Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart's Girlfriend With Lindsay Katai

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

"Jessica, I don't think we should hang out together anymore. You're turning me into a criminal, when all I want to be is a petty thug." - Bart Simpson Bart falls in love—again—when the previously unseen Lovejoy daughter arrives in Springfield and makes him consider cleaning up his act. But when Jessica identifies his bad boy status and reveals her true colors, Bart becomes the fall guy for a number of her attention-seeking schemes. Our guest: Lindsay Katai, co-host of the podcast Teen Creeps Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Bluesky and Instagram!

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. Ahoy, ho, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that needs to be saved from the Wee Turtles. I'm one of your host, Cheap Yellow Trash, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Probably missing my old glasses, Henry Gilbert. And who is our special guest on the line?

This is Lindsay, so much better than that Sarah Plain and Tall. And this week's episode is Bart's girlfriend. You know, I was considering staying after school and helping teacher clean up. Do you ever think anything you don't say? This week's episode originally aired on November 6, 1994, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein debuts second at the box office behind Stargate. George Foreman becomes the oldest heavyweight champion in boxing history after K-Oing Michael Moore. And, oh boy, it's the elections right after this.

And the GOP takes over both houses of Congress. That's scarier than Frankenstein. That's the real monster. It's funny, it coincides the same week as the Ronald Reagan representative. have to admit that he has Alzheimer. Oh. One era of Republican ends and another begins, and they're all the same assholes.

Saying the quiet part loud, though. Yeah. Yes. There's less song and dance, and I never like the song and dance, but now I miss it. Yeah, the effort goes away. Each iteration, it seems like.

Yeah, the mitigating power of the song and dance is spayed. Speaking of horror, though, so I saw GDT's Frankenstein in theaters when it came out. It's on Netflix now, obviously. Wasn't super thrilled by it. I thought it was okay. So I downloaded Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The end of my boring story is I haven't watched yet, but I really want to. Has anyone seen this version? The prestige 90s version. All I know is I was 11 at the time. And there were a lot of very inappropriate video game tie-ins to this movie. Really? This was Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I do not remember that. He plays the scientist. Robert De Niro plays the monster. And Helen and Bottom Carter, guess what? She's the bride. Who would have experienced? back to that. And Robert De Niro

studied under real monsters for this role. Our real monsters, in fact. Yes. Which is why the portrayal was a little questionable. The only thing I remember about it as far as headlines back then, other than it's like, oh, this is, you know, right after Bram, Stoker's

Dracula, the Coppola film. So it was another, like, in that sort of series was that apparently Robert De Niro did like full frontal in it. That, like, made headlines as the monster. But I wouldn't be the alleged Mr. Skin of Talking Simpsons, if I didn't mention an actor's nude scene in something. But yeah, I should check it out. I like Kenneth Branagh's films, like his Hamlet and his

Henry V. I really enjoyed. Oh, well, of course, Thor. Who could forget Thor, the wonderful film. Oh, he did that? Okay. Yes. Yeah. It was the first phase of Marvel where they pretended like, we'll get a great director or a famous director who's like beyond Marvel for it instead of somebody's first movie or second movie. Well, usually they could have. That person, yeah. They usually kidnap a good director after their first movie. Yeah. Their first, like, indie movie, prestige movie.

And then they're like, here, direct our big popcorn flick. Lindsay, your whole podcast is about, you know, reading horror and fiction. Have you read the actual Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? I have. I read it in college when I took a proper actual English class. So we were dissecting it for that. Loved it. It's really good.

I'd really like to read the. 1812 Frankenstein, which was like the original publication and which is apparently a little more like subversive politically. I want to read the book so I can just start calling it, oh, you mean the modern Prometheus? I don't call it Frankenstein. Yeah, just yesterday. In fact, I pulled the, I think you mean Frankenstein's monster when we were, my husband and our three-year-old were under a blanket telling ghost stories. And Mike's contribution was that a kid go up to a haunted house and 10 or 100 Frankenstein's answer the door. And I was like, oh, I think you make Frankenstein monsters.

It has to feel even better to well actually somebody in front of your kid. Well, we can't have her having the wrong idea. Got to raise them right. George Foreman, oldest, you said heavyweight champ, Henry. Yes, oldest heavyweight champion. George Foreman, who would soon go on to be a grill spokesman. He had retired at the height of his abilities, I believe the late 70s. to become a preacher.

And then in the late 80s or 90s, he decided he'd make a comeback as an older boxer who still, his old thing was power. And the old saying in boxing is like, you know, power is the last thing you lose. You lose speed first and power is the last thing. And so he still was a very strong puncher. In a weak time for heavyweight champions, I think many boxing historians might say, or at least that's what I heard them say on HBO boxing documentaries, which is the only things I know about boxing.

It's funny because as an 11-12-year-old that year, boxing felt very like, oh, everybody was talking about it a lot. And so I thought, like, oh, boxing must be in like its heyday, apart from, like, Muhammad Ali. And, like, that was the crazy thing I learned later as a kid, because I just knew George Form was, like, a bald guy who was, like, an older dude who could beat up. And then sold grills. And then I see, you know, Muhammad Ali documentaries. And it's about how, like, the young George Foreman rocks his world or, you know, he beats him at this very hard match. I was like, wait, that George Foreman, like, to me, 20 years ago back then, still a very long time ago. And I was like, George Foreman could also have boxed Muhammad Ali and Evander Holyfield.

That's crazy. And this win came right after his sitcom got canceled. So it was a lot of ups and downs for George. You'll never guess what his sitcom was called. It was called George. Right. Isn't he one of those celebrities who named all his sons, George, I think? He's one of those celebrities that I forget.

He's dead. Yes, right. That's right. Speaking of spooky ghost stories and Frankensteins. But yes, that's all the stuff that happened when this classic episode, The Simpsons aired. And joining us once again is Lindsay K-Tai from the podcast, Teen Creeps. And Lindsay last joined us for season 13's She of Little Faith. Welcome back to the show, Lindsay.

Thank you so much for having me, guys. I didn't realize a theme I had accidentally been created with all your previous appearances. And this third one marks it. Like, usually the church is important in the episodes we've had you on, which I is yes as I have asked like specifically requested of course you're right you just love to love joy characters and questions of faith yeah it was an unintentional themeing by me of course yes we didn't say do we know an evil woman and since your previous appearance like you were showrunner for full season of the fairly odd appearance and you've had a baby so lots is yeah that's a lot of

big stuff happened it has been a while that was in the thick of the pandemic was it not I think so. Yes. I didn't realize you were pregnant when we were recording, I think. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Well, I was going to ask related to The Simpsons and your Fairly Outparents work, I was perusing the voice actors list. I was like, oh, you've worked with two Simpsons regulars on that show. Great Alis and Don Lewis were also voice actors on Fairly Outparents. Yeah, they were excellent. Really lovely to work with as well. They've been on everything. They're both mega veterans.

Like, it's, yeah. Yeah, are, oh, what's the word I'm looking for? I guess mission on fairly odd parents was to largely get like meat and potatoes voice actors, not just famous comedians. But I think the work speaks for itself that paid off. Lovely acting on that show. I think this one is a good fit as well because your podcast, Teen Creeps is, a lot about YA fiction.

And this is kind of a, it's a young adult story for Bart here too. Yeah, but this is the most like, or one of the more because there are like 800 episodes now. I'm sure there are many other teen stories for Bart. But this at the time felt like the closest to like a teenager we were seeing from Bart. What do you think of these like The Simpsons? We've talked with some other guests about this too. Like The Simpsons, they have to like age up Bart and Lisa sometimes like mentally for them to do these romance episodes. episodes because and it's just like how do you think they balance like Bart's still feeling like a 10 year old while also wanting to do a story that's more about like grown up relationships.

I think they do it really well because and maybe this is just because like from age five I had like crushes and wanted to like have a boyfriend. So like very young kids like do have those drives and romantic feelings. So yeah, I think it fits just fine and especially with Bart being a little juvenile. delinquent. The things they're doing still feel very kiddish. Yeah, I had a girlfriend when I was 10. I'm sad to say it didn't work out. Yeah. I got over it. I had a boyfriend for a day in the second grade, but I just found that I was actually very afraid of commitment. So as soon as he like walked me home and gave me a flower, I was like, this is feeling like too much. I'm in over my head.

Yeah, like, what are we doing here? We're only seven. I mean, let's be real. I can't settle down now. card was nice, but where does it go from here? The closest I had to indicating your crush with someone was in the classes where you're supposed to, you know, the rule in my class, I would bet on Valentine's Day and your guys is too it was. Everybody gets a Valentine's. You don't give, you know, but I would put two Valentine's in the same one for the person I had a crush on to be like, oh, see, you got two of the chipmunk cards.

Yeah, you got to find ways around it. And they're both, Alvin, the best chipmunk that means. They're both Leonardo. Obviously, you'll understand what I'm saying here that I'm giving you the best turtle. Oh, also since talking, I wrote on turtles. Oh, right. I wrote on what will perhaps now become the infamous never to be made third season of Teenade Tales of the TMNT. Well, that's an honor too.

Yeah. Who is your favorite turtle to write for since you mentioned? I mean, I'm a nerd. I guess Leonardo. But our turtles felt young. Like, I mean, you guys have seen Mutant Mayhem. They feel very young. And they're all kind of little lovable, lovable doofs.

So probably Donatello slash Michelangelo. I did like the bit you put into the fairly odd parents of an obsession of T.H. Mutant Ninja Turtles for Cosmo. Yes. It was brand integration, I guess, too. But it felt real to me. Yeah. He considers it a tearjerker.

Cosmo does. But yeah, this episode. though is a great one, but they're all great ones at this time in season six. So it's getting repetitive saying. I'm bored with all this solid gold being produced. Yeah. This episode was brought to the show by showrunner David Merkin. It was handed off to Jonathan Collier who worked with James L. Brooks to work out the story beats. So a great opportunity for a young writer. And I love the twist. It's one of those ones where I wish I could watch it again because you forget it is a twist that this is not apparent from the beginning that Jessica is evil. And I feel like at the time and even now, girl characters were

often made too safe for good reasons. There's not a lot of female representation in cartoons, especially cartoons for boys. So they want to kind of play it safe and have like a positive role model or a strong female character, but often comes at the risk of making that character boring. So I like that Jessica is pure evil and she does not learn a lesson. It's great. Sort of like how Angelica was a breath of fresh air on Rugrats, just a purely evil character. Yeah. I've been binging Perry Mason lately, the original Perry Mason. That show did an excellent job of representing a range of women, holding a range of jobs. They were not just wives and girlfriends and secretaries. They were involved in all kinds of business and some were good and some were

evil and there were many, many blackmailers among them. And like I was texting my group thread with the infinity train room. I just keep texting them all of my Perry Mason thoughts because we'll talk about a lot of television. And I was texting them that one of the alibis of one of the female characters is that she couldn't have done it because she was involved in it all night car racing competition. That's a pretty good alibi. It's way more fun than a bridge circle. Yeah. It's not like, oh, I was home with the kids. They're doing all kinds of things. And I've been so impressed that even in the late 50s, early 60s, these writers were really making sure that they didn't even seem like a question that just like women were dynamic, a whole range. of personalities. This stuff with Merkin pitching it that he says on the commentary like in his own

relationships, he can never find a woman evil enough for him. Julie Brown didn't make the cut. No, she was evil enough to create a show with, but then it just fell apart after that. It reminded me, too, of the episode of Get a Life that me and Bob covered a while back. The Girlfriend 2000 episode that's not exactly like this, but in that one, it is also the Chris Elliott's character, Chris, falls in love with it. the woman and starts stalking her.

And then it turns out she's crazier than him and stalks him back. But we actually have, Bob, you've lined up a whole history on the writer of this episode. Yes, this is the writer Jonathan Collier's first episode. So here's a little biography on him. And now it's time to talk about Jonathan Collier. And by the way, we're recording this after we recorded with Lindsay in case you're wondering why she is being so quiet. She is not here.

We did not mute her mic or tell her that this is only for Simpsons guys to talk about. No, no. So yes, Jonathan Collier, this is his first credited episode, and he was hired at the beginning of production season five. When The Simpsons was really staffing up, we talked about that. And he remained on the show through the end of production season eight. So yes, four great years of The Simpsons. And he is writing episodes. He's pitching jokes.

