Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bart's Inner Child With Nick Prueher

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

We're joined again by Nick Prueher from Found Footage Festival/VCR Party Live, and we're ringing in the new year with a classic. Written by George Meyer (confirmed viewer of Found Footage Fest), we dig into a timely satire of early '90s therapy. Somehow Marge and Homer resolving conflict maturely leads to the town worshiping Bart. So do what you feel, grab some fortified wine, and listen now for our celebration of Bart's Inner Child! 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 Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention 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. or product. our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today as always. Henry Gilbert, and each podcast brings us closer to God. And who is our special guest on the line? This is Nick from the Found Footage Festival. And this week's episode is Bart's Inner Child. What up Marge? I'm watching a videotape that could change our lives.

This week's episode originally aired on November 11th, 1993, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! That was a special playing of that one there, but oh boy Bobby, River Phoenix passes away at 23 outside of the Viper Room, the three Musketeers tops the box office, and the first ever Ultimate Fighting Championship happens in Denver, Colorado. And a young Joe Rogan's eyes twinkled that day. I think he's still probably just working on the stand-up routine that'll get him on

news radio the next year I think. He's waiting for Ray Romano to be fired. Yes that's right. But yeah the the original Ultimate Fighting Championship I watched that VHS a number of times in the past and it's a amazing cultural artifact. In the first sentence said in Ultimate Fighting Championship by the commentator he belches. a guy belches while he's talking, which is hilarious, but it really was just, what if we did Street Fighter in real life? Like guys who are specialized in one thing,

like this side of the best sumo wrestler faced the best kickboxer. And what happens in the very first fight is the sumo wrestler runs at the guy doing like the 100 hand slap move that E Honda does in Street Fighter, and then he gets kicked in the face once his teeth fly out of his mouth he falls down and gets punched in the face three times and then the fight ends. This may surprise you Henry but I was into early UFC because I had

an uncle who liked pro wrestling and then he transitioned to UFC so I got into it as a little kid thinking much like you referenced it's much like Street Fighter. It's a real uncle let you watch it show, the original Ultimate Fighting Championship, yes. This is before it became the giant, giant business it is now, hosting presidents after, well, just one president, I guess, really. He keeps going to them.

Henry, did UFC move the needle on WWF with more blood or, you know, WCW and all those? Oh yeah yeah not to get too wrestling-y here but yeah it made the violence have to get like realer in WWF at the time and WCW because they're like oh we have to answer this so we need like more blood or like people had to like tap out more realistically you couldn't hold somebody in their arm in a breaking position for like two, 30 seconds and people believe it anymore. Uh, it's too bad because I loved that. I loved the fake, the fake ref interventions.

It ruined a lot of things of people who, you know, in the seventies people grew up saying, Oh, Bruce Lee could kick anybody's ass. And then you see when you're the best fighters in the world, weight classes actually matter quite a lot. And being the best guy at 170 pounds doesn't matter to the best guy who's like 220 pounds. Yeah, you know, this isn't quite the same, but at a festival called Fantastic Fest in Austin a couple of years ago, they had Joe and I box each other. It's called Fantastic Fest Debate. Joe, my partner, and found Footage Festival. Neither of us are athletic, although Joe was a former college baseball pitcher. So he's more coordinated than I am, but he also has about 80 pounds on me

and a few inches on me too. And I was probably in better shape. I could have lasted the distance, but I'd never been hit in the face before. And not a fan, I got to say. I saw stars at one point. I think Joe only landed one punch, but it got me on the side of the head, and I got knocked back into the ropes,

and didn't know where I was for a second, and then kind of came back and kept boxing. But I don't know how people do it. I didn't like getting hit by a guy who weighed 80 pounds more than me. Nick just revealed his weakness on this broadcast. It's my Achilles heel getting hit in the head. It's also mine.

Don't punch me in the head either, everybody. OK. Me and Bob are not getting a box. I'm not accepting that offer. Fantastic. That said, I would watch that. But no, I understand. All right.

Oh, if it comes to that, if it comes to that. What, nobody cares about our coverage of season 18? Well, I guess we better fight each other. Hey, have I come to that, if it comes to that. What, nobody cares about our coverage of season 18? Well, I guess we better fight each other. Hey, it might come to that. Let's do it on Patreon live. River Phoenix tragically passing away 23. That sadly, I think it scarred Joaquin Phoenix this whole rest of his life, right? He's talked about that a bit. He became the Joker.

It did make him the Joker, yes. Twice over. No, I mean, yeah, everybody was like, oh, this guy's going to be, people thought River Phoenix was going to be the future, like a huge star. He'd probably be, do you think he would have Johnny Depp's career, or do you think he'd have done better or worse? I wonder.

Or Keanu Reeves. Let's say a co-star of his who doesn't have controversial things. He's so good with, like, if you even watch like the explorers or something, like he's very charismatic and especially in Stand By Me. He's like the best in that. And even just playing the young Indiana Jones, like he's the reason there was a young Indiana Jones TV show because his scene was so good it made you think, oh this could be an entire series of just seeing other people than Harrison Ford play Indiana Jones.

Did you watch that series? I never watched it. I watched a little. I never watched it. Apparently it was very hard to find because it was syndicated and it wasn't very popular and a lot of networks didn't want to devote an hour to a non-popular show. Yeah. I watched a couple that aired. I didn't watch it regularly and as you mentioned Bob, you're right, I think I wasn't helped by it moving around the schedule, but I think I wasn't helped by it moving around the schedule But I've I think I've complained before on here about how they made non-canon the 90 ish year old Indiana Jones who appears in the TV series because he's lost an eye and he's played by a very aged actor And so when I saw the dial of destiny I was like wait

He should have lost an eye by now shouldn't, if he's like Indiana Jones in his 70s? I wonder, because I remember River Phoenix was in The Mosquito Coast. That was another Harrison Ford movie that I liked a lot. And then Last Crusade, I think, came out after that. So I wonder if Harrison Ford said, oh, this kid would be good. Oh, yeah, I could see that. Oh, also, and the three Musketeers,

this is specifically, I believe, the Disney one that starred Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Tim Curry, those guys, Chris O'Donnell, The Robin. I think this is the only time that Oliver Platt was in an action movie. Yeah. Do you remember the song from that, though? The Brian Adams, I think, it was like,

it was a super group. Yes. Yeah, so it wasn't just Brian Bryan Adams it was other similar crooners it was it it was a three musketeers of crooners it was Bryan Adams Rod Stewart and Sting that's what it was. Oh wow I'd like to see those guys box each other or cave match maybe and I got so confused because Robin Hood Prince of Thieves also had a similar raspy voice conglomeration of, what was the song from the Prince of Thieves? Oh, man. I do it for you.

Everything I do, I do it for you. Yes. Yeah. Maybe that was just Brian Adams, but it sounded similar to me. So this was Disney trying to top that then. Yeah. It was a trend. These were all mom car songs for me.

Yeah. I mean, that's a mom dream orgy in the 90s of Brian Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting. But anyway, enough about mom orgies. That's everything that happened when this episode of The Simpsons first aired in 1993. And joining us once again is Nick Prueher from Found Footage Festival.

Nick has not been on the show for a bit, but he's currently in the middle of a Midwestern tour. So please check out Found Footage Festival. Henry and I have been to multiple shows. It's always a great hilarious time. Welcome back to the show, Nick. Hey, thanks for having me back. I forgot to do a quote from this episode when you introduced me, but I think I would say bringing home more old crutches. It's Nick Kruhr. I should have said that. And notably Nick has found many videotapes that will change your life. That's true. I do have a lot of life changing. notably, Nick has found many video tapes that will change your life.

That's true. I do have a lot of life changing. Well, they changed my life, for sure. I don't know about other people, but. Yeah, and it's debatable whether it's changed them for the better or worse. I thought this would be a good match for the Found Footage Fest in that it's like, also the for free section

has really helped you guys probably in your VHS collecting. Absolutely. Like those special interest tapes. Yeah, the tapes you could rent for free. Mr. T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool. And some exercise videos would be in the free rental section. And yeah, some of these therapy videos and family videos

certainly ended up there as well. Yeah, actually, you guys spot lit. I think I learned about the Mr. T's video from your curating of it. And then when we learned about the Mr. T's video from your curating of it and then when we just covered the Mr. T episode from season 15 they talked about how in person when they recorded with him he did the Ten Commandments of T live and I was like wow like that I knew it from found footage fest. Yeah that was one of our first big hits and I found that in a blockbuster clearance bin,

you know, when they were getting rid of it for a dollar. And we would just watch that in high school. That just became like on a Friday night, nothing to do in your hometown. Let's pop in, be somebody or be somebody's fool. And yeah, we had our favorite parts, and then yeah, we're able to leverage that in our live show years later. And by the way, speaking of Mr. T, if you haven't, pick up a copy of his autobiography,

The Man with the Gold, it's called. And you know how a lot of celebrity autobiographies you read are ghostwritten? You can tell Mr. T wrote this himself in all the best ways. It's incredible. Oh, I'm checking this out. Does he have an audiobook version, I wonder? No, no.

