Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Barting Over With TheRealJims

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Hard to believe it but we have reached the landmark 300th episode, and for this occasion, we turn to Simpsons historian, TheRealJims from the awesome YouTube channel of the same name! How does the show celebrate such a big moment? Well, first Bart learns he's a child star but that Homer already wasted all of the money, and somewhere in between that and a big action ending, Tony Hawk and Blink 182 appear to be Bart's new friends. All that plus dirty pumpkin carving in this week's podcast! Support this podcast and get over 150 bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking futurama talk king of the hill the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, where we ask, what would Geppetto do? I'm your host, the suit of drugs wearer, Bob Mackey, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who is here with me today, as always? Henry Gilbert, and I didn't say

extreme to the max. And who is our special guest on the line? This is the real Jim's YouTube personality, I guess, and I totally forgot to bring a quote today. And this week's episode is Barting Over. Please don't go, Bart. I'll let you swear on the house. Everything but the big three. Sorry, Mom. I just can't. Not as long as he's here. This week's episode originally aired on February 16th, 2003. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.

Oh, my God. Oh, boy, Bobby. Daredevil tops the box office. Michael Buble releases his debut album, and this special 300th episode of The Simpsons airs alongside a Married with Children reunion special. Oh, how nice. So there already was one. That's right. In 2003, they were celebrating Married with Children's reunion. And I'm sure I watched it, but there are so many people clamoring for a reunion now that I forgot that it happened, I'm guessing, six years after it went off the air? Five years? Pretty much. Even less. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, it's funny on this night where they're celebrating the 300th episode of The Simpsons.

They're also celebrating their first big sitcom before The Simpsons, what was their biggest show before The Simpsons, what was their biggest show, before The Simpsons got even bigger. But yes, Daredevil, that was an event for me as when Marvel movies were not something you saw all the time. It felt special to have a Daredevil movie in theaters. And I guess, so you have to remind me, Henry, they're gearing up to relaunch him in a big way because there was the TV series on Netflix, and then he made an appearance in one of the Spider-Man movies, and everyone went, woo!

And then what followed? Well, then he had sex with She-Hulk in the She-Hulk TV show for one episode. And currently they are filming a new series that who knows what's changing with that because things are in flux in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But he's supposed to have a new series coming to Disney+, continuing with the Charlie Cox character. And of course, now that the multiverse is entering into everything with Marvel, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Ben Affleck daredevil appear in an upcoming Marvel movie. Anything's possible.

They need all the easy cheers they can get now. They have enough dump trucks full of money. I think it's going to happen. And if Ben Affleck says yes to a Dunkin' Donuts commercial, he'll say yes to putting on the Daredevil outfit again. Would a Ben Affleck Daredevil be a big nostalgia draw? Like, I don't know. Like, I saw the first Daredevil,

but it was like one of those movies that kind of came and went where I was like that movie wasn't spider-man like we can leave that one in the past i guess do you think do you think people would come out for a new daredevil with ben i think they'd appreciate a reference but like a full new movie no nobody would care that much i mean and you mentioned um michael buble so this is a guy i only knew uh via an appearance on the tim and eric awesome show great job and now i have to tell everyone out there he has reached even greater So this is a guy I only knew via an appearance on the Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job. And now I have to tell everyone out there, he has reached even greater heights 20 years later. Because in Canada, we have this non-alcoholic seltzer called Bubbly. And I think it's in America too.

But at my local grocery store, there is a Michael Bubbly flavor here. Instead of Bubbly, it's Bubbly. And it's a nice holiday flavor. I think it's like cranberry-ish or something so he now has his own uh flavored seltzer so that's even better than grammys in my opinion i think my mom was uh ahead of the curve on the buble train like she had heard him on like npr or something before he really crossed over though i feel like it was a year or two after this debut album was when he had his christmas

album which is still heard every holiday season we're recording this as the holiday season is just about to begin so uh you're hearing a lot of his uh many standards i can't think of a single michael buble song is there like a really famous one that i would have remembered because in this era i was clearly in my blink 182 phase I think I he mainly did sing old classics that's the thing like I do think there's I do think there are some originals that he did that topped the charts but when I think of Buble I think of him singing like it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas you know I don't think of original music so he does not have his own Mariah Carey style 90s Christmas song that has entered the rotation.

Yeah, like I always thought of Michael Bublé as like songs that like your parents listen to. And now that I am an old person too, like I'm still not drawn to Michael Bublé. So I'm wondering when the Bublé bubbly is going to hit me. You got to take a sip. So the top singles from his Christmas album is just him singing All I Want for Christmas is You, the Mariah Carey song. Christmas Baby, Please Come Home. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas and White Christmas.

And then his fifth one is, I think, an original called Cold December Night. You know, this makes me think writing a Christmas album must be very easy. And I'm surprised the Simpsons haven't done it. But they have helped sell someone else's christmas album last year they should just do a straight up simpsons christmas boogie yeah they really should they actually would sell a lot of copies if well i mean if people bought music today but they would get a lot of streams at the very least today if they did it like earnestly or at least by the simpsons standards which of course don't make any money yes and I also think they missed the window

in which some of those actors could sing convincingly in their character voices. That's also true, yes. I don't know if Julie Kavner can carry a song as Marge as well as she could do at this time period. I listened to some of those old albums. I sat through, what was it, the Springfield Soul Stew with her.

I think I've had enough Marge singing for a while. Yes. Oh, boy. Yeah, and that was her just saying, now add some bass, or whatever. We usually are apologetic for her of just like, you know, she didn't know she was going to have to sing in that voice when she invented it.

I feel very, very bad for her, Julie Kavner, having to just live in the Marge zone for 36, 37 years now. But hey, she's made the most of it. Yeah, I have trouble feeling that bad for her with the, you know, 30 years of very steady work with those paychecks as well. So I think you could do a lot worse probably. Hey, that's right. If anything, she owes us. Exactly.

Come on the show, Julie. We love you. Anyhow, let's get to our guest today. It is the real Jim's Simpsons YouTuber joining us again. Last time, Jim's was here for Jaws Wired Shut. This time, Jim's is here for a landmark episode. Number 300. I am so happy you guys invited me for this very, very special occasion. I am really excited to talk about number 300 in which Marge does steroids and like trashes Moe's bar.

That's the episode we're talking about, right? Oh, we wish we were celebrating that episode. The true 300th. Jims, I really did love your review of that you did recently. But I watched it after we did our podcast, but we had very similar thoughts of first two acts good, third act bad. Yeah, I don't want to like go over that podcast again, but every time I watched that episode, I was like,

wow, what a kind of nuanced and interesting story about her dealing with this fear and everything. And then by Act 3, it's like, oh no, she's in a bodybuilding contest with Ruth Powers. It's like, yeah, that episode definitely went off the rails. Kind of like a certain episode today, I think. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm wondering, though, I didn't do the math. Does this being the 300th throw off the count for all of the other landmark episodes? You know, I should have checked if 400 was actually 400 or 500 or 500.

I think I remember when they hit 600 or just 750 recently. No little stinkers were saying, nah, technically it's not. So I think they might have gotten the counts right after this one. In case anyone missed our strong arms of the ma episode that is actually the 300th production episode for this episode fox i i think they told al jean we want the 300th air on this date and he said well 302 is airing and their response was lie to people and they did yep and it all worked out uh and i mean they had an entire promotional mega campaign ready to roll out for this, which

we engage with a lot of that. But in our research, though, Jim's also, I want to say on your channel, you've had a lot of great recent ones. I did rewatch your review of the top 10 best episodes of season 14. This one did not make the list, not even your honorable mention. So it is in the lesser half in your opinion yeah i think that's i when i re-watched it i had a similar like not to get too far into it but i had a similar situation where i was like oh this is better than i remembered and

then by the end i was like oh this is why i didn't rank it so yeah it's mostly when blink-182 comes in i think is when i will say it is an odd choice for a Hallmark landmark episode. But then again, all of the 100th, 200th, 300th, 400th, they never seem to be the right episode for, you know, a big landmark for the show. I mean, the next one is a Kent Brockman episode, episode 400. Do we know, was this one produced as the 300th episode? Did they actually gussy up the script to add Blink-182 and stuff when they knew like this was just going to be the one that was going to air that night and because of that it was given the honor of being 300th i think they definitely went for the celebs though for for the i mean this is their second most star-studded one this season i guess but also it's built around like yeah it feels like it's them trying to be youthful again and really go for

a the younger demographic than uh even like me and bob were aged as original simpsons fans uh in 2003 yeah it kind of just feels like when i was watching it where i was like this feels like just a regular simpsons episode but there's such a tonal shift that i just like sensed somewhere that there was like some kind of inter of interference going on in the background where they changed course halfway through, where they have to write the whole script, so I don't know how much they can really change to the scheduling, but just felt like something was being pulled in a different direction, and I was wondering if the 300th was the reason why. Yeah, it seems like Blink 182 really got screwed out of having bigger roles because they have very few lines. One of the Blink-182s doesn't even talk.

And then if you watch the extras, you will see the recording of the episode, a little segments of it, and none of the lines that are in that segment made it to the episode. In their defense, Travis Parker was a bad actor. Henry, the man survived a plane crash. No, I know. I'm kidding, I'm'm kidding they've all been through a lot the the blinkers um no before though uh i did want to follow up on something we talked about

last time when we had jim's on has been in the news lately but so i i think i'd seen you mention it before on on one of your videos uh jims but when you were last on we had a little aside about does homer strangle bart anymore or not and then you did the great video jerk ass homer is dead exploring that idea too and now it was all in the discourse this year after the the simpsons made a joke about it on the show what do you think about that oh my gosh this discourse can i can i have my little platform right now oh please okay so like 95 of america doesn't give a shit about The Simpsons. They don't watch it.

They don't care about what's airing in season 35. If they did, season 35 would have really great ratings. That's first of all. So like all these people who went on Twitter and like freaked out about it and like retweeted the article. It's like, first of all, shame on you. Shame for not watching the simpsons how dare you guys this 35 year old show so like like first of all you guys don't care so like don't pretend like you're that mad about it but then second of all like you referred to

just now he hasn't strangled bart in like four years or three years i think it's like season 31 or 32 so like nobody was missing it like nobody even noticed like the only the only people who noticed were like no homers message board people and me you know i basically all the diehard simpsons fans you know like because they're paying attention to this kind of thing so they're the only only ones who noticed so the only reason this whole thing blew up was because they referenced it and i guess if they wanted to start a discourse then they definitely got what they wanted but the whole thing did get on my nerves a little bit because i was just like like i get the argument but like literally no one gives a

shit out there like in the general pop culture sphere yeah it's definitely uh manufactured outrage just as with many topics like let's say uh women's sports there's people that never cared about them before until they knew they could write an article or make a video or make a tweet. And the other thing is like how many Bart strangling gags do you really need? Like I like the gag. It's fun to mix in occasionally. But like how many more spins on the joke can you realistically do? Yeah.

We just did the one. It comes out next week. But we just the one for lisa's first word and when we saw homer strangle a at best 18 month old bart we're just like wow this this is a bit much to me i mean it just became something i i never thought about and it's only funny when it's acknowledged by characters like marge saying you should be strangling yourself and then in um behind the music parody behind the laughter um Homer says like oh and that horrific act of child abuse became a trademark of our show just kind of underlining how this kind of content should not be taking place but we all just accept it because it's their cartoon characters yes now we are in

the era of meta strangling gags I I think. Well, just in the Thanksgiving episode that just aired, Bart strangles Homer again in that one. So they do still do the reverse strangling as also seen in this episode, too. Yes, the future that we all want is a future in which Bart is strangling Homer most of the time. Which an attempt is made in this episode. Oh, no, actually, it happens in this episode, but I don't know if we can count it if the hands aren't involved. Art usually needs help. It's true. It's a strangling by proxy. So I did want to talk about the writer of this episode.

We normally do a writer's corner without the guest, but because this one is so brief, Real Jim's is along for the ride as we talk about Andrew Kreisberg. You might have heard his name before. He might have seen it in the news in 2017. So we already covered this guy on our Talking Mission Hill podcast series. And if you heard that,

you would know that he was basically MeToo'd out of existence in 2017. He was one of the first big names. And then all the dominoes fell, as they should have. So that's really all you need to know about him. And it sounds like he really hasn't reformed because in uh in march of 2023 he was arrested for the same behavior that got him canceled and it happened at a bar mitzvah so uh i don't want to bum anyone out look it up for

yourself but i did see his lawyer say something like my client is neurodivergent how dare you so i guess that's the defense he's going with but if you want to know about his time with the Simpsons, he was an Al Jean hire at the beginning of season 13, The She of Little Faith. He stayed to the end of production season 14. And then I don't know what his deal was. I don't know why he didn't want to stay. But he seemingly left the show to become a writer and producer on the Faith Ford and Kelly Ripa sitcom Hope and Faith. So that's where he went. And then all the superhero stuff came after that.

And then you can read about what happened. So that is Andrew Kreisberg. Wow. I have never heard of this guy in my life. And now when you give me that description, now like what a tantalizing description where I'm like, what the hell happened at a synagogue? So I know what I'm going to be doing after this.

We sent all of our fans on a Google hunt now. But yeah, I didn't know really who he was because uh when i heard the news about him i was like people expect me to know what this arrow first thing is and then i learned it was a big deal well fortunately david zaslav has killed the arrow verse at this point so you don't have to care anymore oh thank god as well as everything else yes all things he killed all things anything that could be good or might not even be good but yeah it's and i think this this is his only episode of the show his only credited episode of course he was a writer

for um two production seasons but this might be his only one i think i think so it's pretty big to hand him the 300th episode i gotta say like that's pretty pretty nuts you would think it would go to you know well of course carolyn omine actually wrote the 300th episode we don't need to keep harping on this but still i don't think there's like an actual bonus involved or whatever giving him the 300th but it still is a big status thing to give a young guy but i guess uh up to 2017 he did go on to become a pretty big name in entertainment like he had a bigger career post-Simpsons than most writers around this time.