So he is in some pretty crazy rooms when it comes to Simpson's history. It's impressive that he was hired at season five but didn't get an assigned script until production six. He was working in the room in five, but didn't get assigned to script. script. And as we talked about the episode about how it got a sign, like, Merkin just handed him. What if Merkin's ideas to work on at the pitch meeting that year? Yeah. And it seems like Merkin really put these guys to work in the joke minds for a long time before they were allowed to write an episode because David X. Cohen, I believe, he was hired at the beginning of season five as well. He writes a segment in a Trias of Horror and then it's not until season seven that he gets Lisa the

vegetarian in his first credited episodes. It feels like with these newer guys who have not had much experience, he really wants them to do the grunt work before they can sit down and have their own credited episode. Well, and you know that vegetarian one, Merkin jokes with Cohen about that, that Cohen, he thinks that Cohen pitched it because David Merkin had just recently become a vegetarian and that was like the way to sell a full script to him. It does seem like that in both those cases, these younger guys under Gina Reese might have been assigned to script sooner, but season five really was like Bill and Josh wrote like

25% of it. And Swordswolder wrote another 25%. There weren't as many assignable scripts out there back then. That is true, yes. So on The Simpsons, he wrote six episodes, and then he moved on to work on King of the Hill as that show was getting off the ground. So he stayed on that show through production season eight a very long time, wrote 10 episodes, a few of which we've covered on Talk King of the Hill, our Patreon exclusive miniseries, episodes like Husky Bobby and Escape from Party Island and more that we'll be covering in the future. So Jonathan Collier, a big part of just getting King of the Hill off the ground,

building the show and staying through it with its golden years, for the most part. I mean, I feel like King of the Hill never had a real decline, but people seem to like the first eight seasons the most, like they like the first eight Simpsons seasons the most. Yeah, it's funny. That sounds like he left both King of the Hill and the Simpsons at season eight, right?

Yeah, so there's a trend with this guy. So where did Jonathan Collier go after King of the Hill? Well, for some reason, he's an executive producer on Queer Duck the Movie, never coming to what a cartoon movie is, as I'm concerned. I'm sure Henry, you have the same opinion. Yes, yeah. No offense to Mike Reese. And he seems proud of it in his memoir, but I was never particularly interested in it. Oh, it's like the first gay cartoon or whatever is what it wants to, as moniker. But it seemed like it was majority made by people who are not queer, making it at best a, like, funny pro-gay message

thing. It also never looked very good to me. No, no. It's essentially like old flash webtoon animation extended out to feature length. So people out there you might like it, but I don't think we'll be covering anything like this. I can't look at this kind of animation for, let's see, 72 minutes. That's too much. Yeah, no, it looks rough. Even the Queer Duck movie, like, yeah, where you have to think it had bigger budget than when it was just like a little cartoon that got stuck at the end of the American Queer as Folk,

which is where it also aired. I think it was like an Icebox or similar original first, right, I think. Yeah, it was an Icebox.com original, and I think we talked about that on something a very long time ago. So, oh, actually, I never said where he came from. So yes, he's a Harvard graduate, of course. Why else would they hire him? And he got his start on the early Matt LeBlanc, Married with Children's spinoff, top of the heap. So this was a backdoor pilot on Married with Children about like a garbage man in his son, but it was one of the many early attempts to make Matt LeBlanc happen. This didn't really work. Yeah, it's something friends fans should

know that a lot of the friends people, they didn't just come out of nowhere as a cast. There were multiple attempts to make many members of its cast like work in other shows. And if shows like Top of the Heap didn't fail, then they wouldn't have been available to be the Friends cast that everybody knows and loves and stars in Super Bowl commercials,

like Mike LeBlanc of Top of the Heat did. Well, shortly before Friends, Jennifer Aniston, was tormented by a leprechaun. Oh, right, right. I thought... She was the first Leprechaun film. I thought you were making fun of the TV Ferris Bueller and saying he was like a leprechaun. Right. No, no. in the first leprechaunus

the actual villainous horror movie icon the leprechaun. Right. Played by the guy who played Wicked and Willow. That guy's name. Warwick Davis? Warwick Davis. I think he's the leprechaun.

I want to say. Well, we should look this up here. So, yes, Henry shot in the dark, hit its target. Hey, no, I remember correctly. I remember correctly. I wasn't just guessing, oh, it's a little person actor.

No, no, no. I remembered. He played him. I remember. Yes, it is Warwick Davis. So, yes, Jennifer Anderson is in the film. What are we talking about? Oh, yes.

Top of the Heap. You haven't seen it. Maybe I watched an episode. By you, I mean the listeners. I don't think anyone out there has really watched this show. I just remember when this top of the heap backdoor pilot would come around

in the Married with Children's Indication package. I'd go, oh, great. It's like, oh, Al's friend we've never met. And his son, let's talk about what they're up to. I definitely remember that of, like, Al. I feel like Kelly also, like, they visit their home, which is the set. And then up top of the heap.

And then the Bundys leave and we just like stay with them. I was like, wait, cameraman, you forgot to keep going with the Bundys. What are we doing here still? Keep following those Bundys. I don't want to see the garbage men. Anyhow, we have Jonathan Collier's career. He goes from Simpsons, the King of the Hill, a brief stay on Queer Duck, and then he leaves animation entirely. But there's one little pit stop before that.

Mike Judge grabs him to serve a key role on the one-season sitcom, The Good Family. And right before that, he was on Monk, where he was a consulting point. producer for season five and a co-producer for season six, a co-executive producer, rather. So he did write for Monk. Monk, a good show I think we've mostly forgotten about. Yeah, I watched a few episodes in time. I've heard lots of fun stuff about it, including how one of my, you know, favorite podcasters who was podcasting before the thing was even called a podcast, Tom Sharpling was a writer on it as well. And so it was an East Coast production. So a lot of people, I think writers who wanted to either move to the East Coast or back to New York or the New York area.

They could work on Monk. And it sounded like it also was a place where comedy writers could start working in an hour-long format if maybe they wanted to change lanes about what shows they worked on. That's exactly what Jonathan Collier did because after Monk and the Good Family, Jonathan Collier found himself in the Bones zone. Excuse me. That's the Bones zone because he was a huge part of the last six season of the television and program Bones, and he was showrunner for the final two seasons.

So this is something I think of as, oh, that early Oat Show that debuted when I was in college. Well, it ran for 12 seasons. Bones was running throughout the first couple of years of Talking Simpsons, believe it or not. That is so many episodes of Bones. Like, that is incredible. And that feels like that type of TV show actually is over now. Just like 12 years goes on longer than you think it does. But, man, I had no clue Bones went that long.

I did know that Bones was like, I knew that it also was how one of the Freaks and Geeks Kids, Jonathan Daly, became like he's on that show and then wrote for that show and then became one of the most in-demand writers in like genre, super and sci-fi fantasy movies. Like he wrote the D&D movie from a few years ago.

It was pretty good. Yeah, I feel bad. I turned my nose up at Bones at the time, but I feel like, yes, Henry, we don't get shows like this anymore. Shows that have like 26 episodes ordered in a season. Right. Not happening anymore.

Yeah, with David Boreannis. And I would say I think Bones has tainted his SEO because whenever you look up any interview with Collier, they're all Bones related. There are no Simpsons interviews that I could find. So I think we need to be the first. Yeah, he's probably so sick of being asked about like, why did you decide for Bones and Mr. Bones to get together in season whatever?

Or, hey, that mystery in Bones, episode 300 didn't make sense. Like, we're not going to ask him those things. We are going to ask him questions about Bart's girls. friend or Bosky Bobby. And so Collier has had some other credits here and there, but he was most recently a co-executive producer and a writer for the 2021 revival of Law and Order. So while he wrote a ton of great comedy, the second chapter of his life is hour-long dramas with some comedic elements.

So he really changed lanes in a way that made him super successful. So congrats to Jonathan Collier. I don't know what's next for him. Perhaps more animation. Who knows? Because I'm not sure if he's still on that law and order, his last credited episode. episodes are like 2022. So maybe he's off of that and on to something else. But yes, that is the history of Jonathan Collier to date. And this one is also directed by Susie Deeter. It's her second episode. We've talked about, we've interviewed her. We've talked about it before. Unsung, I think, or not sung enough by Simpsons as the first woman to direct an episode of The Simpsons. And one of their best directors, like, no fool of like, she directs grade school confidential. She directs radioactive man. She's, and this. is full of a great, great animation.

One act is boarded by her, another by another Talking Simpsons interviewee, Peter Avanzito, who would be the supervising director of the Simps, of Futurama, and also Trisha Garcia, who I don't know enough about. And so we're going to have to interview her at some point, just so we've had all the storyboarders. I think I've seen her name on King of the Hill, but I could be wrong. Folks, listen back to our interview with Susie from a few years ago. Ms. Dieter had a lot of great stories to tell about her work

and very honest ups and downs about being the first woman directing on the show back in the 90s. Very good. But yes, the commentary too also has Julie Kavner on it who, you know, she's weird on commentary. But I do like that she airs dirty laundry about Fox exec saying that they could replace them with teenagers. Like that was a good bit there. Though why did they pick, I guess it was just when maybe Julie Kavner was there. But like, Marge does a little in this episode, but this is not a Marge episode. Yeah, Marj and Homer are just sort of comic relief in the background for the most part.

And unlike other episodes, I couldn't find an original script for it out there. There are no deleted scenes on the DVD, but I found 20 seconds of deleted scenes in old commercials, which I will treat you listeners to here. And one last fun thing about this, that I got those deleted scenes from a commercial. This got a special rerun on September 10, 1995, because it was the lead-up to the Emmys being hosted on Foxx. that year. It's like the lead-in to the Emmys at 730 was this specific episode of The Simpsons, I think because it was Merrill Streep that they could connect like, well, this is like about winning awards. Let's promote the Merrill Street episode. That's my best guess.

Well, I'm looking this up now. The hosts were Patricia Richardson and Ellen DeGeneres. Patricia Richardson was from Home Improvement, by the way, in case you forget. And the most Emmys that year went to NYPD Blue. What a little time capsule. Or NYPD Blech, as it was so savaged in Mad Magazine. I don't have the winners in front of me, but I got to think this is during the Frazier domination of the comedy category. Oh, yeah, Frazier won't. This would have just been right at the start at Frazier, though, wouldn't it? Yeah, I think Frazier started in like fall of 93, so real early on it was a critical darling.

Frazier is something I went back to in recent years, and that thing really holds up. What a beautiful farce. Yes. And I wish, based on interviews Kelsey Gramer gives these days, I wish he was kept in the Frazier Cave of PR and the Fraser PR. He tried. Yeah, he tried. They wouldn't renew him. So, yes, we begin the episode, though,

with a quick little bit of the anachronistic and even problematic back then nature of, like, what if in the early 90s kids were to play cowboys and Native Americans like kids in the 50s did? And Lisa and Bartz not only are saying the correct term for the time, but also are referencing Dances with Wolves, which is a relatively recent thing to be referencing back then. for dances in underwear is Bart's name.

And thinks too much. My therapist has recently told me that should be my name as well. I can't think of a person that wouldn't apply to, though. Yeah. Maybe it's just the people I'm friends with. I think it's just all the podcasters. Yes, yeah. To be a podcaster, you're in the Thanks Too Much category.

That's true. They corner the cowboys and Ralph is biting his caps, which as a toy boy, I did not like toys that came with caps. They were too loud. I did not like the sounds of them. And I even liked playing with fireworks just fine. But just the idea of like, I had a he man that came with caps. And if you turned like a thing on his back, they would pop.

And they just like, I did it once. It's like, ah, I hate this noise. Like, it upset me too much. Yeah, it just added an element of anxiety to me because the caps were like a limited item when it came with a toy. Yes. And then there was like an economy involved in playing with the toy. It's just the same sticker conundrum.

It's why I have so many unapplied stickers in my house. To commit to a sticker, I just can't. do it. You could be like Alex Horib, one of the writers on Infinity Train. He was collecting stickers at the time, but would then just take all the stickers out and then put them in a sticker book? Like he was nine, and then he got to keep all of them and look at them forever. That's very nice. Mine are just in a very big Ziploc bag. One of these days, I'll get over my sticker avoidance. In old lady style, I repurposed a cookie tin and it's been keeping them there. That's what I've been using. Yeah. We also see the millhouse. He'd rather play Jax. He's getting

twosies. And this is where Nelson pops in, basically dressed as a futuristic Terminator, and is Killmatic 3,000, which, based on how poor Nelson is, I have to think it's stolen from somebody. It's a good point. This is the era of, like, tactical play gear, where you had like a little visor and you could fire things using a voice command. Sorry, Henry. No, they were training us to be the future soldiers. They wanted us to be then, yes. If a friend had nerves, I'd play with them a little. I'd more prefer to Super Soaker, of all things that are pretending. guns. But Nerf toy is like the bow and arrow nerf toy. I got one of those ones. And it's like those arrows don't last so long and you got to pick them up. And I couldn't play nice with them.

I'll admit to. When I was like six, we were playing with, I mean, I don't know if it was a Nerf bow and arrow set, but some kind of bow and arrow set and the arrows had those suction cups on the end. And I was yelling when someone shot one at me and it went and stuck right in the back of my throat. Oh my God. And it was stuck there for a little while. It took a while to like get enough water back there to get it unstuck. It was like the strangest, strangest, strangest, strangest confluence of events. Afterwards, could you appreciate what an amazing shot that was? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if it's just that I was like continually screaming or something and that's how they had like so much time or if it really was just like the stars aligned.

