip i did it i found lincoln's gold dear countryman you have come in search of my gold and i will not disappoint you my gold is in the heart of every freedom loving american oh crap it's in our mighty rivers our majestic well isn't that clever it's a metaphor that lion rail splitting cedar going freak i i like that my favorite bit in that is how long it takes marge to realize it's a metaphor she's like pretty impressive of homer to just dig in random spots around the white house and find it though yeah that's true yeah it's uh and that's uh i didn't figure how it would and when they first entered into it.

But once Zomer found something, I knew it was going to be a metaphor. Yeah. Then it cuts back to Lisa and her big meeting with the other countries. A real parade of accents in this scene. But I'll tell you what's really distracting. The giant picture of Teddy Kennedy watching over them. I feel like someone should have made a joke about that right it feels why isn't there a line about like and now we're in the president teddy

kennedy room or something it's just so distracting uh lisa is having trouble convincing them and bart saves the day with his avoiding bills powers you guys should relax you live longer bart you're supposed to be at camp david you're meeting with debt collectors and you don't want my help do you know how crazy that is guys the thing is we totally have the money and we tried to wire it to you but you know how banks grew up hey do not understand we tried to call you all day saturday we were there saturday dude i know and i left a message with some guy named hans hans he might have been a temp very surly we have had a lot of turnover you pay now now what happened to you china you used to be cool hey china is still cool you pay later later solid The rest of you go on home and look in your mailboxes because I totally remember sending checks out.

And I love how Lisa's reaction is like, you bought us some time. Exactly. That's all this does for Bart. It's like I got two more days of not worrying about this. Also, this is what Trumpian economics are. Like Bart has come in Trump wise and just been like, we're paying you yeah you're right you're right at least it's like oh this is the way to govern it's to lie i didn't want to lie earlier but lines now lying now it's fine right yeah it's perfect this is just you lie and you also bring it down to like well this definitely is in the president deals kind of style here, except it's dirt baggy.

I also do like that the British representative came with like a pipe, like a soccer hooligan. Apparently he plans to beat the president to death in the White House. And that it might have been a temp. That is the perfect cover of just like, oh, yeah, I named a person who didn't work at your place because it was a temp that is the perfect cover of just like oh well yeah i named a person who didn't work at your place because um it was a temp that's why and they have to admit like oh we have had a lot of turnover like that's it's really really good and yeah the only thing i go really oof at is like the the chinese delegate like that's like hey you know that was the fear of china in the 90s i think you still see that bubble up these days. Yeah, but I feel like we a lot of especially conservatives don't know what to do with that because they also want those business connections with China where we're like, you guys suck.

But also, please buy these soybeans. Please buy soybeans. Yeah, I know. That's you know, the people in power on the conservative side, they can't stoke those racist fires as much as they would like to, I think, because they really do depend on like, no, we have to sell our films in China. We have to sell all this stuff in China. We got to buy this stuff from China.

It's, and I do think that, you know, there are definitely a lot of folks who are racially angry at China because they're just like, they are about to replace us as number one like they kind of they want it more it's arguable that they've already done it honestly uh but and i but yes then bart has saved the day and he requests that she legalize it which you know

that was what people in 2000 i didn't get that joke i did not know what legalize it meant uh i do think that i know it'size it meant uh i do think that i know it's hack to say but i do think the simpsons writers smoke more weed than a normal person does they're eating rotisserie chicken they weren't smoking anything i loved in that like in mike reese's book like twice i think he brings up like oh i was smoking pot out of like an apple core or something they they mentioned pot use very lightly and i just like i want one simpsons writer to finally admit like yeah we all recreationally use drugs and it was illegal in the 90s like who cares like yeah a lot of in the well actually i guess it's

not legal where you live mike it is not but it is relatively decriminalized and right now the cops have bigger things to worry about but I wish it were legalized. It would be so much easier. I wouldn't have to like surreptitiously have someone come to my apartment to sell me things. I'd also say that if the writer's room in the 90s were just on weed, then that's

doing better than most of those writer rooms. In the 90s, they loved cocaine. Like they loved, I have never seen cocaine in a writer's room because everyone now is like, I don't know, does that have dairy? But like in the 90s they loved cocaine like they loved i have never seen cocaine in a writer's room because everyone now is like i don't know does that have dairy but like in the 90s they loved cocaine man i didn't i didn't realize how casual it would have been then yeah did your did your pas have to get that for you did you bring your own i would bet yes by the way i would bet that there was some pas or assistants that were sent to buy like weed or coke because i know i've been when i was an intern i was sent on liquor runs SNL, which they were not legally allowed to do because I was like 20.