Although, maybe that's a project, you know? Missed opportunity. I generally enjoy reading more than audiobooks, but with somebody like Patrick Stewart or Mr. T, I want to hear them telling me their life story. Do you know if John Schwarzwald or does any of his audiobooks? Like, I would listen to those if he read them. Oh, boy. Yeah, I don't know if his novel series has audiobooks.

Probably not, since they're... Yeah, but I think that's a good market. I'll try to get word to him to record a couple. And yeah, this is your 20th anniversary tour you guys are doing right now. Not only that, Nick, I have to say, I've seen the videos of you promoting it. Your museum of cast and crew jackets. I am so sad I can't see it in every select city, but it looks amazing. My car. So I just, I used to work in TV and we would get cast and crew jackets

and I didn't appreciate them at the time because you were just so busy on the show and you almost came to resent them. You're like, no, I think of work when I have my late show with David Letterman jacket on. So they just stayed in a closet. And then 10 years ago, I think of work when I have my late show with David Letterman jacket on. So they just stayed in a closet. And then 10 years ago, I was at a thrift store in my neighborhood, and I found a One Life to Live cast and crew jacket for the soap opera. And I didn't buy it, but I was like, wow, that's beautiful.

And then I went back the next day, and I was like, I'm going to buy it. And the woman behind the con was like, you made a big mistake, buddy. Like, that's her voice. And she said, I never get things like that. You're never gonna find another one. And that sort of lit a fire on me

to like collect these artifacts. Cause you know, when you work on these shows, it's hard work, there's 150 people who make your favorite shows come to life. And they all, you know know as Christmas gifts or wrap presents You get one for a movie or TV show you worked on It's usually like one of those varsity jackets the wool with the leather Sleeves and a lot of times your name is embroidered on it and then on the back it'll have the logo for the show

And I thought maybe just okay letterman had at soap operas But no like these turn up on eBay and at thrift stores And so I have weird ones for ones like the show Small Wonder, which I know you've talked about in the past, the robot little girl, which was like a syndicated show that I felt like nobody watched. But they had, you know, enough the crew got cast and crew jackets at the logo. Veronica's Closet. I have a windbreaker from that Kirstie Alley show. Even I have a boxing Helena, the weird movie that David Lynch's daughter directed in the 90s about Julian Sands becomes obsessed with Sherrilyn Fenn, and he's a surgeon. So he

amputates her arms and legs to possess her. It's disturbing, notoriously disturbing movie and a flop. And they had a, it was like 1993 Atlanta crew boxing hell and it's got a logo of the Venus de Milo on it. And like they made a cast the camaraderie on that crew. I just like to picture that. So yeah, I have like 60 cast and crew jackets now, including a great one for the thing from John Carpenter from 1982 and my Holy grail was one for Alf, which, you know, in the wide shots in Alf, there

was a little person in the costume. And it was this old Barnum and Bailey, a performer named Michu, who was a legend. Like, he was in Look Who's Talking and Big Top Pee-wee, and then, you know, he was in the elf costume on those shots. And I saw a picture of him holding up an elf cast and crew jacket. And I was like, oh, they exist. I'm a huge elf fan. And then finally, some friends of mine, Brie and Jason,

tracked one down for cheap and gifted it to me. And it's kind of got rhinestones on the back. And it's like, that's the one I'll be buried in. That's beautiful, rhinestones even, man. Yeah, so on shows that I'm driving to, because my car is just full of 60 Crew Jacks, I can't see out of the back of my Prius right now. I'm taking them to like Chicago

and locally did some in New York. I'll be in Cleveland in January showing them off, just at my favorite vintage shop. Yeah, I think we heard somewhere that they stopped doing Simpsons crew jackets a while ago. If you look online and you read the research, they had these really nice kind of Letterman style jackets and every year there would be a new patch.

So if you guessed it on a certain year, you would have that patch for that year and people that worked on the show over the years would have jackets full of patches. But I think they phased that out because it cost a little too much money for Fox and now especially Disney because they're pinching pennies. Yeah.

Yeah. No money at Disney. I think these jackets in general are pretty rare. This is going to sound name-droppy, but I've become friendly with John Vede, the Simpsons writer from seasons one through four and then beyond that, and his wife Anne, and I was in Los Angeles recently, and they just said, hey, why don't you stay with us? So I was staying overnight in their guest room

and looked in the closet there, and there was a Simpsons cast and crew jacket that said John on it. And I think it was like episode 100 or episode 300, it was like commemorating a milestone that they had reached. Wow. And it took everything in my power not to just kind of wear it out and hope nobody noticed.

There was news about the cast and crew jacket of The Simpsons like in the last couple of years because Susan Sarandon was wearing them like out socially and at, you know, she's a political person. She goes to some protests and she's, so you're seeing her, you know, protesting these important causes, but wearing the Simpsons crew jacket

she got in season six of the show. I saw that too and I would love her to like appear at one of these museum pop-ups I'm doing and bring her jacket on loan, you know. And maybe she'll will it to me eventually. That's the goal. You've got to get in close with Sarandon. But your collection is amazing. As another collector of things, I fear I could fall down the same thing if I had access to those. My finger hovered over bidding on a Ken Griffey Jr. was selling his crew jacket,

or it was somebody who faked it. But either way, it went for hundreds and hundreds of dollars, so I did not get it. I will say, if you look online at pictures of Henry, he usually has a new jacket on in every photo. I do. I do like a jacket. You're a jacket collector.

Well, I did just buy a, I took out of the closet, and it's now too big for me, because I've lost a little weight, but I had a puffy 90s style matrix jacket that I wore to watching the new film, the Y2K, set in 1999. So I was like, well, I should wear my matrix jacket

to go onto that. But it's too puffy. It was already big when I was a 2XL guy. And now that I'm down to a large, it's very puffy on me. Well, I like collecting jackets because, as somebody who's not particularly proud of their body, vintage t-shirts, they leave little to the imagination

sometimes because they fit a little snugger than modern style, so. But jackets, hey, you can cover up the whole upper torso and no one's the wiser. Before we get to the episode discussion, we have a new director on this episode, cover up the whole upper torso and no one's the wiser. Before we get to the episode discussion, we have a new director on this episode, so let's talk a little bit about Bob Anderson. So now it's time to talk about Bob Anderson.

I am always a fan of other Bobs in media. There's not many of us left, so rooting for Bob Anderson. This is a very easy biography to do because outside of a few exceptions Bob Anderson only worked on The Simpsons for 33 years So there's not a lot to say about him But it is important to cover him because he is a very prolific director on the show Yeah

there's we've come to this so many times of like that if you if you start on The Simpsons and You get in your position You can stay there a very long time if you want to. And I couldn't find any interviews with Bob Anderson, so I'm not sure what his origin story is. But after working on a few mostly unknown specials like Santa Bear's High-Flying Adventure and The Jackie Bison Show,

Bob jumps right to The Simpsons, where he starts as an assistant director. Apparently he had enough animation experience before that to jump into that role. According to Wikipedia, which doesn't source this fact, it turns out Bob was working on animation on commercials in New York City before going to LA to work on traditional animated programs. I want to believe that's true and it sounds likely, but I could not find anything to back that up.