Yeah, that kind of adds credence to my theory of they didn't really know what they were doing in terms of their scheduling, when you say that. And then again, Strong Arms and the Maha doesn't really feel like a 300th either. Though I guess, does Seymour Skinner's badass song feel like a 100th episode? It's a perfect episode,

but it doesn't feel like a hundredth episode it's a perfect episode but it doesn't feel like a 100th like event episode i will uh correct myself just to jump in here andrew christberg did write one of the segments of tales from the public domain it was the odysseus segment so that's the other thing he did and it seemed like they started writers out by doing a segment of a treehouse of horror or one of these trilogy episodes before they would graduate to writing a full episode at this point in the show's history. That's why those trilogy episodes are always the best of the season. I'm looking forward to the wettest stories ever told coming soon. I just watched that for the season 17 video and I was like, wow, I still barely remember this episode. So, Jims, do you recall where you were when this 300th episode uh aired oh god um well i know i would

have been in high school but i don't know what i was doing specifically at the time do either you guys remember i remember i checked in on the show i was definitely there that night and it was a big night because apparently uh there was more than one new episode that night and then i know i had to have watched that married with children reunion if you pull it up on uh the commercial you'll see you'll be like oh yeah i remember this like because they i think they might film a new in universe scene like it's not it's more of just like interviews and stuff but they bring them to the set like the whole cast is back on the set i forget if they get in costume for it or not yeah if i recall it was sort of like the friends reunion except they were on the set of married with children friends they reconstructed the set for that oh they did i apologize r.i.p matthew perry yeah now it's a

much more sad uh special that it used to be but no i i remember uh definitely had the feeling of like wow the simpsons at 300 how much longer can it go was the feeling, man. And now this is not even the halfway point of how many episodes of the show there are. Yeah. If you look up that very small extra on the DVD, it's just basically a PR package, a video package about the 300th episode. Matt Groening is like, you know, when I created these characters in 87, I had no idea I'd be talking about them in 2003.

Could you imagine? And now we're about to roll over into 2024. And I think he, I mean, I'm pretty sure Matt Groening says the same thing every year you talk to him because who could have guessed? Yeah, I was thinking at the end of the episode, there's a flash forward 50 years

to Nelson laughing at Homer's grave. And it really made me wonder if like the show is still still gonna be on 50 years from this episode's airing at this point with sophisticated ai voices uh no you know i was thinking there on the 100th episode the closest they had to a really reflective thing was the opening wonder years parody of you know mart says what if people are laughing at this years from now and he's like not likely that was the most like reflective joke they had in that. I do also remember the marketing blitz for it,

going to stores and seeing them on the cover of like everything. I pulled up several things for it too. If you guys want to hear some of the, some of the rollout they did for it. One of the big ones was they did a ton of interviews in variety, including one with the brand manager at Fox, who was really talking about like how they made more money on merchandise for simpsons in 2002 than they did in 1990 wow wow yeah and i mean we talked about it on the show before but that was a period of a big new rollout of merch that we all lived through yeah i think it it started in 99 or so was when it began again

that's when the simpsons got like new video game deals for instance and i i think it was helped by south park being a big hit showed them that there was an adult animation dork market that they could sell to to all of us and make billions did they count dvd sales in there because this is 2003 right so the dvds have started rolling out yes dvd they said the dvd sales were a big chunk of that they even had a cool aside with uh with graining talking about how he felt the dvd commentaries and extras were key to the success of those and he was very committed to them which i was like yeah and now now that the dvd special feature is dead um essentially it made me sad reading about it now i guess we'll see if they get around to uh redoing season 20 god look not so good yeah no you're right it's sad but uh so so they had that they

had an entire tv guide uh cover and special articles in it that that's on the dvd you can read archived of it where they write what me and bob both agree is a pretty flimsy article that the guy probably got the writer probably got paid a lot of money to do it was just part of his $100,000 salary to write 400 words about uh reference four times homer met god or the god was involved in the show uh and also on the february 10th if you got a special invite you could go to the santa monica civic auditorium for food fun and carnival games to celebrate the 300th episode but beware you must present a photo id i did read that very carefully and mac reigning also drew a fun picture of bart as as if he had aged in real time with stubble and smoking a cigarette which was a funny drawing too it's just as depressing as the barts in the real

future in this show oh and also i found one more thing that came out the the week this aired uh which was a very controversial thing in the simpsons nerd fandom and one that got referenced on a number of commentaries there have been a lot of top whatever lists of simpsons ones but this one really stuck the entertainment weekly top 25 because uh bob i think you remember what the number one was on this one yes it's uh it's last exit to springfield correct oh wow that was then yes actually so now that we have a fellow simpson scholar on our show i do want to ask real jims about that because i feel like uh and i've talked about this before it's felt like conventional wisdom that last exit to springfield was the

number one for a very long time but i think it has really fallen in the eyes of both fans and the general public. Jims, have you noticed the same thing? I don't know. I feel like it's still way up there, don't you think? Because I would probably put it way up there myself. But I don't know. Like, I agree, though. It's interesting that you bring it up because I've, like, that seems like a very influential

list that they made because people still refer. Like, I feel like that list, like put Last Day of Springfield on the map. Cause I remember everyone was kind of surprised. They're like this episode, the union episode. And then everybody watched it and they're like, yeah, it's great. You know? And everybody just kind of surrounded around it. But I feel like it's still way up there.

Like, what do you think has surpassed it for fans? Like, uh, you only move twice and cape fear and stuff yeah i think that like i mean obviously mr plow although i'm sure mr plow is in the top five of that list to begin with uh lisa's wedding things like that when we get to the commentary we'll cover this episode again obviously but the commentary they seem kind of befuddled like you think this is the best we could do when they're laughing at you know a joke that's been rewritten a thousand times or you know something built out of ADR and reused footage and things like that. But yeah, I feel like people do remember Dental Plan, Lisa Needs Braces, but I feel like other episodes now stand well above

the stature of that episode today. It is near the top of my personal season four list, but I do like, I like Mr. Plow and I like Monorail and And I like if we're counting production season four, I like Cape Fear more as well. And no, Last Egg of Springfield is hilarious. But I never thought of it as even potentially the number one among my friends either until that list. Like it always was like, oh, it must be. I think it was either Mr. Plow or also maybe the baseball one, Homer at the Bat, because it just was the famous one everybody remembered. Okay. I think I put Last Sega Spring Fiddles number one on that list. So I think it is my favorite to be honest, but I think I might just be an Entertainment Tonight sheep.

I think the more I think about it now, but it is, it is a really good episode. I think the other factor is like, maybe like just because the end of season four is a little bit of a slog. No offense, season four. But it stands out so much among the margin chains of the world in that era. So maybe that's why it punches really hard for me. I don't know. Yeah, I guess so. I guess it does stand out above Wacking Day and The Front and a few others like that. Disc four of my DVDs doesn't get a lot of use except for Last Exit Springfield.

And I guess the finale, Krusty, gets canceled. Just so folks know, the top five on the 25, I reread the whole thing, which was Last Exit to Springfield, number one. Then number two is Rosebud. Number three is Cape Fear. Number four is Monorail. And number five is Homer's Phobia. Also, I mean, Homer's Phobia, hate i love homer's phobia that does feel that does feel like a little maybe they were like but they can't all be from the same like

six month period we should pick one that's not from that time yeah you only moved twice was right there come on guys you know that was a hate it i feel like that was especially you know three they were still the show was doing it and i feel like there was a little more animosity towards the bill and josh's weird episodes back then which i think is too definitely harsh they were doing that oh and also the uh two other facts about that list strummer vacation is the only one in the top 25 that came out post 1997 so they of all the then new episodes they put this how i spent my strummer vacation and then they also had an aside for worst episode ever and this one really surprised me it was bart to the future huh okay yeah yeah i vaguely remember that being called out even over things like

alone again natural diddly which perplexed me a bit i'm not a big bart to the fan, but there's funnier stuff and it doesn't change the canon forever. Yeah, they could have done a lot worse because at least they did pick a pretty bad episode, I think. So I can see that one, I guess. You know, I still, in that one, I at least like what a great loser Bart is in it. Like he's a very accurate loser, but yeah, I mean, it's low on my list of their predicting the future ones. That's for sure. I guess it went from the most hated episode or, you know, in their estimation to one of the most famous episodes as of 2016.

yes. Now, right. God, for a second, I'd forgotten how it was key to the, so we did an entire live show about it, how annoying it is.

We don't need to rehash these things, but, oh, and sorry, two more bits from other articles I saw. One, it was that it is we don't need to rehash these things but oh and sorry two more bits from other articles i saw one it was that it reminded me that at this time i hated nobody more than george w bush and i i still don't like him but i remembered being annoyed reading in multiple of them back rating say we just don't know how to make fun of george w bush and i was

like how dare i remember feeling then how dare they hold back on making fun of george w bush and i was like how dare i remember feeling then how dare they hold back on making fun of george w bush it took them like three seasons like it didn't start to show up until like season 15 where they even like said anything even remotely like satirical about like the environment at the time it was a really cowardly stance i guess is what i'd say i i totally agree but it did feel like a monkey's paw when they wouldn't make fun of George W. Bush, but then they're like, we'll make fun of Trump all day. And you're like, please, no more. Yeah. This isn't helping.

And lastly, as we were used to for years after that, they would talk about like, only need 135 more episodes to surpass Ozzie and Harriet because that was the sitcom record holder for the longest time of 435 episodes, which I think Family Guy is close to surpassing that themselves now, I think. Wow. Family Guy should do an Ozzie and Harriet reference. They must have done an Ozzie and Harriet one by now. Okay, they're at 416. So after the next season, I believe they got a 20-episode order. So the next season, they're going to beat it.

Everyone's running laps around Ozzie and Harriet. The Simpsons will be right back. Fox Tonight brings you the year's most extraordinary night of television. First, it's the 90-minute Simpsons celebration featuring the all-new 300th episode. I can't count how many times your father's done something crazy like this. It's 300, Mom. Then, relive the laughs. It was a joy to do that.

And feel the love. I want sex. So do I, but I see no reason to drag you into it. On the Married with Children reunion, be a part of TV history at a special time, 7.30 tonight on Fox. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You're looking up. 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. Say it ain't so, it's Henry Gilbert here saying thank you to everyone listening to our 302nd chronological exploration of The Simpsons on Talking Simpsons. And a big thank you to our guest this week, The Real Jims. Please check out his awesome youtube channel if you want in-depth dives into a bunch of interesting bits of simpsons history timelines for a bunch of characters reviews of multiple seasons and many simpsons mysteries explored jims has a great

channel for any simpsons freaks out there like us and we always love having jims back on to talk about episodes like this one so thank you so much again again, Jim's, for coming on the show. We'd love to have you back. And if you've enjoyed us for the 300 plus episodes we have gone through chronologically on Talking Simpsons, you should know me and Bob can only do this as our full time jobs because of supporters at Patreon dot com slash Talking Simpsons. Five dollar and up subscribers there not only get to help me and Bob, but they also get tons of exclusive stuff.

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But yeah, so that was all of the bonanza of ads uh for celebrating 300th episode and yeah i just remember feeling a little old when uh when it came out and uh and now now that it's 20 years old oh boy well time makes fools of us all yep as fry so brilliantly said you know the dvd commentary by the way it's one of my least favorite types of dvd commentaries where i appreciate that al jean i think he or or others on it worked hard to get on the famous people and so they could talk to the famous people about being on it they got on tony hawk oh no yeah it's tony hawk and mark hoppus and so that's all they do they're just talking to them there's almost no talk about the production of the episode and you know what there are 11 people on the commentary in total. That is too many, regardless of who's there. I should have been Al Jean, the director, and maybe those two guys,

because Andrew Kreisberg, the writer, not there. So I don't know what all these other people are doing. Maybe it's nicely catered. I've heard that about the commentary sessions. Sounds nice, yeah. Did they at least talk about the production production aspect at all like did did at least tony hawk talk about how he got approached for this i learned more about it from reading a an article on bro bible about it about a podcast he did much later about how he got i read my bro bible every night thank you bro bible oh actually so like the only other bit

of information i got from watching that thing on the extras, the little PR puff piece was Tony Hawk saying, I love the Simpsons way back to Tracy Allman. So he's an OG Tracy Allman Simpsons fan. games uh space i never only co-workers like interviewed him for his video games but they all said like wow he's the nicest celebrity ever and he comes off very nice on this uh on the commentary too mark hoppus more of a goofball but you know what he's he's a professional punk of course he's gonna be a goofball barely answering questions and i don't know if tony hawk does this now but his twitter account used to be very funny in which he would mainly tweet accounts of people seeing him in public and saying you look like Tony Hawk and he'd be like I am Tony Hawk and they would say no no you're old and ugly Tony Hawk's young and he skateboards or a TSA agent saying oh Tony Hawk like the guy and he's like I am the guy and they won't believe him so it's the misery of living Tony Hawk's life via tweets is what you can

experience yeah Tony Hawk is awesome I see him on, actually the most I see of Tony Hawk is that meme of like the, the guy pointing the gun at him, like where you have to kill Tony Hawk when the riots start. And what does he say? He says, uh, I appreciate the hesitation. So I feel like I see that more than actual Tony Hawk these days. I love, uh, well, I believe it's Wesley Snipes in the picture. And then later in life, it's Wesley Snipes in the picture and then later in life he met Wesley Snipes it was just like guys I survived but again the commentary they have a couple jokes where they reveal like oh this they reveal some things were like oh this was a late animation edition and I was like boy that was a lot of work for a bad joke there's a

lot of ADR uh for this era too I noticed but yeah yeah, I guess we'll start with the episode proper. Compared to the 750th episode intro where they put in 750 characters, this anniversary opening, the only thing they really change is Bart smashing the chalkboard. Otherwise, even the couch gag is not really a celebratory anniversary couch gag. Yeah, it's more of a Christmas theme, I guess. What is up with that chalkboard gag? I just have to ask about it. Every time I see it, it's weirdly disturbing. I expect there's this other opening sequence

where everybody basically dies, where they're dying their way through the credits. And I always kind of think it's going to be that one, even though that one's like an HD one. But why did they make it so like sinister? Like, why? It feels like the writers channeling their anger over having to write that many of those jokes. Of course, not every episode has a chalkboard gag, but they find it by this point impossible to do.