And in that moment I opened my mouth, they got it in there. It seemed to surprise the shooter even. This is where a phrase that is stuck with me forever. I think Bob, too, we've said it many times on this podcast that Nelson said. Records from that era are spotty at best. If we're not sure about the history of something or our sources unreliable, yeah. It's a little too smart for Nelson, which is why it's great. I was going to say I love those moments that they find too.

It's almost like a character anachronism. know if you would call it that, but yeah, the moments when Nelson finds something like witty to say. Or when he has a little too much honor and later he'll punch Bart for be smirching a girl's name. Yeah. They handle character inconsistencies very well on The Simpsons in a way that still makes it feel like the same character. And the way he says it to is like how like William F. Buckley would have said it in like some debate as he's defending something racist. He's like, you know, records when that time were spotty at best. Who knows what the slaves felt? or whatever. That's what he would be saying.

Yes. This is where their fun is interrupted, though, by the church bells ringing and the kids are called off to church. Except for Shlomo, it's time for his violin lessons. The one Jewish kid in the neighborhood, I'm assuming is what that is. We never see Shlomo on screen. We don't see him. Very small boy. This then leads to a big Planet of the Aves parody. They've said it on other commentaries about like the godfather and citizen Kane,

but they should put it to the test of like how many scenes from the 1968 original Planet of the Ape. Can they stitch together as a film from parodies in The Simpsons? I was like far enough removed from having seen that movie that I wasn't 100% sure what they were parodying. I knew it was a parody and I was like, they aren't parodying like a slave catching. Are they? Because then like when they're in the shackles and I guess I mean maybe Planet of the Apes was, itself going after those slave-catching raids.

I would assume that was in the symbology there. But I'm glad that the Simpsons wasn't directly going after that. And they were in fact parodying Planet of the Apes, because that's a little uncomfortable. And that horrifying Planet of the Apes, which is so far away from here, not at all any other planet. Wait a minute. I was just thinking like, well, Homer says the final line. And look, I could list all of them. I don't have the list in front of me.

I'm just saying, and now Disney owns all of them. So they can just, no problems. That's wild. Bob, have you watched more? I'm a big fan of the Caesar trilogy. I know you watch the first one, which I'd say is my least favorite of the three, but I still think it's good.

Have you seen the others? No, I still need to invest in the further ape adventures. But I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the trilogy. Lindsay, opinions on the Caesar trilogy of Flying the Ape film? I have not seen all of them, and I couldn't even tell you which ones I have seen, but I very much enjoyed them. They're all named like Spider-Man movies. I don't know which one is good.

Yeah, yeah. It's too. Naming of sequels now is so just muddy, muddy, muddy, muddy, I can't pick out what any one thing is called. And my mom and sister are hopeless when they're trying to like remember all the Marvel movie titles. You need charts. You need charts for these things, not numbers. It's just franchise colon, words.

It's like, well, which one is this? You do need an index for this. And the naming, what also, in those playing apes movies, it goes, rise and then dawn. I think many people agree. It's like, shouldn't the dawn be before the rise, right? Yeah. Yeah, dawn is definitely like, okay, day is begun, and then the sun rises. It doesn't rise before it dawns, man.

What are you talking about? Yeah, I know when apes wake up. I know the sun's path during the day. The kids all get rounded up, ape style up. And Nelson's dad is still Nelson's dad here. He hasn't been changed into the absentee Nelson's dad that he gets redesigned as. It's the Alpha Soccer Dad. Phil Hartman voiced Nelson's Dad.

So this is when they're about to go to church and Bart wonders why. Why the crap we have to go to church anyway? You just answered your own question with that commode mouth. Besides, you kids need to learn morals and decency and how to love your fellow man. And with flaming swords. the Aramites did pierce the eyes of their fellow men and did feast on what load for. Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh.

I'm a true man. I don't want you playing with something that has such bizarre hair. Awful, awful hair. The drawing of Marge looking at the doll and in reflecting her hair, perfect. There's so many funny images in this one. Susie Dean and her team did an amazing job in the boarding of this one. And this is not a real Bible verse, but it's an accurate reflection of the kind of filth you can find in the Bible. And I know this for a fact because I had to go to church a bunch.

My parents wouldn't take me, but we would have regular mass. And you're just really bored. You're not listening to that guy up front. So you're just looking through your Bible. Everyone's got one. And you're looking for, okay, where do they use the word ass? Where does the word bastard show up? Where are the scenes of extreme violence? That's kind of what you're you're looking for as a kid, searching for some sort of way to pass time in church. And you'll find passages like this about smiting. And even by 1994, like, The Simpsons are becoming a rarity of being a church-going family on television.

Like, and now when they go to church in the show, it feels like they're the only fan. Or it could be read as like, wow, what a conservative show. The Simpsons is making this statement of the family all goes to church together. Like, that is not TV these days, for sure. The American family is falling apart. and I'm glad that we're finally talking about it. The real reason I've come on this podcast. The Simpsons are finally taught.

They tried to keep America together for Newt. Yes. The Simpsons of all things. I also just love the like, why the crap? That's such a great statement. But after Bart imitates the James Brown song Soul Man with his troll doll. I also did like having troll dolls as a kid for a minute. They were just fun to see.

Also because they had butts. Like it was just in his little kid having a toy, with a naked butt. It's funny. It was a funny toy to have. Maybe it was the European values that built those troll dolls in a way that you wouldn't see

an American doll have an exposed butt-like metal. I guess are trolls bigger than ever? What with all of the DreamWorks films? That's right. God. No, but I imagine they would look like the trolls in the movie.

But they all put on clothes, which is why I have boycotted them, of course. They still believe in barefoot lifestyle, though. Yeah, that's true. Look, I understand that. And if that activated some other people, watching it, then it'd been good for them. So this, though, is where we learn

of a new character has come to town. It's explained that Revin Lovejoy's daughter, Jessica, has just returned from boarding school, which one works as a plot point of like, well, why isn't she just a regular around here and Bart Sr. before? And two, it teases the reveal that will come later of Jessica's

problems, too. Her design, before we get to the actor, I wanted to mention that Susie Dieter credits Michael Wolf for the design. Michael Wolf, who I not put too much research into before. He was at the time an animation producer on The Simpsons.

He worked at Film Roman. It seemed like he was like on the management side at Film Roman while that was the studio Simpsons worked on. Michael Wolfe, he got his start as like in the effects animation department at Disney. He worked on Tron. He had a job similar to yours.

Lindsay, he was a story editor too on Dino Riders. Don't remember it, but I'm sure. I had the toys of it. I was a toy boy for Dino-Riders. The T-Rex of it became famous in a way. His main contribution was, what if they got off the dinosaurs? And we told stories about that.

But also, he's still in the business, at least based on his IMDB credits, work as an animation timer. Very recently on Owl House and other shows, too. Still at it. But Michael Wolf, Susie Deeter, and her team were having trouble getting a design for Jessica approved. And Michael Wolf did a drawing that basically looked

like his own daughter at the time. And Susie Dieter says that look great. She cleaned it up a little, submitted it, and it got approved. So Jessica is based on Michael Wolf's daughter, who has to be in her 40s at this point. I guess, yeah, there's a real Jessica Lovejoy out there somewhere. This is when Bart sees the light and thinks that he finally believes in these words from the Bible. But it's really just the sea captain being a murderer, being a stone cold killer. It's selling out his character just a few years.

after his introduction, but... He goes back to liking the sea at some point. Yes. He likes the sea and sex with other sailors, is a later joke. For now, he hates the sea and everything in it. I mean, this was the first time I noticed another thing here where it's like the guy telling him to turn it out to the sea, the light out to sea.

Castellanetta is voicing him like he's also a sailor, but the character design is a scientist. It seems like there was a mix-up in the role there, I think. Yeah, he's like a man in a suit in a time. High, lighthouse technician, let's say. Any profession that works with the sea has to sound like a grizzled old sailor. The scientist has been hanging out with sailors too much. Yeah, or just the sea gives you that voice.

It's just all that salt air. And so this is where Bart realizes he's fallen in love, and he's going to make the first move. I'm Bart Simpson. I was incredibly moved by your reading. I don't think God's words have. ever sounded so plausible. Thanks, Art. I have to go over here now.

Oh. It's not your fault, Jessica doesn't like you. Is it my hair? My overbite? The fact that I've worn the same clothes day in, day out for the last four years? No, Bart. I just think you and Jessica are too different from each other to get along. She's a sweet, kind, reverence daughter, and you're the devil's cabana boy.

That reaction is great. She calls them, Art, and just turns away. way that's so realistic. Yeah, I feel like it's a lot of, well, the all-male writers room reflecting on their own failures with women in their younger years and the fact that sometimes someone might not want to spare your feelings in any way and it's very obvious. And you're not owed that by the way, but you know, it does come a place of like, oh, I've been here, that sort of thing. Oh, yeah. And this has to be one of the most famous people who's ever done a Simpson's way, certainly the most award-winning person who's ever

done a Simpson's. Yes, Merrill Streep and she is not being pitched up like Winona Ryder was and Lisa's rival. She does a great little girl voice. And I looked more into this because we haven't seen every episode of the show. She never returns, by the way. Meryl Streep never returns. But Jessica is worked into the background as a character in different scenes. And she's occasionally referenced sort of like Lisa's rival, the character in that one, Alison Taylor.

So she has never returned as well. I feel like we're hitting season 40 soon. Let's bring back some of these old timers. There could be another story. Well, Jessica went away. She has been gone for, I guess, 29. years at this point. Occasionally there's a love joy scene and Helen will like be walking with her daughter

somewhere or she'll just be in a classroom or some like, oh, it's an event where a bunch of kids are and she's just part of like the kid to pack. But Jessica hasn't spoken since. It was quite a big deal for them to get Meryl Streep to put in perspective where she was at this time like this was. There apparently was, according to her wiki, it was like, oh, the 90s were a lower point for her and then she like came back by the end of the 90s with the back in award-winning films, Like Sophie's choice out of Africa, Kramer versus Kramer.

These were all the big ones. Just two months before this was the release of the River Wild. It's her versus Kevin Bacon on a boat. And I just saw a trailer for The Devil Wares Prada too. Yes. Isn't it great that she's now like legacy-quilling that too? And like now that Ann Hathaway, she gets to become the new boss at a thing. And then she'll probably have some young gun in that one that she has to train.

It'll be just like The Last Jedi, I think. But for Vogue magazine, I'm. The next year, a big year for her. She's about to, like, hit a new peak in her career. The Bridges of Madison County, which The Simpsons referenced the book previously in this season. Oh, I didn't remember that the movie hadn't come out yet. Also that she barely did TV and she has barely done TV unless you can't like TV movies. Like, I mean, does Angels in America count as doing TV for Meryl Streep?

I don't know that. Hardly. That's such a prestige adaptation. But she has done more TV since this. But back then, in the 90s, She has only four TV credits I found in her filmography. One was an Earth Day special, so that's like just for charity. Another, then there's this. Then there is a TV movie that she produced and starred in called First Do No Harm,

which is like about a special needs kid and she's the mother of it. And so it's like, well, that's just like a movie she put on TV. It's a project for her. And then the only other one is an episode of a TV show we've covered, King of the Hill. Oh, yes, the episode where Bill returns to his family, right? And she is the matriarch. She is the Louisiana matriarch of the Doughtree family, yes. A beer can name is Aire, that's the episode.

In the last 15 years, she has done a little more of like being in TV and trading on like, wow, Merrill Streep is a guest star in this thing, including she made her first ever appearance on Saturday Night Live for the 50th anniversary. And I do have to think that is partially because she has been dating Martin Short for a couple years now. Oh, I forgot that. I did know that, though. They're so cute together. Isn't that cute? Like, I don't know. I feel like I'm almost infanticizing both of them,

but like, aw, isn't that sweet? The Martin Short and Meryl Streep together. They met, I believe, on the only murders in the building. They worked on that. Yeah, they're still together. I was worried. I was going to see like a TMZ headline like, broken up, seen with other people.

But no, they're still together. I'm hoping I got crossed my fingers for these two young lovebirds. Do I hear wedding bells? These two crazy kids working out. And also, Nancy, Cartwright's autobiography. Her memories of this are very strong because she loved working with Meryl Streep. She actually recorded in person with her. Got to play off of her and was just incredibly impressed with Meryl Streep. I think a worst TV show would have said like, well, no, you need to

sound like Meryl Streep. Why are we getting Meryl Streep to play a little kid you won't even recognize her voice? And Nancy Cartwright said that implied that it was maybe the reason Strip did this is her kids were Simpsons fans because Streep asked for her. Cartwright's autograph after the recording for her kids. Nice. There are an astounding number of famous people and very talented Broadway actors willing to do just kids' TV shows. Like there are a number of Broadway actors on Disney Jr's Superkitties and Robo-Gobo. Cynthia Arrivo is one of the villains on Robo Gobo.