And am I remembering correctly that he's the brother of the other Simpsons director, Mike Anderson? Yeah, I think he's related to Mike B. Anderson. Okay, who's I think still the series director on the show, I believe, but yeah, no, it seems like Bob got in there first. I don't know who's older than the other either, but the Anderson brothers have been in the Simpsons business for a very long time. Actually, I don't know who's older than the other either but the Anderson these Anderson brothers have been in the Simpsons business for a very long time. Actually I don't know if they're related. Oh okay. Anderson is a very common name so they're both son of Anders but I don't know if they're bros. Okay I will go back to the well on this one later. Because I just went to Mike B Anderson's Wikipedia page really quick just to

double-check that and I did a search for Bob. He doesn't show up. I feel like that would have been mentioned. That's true. Yeah. You know, maybe I'm getting it mixed up with the other brothers who work on Polchino. Yeah. And the archers as well. That's right. That's right. These brothers though are not brothers. So in total, he's directed 66 episodes of The Simpsons, which puts him up there in the top four Simpsons directors in terms of how prolific he was. And he's directed some all-timers like Sweet Seymour Skinner's badass song, Bart's Comet, Trias 4-6, and Hurricane Nettie, among many, many others. So he got in really early, started directing around this time, and just made some great looking episodes. Yeah, we, we heard a little bit about this time, you know, in other interviews we've done, but like season five was where a cup, a few animators got to move

up to the director position who had been there from so early in the show. Uh, it sounds like him on the commentary. He is a little quiet. It is, it feels though, maybe it's that the commentary is like Dan Castellaneta and Yardley Smith are are there and they're gonna take up a lot of space And then on top of that David Merkin really takes up a lot of space David Merkin really rules the room on the commentary So we don't get to hear about his his rise to power within the Simpsons We just get to hear about how difficult all of this was. Yeah, it's it's mainly just him and Silverman laughing off like oh

Yeah, that was easy, huh? And this should not surprise you, but he also worked on the movie as a sequence director, but every director did something on that film. And we'll talk about that when we get to 2007 in our timeline. That will be a month of Talking Simpsons programming. Get ready for it.

If you were any major director on The Simpsons and you're not Mark Kirkland, you worked on the movie. Like, Mark Kirkland held down the fort. I think they say he's just, I hope he got some sort of bonus for that. But basically by not working on the movie, technically he did work on the movie to make it so everybody else could work on the movie by taking over a lot of stuff on the main show that he wouldn't have been doing normally. Yeah.

He did a ton of work on the show while all of these things were in production at the same time. Though for Bob Anderson, it appears that production season 34 was his last, because Homer's Adventures Through the Windshield Glass is the last episode he's credited with. And unless he took some sort of sabbatical, we can only assume he's a coward who quit his job

after 33 tiny years on the same project. I'm kidding, of course. We love and respect him. That's an incredible amount of time to be doing the same job. And what an honor that he directed Sweet Seymour Skinner's badass song is the official 100th episode and the windshield glass one, that's the 750th. Oh wow, so yeah, what a good one to go out on, a real milestone. And you know, it's possible he decided to retire after 33 years. That's entirely plausible. But also it's plausible

that Disney does not want a lot of people with 30 years of experience on this show that they purchased because there are a lot of them already. It's probably one of the most expensive shows that they bought the rights to. So I can see him being incentivized to leave his job so somebody who is, let's say 30 years younger, can jump in and get paid a little less than that. But he has not said why he left the show or any reasons pertaining to that, but I have to assume it was probably on the level and it was probably just, I've been here for 33 years, it's time to do something else

or time to just sit on a couch. Yeah, put down the pencil and relax some, you know? Enjoy old cartoons. But yes, that is the story of Mr. Bob Anderson. This has a new director, but it's a returning writer on it, and it's a found footage fest fan as well who wrote this one, George Meyer, the beloved Simpsons guy we've covered

a million times before, but George Meyer is a fan of found footage fest. Either that or he was convinced by his sister, who I know, Anne Vede, to come. She texted him when we were in Seattle and said, George, my friends are doing a show. And he actually showed up. I never, I didn't see him though.

Henry, you did, right? I did see him, yes. Yeah, I was probably the only person there who knew what George Meyer looked like and could Find him and I did say hello to him. He was very nice I hope someday that and VD can convince him to maybe do something with us But yes, he was very he was very nice. He was wearing his standard bucket hats. I Only picture him looking like that. I know he one detail

I will say was that me and Bob the previous year had gone to Portland to do a Halloween live show and we went to a Simpsons trivia night that had a costume contest and Bill Oakley was a judge at it as well and one of the hosts of the trivia night in Portland dressed like George Meyer from the poochie episode and when I told George Meyer a guy dressed like him from The Simpsons, he seemed disturbed by it. I'll tell you. He was like, what?

He was like, oh my god. I believe was how he reacted. Well, yeah, Anne did tell me that she said, George didn't want to bother you at the merch table afterwards, but he enjoyed the show, and he was surprised at how many people were there. That was the review. And I told him, hey, we're going to be back in Seattle.

She goes, I'll tell him, but he never goes to those things. She goes, it's probably an endorsement of your show that he actually got out of the house because he's not the most, I guess, social guy going to events kind of guy. And this was a funny time for George Meyer in his work because as we talked about before, it seemed like somehow he like quit the show in season four. They seemed to joke around about like he wanted to quit earlier than he was allowed to and it seemed like he wanted to get out on season four. Then he writes for David Merkin on the sketch show The Edge, which then Merkin quits and goes to work on

The Simpsons. And so then Meyer follows him back to The Simpsons, at least for this episode. I don't believe Meyer gets back on staff with this. I think this is more of a freelance thing. I didn't realize he was like away from the show at that point, because he just seems like such a staple during these early seasons. Yeah, no, it seems like he was kind of in and out.

Lots of the writers weren't having a great time on season four. They were exhausted and wanting to get multi-million dollar deals to make things that aren't the Simpsons. So I get it. When I was in California, I had breakfast with John, Viti, and Anne one morning.

And I don't like to ask too many Simpsons things. I like to keep it like not fan boyish, but it's hard. But his wife is very like, go ahead, ask him some questions. Like, John doesn't mind. He just won't volunteer it. You know, you have to like ask him things. And so I was asking him about a specific, I forget which episode, you guys will know,

the episode where Homer is making a getaway in a car and he has a sandwich that he needs to slice. And so he puts it up to the wire that's going across to cut. And then of course, if you're holding it, your hands would get cut off because of the physics of that. And I had always read that that was like, originally it was just Homer holds up the sandwich

to slice it and he slices it there. And then George Meyer had brought up the way his brain works differently. He'd be like, well, no logically, his hands would get cut off because they would be holding the sandwich above the wire. And that made everybody laugh in the room.

So he did, you know, and I said, do you remember who did that? Who is that? He goes, that sounds like a George thing. What John said about that is like, I remember that animators really did a great, you could see sort of the rings of Homer's skin and bone, coming off of the after his arms got amputated and That's what stuck with him was like the animators doing that and he thought that George probably did come up with that idea I think the hallmark of George Meyer is that he would pitch things that no one would get on the show except for Mike Scully for whatever reason he really gelled with Mike Scully and

One good example of that is that his script, Homer's Phobia, one of the working titles was Bart the He-Man Womanfucker. Yes. This is all on the- Just trying to get away with things. Yes, yes. I think maybe he was just sometimes a little bored

and just trying to tweak show runners, but Mike Scully was like, hey, I want more of that. Yeah. No, like, George Meyers' last script on the show was just him and Scully just jamming it out in like a weekend because they're Like shit we needed like they were one episode short at the end of a long season So they just jammed it out together and that's the very punchy but funny episode that introduced judge Constance harm, right? Yes. Yes, and I will say I love George Meyers

This episode is a solid gold 9 out of 10 But we covered it before and I think we all came to the agreement that this was the weakest one in season 5 and I think it's because Albert Brooks or A Brooks as he's credited with here, he's not fooling anybody. He really takes over and I feel like there's a few scenes in this episode that don't feel like The Simpsons. They feel more like George Meier writing SNL or perhaps the edge sketches, especially the Brad Goodman speaking event, which is a four minute long scene, which never happens in this show. At best, a scene will be 90 seconds long.

There's a lot of very long talkie scenes with Brad, and there's so much good stuff in there, but I feel like it distracts from other funnier things in the show. Like they literally watch two different infomercials in his show back to back. So it just feels a little odd. And I don't know, it feels like the one time

in this season five restaffing that they slip up a little before regaining their footing. It starts off very strong and I think they lose it a bit because of Alfred Brooks. He was tough to, I think edit down because like everything he would riff would be funny or just from what I've heard, like they didn't know where to edit or what notes to give him because he would do like get a line read just right and then do a million other funnier versions and probably by this point he had what he'd done three other appearances by this point. will not be back until he plays Hank Scorpio. And I also think Brad Goodman speaks maybe 50% slower

than most Simpsons characters. So all of his stuff is so funny. I love all of these line readings. There's so many things I've incorporated into my life, but it just takes up so much space in this episode. I think Phil Hartman and Albert Brooks could play their scenes in live action just as funny. This episode is full of so many of like the funniest

moments ever in the show to me, I love them. Though judging it as a script and as an overall story, like Brad Goodman is so important in Acts one and two, he does not appear in the third act. And it is very uneven in that regard too. And the ending is another one of their like, what is the moral, who cares, endings too, where you can tell when they're sick of writing the story.