But they're still doing it now. It seems extra creepy to me because he writes, I will not a bunch of times in a row instead of like, it feels like something got miscommunicated because he should have just written, I will not once and then smash it because he wouldn't write, I will not, I will not, I will not. He'd, he would write, I will not spin the turtle or whatever the joke was. And then he'd write that again. He wouldn't just write, I will not that. That also just seems like a weird delivery of that joke to me yeah i kind of really like it though just because it's so weird like we're like you said the joke doesn't really read for some reason so it just comes off as sinister and weird and i

kind of like how tonally dissonant it is from just the rest of the credits which are just regular like normal and uh so then we yes we have a gingerbread house couch gag doesn't really make sense to watch on like uh basically valentine's day this was uh around valentine's day they should have stuck in the circus couch gag just for the sake of celebration we we uh we are going to cover the uh inception of that pretty soon yeah but uh oh also yeah i shared with bob the the variety had uh matt graining's lawyers congratulating him and the text on it i tweeted it out too is just like basically every uh free font pack and just saying like we congratulate matt graining on 300 amazing zany episodes of the simpsons almost uh we'll lead into jokerman fonts there but if you ever

wanted to know mac rainey's law firm then uh we've it's not a funny law firm name like the one in this episode we start with lisa imagining herself winning a prize and specifically the uh the kennedy center honors well first off we've got ornette coleman a jazz legend passed away in 2015 we got arthur miller who passed away in 2005 weette Coleman, a jazz legend, passed away in 2015. We got Arthur Miller, who passed away in 2005. We got Walter Cronkite, who passed away in 2009. They are rolling the dice having all these old men referenced in a gag here. Well, I can tell you who was just honored, I believe, on December 3rd of this year. So according to the Kennedy Center Honors website, there is actor and comedian Billy Crystal,

acclaimed soprano Renee Fleming, British singer-songwriter, producer, and member of the Bee Gees Barry Gibb, rapper, singer, and actress Queen Latifah, and singer Dionne Warwick. So I would say out of all of those, Queen Latifah seems a little too young, but I'm guessing she's probably like 60 at this point. Yeah, actually, she's been around a while. Yeah, that was the one that gave me the most pause. Not that she hasn't done lots of great stuff, but dion warwick that seems to well actually no of course billy chris it's fun to make fun of billy crystal being uh being like not funny but he he is a very

established guy everybody knows him he's famous and well-known he's been doing comedy for a million years we get it yeah i would expect queen latifah to be honored this year not 20 years ago at the kendy centers no oh this is this year uh these are the 2023 honors oh i'm so sorry i thought you meant 20 years ago they're already honoring no latifah okay my bad in fact i i should have looked up who was honored in 2003 but i did not i am sorry oh actually i got that one okay uh that was james levine cheetah rivera who was a um broadway performer james earl jones previous simpsons guest elizabeth taylor previous simpsons guest and paul simon who i don't think has done the show i don't think so yeah yeah i was gonna say he was the guy in deep space homer

but that's uh that's the other like hippie back then that's james taylor yeah now i will say you know i'm on board 300th episode celebration what takes me out of it is oh that's James Taylor yeah now I will say you know I'm on board 300th episode celebration what takes me out of it is oh that's just the joke from Wayne's World um and you should be aware of this I had to I shook my head like wait are the Simpsons is definitely above quote like you can quote we're not worthy and then have somebody say oh that's lame like how Mo dressed up as as Austin Powers and then they arrest him because they're like you can't do that, that's lame. Like how Mo dressed up as Austin Powers and then they arrest him because they're like, you can't do that reference. That's fine. But there's no joke to this one though. Yeah. There should have been some twist on that. I mean, we're not going to analyze every joke,

but I feel like this is a bad way to get started in this episode. I think the explanation is that Lisa's subconscious is very hacky. Well, then I expect better of Lisa's subconscious then. Also, you know, another thing that feels like a difference in this time, Lisa is about to harangue people about a societal ill, but she doesn't get to name what it is. I feel like in another season,

she'd have at least gotten to say, you know, chemical weapons plants in Syria or something like that, that she'd be complaining about. I'd like to thank Marge for waking her up right now to save us from Lisa's ego at this point maybe it's because we're recording this in the holiday season but when Cronkite goes she knows my name and and uh jumps away reminds me of when Rudolph goes like she thinks I'm cute he should have flown off the stage, I think. Rudolph just floated away. Lisa has woken up by Marge, and Marge makes a joke about the low ratings for the Kennedy Center Honors.

And so just to let you know, this year's one in 2002 had 7.2 million viewers, as opposed to this Simpsons, which the rest of the season kind of averaged out at 13 million. But because this was an event night, this got 21 million viewers. So it did have three times the viewership of it. Seven million. I think someone would just wipe out an entire classroom of students for that many viewers, period. For sure. And they thought about it. Well, last year's got 5.34 million.

It actually had a bump up in ratings, which was credited to an appearance by President Biden and Borat. Oh, wow. They were both on the show. Wait a minute. So you're saying that they went from 7 million viewers all the way back then to 5 million today? Like they only lost 2 million viewers over all that time? Yeah, the Simpsons with an NFL lead in this week, it got 7.5 million. That's with NFL boost. So that's how high the simpsons gets these

days soon enough i guess if uh if these trends continue as discos do would say then then the kennedy centers are going to surpass the simpsons in ratings boy uh cropopolis is really getting that bump as well i bet yes yeah well everybody loves the n TV show, don't they? Is that still the NFT TV show or did they stop doing that? I think they they gently backed out of that idea. But I think the NFT angle was why they bought a three season sight unseen. Also, because Fox is trying to get rid of Disney, I think, at this point. Yeah, I think or at the very least, like keep only the shows they make of it. But yeah, so Marge tells him it's time to do spring cleaning.

Homer scooching his butt on the floor. That made me laugh. It's catalogical, but it was funny. It was a funny show. His pants are on. Yeah. Also, again, to mark how long the show's been on, they have a joke about feral Furbies, which is like, the show is much older than Furbies, but now it's been on long enough

that Furbies are old and they can have a joke about them going feral furbies are back they're the hottest christmas toy now right they uh why i saw uh the getting a jewel encrusted furby and in uncut gems was a very cool thing hey but that was five years ago right are we talking about now i guess that was before the pandemic wasn't it yes that's right we've got to be in peak Furby nostalgia, right? Like everything turn of the millennium is hot now. We got to be there again. It's time to invest in Furbies. Also, speaking of marking the time after we have a Mad Libs joke, then the Pam and Tommy sex tape was relatively, it was getting a little old then.

But sex tapes in general, I think were still a big part of the conversation then and people finding i think even the pam and tommy sex tape was sold as like it was like stolen from their garage uh though locked up in a in a vault as well but boy i do not like that bart is excited to find it that that joke is me i it makes me grow i feel gross yeah it's a good joke about lisa are you you think you're well-adjusted. That's a really good line. But at the same time, it's like, Bart, come on. No 10-year-old boy would want to look at this.

I mean, I don't like the lead-up to all this, but I did laugh at, every tape is pumpkin carving. Okay, that I love so much because it's my favorite joke in the episode because one, Marge and Homer get dirty. They write that on a tape. Then the writers think of this perfect thing of like, if you are thinking sex acts are on screen, you are hearing the sound of pumpkin carving, which could sound like sex acts. And then they are saying things including like, watch the teeth, which is him saying to be careful how you carve teeth out of this jack-o'-lantern. So it's a very clever use of double entendre.

They worked very hard. Yes. Hey, a box of old videotapes. Marge and Homer get dirty. Hey, Lise, think you're well adjusted? I've got something to show you. I can't believe you talked me into this. It's such a mess.

Oh, watch the teeth! Don't go telling your buddies at work about this. Every tape is pumpkin carving. Hey, what's this? Bart said. If I ever needed proof of the existence of God, here it is. Falky, you're dancing in the toilet. What, you never heard the flush dance? Perfect strangers will return after these commercials.

I like the idea that they're all eating popcorn on the floor. Like, they've clearly been watching four or five tapes at this point. Yes, the other thing that also marge and homer would tape every time they carved pumpkins and also that marge is saying to homer like you better not brag to your friends at work about this and she's filming it it's a good it's a good gag i do like that but uh but this is when they make the discovery of the episode. This is the second time this season that the plot hinges on the kids watching a VHS tape. What horrible breath. He's the baby whose mouth smells like death.

Run for your life, it's baby stink breath. Oh my God, that's me! This isn't Bart's sad, it's Bart's ad. Wait, I was in a commercial? I don't remember this at all. No more baby stink breath. Thanks to the Baby So Fresh tri-patch system, these soothing chemical patches alter your baby's DNA while leaving the RNA untouched. Aww.

Not safe for babies under two. Your baby stink breath. Your baby stink breath. All from safe. Fusette, long fall stink breath. Aww. Maggie even says it. Stay tuned to the end of the episode for that harry shearer now

announcer once again right i i've missed the part of the beginning there in the clip but that that it's during an episode of perfect strangers which that show was still on the air up to 1993 so it was a contemporary of the simpsons and now is being treated as it's so old bart was a baby when uh when it was on yeah i guess at this point bart uh was born in uh 93 yeah 93 no jims you're a uh we've we've been referencing you a few times when talking about the canonical ages and then your recent great video about how homer is officially a millennial now and older than lisa or younger than lisa yeah i think that video was my struggling

with my own personal age. I'm getting close to Homer's age at this point. It was my midlife crisis video. But yeah, I think he's a millennial now. And what are Bart and Lisa? I guess they would be, are they Gen Alpha? Or no, they're Zoomers, I think. I think they would be Gen Alpha.

I think now Zoomers are too old oh that's right 10 and 8 so yeah i mean i'll tell you jims once you hit uh 39 it's all one hell of a toboggan ride is what i'll say so you get used to it but uh yeah i mean and also to play joke analyst here once again they're clearly watching a rerun of perfect strangers from the 80s and i imagine that ernie sabella is their mean boss at the antique store because Balky's referencing flash dance. So it is not an episode from 1993 when they're living in the house with their,

with their wives. Exactly. Yeah. And you're right. The show was soft rebooted twice. That's so funny. Uh, well,

I guess partially what, because they lost one of their, uh, main supporting actors to family matters. Right. So that was part of their reboot. Oh, well, I guess partially what, because they lost one of their, uh, main supporting actors to family matters. Right. So that was part of their reboot. Oh, Oh, I think that was an intentional loss. And you know what? She wasn't really a major fixture on the show. Okay. You're thinking of Harriet Winslow. Yeah. Well, I do think flush dance, it's not a funny joke, but it is a good writing for a Balky joke. Balki would have said that kind of corny line in an episode of Perfect Stranger.

In the 80s and in the 90s, Hank Azaria would have played that kind of ethnically ambiguous character, much like he's playing Balki. I wonder if he and Bronson Pinchot have a support group. You know, recently, this new season of Our Flag Means Death, they have a two-episode appearance of a scary new pirate in the world. And when the episode was over, my husband said to me, you know who that was, right? I was like, no. He's like, that's Bronson Pinchot. He was so good, I forgot it was Balki in the show. He did a very very very good job he's bronzeman show is actually like a good funny

actor who who should not just be called belki by people like me who call it belki still yeah i i've i've very very vaguely remember perfect stranger i think it's like one of my very first tv memories when i was like four or five just watching belki you know on tv which was what we called it so yeah that reference goes a little bit over my head just a little likey you know on tv which was what we called it so yeah that reference goes a little bit over my head just a little like have you guys watched perfect strangers like as adults does it like this is a dumb question but does it hold up by the standards of that time you know i have seen clips of it and i feel that i do want to watch some as an adult uh often well not often uh sometimes my wife and i'll bring up perfect strangers and have fond memories

but I do feel like uh Mark Lynn Baker and Bronson Pinchot had really really good chemistry and it was just fun to see them together in scenes regardless of how bad the writing was like just great physical comedy great odd couple energy between the two guys so I think it it stood above the full houses and step-by-steps and what have you of that uh kind of programming yeah i think they were two of the better actors on tgif especially together and you know what uh marklin baker he was also on that uh the aforementioned she hulk tv show and he was also really good on that and i you know they're it's they're both having real comebacks this year on the streaming networks.