It's really, like I said we made an effort to just have like more traditional like meat and potatoes job or voice actors who all they do is voice acting. But I am really blown away by Merrill Street's performance on this episode and by all these actors on these Disney Jr. shows. They do good work. When I looked up the ages of her kids, four of them were born between 1979. in 1991, so perfect Simpsons ages. Oh, big time. For sure. Deeter, I think they do, her team

animates her perfectly. Like, she has so many little things. Like, we talked about that with Susie Deeter when we interviewed her. Like, she has so many little things. Like Edna Craboppel and Great School Confidential does so many little hand motions and that that are so specific and good. And Jessica is filled with them.

It keeps doing them in this episode, too. Like so many great little things. As for these scenes with Bart and Lisa, I like that Bart and Lisa can connect on like dating advice or he's like, hey, you're a girl. Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong? And I wonder if that was like one of the James L. Brooks notes because it is like a grounding thing of like every act Bart checks in with Lisa. Yeah, James L. Brooks loves the idea of siblings I've noticed. Probably why he created the sitcom Sibbs previously in this decade.

That's true. And then that song sibling rivalry on the Simpsonsons. That's his song. Yeah. So he just loves like brothers and sisters talking hanging out. Henry, you've seen a ton of his movies. Is that what's going on in those? Oh, yeah, even in Ella McKay.

A big chunk of Ella McKay is between the sister and brother. The brother seems to be a neurodivergent type who works very hard on sports gambling and doesn't really care that his sister just became the governor. Like he never mentions it once. As the governor of the state she was born in, they never named the state. One of my favorite Bart and Lisa episodes is actually where they're just in the background of the Homer Marge story, when Homer eats the pepper and thinks that he and Marge aren't soulmates, and it's just Bart and Lisa in the background every now and then.

And it's just the, so I says to Mabel, I says, conversation at the dinner table. And then when they're brushing their teeth later and he's, Lisa goes, is that dad? And he's like, that or Batman's really let himself go. Those moments just really stick with me. I like when they can drop the Bart versus Lisa aspect of things. Yeah. And they're just friends or an alliance. of some sort.

Merrill Streep stars in her most challenging role. Oh, Mama. Bart's new girlfriend. On a brand new Simpsons part of a full hour Sunday. Hey, it's Henry Gilbert. Not missing my old glasses. And a big thank you to our guest this week. Lindsay K-Tai.

It was awesome to have her back on after a couple of years away. We love chatting with her about this classic episode. And you should be checking out her awesome podcast. Teen Creeps with Kelly Nugit. They have a whole Patreon and everything, and they do a lot of cool discussions of scary young people literature in funny ways. For instance, I really enjoyed the Christmas

Nancy Drew one they just did a couple months ago. Thanks so much again, Lindsay, for coming on the show. And, you know, me and Bob are only able to do this is our full-time job because of the support of listeners like you at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Subscribers there get to hear these podcasts early and ad-free. You can hear next week's podcast, right now and without any ads like this one in it, and that's just for five bucks a month.

Plus, you get so many bonuses each month. You get a new episode of Talking Futurama and a new episode of Talking to Hill, us covering those shows just like we do The Simpsons, and you get the whole back catalog of all the previous Futurama and King of the Hill episodes we've done. Plus, we've covered every episode of The Critic in every episode of Mission Hill and many of our favorite episodes of Batman, the animated series. Sign up today to get all of the ad-free and exclusive bonuses that you're missing I'm for five bucks a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons.

But if you want something that's much nicer than a milk dud, you should sign up at the premium level at our Patreon because for 10 bucks a month, you get all of the $5 things I mentioned and our What a Cartoon movie podcast. We cover an animated feature film as in depth as we do a classic episode of The Simpsons, sometimes for five or even six hours long. It's like three extra podcasts you get in a month plus all the $5 ad-free things. At the end of this month, you're going to hear us doing our annual April. tradition of covering a live action film.

This time we're doing Teenage Mutinyin Ninja Turtles too, The Secret of the U's, and we covered the original Ninja Turtles a while back on the podcast too. And last month you could hear us talk about James and the Giant Peach, the Henry Seleck adaptation of the Rolls doll film. That's just the two most recent ones in years and years and hundreds of hours of exclusive podcasts of us covering Disney films, Pixar films, anime, Studio Ghibli,

Warner Films, junk like Shrek and Cool World and so many other cool things, sign up today to hear all of the awesome stuff that we have covered on patreon.com slash talking simpsons there's a good match cut or match dissolved i guess of bart's depressed of what he realizes he must do and then it dissolves to the next sunday and he looks the same except now he's dressed up for sunday school and that i mean if i had to go to sunday school again i'd be that depressed for sure you've been i went like three times with a friend who i had a best friend who in arkansas as a kid he was catholic and i couldn't hang out with him some days and it was like bible class so i got to go with him to class a couple times until eventually i realized like this is

a price i don't want to pay to spend time with my friend he needs better nintendo games or i need to get better nintendo games to pull him away from christ i think you get him to ditch This is a return of the seldom seen Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Albright, sometimes voiced by Trace McNeill, but here she is voiced by Pamela Hayden. Yeah, I think in the early years, Graning liked the Sunday school as just a place for kids asking questions of faith. It was stuff he had done in life and hell several times. And so they kind of hadn't visited it a while. I feel like the statement about Bark being banned is almost met a commentary of like, we stop doing jokes in here with you. You're too evil to be here, Bart.

Yeah, actually there's a great life in hell where it's like many life entails it's a series of squares with one character each saying a line of dialogue and it's basically children's questions about religion and one of them is asking, if God is everywhere, is he in the toilet and I think that's great. Yes, yeah. You know, I just came back from Portland and just bought a hardcover of the big book of hell. Portland, you can always count on having out-of-print life in hell books easily available at the Powell's books. Yeah, as far as we know, all of life and hell is out of print currently. It's so strange. And for many years, I think, it has been out of print. I wonder if he would welcome that instead of the 800th question of like,

how did you create The Simpsons? Probably. But yeah, when you read those, like, you see so much stuff in the early years of Simpsons that it totally defies any story or narrative that Mac Raining didn't have that much to do with what's really good about The Simpsons. When there's so many bits in those books of like, oh, that turned into a recurring thing in The Simpsons or that, like, joke series or this type of joke is a macraining style.

Like, it's not just all Sam Simon and the Harvard writers he hired. I mean, they're part of it. They're part of it. So this is where Bart is accepted back in as the prodigal son. The kids not knowing the word prodigal, I feel like, that's a bad reflection on Ms. Albright. She hasn't taught these kids up. And she feels it, too.

She really seems like she's like, I've failed as an educator in that moment. They're really discovering Ralph. There are two Ralph jokes just in this first act. So I think they're realizing his potential here. His specialness of eating the caps and the Jesus doesn't have wheels, which one of my few memories from going with a friend to those Bible classes was coloring a Jesus picture. It was him seating the ground or something. I don't know.

I don't know what parable or chapter that's from, but I remember coloring Jesus in that way. And certainly with what would have been called flesh-crans color back in the 90s or 80s. Also, what did Bart do to this ham? That's horrifying. Yeah, I'm not sure if I like that animal torture element of art's personality, but it does check out. But he's putting on his most dorky friendliness to her, which is where, like, she is just turning farther and farther away from him. And I just... Her reactions are so funny.

Her moves, like, I'm just going to look over here now. The utter disdain dripping from her voice that, like, in retrospect, because you know where it's going is so obvious, but you see how it's misread. The third one that I used for the opening clip, like, that's the best because she's not even like, I'm looking over here now. Like, she is just like, now she's just sarcastic. Like, stop talking to me, you freaking nerd. And this is where they do the, a joke for the first time that they will also do it

really funny later in a season, but they biblically frame it as the slingshot that David slew Goliath with. And then she just leans over, like just asking for it for Bart with that slingshot. It's the perfect setup because we don't even know what she's doing. She just says, I'm going to busy myself in this file cabinet. Now, when they do this joke again in another David Merkin episode, that's when Mrs. Graboppel is just trying to line up that her desk is perfectly parallel with the wall. There are three instances in which Bart is tempted by an adult's huge butt.

This is number two. Number one is when he threw Lisa's giant tomato at Skinner when he was tying his shoes. Skinner, that butt animation, like, he's wagging that thing around for that one. But this is where Bart says, he'll make it up to Satan later and passes it off. This is where he just gives up, Jessica, there's no pleasing her. And I love when he, like, he throws off his clip on tie. He starts rubbing dirt on himself. He needs relief.

Like, this feels like a specific joke about a medication commercial from the 80s or an Alka-Seltzer commercial, but like the way he goes, I'm all tense in the chestal area. It sounds like he's like dropping into Jerry Lewis. Oh, right. Yes, that is what his character, the nerd character would say, for sure. So this is where he comes across Scotchtoberfest. There is just no pleasing a girl like that. All that unnecessary behaving. I'm all tense through the chestal area. I need relief. No, the kilt was only for day to day we're in battle. We'd done the full-length ball gown governed in sequence. The idea was the blind yet upon it with luxury. There's no more than what God gave me, your ferretin pukes.

That'll hold me. At least till I get my hands on some kind of explosives. Whenever I see the scene again, I always forget that all of these government agents that Skinner somehow hired, I guess through his green beret connections, they all have guns trained on him. You're right. His green beret would keep him in contact with a lot of PMC folks. he could hire for afternoon, or maybe just as a favor.

And also speaking of butts, Willie, man, I mean, again, we've already seen he as the body of a god. So he should have a very toned buttocks as well. I mean, shamefully, that was the cover for the podcast the first time we did this episode. I liked using butts as the picture sometimes. I'll admit, I'll admit, I thought it was funny. I've helped that down. I think since. But seeing his behind us here as well reminded me of a recent clip I've seen that my husband

has been shared with me because he's like, oh, that's so funny. So you guys, I haven't seen it yet. It's not playing anywhere near me. I guess I'm going to have to wait for streaming. But the film Pillion, have you guys heard of it? Oh, I have heard of it, but I have not seen it yet. It's a dark comedy about a BDSM gay relationship. Alex Scarsguard is in it as is a Harry Potter kid. God, I'm sorry, I forget the actor's name. It's the Dursley's son in the Harry Potter movies. I don't know. He plays the sub in this new relationship.

I'm going to say, Harry Melling. Harry Melling. Okay, thank you, Bob. I have a computer here. And in Pileon, well, I only had written down the name of the director, Harry Leighton, because he had done an interview that my husband saw on TikTok and he shared with me. It was like five early crushes he had. And his first one he lists is groundskeeper Willie. He says the groundskeeper really, really turned him on at a young age.

He named the scene was, grease me up, woman. And, I mean, there's quite an angle on Willie. going through the air ducts in that episode. It was funny just to hear sexy groundskeeper Willie come up recently with a very talked about film right now. This very straight writer's room thought they were making jokes, not turning people on. Yes. It's like, oh, what if we showed

what was under Willie's Kilt? That's very funny. But it was doing things for many people out there, including Harry Leighton, the director of Piliad. You never know what, like, seed you're planting or who you're touching in this world with your work. I appreciate that Willie took this very seriously and he's doing it the traditional way

of nothing under the kilt. Apparently that is the Scottish tradition. And he doesn't feel shame either. He's like, no more than what God gave me, a Puritan puke's. This feels to me like a comment on the writing. Like this is such an obvious setup for Bart that it has to actually be a setup.

Like it's too good to just be a joke in the show. He gets assigned three months of detention for something as fake as Scotch Toberfest, which I also was thinking when Willie says, you used me. I like to think Willie is still bottomless the entire rest of the scene when he appears. But that's just

me. I don't know if you guys were imagining him bottomless. I don't have a preference. Whatever makes him comfortable. I just want him to be happy. But this is where Jessica finally makes her move after witnessing. Bart getting punished. Congratulations.

You just fell for our sting and won yourself three months detention. There's no such thing as Scotch Toberfest. There's not... You used me, Skinner! I used me! Three months! Oh! Hi, Bart.

I saw the way they set you up. That was really unfair. How? Want to have dinner at my house tonight? Really? Sure Great We eat at seven There's only one thing to do

At a moment like this Strut He flips the collar up too To properly strut Yeah There aren't a lot of pop culture references In this one But this is a reference to the opening

Of Saturday Night Fever It's a double reference too Because it also References the only loved for Campy reasons 1983 sequel Staying Alive directed by Sylvester Stallone. In that movie,

John Travolta is it like peak physical condition because he's being directed by a workout freak like Sylvester Stallone. And so it's these very sensual close-ups of his body, the whole movie. It's very interesting. But the film ends. He has won the day. He's kissed the girl.

And what does he say at the end of the movie after kissing the girl and about to leave the dance performance that he had just done? What I want to do? You know what I want to do? Strut. Thank you, Henry. I did not remember that. Yeah, it's confusing because at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever,

he is strutting while the song Staying Alive is playing. But then staying alive actually has the line and also staying alive. That's the last line of the movie. Like, it's supposed to be like, you know what? You waited the whole movie. This guy's got his mojo back. He says, you know what I want to do now? Strut.