Yeah, and here's a TV parody that we won't show you because it was all put together with ADR at the last minute. So there are some flaws. And I was gonna ask you, Henry, I couldn't remember, is this at all related to the scrapped Prince episode? Because it feels like it has a very similar plot to what that Prince episode was going to be in, which Prince would come, sorry, Leon Kompowski would come back to Springfield and get everyone to loosen up.

And it feels like Act 3 might be based on that lost material. Justin Perdue Shit, you're right. That actually did not come up in my research, but you're right. This third act is so similar to everybody becoming like Prince. I think it is them bringing that in, well, because Prince would have been flushed them bringing that in that well, cause Prince would have been flushed down the toilet at this point, but just, just then, because well, this also factors in the Albert Brooks thing because Albert Brooks would have been around to record this because he was working on the not good at all movie.

I'll do anything. I believe a reason Prince dropped out of doing Simpsons is because James L. Brooks cut all of his songs from I'll Do Anything, that Prince wrote an album's worth of songs for a movie, Jim Brooks cuts it out, so I would think that would be why Prince didn't want to do The Simpsons. Yeah, you know, maybe this was a repurposing of that, that did not come up in my research. Before we start, like I guess my conspiracy theory is that George Meyer wrote these first two acts that are fairly long and talky and all about Brad Goodman and this third act was just a transplant from that episode and rewritten a little bit but it the third act really does not

have that much to do with what comes before especially Marge's crisis about being too uptight so it feels like it's a lot of Frankensteining together of different ideas. Yeah you know the the part where everybody wants to be Bard and everybody's kind of getting away with... Bard's getting away with what he wants to also reminds me of the Treehouse Horror 2, where it's based on the Twilight Zone episode, It's a Good Life, you know, where it's like, it's good that Bard did that. It kind of had a similar feel to that, too, where, oh, everyone's Bard and everyone's getting away with murder. Hey, a big old happy new year from Henry Gilbert here and thanks for listening to this week's inner child of a podcast and we

Love to have it on Nick Per from found footage fast him and Joe do so much amazing things on found footage It's been a little while since we've had either of them on the show Nick is always a fun guy to chat with and if you aren't going to see them in your town You really messed up found footage fest is on tour all around right now check out all their tour stops and all the Other cool stuff they do on the found footage fest website that there's a link to in this episode's description And thanks again Nick We love having you back on the show and if your inner child enjoys our talking Simpsons podcast you need to sign up Patreon.com

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That's patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. You know another thing I think that makes this as a plot slightly weaker compared to other episodes is that it's a little of Bart Gets Famous. Like Bart Gets Famous is a more clear satire of Bart Mania and looking back on it with a little bit of distance. While this one is just a tiny bit of, you know, when they say if only Bart was a better role model, like that is them, that is a very direct reflecting on what they thought of how kids were inspired by Bart,

but it's not a ton of that in the episode. And also this starts as a Marge episode, and then Marge, like at minute 11 goes like, and I'm done, and then Bart becomes a Bart episode. Bart tags in. Yeah. Well, I do have, there's the 2003 commentary. I also went over an old George Meier interview.

And online there is a record draft of the original script. It is dated April 26, 1993. Because there's no deleted scenes on the DVD, I will note the major moments that are different in here. Yeah, I'm hoping you can tell us what the original ending was supposed to be because I don't think it was supposed to be that McGarnagall parody. Yes, it is a McGarnagall-free script. I will let you us what the original ending was supposed to be, because I don't think it was supposed to be that McGarnagall parody. Yes, it is a McGarnagall-free script.

I will let you know what the big change was. It is kind of a different ending. I can't wait to hear your research on McGarnagall, because that always confounded me. I love McGarnagall, by the way. So the episode begins, Bart making faces. I love all of his faces. Just feels like a shorts scene of just,

I guess actually it's very similar like the Belching contest short from the Ullman years, kinda. By the way, I do have a Tracy Ullman show cast in Crew Jacket that is just gorgeous. It's got the Squiggle logo on it. But yeah, I love that. And when, I think Homer says stupid animal, and I say that to my dog all the time.

My dog's on my lap while I'm recording that. You might hear it at some point. I like that they give no reaction. That's just great. In the original script, the gag instead is Bart is told, if you make your face like that, it'll stick that way. And Bart says, that's an old wise tale. Then Homer comes in with his face stuck in some position and March has to hit him in

the face with a spoon to unstick his face. There was a, have you ever seen one crazy summer, the follow up to Better Off Dead? There was that whole plot where this little girl slaps two girls on the back and then their faces are stuck like that for the rest of the movie. So strange. That terrified me as a kid. I saw that as a kid. It scared the hell out of me. It still does

It hasn't lost its horrifying power No And the violent cartoon opening was the first time I saw cartoons that could do this and we said this me and Bob said This to David Silverman himself who animated that I think we talked to Bill Kopp about his work on Was it one crazy summer or was it also better off dead? I think we definitely talked about one crazy summer with cop and with Silverman separately But I think maybe we did ask off about better off dead. I think we definitely talked about one crazy summer with Cop and with Silverman separately but I think maybe we did ask Cop about better off dead too I think. One of my favorite fun facts is that the director Savage Steve Holland wanted to be, I mean he did animation a little bit after those

movies or actually I think yeah it was 1984 somewhere on there he was just trying to get gigs and they some game show said hey we need you to draw these we need somebody to do these quick characters. And it turned out to be all the whammy animations for Press Your Luck. And that show became pretty huge, I think, for game shows. And he was just like, they were the worst drawings. I barely spent a few hours on this

and they just got played over and over and over again. He wasn't proud of them. No, I watched a million episodes of Fresh Relic only to see the Whammies, which were like, yeah, so very unimportant to his career. Yeah, but he just drew a Tina Turner whammy and animated it off to the races. So after they all make faces, this is when we get to the for free section as Homer invents a jingle heard in so many, I guess from the beginning of Talking Simpsons. The jingle is right here.

Ah, the daily newspaper. Ooh, the Springfield Men's Shelter is giving away 60 soiled mattresses. Why do you read that free column, Homer? They never have anything good. Oh! Oh my God! What is it? Trampoline! Trampoline!

He said what now? Please don't bring home any more old crutches. Oh no you don't! That trampoline is mine! There are so many more ways to bring home old crutches thanks to the internet now. We have Freecycle and Facebook Marketplace. Curb alert! There are so many more ways to bring home old crutches thanks to the internet now. We have Freecycle and Facebook Marketplace. Curb alert.

Old crutches for sale. This made me check out the free stuff section on Craigslist for the first time in many years today to see what's on there. I could find one mattress and one trampoline in the greater Seattle area, though there was no picture of the mattress, which makes me think it is a soiled mattress that is being given away. I was most into trying to get in the 90s guitar magazines.

It was a collection of 90s guitar magazines. Ooh. Yeah, Facebook Marketplace is kind of a place, Craigslist for me. There are just so many bizarre things going for free or very little money there that toilet seat cut like a Betty Boop toilet seat cover and original drawings of Kevin Costner and That they're trying to sell. I mean, it's it's a pretty remarkable place. It's a horrible website, but the marketplace

I love did you use any of these four free sections in in the past of your VHS collecting or is it more do you prefer? To get hands-on and tactile at thrift stores and whatnot? Yeah, in the early days we would just go to thrift stores and garage sales, and we still do that to find most of our material, but sometimes the thrift stores will say, hey, where's your VHS? And they'll say, oh, we don't, when that shows up,

we just put it in the dumpster, because nobody buys it anymore. So yeah, we have had to resort to, people will send us a link. Somebody told us that they had 500 pornographic VHS tapes that had never been played. And we don't dabble in porn, but we're like, that's hard to turn down.

It was like a hundred bucks for 500 VHS porno tapes. And there's a lot of like funny parody covers and things like that. And it was in Pennsylvania. I think I was doing another gig that day. So Joe enlisted another friend and drove out to rural Pennsylvania and he said it looked like, you know, Buffalo Bill's house or something. It was like a very scary situation. And he was driving with a friend and he's friends like, I'm a little

nervous about that. Joe goes, yeah, I am too. I brought a knife just in case something went down. And that guy goes, I did too. And they both brought knives in case anything went down. Nothing did. It was a nice guy who apparently he and his friend were going to start an adult video store back in the day. And it never came to fruition. So he'd just been hanging on to these pornographic videos.