Also, we have a joke about Butterfinger because the, uh, the deal ended in 2001. That was when the last official Butterfinger commercial was. And, uh, so now the show can make fun of it, though. This is less cruel than, um, say the fire not wanting it. Yes. Yeah. I had to double check that this was after that joke like they do end up resigning with butterfinger eventually right but this is before that

actually no this was they so they had a break in the mid 90s and then were assigned to a new one in the late 90s into 01 but i believe they did not make a new deal again after that okay so this is just them doing them a solid one last time i guess well you know in the uh in the angry dad episode there's a deleted scene where bart poisons him with the with a uh butterfinger like homer bites into a butterfinger he's like oh god i need to eat something else to get rid of this taste like he they they're very mean to butterfingers so yeah i guess it has been 20 years since the, over 20 years since the sponsorship. But whenever I see a Butterfinger in the store,

I think Simpsons. So, you know, I guess they didn't need to pay for the Simpsons then anymore. I think of the Simpsons and then I think, ew, I'm not getting that. That too, that too. It's like, no, I value my teeth. You know, the clever thing they're doing now

is their new deal is the Butterfinger Investigators. That's their new deal is the butterfinger investigators that's their new ads and they still get to use a variation of bart's thing they now the ad is basically they're like detectives who stop people from stealing butterfingers from you and their uh and catchphrase on everyone is no one lays a finger on your butterfinger not as good yeah definitely not also in the 80s commercial i do like while leaving the rna untouched that's a good that's a good line too it is it is a fun uh product idea that's useless because when you think of a baby's breath you're never thinking of like the smell of rod and decay usually babies have very sweet breath because

i mean that's why we have the flower baby's breath just like oh what a pleasant thing so it's just serving no purpose and it's it's uh presumably giving your baby lots of cancer i do wonder if like if it was partially inspired by the breath assure ads from the 80s that had a lot of like those same kind of like arrows moving around thing i'm like here's how it changes your breath though also i i don't think this is intentional as like an anniversary one i don't mind the concept that bart is basically made into a macaulay culkin child star type figure who then over time sues his parents for taking all his money because were bart an actual human in 1990 by 2003 he would be macaulay culkin where macaulay culkin was in 2003 which was suing his family and we can't even really do the simpsons

continuity argument either because like there's part of it where you're like okay well when did this happen like in their history you know like where Were they living at the Simpsons house, et cetera? You can go down that rabbit hole. But since all the money was squandered anyway, they can really just say it happened whenever they wanted at that point. So it's kind of nice and convenient in that aspect too. But this is pulled from real life stuff of the, I think most directly they're referencing Macaulay Culkin,

though I went to a whole list of celebrity kids who emancipated themselves. People like Drew Barrymore, Francis Bean, Aaron Carter, Corey Feldman, all for sad reasons. But occasionally there's not sad ones like Michelle Williams and Elijah Dusku did it, apparently just so they could work more hours. They're like, if I emancipate myself i can i can work as many hours as i want as a 15 year old that's good yeah i mean uh cory feldman was uh the pioneer i'm sure it happened before him but i feel like he was the case that was talked about the most and it happened in the mid 80s so it feels like they're a little late to this subject matter to be fair but then it also keeps happening throughout uh perpetuity so

uh it's never not topical then i guess well macaulay culkin specifically his dad stole his money even more so making it even a bigger connection to the homer one uh though also another sad one i saw was that courtney love did that herself when she was a kid and then her own daughter francis bean uh divorced her and so wow yes yeah most stories with francis being in corny love are not happy ones unfortunately this is when bart learns what happened to his money that homer squandered it on a lot of unnamed things until then homer says it was to pay off a blackmailer which let's just say it was mo let's say that's who was blackmailing him i want to believe that but and then we get a reference to something that was so topical i think this is a late edition uh that you probably used retake

budget on this because this event happens in november 2002 episode goes live in february of 03 and this is when uh michael jackson dangled little blanket over a balcony in berlin in uh november 2002 so a very notable thing that happened to michael jackson and then a lot of more notable things happened in 2003 so we kind of forget about this yeah this was the last major scandal regarding michael jackson it's it's them mocking their former guest star on the show but i just when i watch it now, I'm just like, ah, man, this feels like them trying to be, here's the thing, the Simpsons being topical doesn't always work, often doesn't work, I'd even say.

If they want to be specifically topical to a thing that happened within a year of an episode airing, they'll always be late to it. And it also, though maybe it was hurt by the fact that once South park happens they will definitely always be late to everything and they'll always seem behind to south park on referencing something directly from the news so i i kind of wish they didn't do that uh and this is one of my least favorite versions yeah i'm kind of surprised that that joke came in so late

just because i thought it worked pretty well how they actually did two jokes with it like they did the regular reference and then they added the reversal part where like he's catching him again so like I thought the joke actually worked pretty well so I'm surprised to hear that it was like literally what like four months ago yeah super topical yeah it does feel like there's a bit of South Park energy of course they would do late additions to episodes if things in history changed or if something needed to be updated but uh this feels like oh uh this just happened it'd be great in this episode let's pay for a retaking jam it in there i do like the doing it backwards thing and any and also any joke about animated characters making things animate that's that's fun yeah

there was a part of me who actually did look at it because i'm a little suspicious sometimes when episodes seem to run short and this one did seem like it ran short so i actually looked i was like did they just reverse this and then just adr the mouth but no homer did like flip his hand backwards so it was in there in general homer is uh jerk ass homer is very much alive in this episode um like the the ADR line of him saying and when you're 17 I'll know the end is near so I'll work you like a dog is like man Homer sucks hard in this one oh he's just he's just kind of the worst in this episode but I have to say and this is gonna sound really weird but I actually did kind of enjoy what an asshole he is in this episode like I I'm starting to wonder if I know what i want anymore because now that we're in like

the warm teddy bear homer watching this episode where he's like like kind of aggressive about like what a jerk he is it was kind of fun to see that edge to him again like he wasn't like it wasn't like really extreme like some of the scully era extreme but it was kind of fun seeing him really go at it with bart in this one you know it's interesting to compare it to that new Thanksgiving episode where, unlike in past ones, they make clear like Homer didn't do the wrong thing that caused all the problems. He actually is being wrongfully blamed for the power outage in the town. Unlike when Homer very intentionally puts a silo of pig crap in the water in the thanksgiving one they're like no no homer is innocent you you viewers can see this yeah everybody loves a good misunderstanding plot and we're speaking of uh of the stranglings and we have a pretty brutal one

here although the rules have been reversed and it does remind me of that episode the parent rap and i love when uh they're strangling each other with implements it seems even more brutal did he like collapse the the belt around did he like actually loop it like when i was watching i was like wow this is really brutal yeah he immediately grabbed like yanks off homer's belt loops it around his neck and starts yanking and then marge is strangling homer more as she's trying to pull bard off of him as Bart is holding the belt. Do you guys feel like this was kind of a weird conflict to start this episode with? Where, like, Homer's done so many bad things to Bart over the years that it feels like it's kind of weird that they picked this as the last straw.

That, like, that Homer, like, got his money and then, like, wasted it. Like, that's the thing that pushes Bart over the edge. Yeah, you're totally right about that and i feel like the fallout of bart having been baby stink breath was not intense enough because at best we just saw nelson become aware of it and that's it bart did not suffer really any uh problems from having made this commercial 10 years ago yeah there's like because he clearly feels embarrassed about it but i like i don't know like the whole act one just goes really really fast they just got to get straight to blink 182 you know and like yeah like they go from baby stink breath it's embarrassing

to like where is my money now i'm gonna like emancipate myself and then they're like like act one just goes like 50 miles an hour. Like we barely even did anything with the spring cleaning plot. I'm surprised they even put it in at all. Yeah, actually, Marge being a I completely forgot that cleaning was happening in this episode. That's, you know, I also thought when they had the line about it changes the DNA, but leave the RNA untouched. I thought that was going to be part of Bart's lawsuit as well and I knew of somebody I worked with in my old job who was a child actor growing up and I had to know him several years before he admitted like yes I was in this one movie where I farted and I got made fun of the rest of my life because his character

not that he like did it by mistake he's in a scene where they write your character farts and his friends made fun of him for years and he did not tell other people about it for the longest time i think i know who this is and i think he's credited as farting kid in that movie i believe he is farting kid in the movie yes i don't want do your own research listeners i i won't go farther on this he might still be embarrassed by it after part gives up on strangling he then goes to uh look for a lawyer or well no sorry he talks with millhouse under the tree first in a in a pretty shot it's a really weird shot too i gotta mention this shot i don't know why but why did they decide to set the scene in like a completely empty field with one tree like it's the weirdest framing ever it's oddly visually touching despite the subject matter

and i was like what is this the end of majora's mask like why did you film this yeah like with just one tree in the middle of nowhere and then nelson runs into another tree which i was going to complain about but it's really weird framing i think i was also thinking about majora's mask maybe uh andrew christberg just played it and he wrote in the script make sure they're sitting underneath a solitary tree in the middle of the field i was also waiting to see uh that like millhouse was going to hit on bart or something because i uh i was reminded that uh jims you you pointed out this season seems like several times millhouse is about to come out to bart uh in this season oh yeah it was that uh it was that joke where he had like something

to tell him you know and he never really got to. Yeah, that's right. After learning that lawyers make people cry, we get a little bit more of Kirk. They had put a pin in Kirk, the sad divorced dad, for a few years, but this season, this last year, he's come back a bit. Though I still believe it's because I think they're not as mean as they could be because i don't think aljean likes jokes about sad divorced parents well they're on the the way back to getting him back with luann in the next year the year after i forget it's coming up pretty soon though no you're still a little ways away because they get back together in season 17 since i just covered okay 17 that chicken episode wow so like but you're right though that like they barely do anything with the divorce once it's happened we get like maybe like what maybe two kirk jokes a year so it was kind of nice just

seeing it here just to remind us that oh yeah that did happen the only other one i can remember in the last year of episodes we covered is when apu is separated fromjula and moves into the same place as Kirk where he's about to kill himself. And the joke is that Kirk just says, like, boy, I'm sad. There's also a joke where Kirk, I think it's the I Am Furious Yellow, where Kirk is there at career day and explaining how he's the understudy for the guy who puts leaflets under your windshield. Right, right.

And then Milhouse says something about his mom and her new boyfriend or something like that i mean they're they're it's a light touch on kirk though of course they're still damaged by not having luan around at this time to speak luan appears on screen in this episode but doesn't speak because they still haven't i mean she's back a little bit but they they still aren't regularly giving jobs to Maggie Roswell. To Maggie Roswell again. Yes. Thank you, Bob. But then Bart decides to go to a lawyer himself, which again leads to several, several very

silly jokes. I just wish there was some way to get back at my dad. When my mom wants to get back at my dad, she uses her lawyer. Does it make him cry? More than normal. Hey, son. I've got tickets for the circus. Hmm.

Badger, Haggle, and Bill. Love him and burn him family law. Hacky joke and done it. Bingo! I want a divorce from my parents. You are? I said I want a divorce from my parents. Yes, I heard you. I was just calling my secretary you are give me the standard child divorcing parent form yes sir

i do i like you i like the little pause after the joke where he just turns to look at bart as if the show is saying yeah we made that joke and then fade to black or cut to black i just recently watched basically two muppet movies in a row and that feels like a very muppety joke and then fade to black or cut to black i just recently watched basically two muppet movies in a row and that feels like a very muppety joke and by that i mean it's a very vaudeville joke yeah i gotta say like blue-haired lawyer kind of crushes this episode in general like when i was watching i was like every blue-haired lawyer joke lands like they do that joke then they do the bacon one later and then they do the little pulling out the little pockets on the doll like like i will say blue haired lawyer mvp of the episode very quietly he's so good that he takes away any lines that gill may have had because he doesn't have any on the deleted scenes you'll see

him next to homer uh at the sentencing but uh they they didn't even use gill in this episode at least as far as broadcast goes. I'm proud of Bart for thinking to hire the blue haired lawyer. Like, I don't know why they keep going to Gil. Like, Bart seems to be the first person who realizes, like, just get Mr. Burns's lawyer. Just do it. And of course he wins. So good on Bart.

I was really worried that they would have to name the blue haired lawyer at this point because is he Leaveham and Burnham? Is that the name of the firm if he's made partner there then he'd be either leave him or burn him yeah okay he could just be an associate or something right right that's why we can't say for sure oh please please please

do not give blue haired lawyer a name Simpsons writers who are listening right now please don't we just we need something we need some mystery so please don't he's gone this far without it i hope not either but but man i love you uh i need to see more of uh i'm assuming well she she definitely dresses very polynesian you uh does but i can't guess exactly where she's from but so then after the commercial break we come back the show does another close encounters of the Third Kind mashed potato reference.

But then it turns into a psycho reference when Bart stabs the mashed potato thing made of Homer. And then Marge is trying to comfort things. I do at least like the family dynamic of Marge is trying to stitch it back together to no avail because Homer is such an asshole. She is trying so hard in this episode actually when re-watching it i felt really bad for marge because she's trying so hard to like get the plot to move along to like fix the situation but marge is like so useless and irrelevant the whole episode she's like almost like she's there just to plead at the plot to stop happening and it never does. Yeah.

And Homer has to save the day with no Marge intervention. Marge barely has any lines in the third act even. Yeah. I guess at best the plot understands this a little and spares Marge when Bart says, you know, you're not the problem mom. Dad is, you know. Yeah. But like the court doesn't even consider marge a part of the equation like that's the weird thing about it because marge is a great mom and you would think that she would counteract homer a little bit but homer is that bad that even like like marge can't even be

referenced because like she's that good so like it's really weird how homer is that bad that the plot can keep going despite Marge existing and still talking in this episode so we see that uh Homer thinks that Geppetto is spelled with a j and that's what the what would Jesus do things refer to which I like that Homer lives his life by Geppetto but also misspells it and then comes in another of the deleted scenes on the DVD where it's really just like an alternate take so the version in the episode is homer gets served a subpoena only because he agrees to take a side of bacon that's crispy but not too crispy but uh the blue haired lawyer lawyer he does a different trick in the deleted scenes which is he basically says he's he insulted homer's intelligence then

he says oh i have a letter of apology. But it's the same letter. Homer says, no, that's the same letter. How dumb do you think I am? He says, ah, you're right here. Here's the real letter of apology. And he pulls out a second letter. Homer takes that and he says, there, you've been served. I feel like, I mean, the scenes are cut no matter what.

But I think scenes are being cut here because of that michael jackson thing added in later also by the way this technically does if you avoid a subpoena that technically does work you do have to be officially served it for you to go there but if you avoid a subpoena long enough they can't just put out an arrest warrant for you and file that so it's not like it's it's not a it doesn't get around the entire justice system macarating does talk talk on the commentary about having been served a subpoena and what it was like. Where a man pulled up to him. He was walking on the sidewalk. A man on a motorcycle pulls up to him and said, are you Macaraning?