And then he goes, and it's just him. Celester Stallone recreates the opening. And it's just the credits are him strutting through Times Square again back on top after all of his problems that he goes through in the film staying alive. So the fact that he even just says strut and then does that like that's where I'm like, oh, this is like a double reference. It's to the entire film franchise of staying alive. No trilogy. Well, you know what? You can consider one of the Santa ads where he's also doing the staying live lock is that's the third in the trilogy.

He looks so upset in those. I'll have the mighty falling I had to watch that Going to movies this Christmas I had to watch his Greece lightning Santa won I feel like eight times It doesn't make any sense

I don't want to linger on this too long It doesn't make any sense Because he's dressed as Santa And he just says hey grease lightning And then that's the end of the ad At least that's how it was presented to me on Instagram And I'm thinking These ideas aren't connected

I know you're John Travolta But you're also Santa You're not in Greece lightning This is very lazy Really weird He was in one of those Verizon well, whatever, a phone company commercial. I can't even remember.

We're like, the commercial begins with Donald Faison and Zach Braff, like, singing together. It's like, these are your celebrities for the commercial. And they're singing, I think, Summer Lovin. And then John Travolta just invades the commercial and, like, upstages them singing the song with them. And it's like, this is weird. This just feels, yeah. Well, now commercials are either 80 celebrities all talking to you at the same time or just AI dog shit. So I have to prefer celebrities, unfortunately, in that.

But that Dunkin commercial at this year's Super Bowl. What was that? Bob, have you seen that one yet? I missed all these commercials. I just know that they infuriated the nation. It's really weird. It's like both a Goodwill Hunting and a Friends mashup parody as if, like, in the 90s they had, what if Friends was, or what if Goodwill Hunting was a sitcom in the 90s?

and both Goodwill hunting actors and friends references and actors. It just is like, what was the concept even? But also Jason Alexander is dressed up as George Costanza and like everybody. Oh, yeah. Well, actually, yeah, it's funny. Alfonso Rivera, he is dressed like Carlton Freshman. Like, did AI write this ad and was just like, here's what a mashup would look like and they went with it?

But then Urkel isn't dressed as Urkel. He seemed to refuse like, I'm not dressed up as Urkel in this. Which seems like, well, why did you get him then? Why are we here? Yeah. What are we doing? Well, hey, speaking of mashing up things, Homer does that himself when we come back from the commercial prank. As he sings three songs together that he seems to think are about a child growing up. But one of them is just about there being no bananas.

That makes him sad. Yes. We have Sunrise Sunset from Fiddler on the roof. It's in the cradle by Harry Chapin. And this might need some explaining the song, yes, we have no bananas. It was a 1923 novelty song that I guess a lot of boomer kids probably heard growing up by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn. And the song is based on, I guess, these guys lived by a Greek grocery where the Greek people, immigrants, not, you know, English was not their first language. So they would answer every question with yes, but often they would say, yes, we have none of this if you ask for an item.

So the entire song is disparaging the Greek people. So another immigrant bashing song that... Isn't it funny when non-native English speakers don't get things right? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I only knew the song. The song was familiar to me even when this first aired because the Lion King was the summer before this. And Zazu and Scar like sing this together in the middle of the movie. Or don't wait, no, they sing.

That's lovely bunch of comments. You're right. Nope, I'm wrong. This is probably on like the Muppet show or something. I don't know. It did come back. Oh, yeah, that sounds right. I think it's used in 1950 Sabrina.

Okay. Humphrey Bogart is like playing it on the boat. I've only seen the 1997, six, Sabrina. I've not seen the original one. The original one is so good. But does it have Harrison Ford in it? It doesn't. But again, Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn, so that's, and William Holden.

It's on my watch list. It's on my... So now this is when Bart heads off to meet it, Jessica. And Bart still doesn't know. what's up. He thinks Jessica just invited him to have dinner at his house because she felt bad for him and felt sorry for him. I also like Bart's really cute outfit, like his little like sweater vest. It's him trying to look as

like a good boy as best he can. And I guess Jessica's scheme here is just to use Bart to get her jollies. I'm guessing this is part of it. She's not completely sure about Bart yet, but she knows he will annoy her parents and that's all he's basically here for. I agree with that interpretation. Well, let's hear how dinner goes. So Bart, how's school going? Jessica always gets straight A's.

Well, in my family, grades aren't that important. It's what you learn that counts. Six times five, what is it? Um, actually, numbers don't have much use in my future career. Olympic gold medal rocket sled champ. Hmm, I didn't know the rocket sled was an Olympic event. Well, no offense, lady, but what you don't know could fill a warehouse. Young man, explain yourself.

Sorry, I have kind of a short fuse. Which some find charming. Speaking of charming. Watching Fox last night, I heard a rather amusing story. This character named Martin was feeling rather Randy, and he was heard to remark. Don't you ever come near my daughter again? Never have I heard such gratuitous use of the word but.

Make him stop. Make him stop! Oh, that Martin. He was Randy. I assume that this joke was written when The Simpsons was a Thursday Night show. Martin was also a Thursday night show. They were often like back to back. Yes, I actually, this caused me to look up the history of Martin partnered with the Simpsons.

So Martin debut. You so crazy. I put on a couple of Martins in the background why I did my research as well. It reminded me that like Tisha Campbell is at least 50% of why that show like rules. She is like in her mid-20s keeping up with a very energetic comedian, let's say, in Martin Lawrence's case. and she is doing it. I watched some Martin in a hotel room a few years ago, and I watched the show as a kid growing up.

I forgot that Martin also plays like six other characters. He was a real Eddie Murphy figure in this sitcom in terms of just like, put makeup on me, I'll be anything. The episode I watched that aired the week before this episode of Simpsons aired, it's the story as Gina moves in with Martin, and it's like near the start of season three. And when they're in the hallway, a door opens,

and Martin as the character, Shenneney walks out, and the audience is losing it. As Sheney, Martin turns what was probably four lines into 20 lines, and the scene just keeps going, and the actors are on the verge of laughing the entire time. There were so many jokes about Shennie's weave, and as an 11-year-old white boy, I'm like, I don't know what a weave is.

No one can tell me. We had a lot to learn that Martin could teach us. So Martin debuted with the Simpsons. It was at 8.30 show on Thursdays with Season 4 of Simpsons. Then Martin, for its second season, moved to Sunday. It was the 8 o'clock Sunday show with Living Single After It. And then at the start of this season, the Simpsons and Martin traded. Simpsons moved to Martin's Sunday time slot, which the Simpsons have stayed at for the last 32 years.

And meanwhile, Martin moved back to Thursdays at 8 p.m. And the story, I didn't also realize that Martin had storylines and that season two into three had a cliffhanger that Martin had vanished and they had to free him from a cult. at the start of season three. Martin gets into some crazy places. I did not watch Martin, so I did not know any of that. A light Simpsons connection to Martin as well is that the co-creator of the show, John Bowman, who is a white man

who co-created the Living Singles series, he was a Harvard Lampoon member alongside Al Jean and Mike Reese and Conan. And I know that because I watch them eulogize him in a very touching video. Oh, yeah, I could be wrong about this. Going back to Conan, I think they hired Conan instead of him.

Because Bowman was, was too busy with Martin, probably, right? Or he would eventually go on to create Martin right afterwards, but yeah. I remember at his eulogy, Mike Reese had a very funny line, he said. John Bowman created, he's known for, like, co-creating Martin and living single, which is crazy because he never knew any black people. That was the joke, Mike Lee said. Also, in Living Color, he was a writer on it.

There's all the Martin connections, but when I first think of Martin, I think of Bart introducing it as when he was feeling Randy. And Martin, just from the episodes I watched, Martin was feeling Randy quite a lot on that show. Also, I mentioned the deleted scenes. Here they are. So forgive that there's a music bed under them because these were only released as commercials for the Simpsons episode. So the first one is Bart is at the front door meeting Jessica and he is checking his breath.

And then the second one is at the start right after the start of the dinner. Bart is in the position of saying grace. So here's the two quick lines. Breath check. Minty, you're not overbors. He won't have a prayer. Now I lay me down to eat. Oh.

He says, here I lay me down to eat as what he thinks is saying, Grace, before dinner. That's the, that's a very slight, but I like them. I wouldn't have minded if they threw those back in. You know, in modern production, Lindsay, how many deleted scenes end up in shows? Like, is it a little, like, you know, that you

even get to full color and it's like, oh, we need to cut X or Y for time? No, Oh, you pretty much cut everything you need to cut in animatic. Okay. Because like the timing is already being worked on in that. So you don't often get. Yeah, I can't think of a time where we would just have like a full,

fully like color animated version that would get cut. Are the times pretty locked in these days? Because even back then on the Simpsons or even now it's like it's sometimes 22, 30 or 2240 like it's probably no it's it's really locked in right away because the issue is all of the animating is done overseas and so we have to ship it fully timed out perfectly

before it even gets animated well so after this this is where Maggie Roswell is also very funny as Helen Lovejoy reacting to the word but Bob I forgot to mention it when we cover the new episodes each month when we do the community podcast and Maggie Roswell was finally given like stuff to do was Luan Van Hout on the most recent episode. I think she's still got it.

She was doing really good. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad she returned. I'm glad her characters still get to thrive. They don't write enough for her non-dead characters in the show these days. But this is where Jessica finally realizes why she wants to be with Bart's. You're bad, Bart Simpson. No, I'm not.

Yes, you are. You're bad. And I like it. I'm bad to the bone, honey. Let's go find some fun. But your father said... Oh, told the rev. I was going to my room to say my prayers.

Smart, beautiful, and a liar. So much better than that Sarah, plain and tall. An amazing sound alike of Dick Dale's Mizirulu, I think that's how you say it. Yeah, which was very recent, like, Pulp Fiction had just like been screening that summer in 1994. I think it had a Sundance release, but I think it actually hit theaters in October. So it's a very new movie So they can only react to it like in editing And then next season we'll get a full

Pulp Fiction parody Right, right, right As a music cue I always think of it like Oh yeah, they're referencing Pulp Fiction Which is like, you know, so established We all know it's that it's like They're everything Pulp Fiction Before most people have heard of Pulp Fiction

And then also far enough away That I didn't know that's what they were doing But Sarah Plain and Tall We've all read it, right? All 58 pages? I think the last time I read it, I was about nine, but yes. Oh, wow. Can you report how plain was she?

She was plain and she was tall, but she wasn't a girl. She was like, I believe, the stepmother. Oh, okay. I have Paisy memories of watching in class, the TV movie adaptation of it, and that it was like, yeah, she's like, marries a widower in the, like, little house on the prairie days. Yes. I didn't also realize until, you know, when looking up her research for this,

that it's book one and a five book series as well. It's a weird reference. I like it. It was never available to me as a kid. It was never assigned to me rather as a kid. So I never had to read it. But I knew what it was. And this book came out in 1985.

So all of these guys were out of Harvard, but they somehow all knew about this very, I guess, I assume very popular children's book, or at least one that was assigned a lot in school. Yeah, I'm looking it up. And yeah, Sarah is the woman who comes. It's a widowed farmer places an ad for a male order bride.

And Sarah, her like brother having just married decides like yeah sure why not right it was a kids book or a young adult book not kids like because i saw it won a newberry award which i remember that being so important if at least if lavar burton told me it was important well kelly and i on teen creeps have been playing fast and loose with our own podcast concept because after doing it for nine years we're getting a little tired of reading these terrible books so we've been dabbling in the newberry award winners of the 90s mostly very, very good. Ella Enchanted did not hold up for us.

Yeah, I'm very familiar with this era of Newberry winners because I would go to the English festival every year in my great school. And then I was in Honors English classes in high school. We were assigned like every Newberry book. Something that I had not read before and was really incredible and very moving is Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. I highly recommend that one. It's about just the relationship between mothers and their children.

Well, hey, maybe in the future you'll do a whole series on all five books of the Sarah Plain and Tall. Yeah, maybe. I do remember, I think I also read Skylark, the sequel. Ooh. I just assume every book she gets plainer and taller. And then by the end, she's some sort of monster. The military takes her out. It's very similar to the whole. She's like just a beige shape taking over America. Bart is bad to the bone. They're doing fun Bart style pranks. This is where I see, Bart thinks.

thinks like, oh, she's like a chaotic little monster like me instead of a sociopath. Like the distinction between those two things hasn't become clear yet to Bart. Yes, again, Bart wants to be a petty thug. She is a criminal. That's how they're different. When exercising in the gym, there's a gym in my apartment complex. It's one of the reason I went here. But it faces, it has a window facing the street. And occasionally, when it's harder to stay on that treadmill, I imagine Bart and Jessica in front of me eating ice cream. Just feeling that pain. Anytime I've had a front-facing window of a treadmill, I think, of that moment.

Also, they're throwing toilet paper all over the statue that Bart decapitated once. It's touching for Bart. Yeah, Mr. Dandy is not on patrol to yell at them, the little see Mr. Dandy. This is now the next day Bart's bragging to his friends, as boys will do. He instantly finds out that this is a secret relationship. He is treated as persona non grata by her and just like, wham! Like, Merkin loves to punch Bart as pain. meaningfully and quickly as possible.