My favorite title is one that's just called PORN-t with an exclamation point at the end. And, you know, and I'm trying to still figure out what to do with them for our show. But one thing I realized is they all have great production company logos, you know, with palm trees and things like that and music, original music behind it.

So I think you could just do a montage of a porno production company logos, like the shingles at the beginning, then that could be something. That's a great idea, I wanna see that. Yeah, you've- That was my last great score though, from like a Craigslist listing.

There's several good jokes in that newspaper, which again, that's where we get the, when we were starting this podcast, we're like, well, what makes, what is the sound of like Homer looking at news and, or what is news on the Simpsons? And if you look at all of the want ads around free trampoline, they're all sort of like half jokes, nothing funny enough to repeat on the air, but it's all original text that someone had to write. The only one I made me think like, oh, did George Meyer write this one was the grateful dead Dead tickets one because he was a big deadhead and did then

Transition into being a fish fan, which as all deadheads did I think They're still making music and then of course like that trampoline is mine and smashing into the like I've thought of that scene when I've been like obsessed with a stupid thing and passing by people who don't care No, you don't that That popcorn bucket is mine. This is a David Merkin trait to make Homer almost homicidal. Yes. I did that. I was at a Goodwill in New Jersey.

And I've spotted, I've mentioned Alf way too much already on this podcast, but I spotted a homemade Alf painting. It was one of those where you'd put foil, crinkled foil behind something and you'd paint on glass. I guess it was like an 80s, 70s thing that people would do. It kind of made a sparkly piece of art and they had made alf like wearing a Bruce Springsteen outfit, you know, with a bandana. And I saw it and I kind of, I didn't want to blow my cool but I was like, if I don't get to the back of the thrift store

where I spotted this, somebody else is going to scoop it up. So I kind of did one of those fast walks, but trying to play it cool. I would have thrown somebody out of my way. But of course, it was probably there for three years before I spotted it and scooped it up. Well, Nick, what do you think of that new Shout Factory

ALF DVD set? Does it meet your standards as an Alf collector? It does. It has like all the animated series on it, both Alf Tales and Alf the Animated series, which you couldn't, you could only get like the highlight compilations on DVD that had like seven or eight episodes on it. So those are available for the first time everywhere. And I had the German box set, which had the uncut for syndication versions, so that I could get the raw versions. But now they're all on that. So I think they did a good job. And I, of course, got the deluxe edition with the piece of Melmac rock in it and all the goofy add-ons you have to do

for physical media. Bob, did you mention this when you saw all that jazz? Because I just saw all that jazz for the first time in forever, and the producer of the movie in the movie is played by Alf's dad in it, and he's yelling at Rod Schneider, Shire, just like he'd yell at Alf.

Yeah, it was, if, now I forget how you say his name. Roy Shire. Rod Shire? Rod Shire. I'm getting Rod Schneider is stuck in my head. This is Rob Schneider, Roy. Roy Shire. Thank you, thank you.

We've created three new actors with our tongue twisters here but if Roy Shire got down on his knees, it would be the same dynamic. He's just telling. I like that observation. Yeah, I can't see Max Wright in anything now and not think of, no, Alf. He was in some TV movie about a male stripper.

And again, I'm just picturing Alf's dad, Mr. Tanner. I think he was like a Broadway guy. Like he was in a lot of serious theater and did Shakespeare and I think he must have been frustrated to no end about having to take a backseat to a puppet. Yeah, and he was- What are you gonna do? He was fairly young, much younger than he looked

on that Alf program, I will say. It's shocking. I think he was maybe in his mid-30s on that sitcom. But with the neuroses of a 50 year old. Yes. So that's, yeah. I think when I watched the show as a kid, I thought, is this their grandpa?

Yeah. He just did seem, yeah, a lot older. But I am glad I've successfully transitioned this into an elf podcast without anybody noticing. Well I think Henry was already bringing us there. Henry is an owner of an elf box set as well. Though I didn't get the next level. I just bought the regular box set.

Not a real fan. We're saying it here. Yeah, call me when you get a bejeweled elf cast of Crew Jacket, Henry. Yeah. So we then see that Krusty is the one giving away the trampoline and the buzzer is shooting out Seltzer, shocking Homer the first couple times,

and then him just holding down the buzzer and pissing off the guy. I love that the Seltzer ain't free. Like this feels like the observation of going over to a rich celebrity's house who then doesn't want to do the joke anymore. Yeah, I always liked that Krusty in this episode lives in just a normal house in a suburban neighborhood, but I think this is all part of the ruse to sell the tramp anymore. Yeah, I always like that Rusty in this episode lives in just a normal house in a suburban

neighborhood, but I think this is all part of the ruse to sell the trampoline. He has rented this home. Oh, that makes sense. I like that. I mean, he's... That's a good theory. Clearly it is a cursed trampoline. I will say in the original script, there are several bits with the trampoline being even

more magical and possessed. It kind of begins here. In the original script, after Homer takes the trampoline back even more magical and possessed. It kind of begins here in the original script after Homer takes the trampoline back with him. He actually saves a construction worker, falls off of a building, and then bounces off the trampoline on top of his car and his life is saved.

So that's the cut first magical power that the trampoline has. I've always loved this episode because in December of 1992, I begged my parents for a trampoline.. I've always loved this episode, because in December of 1992, I begged my parents for a trampoline. I really wanted one. And sure enough, that Christmas, my sister and I got a trampoline.

But this is Wisconsin, and we couldn't use it for, you know, another six months, basically. So I set it up in our garage, because if you took this piece of plywood off the head has a little attic above the garage So we had the trampoline in the garage and we're bouncing up and down but your head would go up into the hole where the attic Entrance was where we I don't know stored rakes and things So there it was December freezing cold and bouncing on a trampoline in a garage

It was a big hit though, all my friends, but like in the episode, it ended in injury most of the time. Yeah, I really think this episode accurately depicts how fun a trampoline is if you're a kid. It is the most fun you will have until you're an adult and have access to more fun adult things, but there is just so much fun packed into that simple device

that is also full of danger, which is also accurately represented in this episode. Did either of you have one or one in the neighborhood? There was a trampoline family, and I think we befriended them just to use the trampoline. Yes. I had a friend, I had a friend with a trampoline as well. It does feel like from a parent's perspective,

if you want your child to be more popular, buy them a trampoline. That's gonna make them friends, it sounds like. Though maybe that's not the gateway to friendship it used to be these days, but back then. Oh, yeah. It worked for me. I remember one time we went to see Jurassic Park on opening night, me and three friends. And then afterwards we said, we're going to sleep overnight on the trampoline.

Because this was in the summer when Jurassic Park came out. And so we all slept overnight, you know, bouncing the trampoline after Jurassic Park and then slept overnight and then in sleeping bags. And then another friend of mine, she woke up first and decided it'd be fun to wake everybody up by bouncing on the trampoline, of course. And here we are. We're all soaked because things get covered in dew in the morning, which is what I didn't realize.

But so we're all soaked. She's bouncing us up and down. And then she did the thing where her one leg got stuck between the springs. And on the other side, she fell off. And then I think twisted her ankle pretty badly. So it was one of the greatest evenings of my life. Jurassic Park premiere followed by sleeping on the trampoline

and just ended with, I I think a visit to the doctor I will say that a trampoline is the nemesis of the nerd in the group because it's like you either just risk your glasses On the trampoline jumps or you say I can't break my glasses. I can't I can't have fun on the trampoline Yeah, you need a pretty strong glasses strap. I definitely recall telling a friend of like wait stop stop stop, stop, my glasses, don't, don't jump on them. Henry was Velma-ing. Yeah. We would do something called butt wars where you'd have to do one regular bounce on your

feet, then one bounce on your butt. And you'd do the thing where you'd try to take the other person's bounce away. By if you bounce right before they land, it takes away the springiness. And that could make it so they couldn't get back to their feet after bouncing on their butt. And it was a butt wars was like that whole summer. We were just engaged in an ongoing butt war. It was the summer of Jurassic Park and butt wars.