And he was very terrified. And the man sticks a subpoena in Matt's shirt. What? Damn. His shirt? Yes. And I guess I just like sticks it in his shirt. Maybe his shirt pocket. Maybe just did like the collar of his shirt. But that guess i just like sticks it in the shirt maybe a shirt pock or maybe

just did like the collar of his shirt but that's how he did it wow what a mysterious like like server that's the weirdest way to do it i get i guess i buy it because like just handing is boring so you'll always remember that time you got served it is funny though how this important part of the legal process is basically a game of tag yes yeah it's strange uh well it's funny to hear on the commentary that's not my favorite bits of i think tony hawk talks about something his lawyer probably tell him not to talk about a time he got sued because a kid hurt himself on his property and and the dad sued him or whatever and he settled out of court yes to be fair to tony hawk he was on vacation and a kid snuck into his property used his skate ramp and hurt himself but the kid did he at least says the kid did get money because

he's like ah the insurance took care of it who cares like he just waved it off uh but uh but yes this is when bart announces to homer marge what's going on yes I want to be emancipated. Emancipated? Don't you like being a dude? No, Dad. It means Bart would be a legal adult and free to move out of the house. I wanted a sewing room, but not like this. Not like this! Mom, you've always been cool to me. But Homer is a lousy dad, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Hey, my dad was lousy, and I didn't sue him. anymore hey my dad was lousy and i didn't sue him i just dumped him in the cheapest home i could find and then comes a very disgusting joke about catheters and

urine yeah i'm gonna say this is up there with one of the most disgusting jokes on the simpsons uh at this point in history i mean i'm sure i've said this before remind me listeners what what the other top three are but the joke is uh is Abe says his catheter is full and his IV bag is empty. So the orderly switches them both around. In my notes, I said Abe gets hot piss in his veins. Listen, I'm just describing the joke that unfolded in what they're putting in my head. Abe is dead. Yes.

This also would kill him. He should not do that. I think my old one for dirtiest joke or maybe most scatological joke before was the two-story outhouse joke. I think I remember that going like, ugh, that's disgusting. But I don't know, seeing the bag of urine on screen

I think takes it above that. It's so much classier to hear a guy go, oh my god! And then just cut to something else. It's so disgusting. But I will say, like, for their gross-out jokes would be pretty hit or miss, but I think this one actually worked pretty well. Like, it's at least memorable at the very

least. I'm just surprised they went there. And we've talked about this before. This is being written in the Freddy Gets Fingered era of comedy, where they have to match what the culture wants from them. And the culture wants catheter and IV bag jokes. Now, Jims, you made a good point in, I think it was your season 17 retrospective where you talked about how you get this feeling like

The Simpsons wants to match Family Guy in South Park and being dirty but they just can't or they they they won't go that far but they will start like adding the word bitch to the end of sentences perhaps yeah like like and they like are bleeping Homer in that one episode too it's it's very cute and quaint when the Simpsons do it like like I don't know why they can't do it because they weren't even owned by Disney back then. So you can't even blame it on that aspect. Maybe it's just not part of their DNA as writers that they come from a,

like they all come from Harvard where everyone's fancy and above those kinds of jokes and they just can't shake it. So maybe that's the reason why. You know, I think we've heard it on another, from another writer in the world of television. I think somebody, one of our guests guessed that it could be that the show as syndicated airs in earlier time slots, and they might just be thinking about that. They're like, even though it airs right next to Family Guy, Family Guy reruns only air late at night on cable, while Simpsons still airs at 5 p.m on on syndication yeah as we talk about this though it kind of makes me think that i guess if the simpsons did try to be edgier and

try to do south park material i probably do think i as a super fan would complain as well so i realize i'm saying that but i do feel like it isn't really in the Simpsons ethos, like tonally to do that. So I guess I can see why, but like during this era, like post millennium, yeah, they definitely were trying. And I don't think like,

I guess I can see why they wanted to try, but it definitely isn't there. It's not who they are. So it never comes off. Well, also is very much the style of the time to do a joke about Homer thinking Bart wants to transition. It's very, very much. Though I do love how Bart just lays it out.

Like, we've always been cool, Barge. But me and Homer, we can't. He's an awful father. And the way Bart lays it out, I'm just like, yeah, no, this is entirely correct. Like, he should not live with Homer anymore. father and the way Bart lays it out I'm just like yeah no this is entirely correct like this is they uh he should not live with Bahomer anymore yeah this is a pro Bart and Marge episode which I'm all for and uh also speaking of jokes that they kind of cycle through every 10 years in early season four we in Itchy and Scratchy the movie we see a show us on the doll joke and in

this episode we also get that. But this time, it's about turning out the pockets, which I do love blue-haired lawyer saying at the record show that he pulled out the little pockets of the doll. It's a little more wholesome than show us where Bart stuck the fireworks. Yep, they were being edgy back then as well. And this is also, I love this bit here because especially I think it'll be obvious when we listen to the audio only. I like when they just replay the same audio over and over again for a joke. Mr. Simpson, your son alleges that you have an anger management problem. You little!

I'm sorry, Judge. That's a rare lapse in my normally calm demeanor. Could the stenographer please read back the previous statement? Why, you little... Why, you little... Why, you little... Why, you little... Yeah, and he also is shaking his fist.

It's still the shake fist era for Homer. He's shaking his fist at the judge, the bard, and the stenographer all in one little scene there. Yeah, I think it's the fact that it's still the shake fist era he's shaking his fist at the judge the bart and the sonographer all in one uh little scene there yeah i think it's the fact that it's the exact is it the exact same audio clip that they're using over and over again i have a feeling it is yeah because it really does sound the same and i think that's what sells the joke for me so i mean dan castellanet is so good he could say it the exact same way three times in a row i don't doubt his ability but i'm pretty sure it's it's the same clip it does sound like a homer soundboard and uh and yes we heard another of the big guest stars

in this episode jane kasmarek with her semi-regular character judge constance harm i uh they know they don't say her name in this one i always laugh at that wonderful bad name i'm surprised she's still around i always think of her as like a season 12 season 11 kind of character but i guess she's still trucking along in season 14 i guess yeah we did our own little history on the character uh and she's she's around for about a decade i think on oh wow and i believe she returned for when uh no wait no it was still suitor when it was uh the l Lisa gets jury duty episode. Suter? Oh, not Suter. Sorry.

Snyder. Snyder. Judge Snyder. Not Suter. There we go. But yeah, I mean, it was smart of them to come up with their family court judge because they're often going to be in family court in this era of the show. And yeah, this is when she delivers her verdict.

And again, if you look in the background, you can see Gil was there, but he's not in any deleted scenes. So it seems strange that they would put Gil in there and not write a joke. So they must have cut it even earlier. Son, I just want you to know, whatever that judge decides,

I'm going to be the best dad I can. No judge would send a preteen out on his own. Woo-hoo! You're still mine! And you thought I was a bad dad before! Except in this case! That boy's about as safe living with you as a crawdad in a gumbo shack. Bart Simpson, I declare you emancipated! Further, I hereby garnish Homer's wages until Bart is fully repaid.

Mmm, garnish. That means half your paycheck goes to Bart. What? Half goes to Bart? Half goes to my Vegas wife? What's left for Moe? Homer, don't make things worse. I'll show you worse. Ah! I was told this would be televised well it sounds like despite their disgusting plan in

brawl in the family homer is still deep in debt to his vegas wife yeah how does that work didn't they get annulled or divorced or something is he still paying her off for some reason yeah again after they drugged her and um set her up with abe let's say in that very dark joke when you really think about it i thought that was the end of it but uh obviously it's super 80 yard so i mean i do appreciate any time they just remember they're like oh yeah homer has a secret vegas wife still even though that was settled in in gene's first episode well that character is dead now so we know he's not paying her now. That's true.

There is something to what Jim's was saying earlier about, I do appreciate just how over-the-top asshole-ish Homer is in this episode, because up next we have Marge saying, Homer, don't make things worse. And he goes, I'll show you worse. And he rushes the bench. He's about to attack the female judge. It's pretty insane.

I assume that in between scenes here, he's in jail for at least a month for attempted assault on a judge. Oh, sorry. That was part of the clip. I immediately forgot. We've recorded a lot of podcasts this week. I like how, though, we are now nostalgic for jerk-ass Homer stuff. What has time done to us tv so the thing is i think tv is not as mean anymore so we're just craving it now no homer is just so nice now it's

uh and it's what we wanted but i guess yes we like jims you're saying we are unsatisfiable yeah i think i think they just need to go through waves where like now we're in the nice homer in five years from now he's gonna be a giant asshole again by Disney standards. And then 10 years after that, he's going to go back to nice again in season 50. I feel like Homer can never even, like, shoot a gun again. I feel like we might not see that on screen. Probably not. At least not in a non-Treehouse episode, let's say. After all this, we then cut to Bart putting his life away in a suitcase from 1936.

He leaves a permanent quote-unquote Indian burn on Lisa of a heart. Have kids renamed this to be more appropriate, or are they still doing this to each other? Boy, what do the kids do today with that? I mean, I had heard rug burn sometimes as a kid not it wasn't always just called an indian burn in my memory i think kids just dox each other now they've moved on past physical abuse as i say this would require kids to actually see each other in person which is very unlikely also it is i mean it does feel like an algin era that this is also sort of still a joke about alimony as well, which Al Jean loves alimony jokes.

Alimony Jean, we should call him. All the writers are divorced. Yeah. Yeah. If you think about, I mean, Kirk Van Houten, the pathetic divorce man, was created by two guys in their late 20s who were not even married yet. So now all of these men in their 40s, many of which have been divorced, are now returning to this character to this character and thinking oh boy this is how these guys in their 20s made fun of us so this is when bart leaves and uh i i like that marge marge all the deals she's trying to make like everything but the big three that bart can say every swear in the house but the big three and on top of that

before she's like i i love how she said i wanted a new sewing room but not like this not like this you feel pretty bad for marge here poor marge she's just trying so hard to get this story not to happen and there's nothing she can do about it like this is marge at her most ineffectual and and this is the all-purpose uh sarcastic clerk but i did notice it's also the the cab slash limo driver from the way we was they use the same character design and the same voice yeah that was cool so bart leaves homer is left sobbing uh he cries a lot this season as jims you pointed out in your 14 retrospective oh did i point that out this must have been one of my notes probably this one

but i mean yeah it's the only time it feels like Homer regrets any of this. Not one of my favorite episodes, this one. Obviously, by this, you're an hour and a half in, you realize this. But I did get a big laugh out of the fade to night in the safety cones around Homer in the streets. Yeah, yeah, I like that. Yeah, they totally do this joke again later in like season 30. Like I did a recent review of the Pizza Bot episodes, and they did basically do this joke again later in like season 30 like i did a recent review of

the uh pizza bot episodes and they did basically the same joke again so it just reminded me of that one to be honest so gotta get out those cones whenever you know we then cut to bart in his new uh apartment which i do i kind of like this bit here because just for about uh 30 seconds it feels like they're coming from a real place of how it feels you know the first time you move into your own apartment and live away from your family and how it's like uh you know oh i i it's so scary in a big city compared to before like that that kind of feeling i i think they pull out some good stuff there yeah they had some really relatable stuff in here because yeah, when you

like and imagine if you're a 10 as well, like there was a lot of questions of like, how would you deal with these weird sounds and shapes around you? But then also, like how would Bart at the age of 10 put his life together because he's just sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor. And then later he has to buy furniture. so they have to design what kind of furniture would a 10 year old buy for a loft like this then we get a mary tyler moore reference of course which uh you know james o brooks works hard on that and they also have an absolute vodka ad reference uh for absolute crusty and they say that they got free vodka out of this apparently they got a case of vodka did they really wow yes as we've heard bill

oakley uh tell us himself when we asked him they didn't get free nothing during his years when they would reference armor hot dogs or uh he said the stridex pads were all they got but then here you know a few years later after uh bill and josh are gone they do an absolute vodka joke and they get sent a ton of vanilla vodka, which Matt Selman is joking on the commentary in 2013. Yeah, I still didn't drink it all. It sucks. Now, I think Bill and Josh did get a lot of schnapps from Shirley Jones and Marty Ingalls

based on that one joke about their Christmas party. That's true. That's true. To go back to the Mary Tyler Moore joke, I also noticed that he threw his lucky red hat and destroyed it in the episode. I think the 300th episode should have been the death of Bart's lucky red hat. It's true.

Yes, that's, I mean, it's his trademark hat. It's in all the merch. And it's a bold, it's like when they killed Brian Griffin 10 years later. Yeah, I did actually look up afterward to make sure that the red hat is in later episodes. So don't worry, listeners. This is not the death of his lucky red hat.

It comes back. But it would have been a great hook for number 300, I tell you. Yeah. Though, Jims, have you done a history of Bart's lucky red hat yet? And if not, could you? You know, when I watched it and I thought about that, I was like, I should totally do a Bart's Lucky Red Hat video as a horrible shit post. So you probably will get that someday.

Ooh, okay. Well, it all started here. And if not, I'll take credit. Okay, I'll send you the YouTube royalties later. Ooh, nice. Bart is yelled at to tell to stop selling drugs or to be quiet in there. Some of us are trying to sell drugs. We have a quick cutaway to Homer basically acting out scenes

from Bart the Genius where he's playing catch with Bart I mean they're so desperate for a Homer pain gag at this point they're putting one together that makes no sense I mean it's a cartoon I know but it feels like they're not trying very hard because Homer walks a broom into

a phone line or a power line but that alone will not cause you to get electrocuted like you're on Scooby-Doo. I feel like the setup could have been more elaborate. This was part of their electrocution phase they went through, like with the Sideshow Bob episode. They got to electrocute someone in every other episode. Yeah, the last Sideshow Bob one we did, that's when he had the shock collar, right? Yeah. Yeah, they were zapping people so much.