Bart rarely gets bullied as harshly as he does in the murkineer. And that's where we hear that. That's for me smirching an innocent girl's name. Yeah, it's not even like a cartoon punch. Bart needs time to recover. I've only been punching the stomach once, thank God, because I was a little smart ass to someone, and they decided instead of coming back with a witty retort,

they would punch me in the stomach, and you are kind of knocked over for a bit. You're like, oh, yes. It's such great writing that they have, that she kisses him on the cheek, and it's like the cartoon thing. I'm like, hey, I feel all better now.

But then Bart can't pretend anymore. It's like, oh, wait, give me two minutes. Just two minutes from seat of position. And she does roll her eyes at him. So then we head to an amazing animation, like, high point for the series here. This is like a Looney Tune sequence put into the show. And Dieter and her team do a fantastic job at it. They get to the peak of a giant hill, both on skateboards.

And because she's, again, A thrill seeker, it seems like, too, like a crazy, not just a sociopath. She shoves Bart down first, but I like that Jessica is doing it too. Like, she didn't just do it to watch Bart's in danger. She did want to do it. We don't see her, but she expertly handles the oil, the ball bearings, and thankfully the glue slows her down. God, it's so good. Like, this is when the show, the animation and the writing works so perfectly together that it feels like a classic bugs bunny of just pitching jokes to the, like a joke guy to the storyboarders.

It's just like, well, it's an oil slick, it's ball bearings, and then the glue truck, it's like, nah, that glue ain't going nowhere. It's just so good. It's just explaining jokes, but I love these jokes so much, and it's animated so beautifully. God. And then there goes the glue after all. I don't wait of glue, and then Bart just a glue-covered creature blowing bubbles underneath. Yes, there's very specific animation on those glue bubbles. They're very well done.

And it feels like a very mercenara joke that Bart survives all of the road hazards, but then an ant drops a sunflower seed, and that is what ruins it. Jessica is, of course, untouched by it because she is that perfect, that good at it, yes. And just is there to look at Bart in a horrible position. I didn't clip out that because it's mostly sound effects, but boy, oh boy, is the next scene a great one. I had to clip it all out here. Have you noticed any change in Bart? New glasses?

No, he looks like something might be disturbing him. Probably misses his old glasses. I guess we could get more involved in Bart's activities, but then I'd be afraid of smothering him. Yeah, and then we'd get the chair. That's not what I meant. It was, Marge, admit it. Yeah, I mean, kind of a non sequitur from Homer,

but it's used well in this case, the glasses thing. A lot of not seeming non-sequiters from Homer, such as with the bananas and the occasional interject. When Homer's not your main character, he becomes your funniest background character in an episode. One-liner generator. Just like probably misses. The joke of Homer thinking that Marge meant murder our children, and the only reason Homer wouldn't do it is because he'd get the death penalty. But that's a very dark line that's funny, but Homer thinking Bart wears glasses, that he lost his glasses and has new ones.

And that he misses his old glasses, which I don't know, his glasses where I've never missed old glasses. I always like having new ones. I've missed old glasses. Even though they, you know, complete the rule of three, so to speak, I am still, like, somehow bothered by Homer's last line, not incorporating the glasses somehow. It should be a callback to... I'm not really sure how they would, but I'll think on it.

And then I'll email them my notes. Yeah, I guess it's two jokes and not three, so it feels wrong. Well, you know what? I've maybe thought, like, oh, I picked a bad pair of glasses to replace my old pair, but it's always, I'm always getting an upgraded prescription, so I never even think about old pairs of glasses once. But man, I'm going through a glasses thing now. This is a, the tangent.

I am too. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, I cannot like get the prescription quite right, because now my optometrist wants me to have both distance and computer, and it's just been, and then I keep not quite liking the style I'm getting. It's been like a three-month journey at this point, and it is not over yet. I went to my optometrist, the end of the end. of December to get in on, you know, the deadline to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was like,

okay, I'll get this in January. It shows up at the end of January. I try them on and I have bifocals. The left eye is like reversed, like the quality. And so it's like what should be the bifocal prescription is the other one. They say they're going to order new ones. And then two weeks ago, they text me, the new ones came back. They weren't right either. We'll get back to you. I was like, I am now waiting on their third attempt at these glasses. And obviously I'm going to go to a new place, I think, after this. But I'm kind of pot committed to getting glasses from this place. I know listeners are wondering, and I recently bought some reading glasses. It's more of a comfort thing for me, though. I am both envious of just needing reading glasses, but also, like,

I don't know what my face would be without them. Yeah, I consider, like, well, I've been told, one, my prescription is too strong to get Lasic. I've been warned about that by doctors. Oh, dear. And then second, that, like, it's also almost too. strong to get or it would like make contacts too expensive there was some anti-contacts thing also told to me by optometrists. It's told so obviously glass is shrinking technology or the lens shrinking technology has gotten better. I used to have very thick lenses and now they're they're able to squish them down to only be a little thick. Anyway that's glass is cornered there. Yeah the struggle as they say is real. I'm sorry I had nothing to add. I didn't know you have read.

Yeah 1.25 I mean it is a comfort thing. I realize that as all of us were rotting from the inside so I eventually needed them. Yeah, and our phones are destroying us all. That too, yeah. In all ways. So this is where Bart is now a little apprehensive of meeting, Jessica, when they get to school. Jessica, this is where she's getting a little more evil. She's like, I'll let you hold my hand. And Bart thinks it's a cute hand-holding thing, but it's actually to implicate him as the only one putting his fingerprints on the fire alarm to pull the fire alarm and cut class.

And then it feels like they're doing a callback to Treehouse Five, the episode that aired right before this one, where in that one horrible things happened to Willie that one since he dies three times that episode

I think that made them want to try in the next episode what if a non-death bad thing happened to Willie Yeah

Lee's really being undone by Jessica or at least Jessica adjacent trouble Yeah somehow

he's being greatly affected by this little girl first he exposed himself in public unintentionally

and now the wee turtles are too much for him or I guess it's more by Bart because if

Well, so Bart's getting him in both ways. This would not be happening. This is where Bart then has to admit to Lisa that it's not all it's cracked up to be. I can't believe it, Bart. I'd always thought Jessica was so sweet. She's like a milk, Dudley's. Sweet on the outside, poison on the inside.

You got to give her up. No, no, wait. Here my plan. Put up with her for seven more years. Then we'll get married. Once the first baby comes along, she's bound to settle down to start treating me right. After all, I deserve it.

Bart, it's naive to think you can change a person. Except maybe that boy who works in the library. A dog, girl. That's a juvenile. This is young adult. Well read and just a little wild. Ooh, if only someone could tame him. You're right, Lisa.

Love isn't about fixing someone. I'm just going to give her up cold turkey. I'm not going to talk to her or see her. It's over. Thanks for the advice, sis. Yeah, three Ralph jokes so far. Episodes barely half over. And if you're wondering why this bad boy librarian looks like Fry from Futurama,

they both wear James Dean's clothing from Rebel Without a Cause. That's right. He's Calick. Well, not exactly Calick. He has, like, heightened hair. It's a little like the Frye swoop. I don't know why Fry is designed to look like him because he's a completely opposite character, but that's why he's got the red jacket and everything and the jeans.

the sneakers. This joke is a little lacking for me. Red doesn't feel like when he says that line to Ralph, he's not really being a bad boy exactly. He's just like being like, oh, you're a child and you're in a more grown-up section. So like, I don't know, the whole Lisa's crush on him and what she's saying about him doesn't quite gel for me. Maybe she just appreciates that he knows library terminology. I get it if she was like, someday I'll be like,

old enough to read the books in that section and then you'll be mine or something like that but it being about him being a bad boy when he like works in the fucking library doesn't quite I guess the guys she usually finds in the library are Martin Prince true yeah he's got a different vibe

yeah he's the bad boy of the library world I guess and I wish this joke about milk duds was about Woppers instead because those are disgusting you'd have a milk dud before a Wopper anytime Woppers have the malted like chalky stuff inside of them a milk duds are just they're full of caramel. I haven't had one in a very long time, but I know what I prefer.

They're full of caramel, but they're usually really hard and like almost impossible to eat. So while a wopper is like edible but might not be your favorite thing in the world, like a milk that'll fucking kill you. Sorry, I've dropped two F bombs. No, hey, you're just passionate about milk thugs. And libraries. You know, you mentioned the woppers bob. My mom was a big Woppers fan. She probably would still like Woppers now, I think, I got them for it. But I usually only get her seize candy because I'm a good boy. But the Woppers, I would have them as a kid. Like, I'd be like, oh, can I try them? Two Woppers was enough for me. I was like, this aftertaste is just too much for me. That malted aftertaste. And then once I

learned that that's what like a malted milkshake was too, I was like, yuck, I don't like these either. Why would you ruin a perfectly good milkshake with this malt? We don't even know what it is. Though Milk Duds, I was a kid fan of Milk Duds. I, caramel is one of my favorite things. It's probably my favorite thing in candy is caramel. But Lindsay, you're right, that it's like, it's so hard. Like, it's a lot of work. It will last, if you suck on it,

the movies, it'll be a long movie meal, at least. Like, much longer than... Like, if you've got a new box of milk duds, you're okay, and that's like a delicious caramel treat. But usually they've been around for like 12 years. That's true. And just get real jammed in those teeth. It's more like

caramel fossils than candy at that point. Yeah. Now, I live in Canada now, So I have to call Woppers Malteseers. I apologize to everybody. I'm offending. Wow. We have our own cookie names for everything. Wow.

Like the president, he's the prime minister. What? That's wild. Don't believe any other minister. You have to go to the prime one. I need to visit you again, Bob, just to stock up on coffee, crisp, and smarties.

The good smarties, the better than the American smarties. Also, I swear they change the formula of milk duds in the 90s, and I thought they'd started tasting different by the end of the 90s than the mid-90s. But Wikipedia tells me they only changed the formula once in 2008 when they got rid of the milk. They put in a like a milk substitute for

milk duds. That's all the internet tells me. And so now this leads to a, I do like that they at least make, Lisa can't act totally above it in this, like oh, Bart, you and your dumb crush. Then she admits that she also has like probably an unproductive crush as well.

She's not that much better than Bart. I agree. And also she's gotten rid of her very dated by 1994 crush on Corey. No more of this Corey stuff going forward. Who would we have moved on to then? Leo, I guess. 94 problem. JTT.

I think Leo was on growing pains, but he was still looking all the girl. Yeah, Leo would have been 95, 96 because of Romeo plus Juliet. And the basketball diaries. I remember girls really renting the basketball diaries who would normally not care about a young man's heroin addiction. auto bio film. I thought it was about basketball. That is a real depressing movie. But man, that song, I love that song at the end of it too. These are the people who

died, die. Okay, anyway. So this leads to one of the best David Merkin's Screw you audience jokes, waste of times they've done. I love this. The fact that they go to great lengths to establish that Bart marks time in a way that no one ever has just to fool you is great.

They spend 20 seconds to show you X out every day. on a calendar for three months straight and then he's like, okay, if I can just avoid her for this amount of time, she'll be out of my system. Day one circles the X. You know what? I do, like

he's coding his own habit app. Like, first you want to mark out how long you need and then you start marking off the times that you know right when you get there. He's ahead of time. Yeah, he just needs to do or streaks.

Also a great second joke is that the itching and scratching calendar is so cheap, it's the same picture every month. That's also great. And then this is where Bart learns that, oh, it's time for church. Bet your little friend Jessica is going to be there. So he's already ruined on his first day. Yeah, immediately thwarted. The church sign says evil women in history from Jezebel to Janet Reno. In 2005 on the commentary, David Merkin says that would now be Condoleezer Rice. Yes. Right. Same position, no matter what, it would always be. Well, actually, that's Secretary of Defense versus the RISO Secretary of State. Attorney General, I think, was Janet Reno.

That was her position. Yeah, yeah. And we all love the current Attorney General. Oh, boy. Like, actually true now. Evil. Actually, like, truly effing evil. Jezabelle should be like, don't compare me to her. Please. So this is where Bart thinks he hears Jessica's siren voice. And this is them remembering or setting up a pattern with Ned.

I swear they only do this one more time, this bit, of Ned, a high voice. Oh, if he wants to. Wasn't this established in Bart of Darkness when they hear a woman screaming, they think it's Ned murdering his wife, it's actually Ned, seeing that the Phycus has died? Yes, yeah. And so

here then he's singing, Bach's Joy of Man's Desiring. And then the only other time I can think of them doing something with this is the murder house. He's like, ah, purple drapes. I always want, all my life I wanted purple drapes in season nine. So

Ned is an interesting figure that he a perfect Christian, has also a godlike body that dwarfs even groundskeeper Willys, and has the voice of a woman's when he wants to. That episode's secretly important because it brought the show both Gil and Cookie Kwan, who became, I would say, pretty high-powered minor characters. Unintentionally, it's like, I think because it's the last, or second to last Lionel Hutz episode, not intentionally, of course. It's like Lionel Hutz is handing off jokes that he would have had to Gill and Cookie,

in the future. Bart sees he's very disturbed by being even slightly in love with Ned's voice blindly. Then Jessica pulls him down and this is where he lets Jessica know this can't keep going. You're right about everything, Bart.