Memorable, memorable summer for me. So with an ominous laugh, Homer takes it away as Krusty focuses more on Dirty Limericks, which I love, it starts as obvious as could be, once was a man named Enis. There's only one place it's going. George Meyer is great at, he did this so good in his Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington one,

he is great at writing bad writing, like intentionally bad, funny writing. And Homer gets home, I just like how, there's no joke to it, Bart's just petting his dog and going, you're a good boy, aren't you boy, aren't ya? Like, no comedy, just it's a nice moment with Bart and Santa's little helper. And in contrast to Homer saying, stupid animal, too.

And I really love all of the great animation and posing with the jumping on the trampoline. There's so many shots of characters coming towards the camera that accurately depicts sort of how you hang in the air for a little bit before falling back down. It's very well observed and so much fun to watch. I love their posing on it. I also love the animation of from Homer's perspective going up and down on watching Marge closer and farther away from the frame.

Like that's so good. These great flourishes in this episode. And as Homer lands, like Homer's knees should, like he should tear an ACL there from landing. Like we have older knees than Homer now, but we know what it's like to have 36 year old knees and you don't just land on the ground from a trampoline. I miss having 36 year old knees.

Yeah, I went to one of those trampoline parks. We were spending a month in Edinburgh at like Fringe and there's nothing else to do after a while. So during the day we went to those and you get like an hour and I was like only an hour for 30 bucks. After about 60 seconds, we were both exhausted and just we're like, OK, you want to just call it. We go to the snack bar because, man, yeah, you just think you still have that energy, but no, your knees buckle, and yeah, some of the people with their pelvic floor wasn't quite the same, and there was pee leaking out and things like that.

So yeah, it's different to trampoline as an adult. I get tired after playing an hour of pinball. So when it's a pinball museum, all you can play for 20 bucks, I think I'll be here all day, and then after an hour I'm like, I want to sit down. Yeah. Hey, can I tell a quick pinball story? Go for it.

Please. I'm a big pinball fan, too. And when I was staying at John and Ann Vede's house, he has an original Simpsons pinball machine in his office, which is in a little back pool house kind of thing. And it has his name engraved on it. It was like, you know, number eight of the first 50. And it says engraved for John VD. And it's like right on there and it's in perfect condition. And I was like, Hey, do you think we could play a little bit? He's like, yeah, let me just.

And he got out the manual on how to use it because he realized he had to figure out how to set it to free play again because he hadn't played it in a while. And I sat there, you know, for like a half hour, he was playing and he was telling me that they had this machine in like the break room at Fox. And so he and John Schwarzwalder and the other writers would play and it would, they would say, kind of like, you know, if you're playing basketball, you're like, I gotta just make 10 free throws in a row and then I can go home. They would say, okay, before we get back to writing,

I just have to break, you know, a million on this or something. But the game is designed to frustrate you, of course. You know, you'll get close and then you'll just, the ball will go straight down the middle. And so he said, it was so counterproductive to our task. And I'm sure that's why things went so late, because they would just be in there playing pinball

and wanting to like, they got competitive with it too. Especially Schwartzwalder and John Vede and stuff. They would just be there for hours and have to get a certain amount of points or have to get multi-ball before they would go back to writing. But he gave me some great tips. And at the end of it, he goes, you know, certain amount of points or have to get multi-ball before they would go back to writing. But he gave me some great tips and at the end of it he goes, you know, you've already improved your game.

He was telling me like how to time the ramp shot and stuff like that. And I felt like the reason I'm saying this is not because like, you know, that I deserved any of this. It was like I was a make a wish kid who just didn't, you know, was not sick at all. And like somehow just by a happenstance got to have this like once in a lifetime thing at John VD's place playing pinball. Yeah, I think after the huge success of the first season, all of the original writers got that pinball machine instead of, you know, a lot more money. They got a nice pinball machine bonus.

You're looking at his bonus. Well, if you ever get, you ever get back out to LA or something, let me give Ann a call, and maybe John would have you guys over to play a couple rounds of pinball in the back on that machine. I have no Simpsons questions. I just have questions about getting better at Simpsons pinball 1990.

He had good tips. He really did. He's a good pinball player. That's so great. All the childless Simpsons, riders, just playing pinball all day. that's so cool, man. What a life, yeah. Speaking of plans, Homer has plans of his own in the future

that Marge doesn't believe in. Yay! Ha ha! I will never get tired of this! I'm gonna have my wedding here! Whoa! Whoa! I don't know if this is a good idea.

Marge, it's the perfect exercise! It'll double the value of our house, and it was free! Free! Are you sure it's safe? Absolutely. And this is just the beginning. I've got some big plans. It smells funny in there. No it doesn't. I've seen that memed a lot when someone is giving you an unconvincing lie on Twitter.

Yes, yeah, no it doesn't, no it isn't. Like, I've seen that used so many great contexts, but Homer, it's the look on Homer? Yes, yeah. No it doesn't. No it isn't. Like I've seen that used so many great contexts. But Homer, it's the look on Homer's face, just smiling and happy, looking right in Milhouse's face as he has just walked through disgusting soil mantras. And Homer's like, no it doesn't. Just the end. George Meyer loves jokes about adults lying to children. That's one of his favorites. I think too the other thing that could be referenced, especially after inauguration days, maybe renaming America Muckville.

I think that just seems like we could just call our whole country Muckville. It smells funny in here. It does. Yeah, the Homer's vision of Homerland USA is fantastic and it's gonna grow straight out of his trampoline Which yeah the pains these pains of it I think you could easily break your arm on a trampoline But you know now that you've mentioned the arm being cut off which was was Kirk Van Houten's arm in in Realty Bites now

I'm thinking like how it's almost similar here Otto Clearly is like crippled. Like his back is snapped in two here, right? Yeah, the way he lands is so painful. They do that real like celery snap fully for him when he hits the bar. And his face is pointing in the opposite direction of his legs.

Like he's, but it's just his elbows, his shoulder is popped out of his socket and he's be popped back in. That's all. It's not, yeah. Otto is the kind of adult who would really enjoy trampolines so that's well observed as well. Yeah.

And Wendell breaks his arm but doesn't puke. I assume he pukes later. Also, talking about ADR, Rod and Todd's original exchange after hitting the ground, not as funny, though it is more painful. Rod says, oh my back, and then then Todd says I can't feel my legs Pretty dark yeah, then meanwhile mail house is being jumped on I see again That's the one I most identified with like stop jumping on me. I've heard nobody stops jumping once you're hurt move aside

Let other people jump And then they cut another good scene, probably just for time. But before Homer gets out the warning sign, Lionel Hutz appears and threatens to sue Homer for all of the endangerment of kids. He says, negligence and lack of supervision, which Homer goes, supervision?

Nobody has that power. Like Homer thinks it's super space vision. Oh, that's good. I guess because Phil Hartman was already on board, they snuck in a Lionel Hutz scene. I would have liked to see that. Did they often do Hutz and Troy McClure in the same episode, or did they try to keep them apart?

I think we've done a few where there would be a Lionel Hutz scene in a Troy McClure instructional video or other appearance like that. So I think they just they love the character so much that they had no self-control, which is fine because there was a limited supply of Phil Hartman we learned later. I know. I take all we can get. I think it's if there's an episode with Troy McClure in it, they won't necessarily have Lionel Hutz. But if Lionel Hutz is there, I think then they will find space for Troy McClure.

I think it's the other way around. But yeah, this is a wasted Hutz thing. Because this was a record draft, it makes me wonder if Phil Hartman actually recorded these lines. Is this precious Phil Hartman recorded dialogue just sitting in like the, you know, the Gracie Films closet somewhere?

Though this then leads to a Gone with the Wind parody. This episode is marked for, and I'll, and I have a big example later, but this is marked for a lot of insane asks of the animators that they, on the commentary, David Silverman and Bob Anderson are both like laughing about it, but it's a pained laugh. I can tell the animators drew a line somewhere because if you watch the original clip from Gone with the Wind, after the post-battle of Atlanta clip where you see the body full of wounded soldiers, Scarlett O'Hara starts walking through the field. I believe she's looking for someone, I forget who it is. But in the parody, Marge just stops and you see the still artwork of all the

characters, which still took a lot of time to draw, but they didn't want to have to animate Marge walking through this very complicated drawing. That could be a poster, you know, that has a lot of the characters in it. I guess they're mostly kids or townspeople, but you cool still anyway. It'd be a big, it'd be a great big long background. I would bet that background is one of the more collectible ones just in its size. Yeah, that's be a huge animation. So though it's rarer to see, I will say as somebody who does look around at Simpsons cells from

time to time, it's rarer to see a background out there. More people are selling the cells than the backgrounds. This is where Homer is sent to get rid of it. He first tries to give it back to Krusty. Krusty just points a shot. They love people pointing shotguns at people and telling them to leave. That is so a recurring Simpsons thing. It's kind of like also a subtle

Night of the Hunter reference because it's someone on a rocking chair on a porch with a shotgun. You're right. Yeah, it's just like the old lady in that movie. What's he say, keep driving? You just keep right on driving. Keep moving.