Oh, and Homer gets zapped by lightning in the Pray Anything. Oh, yeah. That's the previous episode, right? So, wow. See, we are in the electrocution era of the show. Though I do at least like when Marge is saying that she wishes the real Bart was here for that. Homer is stomping on the on-fire Bart corpse. And sorry, speaking of suggestions for real gyms,

I know you love getting them, as do we. Oh, I need them, so please keep them coming. Oh, thank you. Well, I do really want to know about the difference between Puppy Goo Goo and what's called on the wiki Millhouse's Dog, because both exist for, I think, four episodes each but they're distinct characters and that one is alive and one is not but they are identical in design

this is actually a youtube comment i get pretty frequently like are you that commenter bob are you that youtube person i i am not i assure you yeah but for some reason yeah people want to know is puppy goo goo a real dog? Like, what is it? Like, the one that I always think of is at the end of Lisa's Date with Density, he chokes that little dog at the end of that episode. And this one, it's clearly a toy. So you said there's like four appearances of each where sometimes it's a dog and sometimes it's a toy? Yeah, and I believe there's overlap.

But Milhouse has a Shih T tzu as they call them uh it is introduced in lisa's date with density but i i believe this is the introduction of puppy goo goo but then there will be millhouse's dog appearances after this i'm almost positive okay well that might be a simpsons mystery someday because yeah i have gotten that youtube comment i've always wondered like it's one i haven't researched yet, but that's another one that I probably, like, I don't know what is there to talk about if there's only, like, eight appearances probably. But, yeah, it's really weird that they go back and forth. Like, I love this gag that, like, Luanne just walks in. It's like, oh, Puppy Gugu, and he hugs him.

Like, there's a lot of weird stuff going on in the Van Houten household. Puppy Gugu fetch me a dream is a classic line to me. I think, yeah, Puppy Gugu, I remembered him appearing in way more stuff than I then saw listed on the wiki. I was like, oh, I guess there really isn't much Puppy Gugu. I believe it is because I misidentified the previous living dog appearances like Bob mentioned, though. Our pal Julia Prescott, who wrote the Two Tree Houses Ago episode of The Simpsons, she got in a puppy goo goo reference because it was old enough then to be a retro reference to puppy goo goo. But that was in the Toy Story one, thus recognizing the puppy goo goo is a toy

not a living dog okay was puppy goo goo one of the toys that killed bart at the end of that i believe a toy killed that toy puppy goo goo only on this podcast will we have this discussion you will find it nowhere else i mean that's why people subscribe right this cutting edge puppy goo goo talk quiet dear they're talking about puppy goo goo uh and i mean i this it's also just an escalation of the millhouse has my little pony uh you know sleeping bag or whatever that's the tell tubbies yes all that stuff now now they finally made up their own branded thing for millhouse to be a a weenie for enjoy yeah but puppy goo goo like i can't believe we're still talking about this is so dumb but but i think i'm making an argument here but puppy goo

goo is way better than all those references because when i see like the teletubbies thing and all the my little pony stuff like it's his blanket i think the my little pony thing is uh like i kind of roll my eyes like it's such a cheap joke but like inventing puppy goo goo like you can't beat puppy goo like why like once again why am i still talking about this but like it's a way better joke so they should do puppy goo goo i agree uh also i want to give credit to the animators on this for making a i think a joke not planned by the script when they're talking on phones to each other in the background, you can see the crusty walkie talkies that Bart gifted mill house in Homer

defined that they use to talk to each other. Cool. I missed that. It's like some animator remembered that. Uh, but yes, after all of this, and then Bart gets a little scared of seeing first in a very good,

silly joke way, his blanket somehow looks like a J it his blanket somehow looks like a giant. Its shadow somehow looks like a giant rat. But then an actual giant rat appears. Bart has to run away. And this is when the episode becomes the celebrity show as the big time celebs take it over, as often was the case back in this time frame. This is the true beginning of the 300th episode in my opinion like this is where like all that stuff before that's just a regular simpsons

episode 300 starts now we got tony hawk we got blink 182 like this is 300 baby i was gonna say that uh i mean at the time i i was a young man i was was 20 when this aired, and I was like, well, I know who Tony Hawk is. A lot of popular video games, and Blink-182 is on the radio. But does America know who Tony Hawk is? I always wondered that, because for episode 200, U2, arguably biggest rock band in the world at that point. Tony Hawk, great guy, but I feel like,

like we were saying before, they were really trying to appeal to the youth. Yeah, I definitely knew who Tony Hawk, great guy, but I feel like, like we were saying before, they're really trying to appeal to the youth. Yeah, I definitely knew who Tony Hawk was because of that demographic. I was in high school at the point, but it is kind of a weird call because are high schoolers and 20-somethings watching the 300th episode of The Simpsons? Well, I know they wanted them to, for sure. They were trying to youthen up their demographic. I was out of habit.

Okay, well, you draw them in with the Kennedy Center Awards, but they stay for Blink-182. But yes, why don't we hear the intro of our big, famous guests. Hey, it's an emancipated miner. What's your name? I'm Bart Simpson, and hey, are you skateboarding legend Tony Hawk? That's what my business cards say. Oh wait, that's my old phone number.

You live in this building? When I'm not on the road or in rehab for my shattered pelvis. I hope you don't mind living below a bunch of pro skaters who like to party I'll adjust hey blink 182 we have names you know whatever you can crank it up dude let's trash this place after we get paid nice oh man this is the greatest night of my life. If my dad could see this, he'd be so mad. He can. There's a webcam right there. Of all the sites on all the web, I had to click on his.

Odd. After all the recent hip references, we get reminded of Casablanca. Algean is out of control with his references. When they did that reference, I was like, this is Al Jean. We sat through a whole scene with Blink-182. He's got to get the Casablanca reference in there. Come on. It is a hallmark.

Like this reference now, yes, it's happening. And I want to say, folks, say goodbye to Blink-182. They're not in the show anymore. And one of them doesn't talk so I feel like there were there were bigger plans for this appearance and it reminds me of when Beck was on Futurama in that they're not playing new music it's like well here's our song from five years ago and I feel like there was probably a single from their 2001 album I was looking this up and their 2003 album would not be out until later in the year but even at the time i thought well i heard that song in high school

was that a 2000 song all the small things was that 99 uh 99 wow okay well it was big into 2000 on on total requests live though yeah that's when i remember it um but like i don't know like can you really expect the simpsons writers to bring out one of Blink-182's more deeper cuts? Or just, I was thinking, how about the latest album single? Not two albums ago or whatever. But yeah, I just, you know, I wasn't down with them at the time, even though I like some pop punk. And now when I hear songs like this, I find them delightful. But yeah, I wish they were doing more here because one of the guys isn't even drawn in close

up i think it is the the lead singer i think it is tom delong tom delong yeah not even like you see a far away shot of him but i would have felt ripped off if i uh signed up for this and it's just like and i'm in an establishing shot and my two friends get to talk all three of them are were at the recording too like they're in that press uh pr release all three of them are were at the recording too like they're in that press uh pr release all three of them are there in person not like how uh you know justin timberlake went solo when the rest of in sync recorded their lines together all three of the of the blinkers were there so wait a minute they got blink 182 to actually go to the studio just so that they can like no sell them and not even remember their names from the characters like i mean it's fun just being on the show you know like it's fun

in that way but like what a weird appearance to go do on on the commentary with mark hoppus there they're even saying like yeah travis parker's a bad actor that he had to do they basically they had to say a billion times after we get paid after we get paid after we get paid though also on that extra thing this line that isn't in the episode it's them saying uh travis parker also keeps it being told to say this line over and over again of like you've been saying that since you were blink 12 you've been saying that since we were blink 12 you've been over and over again yeah clearly there was uh more of an exchange between the guys, but they don't even talk about it on the commentary.

I'm surprised they don't say, oh, we forgot to have Tom say something. Oh, no. Sorry. Well, you know, when they recorded that commentary, Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus weren't friendly. Tom DeLonge was not part of the band at the time. They forgot about all of the ups and downs. Though right now, everybody's friends again because they're going on a very high-priced tour with a brand new album.

So all three of them are back together again. I was going to make a joke about how our generation has too much disposable income, but that is not true at all. So weird. They're just targeting the few who do. Meanwhile, I did. So how I learned Tony Hawk got on the show, that was from the Bro Bible article I read. But basically what Tony Hawk said was that when he got so big in about 2000,

2001, he finally hired a publicist after the game got so big. And the publicist's job was to pitch him to shows. And one of the ones he pitched him to as a guest was the Simpsons. And I think clearly somebody in the Simpsons were like, well, of course, Bart, who hasn't really skateboarded in a long time in the show, but he would love Tony Hawk, wouldn't he? I think if you also remember on the Inside the Actor's Studio, when they're asking Nancy to answer questions in the character of Bart and said, you know, who's Bart's hero? She just said Krusty the Clown and Tony Hawk. And I would assume that's because they were about to get Tony Hawk on the show when they recorded that. That's a really good point though, because they did an episode

with Tony Hawk where Bart doesn't skateboard. Like there was one scene where he skateboards away from him, but what a bizarre concept. You know what I mean? Like you think you get Tony Hawk, Bart's going to skateboard. He's going to teach him how to skateboard. But instead, Homer skateboards. Yes, it ends with a big Homer skateboarding section. And Bart stands on a skateboard lightly in this one.

Yeah, that's about it. I don't know. Maybe he's intimidated to skateboard in front of Tony Hawk. And Homer simply doesn't know who he is. So he's like, I'll skateboard in front of uh tony hawk and homer simply doesn't know who he is so he's like i'll skateboard in front of this weird guy see if there's any argument for how homer took over the show and how bart doesn't matter at all it's this episode where they won't even let him skateboard in front of tony hawk uh tony hawk also he says it on the commentary but he also said it uh in that uh more recent interview that he also said

they drew me like i'm bald i'm not that bald you know when this came out bart had actually become tony's competition in the skateboarding space because simpson skateboarding was the november 2002 video game release up against tony hawk's pro skater of that year. What, what competition that game offered. Yeah. From what I hear, those both,

both games had similar critical receptions, correct? Oh yeah. Yeah. Everybody, everybody loved them both equally. Now the only time that game entered a person's home is if a mom said, I asked the man at the store.

No, I mean, they probably got some good money for all the small things being played on the show i would bet yeah probably and they can at least say that they were on the show tony hawk did say that that's one of the greatest honors of his life was being on the simpsons like he said that was his he was asked in an unrelated interview to doing the show he was asked what's your i made it moment and he said it was doing the Simpsons what did you guys think of his performance in this because he's not really given like much material but I think considering how

slight and the material that he got and like that he's not really a famous actor I thought he did a pleasant enough job with like that like joke where he's going up and then down and then up again like I thought he did pretty well all all things considered. He's really charming. I think at times the writing misunderstands who he's supposed to be. There's one joke about Homer's like, can I ask you something? And he's like, only if you ask it in an extreme way.

I view Tony Hawk as just like a laid back Southern California guy who just is, you know, not into that kind of in your face delivery. But maybe they just are reading skateboarding, extreme sports, all this stuff. I feel like he is too chill for that kind of writing. Yeah, weirdly enough, they gave Blink-182, who are the fun pop punk guys,

the very boring and straightforward lines in this, and then they give Tony Hawk these extreme-to-the-max kind of vernacular when he's just like very laid back and chill Blink-182 get turned into sellouts who only do everything for the money Get ready for Las Vegas style action at

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When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part visit dejaden.com care and get insurance that's really big on care did i mention that we care yeah well i will say that uh their their lines aren't funny no either i feel like the the lines they say could have been written for any band that they got.

They were just like, whatever band says yes, we're going to do that. They'll say these lines. That's why I wondered about the 300th episode thing, because it did really feel like, speaking of Mad Libs from earlier, but it does seem like there was a giant blank right there where you're like, insert band here. And it could have been anybody. Did they try for Green Day and then were turned down and had to put that in their back pocket until the movie? It would have been so sad if they would have wasted Green Day for this appearance.

No offense to Blink-182. They're fine. I like some of their songs. But if they got Green Day and they just dumped him in this little blameless appearance. Then we come back from commercial break after that wonderful webcam joke uh and we uh we then see that uh barge is still missing bart homer says that he's trying to learn how to uh take care of a baby by taking care of a bag of sugar which leads to another character returning as well.

Oh, tomorrow's the day the judge said we can visit Bart. I think he may come home. If we can show him, we can treat him better. For your information, I've been taking steps to become a better father. For the past week, I've been carrying around this bag of sugar. It's taught me how to love and care for a child. What the? Where the hell's my sugar?

Condoleezza Marie ain't too playful tonight. And I don't remember her being this granulated. Can I put your baby in my coffee? Well, the doctor said you eat any more baby, they gonna take your foot. I do have a soft spot for Diabete. And of course, as of this recording, The Real Jims just did a history of Cletus episode for his YouTube channel.

And because of that, I was like, Oh, Condoleezza Marie. I remember seeing that in the video. Cletus haunts me wherever I go now. Yeah. When I watched this episode,

I was like, Oh, it's Cletus. It's the sugar episode. I will say this is a good Cletus joke. I'll give them their flowers. Yeah. And something I didn't notice until you pointed out jims is that how how seldomly cletus was used until this era of the

show like he had a he had a few appearances per season but there's something about him that this era is really drawn towards and then they latch on to cletus to the point where we get a brandine episode uh much later down the line yeah they really need to stop giving him spotlight episodes unless they're gonna do something interesting with him it really feels like he's like the last stereotype they feel like they can make fun of these days which is why they keep him around and and like you said though they already even when they do a good new cleatus joke that it can't beat his scene in 22 short films yeah they peaked way too early like you just can't beat his scene in 22 short films. Yeah, they peaked way too early. Like he just can't beat that.