I have been too reckless. From now on I am going to settle down. Jessica, what are you doing? It takes money to start a new life. Stealing from the collection basket is really wrong.

Even I know that. Oh, fine. You just lost your cut. I'll just take that. Everyone turn around and look at this. What is it? A Unitarian? Just relax. For once, you didn't do anything wrong.

Just explain yourself and everyone will understand. I... Took the money? Yes, we know. They confessed. Okay. He's headed for the window. I love Helen's delivery on like you stole the money? Yes, we know. And that

Bart can say nothing else now. He's screwed at this point. And Nancy's Deliary of, okay, just giving up on it and running out the window. Also that, yeah, that you think that he's talked to Jessica out of it when she just goes like, fine, you just lost your cut and heads off with it. No,

she doesn't spend the money. It's not about having money to waste. She just kept it to steal it. It's the thrill. Yeah. She's a thrill. She's addicted to the thrill. They get so many good lines. Mo being a church regular, to them getting so many great lines out of them. Coming up, smells like church.

And that Mo keeps coming back when Holy Water even burns his face. Like, he's not welcome in this church, but Moe keeps coming back. Also, that's a very ADR line there of stop. He's headed for the window, which they have to admit on the commentary that's not timed for that.

Yeah, I guess there was no act break joke until they threw that in. Lindsay, current production, how much is ADR used when you get it back in color and then decide, oh, wait, we want to have a different line here or change piece. Again, because we have to ship everything ready to go first,

I don't think it happens a lot after it's been animated. But there will be times where we have to call the actors back to to record new dialogue if there have been changes after the animatic edit once it's being full. fully timed out. It feels like most Simpsons' episodes, at least in this, you know, the 90s era of the show, I feel like, Bob, right? Every episode has at least one, like, we fix this in color or right before air or something. Especially in seasons three and four, they were constantly playing with it after the animation

would come back, adding lines, using video to create new dialogue by manipulating the mouth flaps and so on. I would say that 80% of the time we'd have to call the actors back to do something for an episode, but again, before it would be shipped. So we come back from the commercial break. Homer doesn't believe Bart either. It's a great, very brief, strangling Bart's joke, but just him saying, look me in the eye and tell me and I'll believe you. I love that he doesn't believe him when he's telling the truth and it does when he's lying. I mean, too, it's a very murky in writing of adults, too, of like, how could you

look me in the eye and lie to me like that when he asked Bart to do it? And he's strangling Bart for doing the thing he asked. This is also where Bart won't name names, which Homer takes as telling you the truth. And we see everybody in town hates Bart, everybody's yelling at him, crook, thief, steal the terrific glascaptych. Yeah, the drive-by is great. The guy didn't want to slow down, but he still had something to say. That's a great joke in every level it needs to work on. Hank Azaria delivers it very quickly.

Sound design, they have kind of a Doppler effect in it. And then it's almost like a fish island. are like they distort the drawings to make it look like it's like film in the camera. Like it's a panorama. Yeah. So this is where Bart decides it's time to truly confront to Jessica about this.

We've got to talk. Thanks for not turning me in. That was sweet. Well, it seems like if you really care for me, you should come forward. Oh, don't you see? It's because I care for you that I can't come forward. That doesn't make any sense. All right, then I just don't feel like it, okay?

Jessica, you're really beautiful, but you are not very nice. Duh. You know, with the way you're treating me, why should I protect you? Because if you tell, no one will believe you. Remember, I'm the sweet perfect minister's daughter, and you're just yellow trash. Huh? I love this odd little girl accent that Merrill Streep is giving Jessica love joy. It's like, don't you see it?

It's because I care for you. I can't. Like a weird little like British isms and you're just yellow trash. It's like a little bit of a valley girl thing going on. It's very fun. She kind of drops out of it when she says, I just don't feel like it, okay? Or whatever. She comes back to earth.

Yeah. It's very appropriately like just flamboyant and dramatic and performative. It's really fun. And I guess all of the business with her baton is taken from the movie Pretty Poison, a 1968 film. I have not seen this. about another evil girl. Oh, that's a fun little reference. I looked it up. It's a cultish film because it's Tuesday Weld, who was like a teeny bopper

actress, but she's playing evil in it. And with Anthony Perkins, it's her and Anthony Perkins. A couple of evils. It sounds really good. It's not streaming anywhere officially. It looks like it's uploaded to YouTube. I skipped around in it a little. To explain how it's the inspiration slightly for this episode and this scene, the director of the film, Noel Black, described. it as a Walter Middy type who comes up against a teeny bopper Lady Macbeth.

Very fun description. I assume it's like riffing on Lolita too. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's true. It would be right after that was like one of the famous or infamous books of the 60s too. So they'd be playing off that. Yeah. I get pretty poison mixed up with there's an aughts film called

Pretty Persuasion where the lead in it also wears a pink dress just like Jessica in this episode and always like mix it up. I thought you're going to say Poison Ivy, which is another like Lolita adjacent film with Sarah Gilbert and I think Drew Barrymore. Right. Right. Yes.

I do remember that too. Well, that would have been a right around when they said. So, yeah. Tom Scarrett is seduced. Right. That was one of those movies where I didn't see it, but the cover looms large in my mind of seeing it in a blockbuster and being intrigued as a child. Well, like all of these movies, unfortunately the point of all these movies is even if a teenager

seduces you, it's her fault. The crush is also another movie like that. All these innocent men in their 40s and 50s destroyed by these horrible teen girls. They certainly know part in their own destruction. And there are four Poison Ivy films if you want to see the entire story. The last one was 2000. Poison Ivy, the Secret Society.

That's amazing. That specific direct-to-video era, you have a movie that doesn't do super awesome in theaters, but it goes great on video. and you just keep making them. Usually you can't get back the movie star for those. The second poison ivy is Alyssa Milano. The third is, let's see, who is this? Oh, Jamie Presley.

Oh, okay. Actually, a bizarrely star-studded run. It's better than the Substitute series, which could never, and I think of that as like, wow, there were like three other substitute movies after the first one, The Substitute, which was about the catcher from Major League, goes to a school,

and he's a green beret who's finally going to beat up those teenagers who are mouthing off in inner city schools. It's quite a fantasy. There are a lot of dark fantasies expressed in films back in the 90s, not like today. No, yeah. A lot of conservative male fantasies. Thank God me too put a stop to all this. As a kid, the yellow trash line kind of flew over my head. I don't think I was that familiar with the term white trash yet, and that was a play on it calling in the Simpsons universe, yellow trash is the term for that? I did know exactly what they were saying with that. And I think that's, it's like why Bart's gasp.

It's so hard. It's like, how dare you? And this is where Bart is cornered and we get the third appearance of, like I said, every act. This is where the third Lisa and Bart scene happens in Freehouse or even in the Treehouse. Bart cannot get away from Jasper calling this. This old man has climbed a tree. It's impressive. And you know, Jasper doesn't have both feet.

So in his wooden leg status, that has to be even harder at his age. But this is where Lisa, like Bart seems to think she's unbeatable. And I love how when he describes her as unbeatable, it's 108 IQ in a fifth grade reading level, which is certainly smart to Bart, but is actually like mildly smarter than average by definition. It's his description. You know what, Bart is right. Red fruit loops, the best fruit loop. I don't know how you guys ranks fruit loop flavors.

It all just became sugary mush. Were you singling out individual loops? and sampling them like, hmm, lime. Oh, yes. And then when I'd eat fruit loops, if I'd at least get down to like the last like 20 where you could choose individual fruit loops, I would leave at least one or two

for the final bite would be an all red fruit loop bite to have the last bite be the best. Yes. I was as well, but I don't think that you could actually tell. I think it was just like a bias from other candy. Placebo effect. Would you also separate out the red M&Ms, even they all taste the same?

That one, no, because like a, It's so clear that the inside is exactly the same. But, like, you know, your starbursts, your scattels, your jelly ranchers. So you just, like, think, like, oh, all the reds are the best. Your teacher offers a bag of jolly ranchers and says you can only pick one. What flavor do you pick? Now, Henry, this might have changed over time, but I'm reading an article here that says, actually, every loop is the same flavor.

Are you kidding me? Man, I swear. I knew it. I swear at least, when I was a kid, when they introduced purple as a flavor, it tasted different. But you know what? It could have just be me wanting to taste things. I'm telling you, it's just a holdover from the other candies. And also my answer is green apple.

Okay. Thank you. No, green apple is mine too. We're blowing the lid off off. I think green apple is most people's Jolly Rancher favorite. It's good. It's good. No, no.

We're blowing the lid off of this today. We're breaking this news. Many articles have been written now that all the fruit loops are the same flavor. So go to the grocery store, tear them off the shelves, make a scene. make a scene. We have been lied to. Show the people. Okay, but tricks,

those all have different flavors, right? They're not all just the same. Well, we don't have time to investigate this, but I think that rabbit should be arrested. Look, he just wants to eat them. He's not trying to sell me them. Tricks are for kids. That's,

okay, so after this, and Lisa pronounces, she eats fruit loops for breakfast. We go back to the church, and we have, they joke on the commentary that, like, it's almost too musty to do science,

Lambs reference, but you could reference movies for like five years straight and it didn't feel like an old reference. Now references get old so quick. You can't reference a new thing very Mr. Burns had previously been tied up like Hannibal Lecter a couple seasons ago. Right in Marge versus Monoriel, wasn't it? You know what? It's still good for a laugh. You see somebody pop up and the Hannibal Lecter get up, you'll chuckle. I had a pure memory. Though I like how Marge reflects on it in a realistic way, like I don't know why we let them do that. This can't be good for self-esteem. Yeah, I like that. It's not just a lazy. visual joke. You have to think about the logistics. Oh, some people came over and we agreed to this.

If you guys want to attend church, Bart has to be in this specific outfit. And this is where they let Lisa do the offeratory reading, which, and I didn't go to church enough to know what that was. That was not a familiar term to me that I had to Google that it was what you do as part of the Eucharist service, as in the offering of the wafer in some cases or other things that are the body of Christ. We need to get you in church, Henry. It's a right time to join. You know, I pass by all these pride flag churches that want me in there. And I'm just like, man, sorry guys. I know you're trying and your heart's in the right place, but I thought we were done with this stuff. If I'm gay, I don't need this. Like, is this? So Lisa then quotes to Reverend Lovejoy, you know, Matthew 7-1,

do not judge so that you may not be judged is another translation of it. Favored by people who want to shame the shameless American Christians about judging people, which never works, but it's a favorite. Oh, but so this is, though, when Lisa makes her move in our next clip. I know most of you have already judged my brother guilty without any proof. But doesn't the Bible teach us judge not, lest ye be judged, Reverend? I think it may be somewhere towards the back. There is someone among us with a guilty conscience. After much soul-searching, I decided it would be wrong of me to name names.

But I urge that guilty person here, under the eyes of God, to come, forward to confess and save yourself from the torment of your own personal hell I smelled some marijuana smoke in Vietnam I was the one that canceled Star Trek I left my Porsche keys inside

Mrs. Glick I am talking to the collection money thief only you can come from justice oh what the heck I mean that's a great setup for a joke right there of like somebody says confess your sins and that just prompts funny things to be said by here

immediate jokes. And Lisa tried using this Perry Mason act, I'll say, on Bob, and it worked. It does not work on Jessica. So Jessica is more evil than sideshow Bob. She cannot be manipulated by these tactics. You know, Lindsay, if we knew you were so into Perry Mason now, we should have had you. We had a great guest for that one. You could have also been a guest to check in on sideshow Bob Roberts because it ends with a lengthy Perry Mason parody of a... Oh, nice. I would go watch it now. You can compare it to... Well, it's like, it's the ending of a few good men, which Bob, recently was able to confirm how accurate it was. But then a few good men then turns into the ending of every Perry Mason episode,

they say on the comedy. Getting a confession on the stand, or at least courtroom, is a Perry Mason classic. Yeah, smelling marijuana smoke in Vietnam has been driving Skinner crazy since Vietnam. That's the only thing in Vietnam that has given him any guilt that he must confess. It sounds like he was a POW for most of Vietnam. But he was also

shot in the back. We've learned a lot of things so far. And David Merkin, we said it before. He He is a classic Trekkie. There are many original series Star Trek jokes that he puts in the show, and this is one of them. For a man his age, he probably was one of the letter writers to NBC to say, you know, please don't cancel Star Trek that saved it many times.