Keep right on driving. It's also the way Crusty never speaks. It is him saying, talking in a more southern vernacular, too. And then comes in a Roadrunner parody, which is perfect. I don't think there's a better Roadrunner parody out there than the way Homer dusts his hand, stands there far too long that it makes it a bad joke, and then him calling out the parody and then it doesn't

work. I love every second of it. I love it so much. So long it gets thirsty. The cliff just doesn't fall over. This really does feel like a perfect David Merkin joke. We'll be saying that a lot over the next couple of years, but there's so many key identifiers of his kind of humor. This is a screw the audience joke that also plays with expected tropes of a cartoon. And then, yeah, if he, if it, if the cliff doesn't fall off, he's just going to starve to death. Like it basically becomes like 127 hours

situation for Homer though somehow Homer survives. Then in another like cartoonishly insane thing, he runs as fast as he can with a power saw that then wraps around the trampoline and rips the cord out of the wall. Like the timing of it is just like brutal, just like punch, punch, punch of a joke. I love it. Now in the original script,

Homer never successfully gets rid of the trampoline. Bart's plan does not appear in it and the trampoline is just there for the rest of the episode and they're cursed with it. Though they do still have the joke of the bullies jumping on it outside the window, but it actually is the trampoline instead of the car. Oh the car is so much funnier. Yeah agree it's like one of those funny first act things that they don't need to always bring back. Bart then discovers the way to get rid of the trampoline is to pretend that you want it and to keep it safe,

which instantly gets Snake to steal it, which he's going to use as a bed, which I hope he enjoyed having a bed ever so briefly. It was all those student loan payments he couldn't afford a bed. That's so great. All right, I got me a bed. Like that is just, it paints a much sadder picture of Snake than other lines could have had there. I like when they do that, when they suggest it, more of a backstory, like where Homer uses a cinder block for the stereo and then they can't build the children's hospital. Just a hint of more going on there that's darker. So we cut to bed, and this is where Homer and Marge argue about the relative good or badness of the trampoline. Alright, alright, you win for now, but someday you'll rust! Rust, I tell ya!

Dad, dad, you really want to get rid of this trampoline? Uh huh. Dad! You really want to get rid of this trampoline? Uh-huh. Observe. A bike lock. Now just turn around and count to three. One, two, three. Uh, better make it five. Alright, I got me a bed. Quiet! Wake up old man Simpson! Hank, no more trampoline!

Let's jump on the car instead! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Okay, the trampoline was a bad idea. But you know what? At least I'm out there trying new things. If it were up to you, all we'd ever do is work and go to church. That's not true. Name one thing you've done in the past month that was fun. I can name ten things

I made sloppy Joe's that's not fun So Henry ADR investigator, what's going on in the script? Oh, I got it I have all the answers here these lines are in the script that I made sloppy Joe's so my guess is This must have come back with bad animation that they didn't want to do a retake for so they instead reused old shots. The shots seem like they're from season two or three. Just just the close-ups of Homer and Marge, the back and forth, that that's just reused stuff. I can name both of the shots and I was shamed I was shamed that I failed to name one, a Lisa one

previously in Rosebud. I couldn't name her Lisa one. And a commenter helpfully found that for me. I found both of these. When Homer says, name one thing, that is him saying he's going to put his foot down in the Eighth Commandment Cable episode. And when Marge says, I can name 10 things,

that's from Colonel Homer when she's saying, are you having an affair with this woman? Oh, wow. Well, Disney is gonna need this information if they ever remaster the series in 4K. They'll need to figure out where these video edits came from. How do you do that, though? Does it just ring a bell, or do you have to physically scrub through to find that?

Frinkeac is very helpful with this. When I see the shots, I did think, I was like, wait, the way Homer looks here, this does remind me of him arguing in bed in the cable episode. And then I go to Frinkiac, and it's just, the screen is the exact same. But this also helps you when you can know

when it's been flipped too. And same with, for the Colonel Homer one, I will admit to using reverse image search to find it. OK. I always wondered how you did that. It's a superpower. We are in our 10th year of this podcast, so I think that has a lot to do with it.

Yeah. We're looking for new things to explore. Well, you're not going to get that anywhere else. That's like the level of detail I have come to expect on Talking Simpsons. Thank you. Thank you. thank you. Thank you.

Well, I also think Marge saying that, you know, being told you're no fun and all that, I do think her sleeping in bed nude is counter to her being not fun. I feel like a not fun wife doesn't sleep in the nude. I don't know. Yeah, she should have cited her own nudity. Yeah, it's like, she should say,

hey, we just had sex or whatever. I don't know. Yeah, she should have cited her own nudity. Yeah, it's like she should say, hey, we just had sex or whatever. I'm fine. I think a mother of three, 10 years into the marriage, who still sleeps in the nude in bed. That's, that's, that is a fun life. Pretty fun. Yeah. It's the next morning. Marge is asking the kids if she nags too much. We get a nagging montage, which in order Colonel Homer, all the rest are from Dog of Death. Three in a row from Dog of Death. Wow, that episode was full of nagging. And then the murmurs are from Homer the Heretic, Homer to find another Dog of Death,

and Bart versus Thanksgiving. Though yeah, it seemed like they found Dog of Death and they're like, do we really need to find every other time she did it? We got her saying it three times in Dog and death. We don't need to search out other episodes. Had Marge's nagging been like explicitly called out before? Cause it almost seems like a meta commentary on the fact that sometimes they don't know what to do with Marge.

That was a good catch Nick, because I think this is the first time they use the word nag or nagging and that that becomes a running joke to the point where at least it's some very funny ones. Like I believe it is in King Size Homer where Marge is trying to find her least nagging tone of voice. She's like that's it. That's the one. Yeah. Yeah, it's good that I mean, at least they're acknowledging the fact that that's what they

write for her. Yeah, it feels like Meyer as a season one writer now to this point, he's like, yeah, Marge when we write her, she's never fun. Her job is to just say, this thing that's happening in the story shouldn't happen, this is bad, I don't want this to happen. Yeah, and then on the episode when she says, I don't think that's a good idea,

David Merkin says that's Marge's catchphrase. To the point where it becomes a cool action catchphrase when she becomes a cop. That's right, that's right. She recontextualizes it when she's like drawing a gun on Herman. Like, I don't think that's a good idea. Oh, that's so good.

Yeah, at least they found a way for her to at least be cool being an hag. I also love how Lisa just is seemingly lying to Marge or going like, well, then when the montage is over, Homer says, see Marge, which it's like, like everybody watched the montage together. Yeah, I guess just by the looks on their faces or their hesitation, Marge realizes that they had nothing to say.

They had no way to sugarcoat this. I have had a Marge reaction like this sometimes when I've asked my husband like, why don't do that, do I? And then three or four instances get said back to me. And then I have to go like, no, I'm fine. Do you just have to watch his face as he imagines things? Yeah. As he remembers things. Seems like there's always one partner in a long-term relationship though that is keeping an account of everything you've

done wrong in every instance of it so. It's good good that somebody's yeah keeping record of that somewhere. If it was a fun clip montage like in a sitcom, they'd be more fun Yeah, I agree. So Marge runs off to her sisters They give her a blood pressure in a urine test and this is where the guest of the episode comes in I was gonna say big moment on the Simpsons This is the first time that we see Marge's pee and I think the only time I Don't think we ever see any Simpsons characters urine throughout the rest of the episode Do you really?

Important moment in the show I don't remember that She holds the glass up or the the lab cup or whatever you want to call it and it's yellow liquid Which is kind of like a gross joke just to be shoving pee in someone's face in 1993 It is wow. I didn't even really I didn't even register for me. But yeah, you see Marge's specimen Wow, you know the clinical nature of it gave us the remove from it. But I'm going to be watching for pee

as we go on in the later seasons. We've heard Marge fart before, but this is the first time we've seen her pee. That's right. She does fart. Like, ugh, shut me up. The new bodily functions segment on the show. I'm looking forward to it.