And hey, that's why Frazier was so funny. Yeah. We shouldn't look down on it. He was on a lot of funny juice then. Yeah. Well, I also think of how many stories of the Simpsons writers have of like, yeah, you just eat all day like that. Perhaps the weed is in there too i don't know uh i i love any story of simpsons writers eating junk is i want to hear every single one of them that's why i feel i feel guilty every time we've had on our friend

kate raft because it's just like okay it's fun to talk about simpsons and you're a professional writer but when you worked on the simpsons, whose lunch order was this? Well, we do ask all the writers about what they ate and how the writer's room just smelled like a greasy bag all day. Yes, yeah. You know, Mike, I was wondering, you know, the writer's room has to be remote these days now too, huh? Yeah, it does, which is like sort of like as we know from

this podcast it's a lot harder to like sense people's social cues and when they're stopping talking and like when someone's like ready to go um it's a lot hard it's it's a lot harder i mean it's like i'm glad that i have a job and i will continue to be glad i have a job while millions don't but it's so much harder it's so much harder and there's so many more misunderstandings because you're just like, you forget to just tell someone something because you can't just walk over and tell them it. Oh, yeah. It sucks.

Yeah, I heard Al Jean talk about it and say like that he's, they haven't had a writer's room since it started and how they, when you hear about the things that help spread COVID, it's like this, that's everything in a writer's room. You're in an enclosed space and you're all talking and laughing and making noises. Digging through the same bowl of candy. Yeah, all touching the same jelly beans. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I know someone who was on the show who had it. It was like a close call for everyone. Dang, I did not know that. Damn, that's tough. who was on the show who who had it like it was like a close call for everyone wow dang i did not know that damn that's tough yeah that's well yeah i hope uh i i hope someday writers rooms can return and every people can you know be bullshitting in front of each other instead of in front of a camera i hope someday it would be so much easier i mean we like there's people on staff who like have even said this where where we have writers who are like so excited to do bits in the room because you do get that instant response and you can be a little more physical with it so you can kind of like

emote what you're doing a bit better and that's entirely cut off like there's less of that playful feeling and more like i have an idea and like kind almost like metaphorically raising your hand for it yeah that uh yeah that must throw off the whole rhythm of the yeah that's tough it does it does uh one and also like you can't really pitch a sketch that's like well then of course they go to a crowded place and yeah no but uh but anyway yes as bart saves the future for a couple days, I like that he starts a fire that he just walks away from, proving he's learned no lesson.

And then it cuts back to regular times. And I think in the present, maybe in the script, it was supposed to come off as like the vision gave Bart a warning and he's going to change his ways. But Bart comes off as seeming very much like, yeah, that's what I'm going to be. Yep. Not changing anything. Not working hard at all. It's one of the many times in the series where Bart gets a dark vision of himself in the future and goes, cool.

Though also, yeah, this is when you compare it to lisa's wedding this is this ending kind of falls flat because the lisa's wedding just has this such a touching moment of lisa realizing like oh you know i love my dad and just she wants to be closer to him because they're they're pulling they're gonna you know drift apart and this could have a moment they could have gone for the emotional beat of the bart realizing like my sister does a lot for me or i'm gonna be with her the rest of my life i should be nicer to her something like that but it says like nah they just kind of play it uh too light and there's no music under it either which could maybe juice the emotion and the uh the news that homer a woman. That's weird.

Yeah, he shoved a waitress? Yes, yeah, that he shoved a waitress. That is so dark for Homer. That's like, that's not funny, silly, like food monster stuff. That's Homer got drunk and a woman told him you can't gamble anymore and he shoved her. He pushed a woman down. Yeah.

And then marge at some point got into the casino and gambled away twenty thousand dollars uh but yes actually let's see where where do they have twenty thousand dollars to even lose spend from that mortgage right second mortgage okay now maybe homer did a second mortgage and then she did a third but uh but yes the here's the uh happy ish ending what can i do to thank you legalize it legalize what oh oh consider it done tasty that calls for some toonskis oh great Anyone have a paperclip? It gets kind of hazy after that.