So there's part of me that's like, maybe they should just stop there. But at the same time, I really like Cletus. He's an endearing character. I just don't think the writers are very nice to him very often. Like Cletus deserves better. And like, this is actually a decent Cletus joke

because I don't know, like they're kind of putting the joke on Diabete, you know, but Cletus gets to, you know know like he gets to have that banter with Brandine about the granulated and everything of course he did misplace a child as well but how how they ended up mixing these two up at some point I don't know but so yeah then uh we cut to Bart being dropped off by Tony Hawk and he keeps name dropping something I would never do on a podcast. I would never constantly name drop all the people we've had on. Never. Never talk about your good pal,

Tony Hawk. Nope. Yeah. Or, or, or all our great times with, you know, Bill Oakley or Rebecca sugar or any of those,

or, or Mitch, my, uh, the, the dough boys guys, none of that stuff. We'd never name drop it all the time.

Uh, you guys had Bill Oakley on this podcast? We just did a live podcast with him in Portland, Oregon, even. Oh, no, I just realized I prompted you. Why, thank you. What, our best friend Bill Oakley? Yeah. Who lives at, oh, well, I can't say that out loud.

Well, actually, I should have treated you like Bart Treats Milhouse in this, like, shh, Jims, I'm trying to play it cool. Does Bill Oakley at least know you guys's proper names unlike tony hawk and bart yeah i'd say so at this point he knows our proper names yes i've never been called brett i also like that they uh they took the birdhouse logo of uh of his skateboards and simpsonified it to put on the side of his van again we get just a teeny bit here of what feels like real life stuff of, I definitely went through this the first time my parents visited my apartment in, well, when I say the big city, I mean Berkeley, California, not even San Francisco. But of just this feeling of like, one of the first times my parents visited me when we were driving around, they were asking, is it safe around here? And I and i was like and i believe this it was safe around where i lived but right after we said that almost like

a simpsons joke outside the window we saw an unhoused man assault an old woman like at a bus stop and i was like uh that doesn't happen all the time yeah it is uh it's a new world for some people because i remember a friend of mine uh they were living in a big city and their parents visited. And their car was broken into, but it turns out they didn't lock their car doors. It's adorable. Because that's just something that wasn't done in their rural hometown. And I just thought, oh, country mouse. That's crazy to me.

I live in the suburbs. I don't live in the rural areas. But I think even in rural areas, they're probably locking their door now, now that we're all afraid, right? Sure, yes. Now he's locking his door. Also, it's funny because it's next week's episode, but we just did Lisa's first word. When they go upstairs and Bart is being cold to Homer, he actually calls him dad. He says, hey, dad dad i was like wait you

should be calling him homer that's your whole bit in that episode yeah lisa's pony is terrible we'll also hear homer um strangles bart when he's trying to prove he's on his best behavior as well just he's not he's not earning any points here i'm surprised they're even paying lip service to the plot at this point like when they went to bart's house and had that dinner together it's like oh yeah there's like an actual character relationship conflict going on i'm surprised they even put the scene in the episode with where it's going you know yeah there's very few jokes about how bart is living i mean there's the joke about how he gets a dollar per syringe he picks up every day and then when they're all eating together they're clearly eating uh basically tv dinners but then i

was thinking well i've seen marge serve the family those in the past so it's not really a joke about bart being a little kid and not knowing how to cook yeah there it feels like there's like a whole other version of the second half of the episode that I think I'd rather watch instead. Like when I watched it for this podcast, I came away wondering, like why is Act 3 the way it is? Because it is just a giant like mess, this whole Act 3. And like there are these little glimpses

of like kind of a more interesting down-to-earth episode that could still have Tony Hawk in there of Bart living by himself. Like that's a good premise. But, like, we're going to go to the X games, like, right after this, and it's like, I don't even know, like,

what they're even doing in this Act 3. Like, I'm going to ask you guys, why is this Act 3 the way it is? I'm going to say, and I have a feeling Henry will agree with me, that we see it a lot in this era. It's like a real, what they feel is a rescue job, where they feel a script isn't working,

and I'd love to see Andrew Kreisberg's original draft of this i don't want to go anywhere near him to do that but you know maybe it's online but i feel that it had a more emotional realistic down to third act but it didn't play very well the table read it wasn't uh you know a big enough episode in terms of you know um you at the stature of the 300th or whatever. I don't know the reason, but we've seen this before where Act 3, where did this idea come from? Why are they at this location?

Did they forget about the first two acts? Going back to the original 300th episode, The Strong Arms of the Maw, that's one of them. Yeah, it would be like if they did for the 100th episode, Bart gets Skinner fired, but then act three turns into like some giant battle. Like maybe like Homer's prank that he was going to do actually does happen or

whatever, instead of like doing the ending that they did do in that episode. Like it's a very weird anniversary swerve. And also instead of Ned being the, the new principal, it's like Kevin Cost anniversary swerve. And also instead of Ned being the new principal, it's like Kevin Costner or whatever famous guy they could get for that week. And I mean, we'll get to it, but even the show acknowledges it doesn't know what it's doing in the third act because Bart has to point out,

it's not that I didn't think you were cool. I thought you lacked empathy. That's why I left. Yeah. Like they don't even know what the point of the episode is because like I was thinking it's like this episode is like it's kind of like brother from the same planet you know where Bart has a bigger brother and is fighting with Homer like that's Bart's storyline but Homer's storyline turns into Homerpalooza for some reason where Homer needs to be cool for bart and like both characters don't know or aren't even in the same episodes with each other you know now that you bring up homer palooza

this bit of them going to the skewed tour again makes me like wow the show's been on so long that like lalapalooza isn't the cool tour anymore like it's now the warped tour or the vans warped tour with the skewed tour yes uh parodying the warp tour which went on from 95 to 2019 uh the end of the warp tour had nothing to do with covid by the way and sponsored by henry's precious vans he's putting all of those executive kids through college i do love vans i have to i put supports in the vans, though, because it is too flat because I'm not actually a skateboarder. I just like their fit. But I also I don't wear them for my workouts. I have specific workout shoes that are not actual like running shoes, not not vans. See, I couldn't even tell that this was a Warped Tour parody, which makes sense when you say it's skewed.

I was like, oh, yeah, of course, because I thought it was like an X Games parody because it doesn't even like look like the Warped Tour parody, which makes sense when you say it's skewed. I was like, oh yeah, of course. Because I thought it was like an X Games parody because it doesn't even look like the Warped Tour. It's just, they're all skating. There's like no music. Like they already used a Blink-182, so now it's just skating at the end. Yeah, yeah. Like I associate the Warped Tour

with you go there to see bands. It's like an outdoor music festival. And then again, there's more underlining of they don't know what they're doing here. They don't know how they ended up here because the announcer says and now it's time for the part of the show where one of the audience challenges tony hawk yes sure but i just want to know like this is very small what did you folks think about marge screaming with homer's voice for that nipple ring gag i've got the clip here just so listeners can hear it. I clipped that out too. I was like, wait a minute, what? Wow, this place is great.

That couch looks really pricey. Well, you need an expensive couch to watch an expensive TV. Of course, because you wouldn't want to. I pay for your splendor, you duck fries! And for every syringe I find, I get a dollar.

Well, that's great, honey. You know, son, I've been doing a lot of thinking. I was wrong to exploit you, and I won't do it again. Thanks, Dad. That means a lot to me. So do you think you might see your way clear to moving back in with your ma and me? Sorry, no can do. I'm taking off for six months to join the skewed tour skewed tour the traveling festival of rock and roll skateboarding and extreme sports and nipple piercing don't worry

they're clip-ons it does feel like they're going for a weird joke actually it sounds like they pitched up the homer scream a little bit but that it was so horrifying that marge was able to summon the classic homer scream i think that is the joke yeah i also i'm pretty sure that's the last thing marge says in the episode as well uh marge is so ineffectual in this episode she doesn't even get to scream yeah it's so much like homer palooza i feel like she should say skateboards are designed to hurt oh wait a minute she does have that line later about the 300th episode so i guess she does get to talk later oh yeah but that's but that's

basically it uh but yeah i i looked it up at the time the the headliners for the uh the 2003 warped tour were rancid afi and andrew wk blink 182 had stopped appearing on the tour in 2001, but 2019 was their triumphant return to the Warped Tour. Wait a minute, is the Warped Tour still going on? This is a really old person question. Oh no, this ended in 2019, I believe, nothing to do with COVID. It just reached its natural

end. And there's more to the story if you want to look into it. But you said that, Henry, you said they're reuniting. Is this some sort of like Blink-182 cruise you can take? I feel like a lot of these bands, henry you said they're reuniting is some sort of like blink 182 cruise you can take i feel like a lot of these bands and kevin smith they're they're doing these cruises now yes uh i think they have been on other cruises i don't know if there's a full-on blink 182 cruise but yes i am aware of the new album because uh friends of the show the podcast and band the sloppy boys they did an episode where they

reviewed the new album and we're not positive about it they're like oh this sucks it's just them it's a real rehash and they even pointed out how like this song just sounds like this classic song of theirs but yeah it's them back together because tom delong quit the band um and he's very into space aliens and proving if they're real or not he really likes that uh but i think they were able to convince him like hey the band the albums without you don't sell as much as the albums with you so why don't we all just get together and make a bunch of money and that's what they're doing right now uh and then at the skewed tour we also see that martin gets a permanent tattoo on his face which would make him a big time SoundCloud rapper these days.

It's a the joke makes no sense because you would know you're getting a tattoo. But I do love the punchline of the bullies wailing on his unconscious body. OK, pardon me for a really dumb question, but is that actually a tattoo? Is that what the joke is supposed to read? Or are they messing with him? I take it to add more cruelty to Martin's life. They would make it a real tattoo. Yeah, because that was what I was wondering. Because yeah, he would totally feel if it was an actual tattoo,

but it wouldn't put it past me to think that they were just messing with him. But then if they were lying and it wasn't a tattoo, why would they say that thing about he's been tortured enough at that point so i always wondered about that joke yeah i think it is supposed to be seen as a real tattoo obviously it does it doesn't stay nor should we expect it to stay like this let's say he went to the same doctor that marge takes part two in simpsons roasting on an open fire and they laser it off his face. Okay. You're thinking of Dr. Zetsovsky and that's real.

That's right. But it's so fun to pull out. It's the holiday season now. Pull out your own copies of the original book from 92 or 91 where they name every single character that appears in that episode including like racetrack ticket guy.

But yeah, so they then also see how heavily advertised it is which also just feels like homer palooza jokes uh warmed over the goldman sachs thing and all that uh i i thought it was funnier in the all of the merchandising at the uh the hullabalooza yeah the the joustins class rings yeah more specific better but uh then we have a quick little deleted scene which i actually did really like that bart the bart helps tony balance his skateboard because there weren't enough stickers in the right place there was a major sticker imbalance so he adds another sticker to straighten it out but then because it's the third act a giant fight has to help happen as tony decides to help homer mr hawk may i have a word with you an extreme word sure my son is bart simpson and i didn't say extreme to the max sorry

i just want to win my son back so badly. I can relate. I'm a father myself. One day they're little shredders, and the next day they're grinding and gnashing their way to college. Yeah, I make up words too. Anyway, I was wondering if you could pretend to lose to me in a skateboarding contest so I can be a hero to my boy again. I'll lose millions in endorsements, but okay. This board represents the ultimate imposer technology.

It gives people the illusion they have talent. Groovy! Just lock your feet in and the board does all the work. All the work? Fine. I'll lift you onto the board, too. Do it without the attitude or don't do it at all. I still have a joke where Homer

is a jerk to anybody helping him i still enjoy those i'm still trying to figure out like why why is the plot the way it is i'm sorry i keep repeating it but like why are they competing in a skateboarding competition like why was this the logical conclusion to this story you're correct uh and then in the audience we we have the joke about how this is not really the 300th episode which i like that they're putting that little like uh slap in the face of the executives who force this on them but also it's identifying the episode as a crazy homer plot episode and that's not what it should be yeah like if you're gonna do crazy homer plot

you gotta put that in x1 and 2 to set up crazy homer plot needs to be a romp all the way through whereas this is a romp in act three like what the hell i think if they play this a little bigger or maybe a different approach to me it seems like in the the high-minded comedic parody intent is that this is like making fun of say a brady bunch episode where they have to win the big surf competition or something and then this competition doesn't matter but then but then they have to m the big surf competition or something and then this competition doesn't matter but then but then they have to muck it up with a crouching tiger hidden dragon reference to like a long one a really long one um see that's the weird thing though because the like the skateboarding battle is basically magic and like all the simpsons purists out there

we're gonna be like furring our brows and shaking our fists at them floating around up there. Like, but they've done stuff like the tap dancing shoes and stuff that are also similarly magic. So I kind of do enjoy how over the top that is, that they're just flying at each other by the end of the episode. But it's very tonally like whiplashy compared to the first two acts of this episode you know i also feel like we might i think we we burn through our crouching tiger hidden dragon references very quickly in pop culture because i can still identify a matrix reference from a mile away it was not until you told me what was coming up henry did i realize upon watching like oh that's what this is because i know a week or two ago you're like oh get ready for this reference and i was like oh i forget what

that is and then when i sat down to watch it i was like oh okay but if you had not told me that i would i'd be thinking what is this supposed to be yeah i because i'm a big wire foo fan like i i loved all those movies but seeing it in the episode my first thought was oh this see it reminded me of the final battle in the third Matrix movie, but I knew that comes out a year after this episode, so it couldn't be a reference to that. But then finally, the music in the background reminded me, okay, it's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which was a years-old movie. But if you don't remember then, it was a pretty big event movie. Many Americans had never seen wire food like that kind of action in a movie before and it was being presented in a also prestige drama that is great i it's a great great movie i watched it again recently for the first

time in a while and it's such a a wonderful film that's why they put it in this episode, because of the drama between Homer and Bart mirrors the drama from that film. Exactly. Actually, I do want to hear the bit of Marge and Lisa shitting on the episode counting for this one. Now the portion of our event where champion Tony Hawk may be challenged by any unknown member of the audience. I'm challenging you, Hawk,

in front of all these outcasts and dreamers who can't even get into the army, if you can believe it. Dad, how drunk are you? Not very. You're going down, Homer, then back up, then down, and back up again. That's how the game is played. I can't count how many times

your father's done something crazy like this. It's 300, Mom. I could have sworn it was 302. Shh. By the way, when Tony Hawk references his child, he says, I'm a father too. I would assume that is Riley Hawk he's talking about, who was nine years old when this aired, who is 31 now. Yeah, I remember watching that extras segment. I mentioned like three times now. And when they pan from like Tony Hawk to Nancy Carr, you see two kids sitting on the couch.