And honestly, if you look back on it as far as like American nerd history, it set a precedent of nerds begging for their shows not to be canceled by a network. And unfortunately, it did get canceled. It got sent to the 10 p.m. on Friday. slot, which popularized the idea of that being the death slot for a TV show. If you put it on, at least on prime time, if you put it on Friday nights, it's

going to get such low ratings that you cancel it. And so it's an excuse to cancel a TV show. Now nerds get everything they want, and it's a new kind of hell, because get ready for new X-files, new Evangelion. Yeah, both of those got announced in the same day. New ideas. What are those? Shut up. Well, and Star Trek also never goes away either.

Well, actually, it did go away for a little bit. It had to have like a fallow period. Well, it's also funny you mention X-Files, Bob, that X-Files became the show that defied the death slot idea when this episode was airing because X-Files was a big hit, even though it was on date night on Friday nights because they realized X-Files fans didn't have dates. They became primetime pals, right, the Simpsons and the X-Files. It was eventually a Sunday night show for a while, right? I want to say season four or five, it moved to Sunday nights. It was like the 9 p.m. show after since, it were like for a little while, it was Simpsons, King of the Hill, and then in X-Files. And I was a regular X-Files viewer until the Dagget seasons. And I kind of fell off. And boy, that last finale.

And then, oh, those new seasons. Oh, man. Look, I'm glad. I hope Chris Carter has almost nothing to do with this Ryan Cougler reboot of X-Files. And I am normally a guy who sides with the creators on these shows. Like, oh, they should keep them around. But I'm like, Chris Carter had, like, two new seasons of, like, anti-vax garbage. And also, he did one where, like, Joel McHale is an Alex Jones type,

except if the show agrees with Alex Jones, apparently. Yes. Only watch them if you really miss seeing Dana Scully and Fox Mulder interacting with each other. That's the only. And at least they were able to do a couple Monster of the Week episodes that were all right. I will give those credit in the new season. But hey, if you're watching the Vince Gilligan episodes of X-Files, those hold up great. You'll still enjoy them.

But this Star Trek joke, you can all blame it on Abe. It's his fault. I also love that Lisa in another like defiance. This whole ending is in defiance of like sitcom plotting. Lisa just goes like, ah, the heck with it. It's her. I'm not taking the high road. We don't need to be clever.

And also we don't get like some saccharine confession from Jessica. Yeah, yeah. The writing of Jessica is so consistent and it's kind of slap in the face to how sitcoms that have a character like learn their lesson or apologize because she doesn't care that she's caught. And the final scene is just devastating. I love just how she refuses to take in any of this. Let's hear a moment of her fake, tearful admission when cornered. That's the collection money.

Oh, yeah. Smells like church. I guess it's obvious what's happened here. Bart Simpson has somehow managed to sneak his bedroom into my house. Well, come on, use your imaginations. No, Dad. I did it. It's your classic cry for attention. Little young lady, I suppose we brought you home from boarding school a little prematurely. I was expelled, Dad.

Remember the pipe bomb, the Glee Club brawl? The school chapel collection plate. Bringing in the toilet. Come on, Dad. Can you touch you to me? I'm going there. I think you all owe my son an apology. I appreciate it.

I think my favorite of her listed things is, remember the school chapel collection plate? Yeah. It's not that she's been bad. She did the exact same thing. And I like how Lovejoy is so in denial. Merkin makes the point on the kind of. commentary like how this is about how the Simpson family seems messed up, but they're at least more open with their problems. And Jessica is a worst person, partially because of just the deep

denial and repression of everything, makes her, them not dealing with her problems instead pretending they don't exist. And Lindsay, I think you said it too, like how her tears, it feels like it's the saccharine ending of like, it's your classic cry for attention. And he's supposed to like, on full house or whatever, or he'd just hug her and be like, well, we're going to feel. fix this together, sweetie. But he ignores it and denies it again. And she's like, come on, I'm actually evil. Remember these eight other evil things I did?

Also, smells like church. Great line. Delivered by Moe. Lifting the mattress with a carjack. It is on Reverend Lovejoy and his wife, too, that he'd rather sing church hymns to himself and cover his ears rather than deal with Jessica's literal cries for attention. And acts of terrorism. Yeah.

She did make a pipe bomb. Yeah, that's the darkest of them, I'd say. I hope it was just found in her, like, hidden somewhere. People didn't learn of the pipe bomb after it exploded, I guess, is what I mean. There's so much funny stuff happening here. I love how gracious Bart is, despite his situation. And they don't free him either. He's just like, it's okay.

Yeah, saying it just on their way out. That already was enough of a great, like, that could be the end of the episode of like, okay, Jessica's dealt with. Bart is found out, but, like, that wouldn't be enough of Merkin, like, crapping on your expectations and wanting to, like, throw away anything you think a sitcom should end with, which makes this ending even better in, like, the purely dark way that his era of Simpsons is defined by. Let's hear the Nobody Learns Anything ending. Hi, Bart. Come to watch me suffer. I just wanted to let you know that even though this was a difficult experience,

I really learned a lot. I'm a little wiser and a little less naive. Well, I learned that I can. can make men do whatever I want. Well, don't you see, Jessica, then you really haven't learned... Um, would you finish scrubbing these steps for me? Will I? Hey, Jessica.

Coming. Poor sucker. It's amazing what some guys will do for a pretty face. Not me, though. Wait till she sees the second-rate job I do on these stairs. I think this is one of my favorite endings because not only does Jessica not learn anything, she deletes Bart's lesson from his brain. He thinks he has the upper hand. And then Jessica essentially steals Lisa's man.

Not really, but Lisa's not present for this. But we see even Lisa kind of gets screwed at the end of this. There is no hope for this Lisa and this James Dean boy. Jessica has already... I guess you're right. And he is a bad boy. Otherwise, why would Jessica be with him? So The Simpsons is vindicated in my earlier argument.

Both crushes are with each other. making both unhappy. I mean, yeah, you can assume that later Lisa will see Jessica with her crush and be devastated as well by this. Similar to how Bart earlier said, I deserve it. After all, I deserve it as his explanation of why he would do so many like thankless things for such an evil person. This same too is just like, will I? He's talked himself into thinking, oh, I won because I'm going to do a second-rate job on cleaning this. When he should really just, I don't know, step away and stop.

cleaning after she leaves. Him saying, I just love to you in the way Bart says, well then you really didn't learn any and she cuts him off just to prove he also learned nothing to. A perfect Simpsons ending. Also with 10 seconds of Nancy Cartwright laughing as Bart.

I had to keep it all in there like, wow, that laughter lasts a long time. Everything, this, Merrill Streep, she's a great actress. I'm going to look more into her. She's going places. You can see the Devil Wears Prada too. They'll fill me in on the details from the first. movie, I'm sure. I watched The Devil Wears Pratt for the first time a couple years ago.

It's pretty good. Pretty good. Except, of course, they want you to believe that Anne Hathaway, the start of the movie, is heavy and needs to lose some way to get down a couple of dress sizes, which I'm like, that was one of the insane things about that movie. Not great. Not great. And then the whole boyfriend plot, who gives a shit.

But look at this pig, Anne Hathaway at the start of this movie. Yeah. Look at this slob. But this episode pretty. Pretty great. Like I said, we need more representation for evil girls and women. I'm honestly surprised they did not try to go for a reference to the film The Bad Seed. Because you got a little girl like Jessica, you could easily go for that.

But they resisted. I applaud that. Yeah, they could have done the double-braided pigtails and they didn't. I'm sure that might have been an early design for her. Maybe they drew from that character. Maybe. I mean, she is more of a psychopath than just like a manipulative bitch. And, you know, sometimes with the kids have a crush stories, they can age up the characters.

in action too much or it's like it doesn't feel like you're watching a 10 year old with like a childhood crush sometimes. They write just an adult relationship onto the characters. But I think this follows a good balance of like this is like oh your first crush is actually like an evil girl or an evil boy or whatever

but this also, it does work as a commentary on like a toxic relationship and it could work as a story about adult characters but it doesn't feel inauthentic for it to be about two 10 year olds as well. Lindsay, any other final thoughts on it? I mean, just it's a, I feel like I've said everything where it's just a stone cold classic

with some really stellar voice acting that you wouldn't expect of the most Oscar winning actress. Bring her back. Yeah, would love to see her. Although, would I, because aging, like, you can't always nail it anymore, as we know from all the main system. Simpsons cast. True. Even Woody is sounding a little old in that Toy Story 5 trailer. I think Jesse especially.

Time has not been kind to her. Well, they'll never going to get to stop. They can write them out of the movies like every movie. They'll still have to come back for Toy Story 6. They have replaced some of the, I mean, they did replace Jim Barney. We're really getting into tangents here at the end, but they did just replace Mr. Mrs. Potato Head. No more canned Don Rickles just saying, hey, hey.

In the background. Yeah. Well, they have to die for that to happen in those cases, though. Only death will free you from the clutches of Pixar. I'm saying Toy Story 8, it's going to be a eulogy. Look forward to it. Anyway, Lindsay, thanks for coming on the show and coming back to the show. Let us know where to find you online.

And if you want to plug anything now, it's the time to do it. Yeah, please take a listen to my podcast, Teen Creeps, which I'm sort of advocating. We read title Sad Creeps. Now that we're covering more adult horror these days, but very emotional horror that makes us cry seemingly. And you can find that wherever you get. podcasts. I'm on Blue Sky and Instagram at Lindsay Ketai, et cetera.

I'm still technically on Twitter, but I don't really post there. Do not find me there. Leave yourself. Your recent teen creeps, they've been more emotional I listen to. Yeah, we've been too. Tearjerker horror is what we seem to be covering lately.

But it's been really rewarding, very good books we're reading. And you guys are on Patreon as well, right? We are. We're on patreon.com slash teen creep. and then you can find my work out there. As Henry said, I was showrunner, co-head writer on Fairly Odd Parents and New Wish, which is on Netflix and Paramount Plus, written on Infinity Train, which you can't really find anywhere unless you get crafty.

Maybe you can buy it on Amazon Prime and YouTube. And then Wolf Boy in the Everything Factory, Max and the Midnights. What else have I written on? The Unproduced Tales of the TMNT. Still check that out. Great show, even though my episodes will never be seen. We're telling our listeners. Thank you, David Ellison.

Back into Paramount servers, liberate them. At least the animatics. Distribute them. We didn't even get to that point. But the scripts are somewhere. Download the scripts, animate them yourselves. Yeah, there you go. Act them out at little gatherings.

Thank you so much, Lindsay. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Lindsay K-Tai for being on the show. Please check out the podcast Teen Creeps. But as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get these episodes ad-free a week out of time and also access a whole bunch of other stuff. Go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

You want to sign up for $5 a month and you will get ad-free episodes. They will arrive a week ahead of time and also you will be able to access over 200 bonus podcasts that are behind the Patreon paywall. Over eight years worth of content, we've covered episodes of Futurama,

King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the Animated Series, and The Critic. And that five bucks month also gets you a new episode of both Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill every month. It's a great deal for just five bucks. You get it all at Patreon. com slash talking simpsons there is a $10 level two when he signed up for that you get all of the $5 stuff but also one immensely huge podcast once a month for patrons of that level what is that Henry what's going on there

Bob is talking about the what a cartoon movie podcast which in addition to being also ad free it is our longest podcast we do each month it's really like three podcasts and one where we cover an animated feature film as in depth as an episode of the simpsons we did five hours of chat about shrek two which we were not fans of, but was an interesting. Controversial episode for some people. And our most recent one is James in the Giant Peach, Henry Selleck's follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas. And that is just the most recent that we have done out of years and years of what a cartoon movie podcast, hundreds of hours, years of podcasts that you get the entire back catalog, get a new one each month if you go up to that $10 premium level, and you get all the $5 things again that Bob mentioned before.

So please check it out at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons to see all of the cool stuff you're missing out on. And as for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Blue Sky and Letterbox and many other places as Bob Servo. Find me there. My other podcast, though, is called Retronaut. It's a classic gaming podcast, all about old video games. You can find that where you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and get a ton of bonus episodes there as well. And Henry, what about you?

You can find me on Blue Sky and Instagram as Talk. H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Letterboxed. And if you're following me and Bob on Instagram of Blue Sky, you've got to follow the official account of this podcast at Talk SimpsonsPod. You'll stay in the loop whenever new podcasts come out. And if we're ever doing any other cool stuff like our charity podcast that we just did a couple months ago,

which is still available on our store. Check it out. We covered the Simpsons guy for over three hours. We had a whole lot to say about that, the Family Guy Simpsons crossover. But you know all of that if you follow at Talk Simpsons Pod on Blue Sky or Instagram, and all of our previously released free podcasts are easy to find if you go to Talking Simpsons.com. Thank you so much for listening, everybody.

We'll see you again next time for season 15's Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass, and we'll see you then. I can't believe my little boy is already going on his first day. Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset. Cats in the cradle and a silver spoon. Yes, we have no bananas. Oh, that's sweet Homer. Our son is growing up, isn't he? No, it's not that.

Didn't you hear? They have no bananas. They have no bananas today.