Why did a vision of my future include a story about Homer and Lincoln's gold? I guess the spirits thought the main vision was a little thin. Anyway, the point is, you still have the power to change your future. I'll do my best. You're a good kid. Here's a coupon for some crab claws. Hey, this is expired. There you are. Come on, we have to go. Dad pushed a waitress and mom lost $20,000. You're not going to believe it, Lise. This cool Indian guy showed me our future.

Really? Anything good? I'll say. i've got my own band and a moped what about me yeah some government job and that's that yeah it uh i don't know the music could have come in maybe a little more to give it some emotional stuff but but bart really is just like yeah it's good i got a band and a moped like that yeah and bart should have followed his own advice he didn't hold the play button in on the cassette deck remember that's right oh yeah cool yeah well obviously he's got to blame other people for that though i do like that his future gets hazy after that like there was an upcoming choice at that moment that would diverge the timelines uh what happens after the white house burns down again you know bart could if he gets famous as the guy who saved the uh the the nation that maybe he does ride that into success and being a supreme court justice you

know maybe maybe lisa does a very you know bad presidential move late in her administration and appoints bart to the supreme court you know but you're right it is missing that sweet moment but the the the year 2000 was not about like you know emotional beats in these stories we were a lot meaner i think then yeah as we said before south park is the hot thing here so i think they're they're still trying to keep up with that but also like after you've written for the show this long, maybe you're just kind of tired of doing treacly stuff. Or also, like, this takes me back to our John VD interview

where he talked about writing a sequel episode as well about the Bigger Brothers stuff and how he intentionally chose to not be emotional because he's like, you want emotion from me. Well, I'm not doing it though the the future vision guy vanishes just like actually like the fortune teller appeared to who then didn't it worked better uh better for him i guess in the end yeah yeah but uh yeah i wish the ending was a little sweeter it's like the emotionally this doesn't really work as an episode but there's i think there's some good you know future comedy jokes and prediction jokes and

and and the bart vision of that specific type of dirt bag is very well done yeah i'm with you like i don't feel like this is as much of a betrayal as i felt it was 20 years ago and i can like it on its own terms and of course it's infamous forever for the Donald Trump line, but we can see the historical context there. Dan Green didn't just create that joke. It was floating in the atmosphere. Yeah. I think it's one of those weird episodes where the characterization's fun.

There's a lot of good gags, but the story just doesn't carry any weight, which it really could have. Like it could have been very easy to end on some note where he comes back from reality he's like oh my god lisa you know like we could have had that moment and that's what's disappointing is like the fact that he's a financial advisor to the president doesn't have any weight to it yeah you know if if you cut out that lincoln's gold stuff maybe there's a little space for some more emotionality or stakes there yeah but you're really gonna want that scene of homer digging holes yeah uh it's it's pretty great that if it if this caused issues uh creatively

in the writer's room i'm glad they could at least joke about like yeah well maybe the the vision thought this story was a little bit i do like that so uh mike thanks for coming back on the show and uh please talk to me oh for sure and please talk about what you're working on now where people I do like that. So, Mike, thanks for coming back on the show. Thank you for having me. Oh, for sure. And please talk about what you're working on now, where people can find you online and so on. Sure. You can find me on Twitter, at Mike Drucker. Instagram, at Mike Drucker is dead.

I write on, I'm actually now co-head writer of a show called Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. That's Wednesdays at 10.30 on TBS. Please watch it so they renew us for season six. And I have a, in December, i have a in december i have a boss white book coming on silent hill too yes yeah i kick-started that i can't i can't wait to read it yeah that's awesome man i i didn't know you're your co-head writer now that is great congratulations on that thank you yeah yeah yeah started it started two weeks before the pandemic oh boy wow perfect time to jump into a leadership position.

Things just got funnier. It's comedy so easy now. Well, I'm sure I'm glad we got you a little early because I'm sure in October of 2020, you're going to be pretty busy. It's going to be such an insane time. Yeah. But thank you as well. Thanks so much, Mike. Thank you for having me.

I'd love to do it in the future. And thank you as always, Mike. We'd love to have you back. Thank you for having me. I'd love to do it in the future. And thank you guys very much. So thanks again to Mike Drucker for being on the show. And as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these episodes one week ahead of time and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. If you go there and sign up for five bucks a month, you'll get just that, but also everything behind the $5 paywall

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