And I assume one of them is his kid. And Tom Gamble, I think, references that like his kid would love taking a picture with Tony Hawk that day, I think. Wait a minute, they weren't excited to take a picture with Blink-182? You know, nobody says that to hoppus they they do kind of needle hoppus about like why is your band named this like i i aljean is nice to have all the again i don't want to be a jerk and say like oh you went to all this trouble getting the guests there but they ask these obvious questions like why is your name blink 182 and then i'm just like google this aljean we don't need to hear this on on this precious commentary these are real larry king questions he's asking

yeah i feel like i actually know like i feel like i know the answer right it wasn't just a random number they picked yes they had to pick a number uh because they couldn't use blink or something like that he does tell the story on the commentary but i'm sure it's been recounted many many times okay well go listen to the commentary if you want to hear Tom be tortured by the Simpsons writers. You know what? For Mark Hoppus' trouble, though,

you can also on the commentary hear them ask to get free stuff, which they do. Mark Hoppus complains, hey, I wasn't given a cell for this episode. I was told I was, and then Al Genon commentary has to go like, we'll get you one. We'll get you some free stuff. It reminded me- it reminded me this man a cell well now the actor i forget

who was asking for free dvds on the commentary oh it was a delroy lindo that's it was yeah after being uh well we talked about that in the brawl in the family episode uh he pieces out of that commentary about halfway through so you guys done, you guys done? I can leave? I think he went the right route, though, going for a sell. That's got to be worth way more money than DVDs these days. So good on him. I don't know if Mark Hoppus got a sell, but I can confirm from Googling Mark Hoppus Simpsons stuff

that him and his wife, soon after the recording of this DVD commentary, did get to go to the 500th episode party for the simpsons so he did get an invite to that but yeah you know also i have to say this animators we haven't uh complimented them enough in this episode they were told to do skateboarding tricks which i'm sure are not easy to animate and then they also have to do it with homer looking lazy while doing all of them yeah i love the shot shot of Homer just nonchalantly smoking that pipe going by. It's very pretty. And then, like you said, a lot of technical artistry with him.

Because they have him go through a lot of obstacles down there. It's not even like just the half pipe going up and down. And then he comes up. He does that whole rotation around the screen. And he comes up with a life hack. It's like, oh, I can buy my own nuts and then mix them on my own i'll save lots of money i would think you probably end up spending the same right you're you know per nut he hasn't done his research he's this is just uh skateboard talk and so tony hawk basically is killed by homer homer wins the fight and Tony Hawk falls to a crumpled pile of bones.

And this is when, yes, as you said, Tony Hawk and Bart remind Homer what the actual plot of the episode is. Woohoo! I rule this pseudo-sport! Come back to me, boy! Dad, you don't understand. This was never about being cool. It was about you

not caring how I felt. Oh, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, you stupid little understand. This was never about being cool. It was about you not caring how I felt. Oh, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, you stupid little kid. Homer, you're heading for parental faceplant. Do a 180 emotional ollie. Ugh. Finally, someone explains it to me in words I can understand.

So, yeah, that's the end of Tony Hawk. A classic appearance of the guest star dying pretty much on screen god this this episode is so bad in act three like i'm trying not to be the debbie downer but every clip you play i'm just like reliving watching this being like they don't even know what they're doing they're showing on screen that they don't even know what the character arc is and like and they're hitching the whole thing like homer's resolution on like tony hawk lingo it's god it's such dog shit i'm sorry i'm being so negative no i i mean i understand like tony hawk emerges from

the the skate ramp to tell homer this is not a homer gets a job episode. You have to apologize to your son. And also to make the plotting seem even more cheap, Lindsay Nagel teleports in to solve the problem for the episode. They were really enjoying this at the time. Other times recently, they at least have when Lindsay Nagel shows up to be like, hey, I want to give you a job. They then say, how are you here? And she'd say, I'm an alcoholic. I'm a sexual predator.

She would at least explain why she was in some area. Here, not even that. Yeah, I will give them some credit. I've been very negative on Act 3, but I do kind of like the bookend of, like Bart was humiliated at the beginning in a commercial. So Homer also gets humiliated, although I don't think he realizes how humiliated at the beginning in a commercial. So Homer also gets humiliated, although I don't think he realizes how humiliated he's getting,

but how he gets humiliated at the end. It kind of like seeing that ending makes me wonder if they could have like reworked it somehow where like that gets integrated more into the story. So they somehow do get there in a weird way, but like everything up to it doesn't make any sense. Yes, and the episode ends with Homer not understanding

what the word impotence means as we wrap up 300 episodes of The Simpsons with a lengthy Viagra joke. I know I did wrong and I'm truly sorry. I put you in humiliating commercials for money which I spent on myself.

I just wish I had an opportunity to make things right. Mr. Simpson, I like the way you handled yourself on that board. Would you like to do a commercial for us? Anything! As long as I can give the money to my son. Excellent! I represent Viagra Gain, the topical rub for bald, impotent men. Well, I am bald and important. Where do I sign? Oh, Steve.

You're everything a girl could want. What's your secret? Well, Cassie, I'll tell you. It's Viagra Gain. It gives you lots of hair and what you need down there. What are you waiting for, loser? Possible side effects include loss of scalp and penis. What did I say about my scalp?

Don't worry, Dad. It's just a commercial. No one will remember this in 50 years. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ha! They play the music one more time so you remember, like, your last thought is the Crouching Tiger reference for some reason. And Homer's grave reads, impot impotency sorry impotency spokesman look forward to season 64 when that when that actually happens in real life shouldn't nelson die in that scene does it feel like it's not enough that he just coughed some shouldn't he keel over and die yeah i remembered him dying but that could just me be my brain punching up the joke yeah well he does run into the tree earlier when we see him so maybe

like we kind of expect him to fall over i think the tree should have come out of nowhere and attacked him a tree falls on him and kills him instead of he coughs there you go we fixed the joke i do wonder if this was partially a reference to bob dole selling viagra that uh in 1999 that some people felt that destroyed his legacy for whatever that means but i think it was though right because didn't the commercial he was in he was like like walking along the beach or am i picturing something different i'm pretty sure i have that image in my head of course that's the image of every commercial like that but i do recall that being the fodder of parody so when i now when i think of the dick pill uh commercials for the older guys i think of the two bathtubs next

to each other you know that's what i think of that's uh jims i think you're right that this is at least a good conceptually at least like okay how does homer make it up to bart other than just having a stupid apology that you know is meaningless from homer that homer does sacrifice his dignity to get back the money he owes bart now obviously we know since this episode homer has wasted far more money than what he would have set aside for bart but let's just pretend that bart has a nice trust run from here on thanks to homer and there's some weird alternate joke for that Viagra commercial on the DVD I don't know if you saw this Henry but it's basically the same except Homer kind of goes super saiyan in terms of what his hair does at the end so yeah

the girl he says what could be better than a full head of hair and then the the the sexy bikini girl whispers something in his ear. And then his hair pops up and it's a hair raising joke. And then he says, what are you waiting for, loser? But I think if I know why they cut scenes, I would bet it's because the hair raising just looks weird. Like you said, it looks like going Super Saiyan. It doesn't pop correctly. Is it supposed to be?

I mean, this is just me interpreting what they might be trying to say. Like his hair getting a boner is that what's happening that's what i figure yeah i think they forgot to add the sproing sound effect over his hair popping up there probably a wise thing to leave on the deleted scenes yes uh like cross your tiger hood dragon parody viger joke hair boner. Welcome to the next era of the show, everyone. Yes. Yeah. And James, you're very good also on your channel charting just how horny seasons get or don't get. Yeah. I mean, you guys are watching season 14.

You know all about how horny and Marge fetishy this season is. Oh, man. And soon we're going to get to A a star is born again which is also a rather horny episode oh yeah that dress i will always remember that dress also ned has sex outdoors like yeah i will i will go to bat to that episode that episode's underrated i'll be interested to hear what you guys think of it but like i think that has some nice little ned stuff uh plus it has the dress in it and also now we have so much more respect for Marissa Tomei as an actress. Yeah, there you go.

Yes. After having watched My Cousin Vinny as an adult, I do. But yeah, this 300th episode, I understand, Jims, why it is not in your top 10 for the season. I think they, as usual, had a not bad idea for a story and then stuffed it full of celebrities that take like seven minutes out of it and then they also decide let's have a crazy wacky battle at the end of the scene so it's just it's all the things that weigh down uh what could be good episodes yeah i guess my final thoughts are to paraphrase marge i wanted them to celebrate their 300th episode but not like this.

Not like this. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. It kind of felt like Al Jean's take on a Mike Scully episode where they had kind of a rational episode for the first couple of acts, kind of like maybe like Tennis the Menace where there's like a plot going on.

And then in Act 3, there's like some celebrity danger kind of set piece that misses the point or just raises stakes for this for no reason so having a good time in the first couple of acts but it just quickly falls off the cliff in act three you know now that you mentioned tennis the menace i like this episode more because i remember i remember how crummy that one was i actually prefer this this crummy uh celebrity filled ending to that one. Me too. Fewer celebrities as well.

Yeah, that's true. So that's, that's our seal of approval. This is a better tennis than menace. Yeah. Thank you for joining us once again, the real gyms,

please let us know all about your YouTube channel and what you're, you're up to lately. Okay. So, uh, yes. Uh, so my YouTube channel is called the real gyms.

It's a terrible title for a youtube channel but that's what i went with uh just doing a bunch of simpsons videos simpsons histories covering the seasons i just did a video about cletus which was referenced during the podcast so please check that one out uh also i'm thinking about doing for uh christmas a video about miracle and evergreen terrace so we'll see if that video comes together. I'm thinking about doing an episode about like trying to figure out if it's too depressing as the question. So maybe that episode will happen. But otherwise, like look forward to my videos in January where I try to watch all the I'm trying to watch all the movies from 2023,

all the animated movies. So you might get a special about me talking about all these weird movies that have come out this year. So look forward to that. Ooh, that's fun. Also, I wore a Yoshi shirt today in honor of your avatar. Oh, yeah, yeah. I see the monkey. I didn't even notice for a second. I see the monkeys and everything.

So got to represent Yoshi for some reason on this channel. Yeah, i look forward to all of those i i love i i love your uh second looks or whenever you spotlight an episode those are some of my favorites and yeah we you know as as fellow simpson scholars i always look forward to your your views on on the series especially in a holistic view of the many later seasons yeah well those videos take a lot of research as well. So I'm glad you guys are getting something out of them. And like when you're doing the podcast,

that you were able to like see things from season 14, everything. I'm glad from all that researching and note-taking and screencapping that like other people are getting something useful out of them. So I appreciate you saying that. We're all doing God's work with our respective content yes very very pointless pop culture work but but it's interesting to someone out there and that's the important thing but thank you once more uh the real jims thank you jims thanks for having me on your show thanks again to the real jims for being on the show please check out his

youtube channel it is great but as for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get these episodes one week ahead of time and ad free please go to patreon. It is great. But as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get these episodes one week ahead of time and ad free, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. For five bucks a month, you can get just that, but also access to everything behind that $5 paywall that includes episodes all about Futurama, King of the Hill, Batman, the animated series, The Critic, and Mission Hill. And that five bucks a month will also get you regular monthly access to new episodes of both Talking Futurama and talking of the hill and the second you sign up you'll get access to

everything behind that five dollar paywall that we've made for the past six and a half years again that is over 150 full-length podcasts if you like hearing us there's a lot you haven't heard if you're not a patron at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and henry a little bird told me there's a ten dollar level and when you sign up for that you get all the five dollar stuff that makes sense but you also get one mega long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level or higher bob yeah bird is right that is the what a cartoon movie podcast we do each month where we cover an animated feature film super in depth just like an episode of the simpsons which often means talking for over four or five or even six hours about that movie for the start of the holiday season just last

month we covered The Muppet Christmas Carol that was a whole lot of fun and if you're listening to this near the end of the year I think you'll it'll warm your heart too and we are ending the year with us covering the modern Disney classic The Emperor Emperor's New Groove, which has a very interesting backstory to its creation as well. And you can hear the full thing, us talking about it for, I'm sure, many, many hours. If you are a $10 subscriber at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons, and you get five years of back catalog of our What a Cartoon movies, everything from Akira to a goofy movie spider-man into the spider-verse to beavis and butthead do the universe and our longest podcast

ever six and a half hours about who framed roger abbott and you will learn a ton from that one too so please head over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to see everything you're missing out on so as for me i've been one of your hosts bob Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And my other podcast, by the way, it's called Retro Knots. It's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts and sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month.

And I have a book out, by the way, a new book. It is the Boss Fight Books volume, all about Day of the Tentacle. I put together an extensive oral history on that game for its 30th anniversary and you can find that wherever you find books or at the boss fight books website it makes a great gift regardless of what holiday you celebrate this month and Henry how about you you can follow me on most social media at h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g or talking henry on instagram you will stay in the loop of all the cool things i'm posting up a storm with as well when you're following me and bob on social media please follow at talk simpsons pod at talk simpsons pod on twitter on blue sky on

instagram you will know when new episodes go live on the free feed on Patreon. When we have live shows like the one we're about to do at Sketch Fest or the one we did do earlier this year with Bill Oakley, you stay in the loop if you follow those things. And of course, you can always find an easy list of our previously released free podcasts and lots of other cool info if you go to TalkingSimpsons.com. Yes, TalkingSimpsons.com yes talking simpsons.com thanks so much for listening folks we'll see you again next time for season four's lisa's first word and we'll see you then you I'm going to go.