Just as we also keep track of who has the biggest penis in The Simpsons. And nobody's beat Ned Flanders just show. I'm looking forward to it. Just as we also keep track of who has the biggest penis in The Simpsons. Nobody's beat Ned Flanders just yet. Yeah, that's silhouette. It's hard to beat that. We go to the infomercial controlling the airwaves, which I feel like these days it's just,

I mean, I'm sure you can see infomercials at any time on regular TV to this day, but it's been replaced with like, you know, auto playing YouTube ads or whatever. You don't just have an hour of TV that pretends to be anything other than a commercial. I miss infomercials though. I mean, like there was nothing better

than coming back late from something and then just with their friends and then just watching infomercials. Like, and I still like in our early days of touring, we'd come back from a show and still kind of be wired and be in a crummy hotel somewhere and watching something for a blender. As a couple pretending to just have people over to demonstrate a new product they've got and things like that.

Remember there was one with a woman who was probably in her 20s but playing like an old lady in a bathrobe. This is what I felt was kind of a failed one woman show character that she was doing in this infomercial As like somebody coming over to see how a breakfast blender worked or something This was a real golden age for infomercials and infomercial parodies And I remember as a kid I would just watch them after Saturday morning cartoons were over like they were shows I think I watched the food dehydrator Infomercial dozens of times and I just thought of all the ways our families my family's life could be improved if we could only dehydrate

food. It just yeah I mean it was just it's fun to watch and then you know just always the but wait there's more where it's like they spend the whole hour describing the value of this and they're like and we'll throw in another one for the same price so wait how valuable could it be if you're getting two for that same price. I also miss the valuable could it be if you're getting two for that same price? I also miss the days when the sketch comedy writers of America were watching infomercials and then making sketches about those instead

of just reality shows. There was a shift of, oh, now they watch reality shows all the time, and that's then what they parody because it's what they're enjoying instead of making sketches like Magic Pan on Show that's what I was gonna break up. Yeah, so many great parodies There's one too that has kind of become a staple of our live show and we're playing it again for the 20th anniversary Show but it's the rejuvenate facial toning mask and you may have seen this

It's like a beige mask with lips on it and eyes cut out. There's modern versions of this that are far more tame. It's just like red light, you know, UV light. But this actually will electrocute you on your face using a 9-volt battery with these probes on the inside. And so the infomercial is showing how, you know, you can use it in the bath and there's a woman bathing and her eye is twitching from the electrical pulses going through.

And Linda Evans, the nighttime soap actress, was the spokesperson for it. And absolutely horrifying. She was the Martha Quinn of that. My theory is that they molded the mask to look like Linda Evans a little bit, but I don't know. That could just be my conspiracy theory. I have a bit about Martha Quinn.

Do we have a clip for this before we go any further? Oh, yes, yeah. Let's hear from the nagging. Mmm. See, Marge? I didn't realize people saw me that way. Are you mad? No, I'm fine.

I'm going to my sister's now. Woohoo! Careful there, Martha. You almost nicked me. Your blood pressure is off the chart. And I don't like this urine sample one bit. You're headed for a nervous breakdown. You need Brad Goodman. His infomercial plays round the clock on Channel 77. Thank you, Martha Quinn.

There you have it. Unrehearsed testimonies from important celebrities. She's one of my favorites. I loved her in the thing I saw her in. You know, my course can help you with every personality disorder in the feel bad rainbow. Let's look at the rainbow. What's in there? Depression, insomnia, motor mouth dotting, eyes, indecisiveness, decisiveness, bossiness,

uncontrollable falling down, geriatric profanity disorder or GPD, and chronic nagging, nagging, nagging, nagging. Sorry, it does that sometimes. This infomercial is great. It's a great, but it's the first of two infomercial. We get double infomercial parodies here. David Merkin really liked the playing with the idea of a character hearing something repeating,

but then finding out that it's actually being repeated in real life because we have this town is a part of us all, a part of us all, a part of us all. Or at the end of the season when Marge is hearing Homer talk to her in the past, he's in the back seat talking through a poster tube. Yeah, that's right. Forever?

It's very like Zuckar Abram Zuckar, you know, like airplane jokes. I feel like there's a lot of gags where, you know, or even Mel Brooks where there's an orchestra playing and then you see the orchestra, you know, kind of had that feel to it. Very slapstick. And a bit about Martha Quinn in case you're not, I don't know, in your 40s or older. This is kind of a mean dig at her. She was one of the original MTV VJs. She left MTV in 1986 and then came back for a shorter run from 1989 to 1992. And her biggest non-MTV role was in Problem Child 2, so perhaps that was the thing Brad Goodman saw her in.

Like he delivers it so perfectly of just like he can't even name what she was in like I loved her in the thing I saw her in. And I want to report that currently she is on our level because Martha Quinn is a podcaster. She hosts the Martha Quinn show on iHeartMedia and I believe she recently celebrated her 65th birthday so she's a senior citizen now. She looks great! Happy birthday! Yeah I saw her recently and she's in an early crush of course and like just I don't know

like a super smart woman who knew a lot about music like in the 80s that was like that was uh that unlocked a lot of things for me. Really Kennedy was my Martha Quinn but then she broke my heart by being a conservative. Yeah. I guess that is the fate of a lot of punk rock people later in life. He broke bad. Unfortunately, that's the only thing they can rebel against is common decency. Sad.

Yes, this is A. Brooks' return to the show. I think he's killing it here. One thing I love on the commentary of the George Meyer, even thing I love on the commentary that George Meyer Even he makes fun of of like oh, yeah It was so fresh in 1993 to make fun of self-help guys boy I was really on the cutting edge there like that's funny I think he is doing a very good job But even he is I think he is recognizing that he had just started going to therapy and so he was probably feeling a little Annoyed at therapy or wanting to make fun of it. You know, I get that. Yeah. I mean, this episode is slightly dated. I mean, it's 30 plus years old and it's a lot of just talking about what therapy is as it's being accessed by more people. But

it does really predict about how therapy speak is used to weaponize bad behavior and to excuse bad behavior. That is true. Yeah. This, this, it turns into not to spoil late sopranos, but that was the moral of late sopranos. Therapy taught a sociopath how to be a better sociopath. It didn't help him. I mean, around this time too, maybe it predated it, this episode, but Stuart Smalley seemed like a similar character and sort of this neutered male therapy speak kind of for self-affirmations. And yeah, so something was in the zeitgeist

about therapy at the time. Actually, Brad Goodman's sweater is very Stuart Smalley as well, isn't it? I think they might both be based on a real self-help guy, John Bradshaw. He popularized the idea of the inner child and the dysfunctional family, things that Stuart Smalley was also very wrapped up

in talking about. Yeah, it seemed, I was expecting when I went to John Bradshaw's wiki that it would have like, you know, some scandal in it or like, but then he stole all this money or whatever, but there wasn't anything listed there. It sounded like he had a constant career of doing self-help stuff and passed away from heart failure in 2016 at age 82, like married the same woman for 20 years, nothing too spicy in there. And the idea of an inner child or the wounded inner child was still fairly new in terms of

everyone being aware of it because his 1990 book, Homecoming, Champing and Reclaiming Your Inner Child, was a number one bestseller. So a lot of people were buying this book in the early 90s. And he had a VHS tape. He had a lot of them actually. I think we have a couple, we have one about divorce, and I saw that he has a 10 tape set out that was called The Family, and it just like had every single seminar he had done about family issues, about yeah, children, you know, the problem child and things like that.

Not the Martha Quinn problem child, the just having a problem child. And oftentimes at thrift stores when we're looking for VHS tapes, well, I think we found some Bradshaw, would look like VHS tapes, but you open them. And in our business, this like drives you nuts. It's like 10 cassette tapes,

but in a plastic VHS clamshell. And we're just like, no, this could have been good. But instead it's just self-help cassette tapes. And by the way, Brad Goodman looks nothing like John Bradshaw. I do like his design because it's a touchy, feely guy in a big, cozy sweater with poofy hair and he's sort of half-lidded. He is the kind of perfect depiction of a self-help guru,

is perfectly calm and in touch with his own feelings. For the one time, he snaps at Marge. I found a John Bradshaw clip from 1990 that is, it's like nine minutes long of him on the Oprah Winfrey show. It is him basically doing what he, what Brad Goodman does later in the episode of telling people like, talk to your inner child. I just have about 20 seconds of it here. And I love you just the way you are.

I love you just the way you are. And just imagine you could take the child and put them in your heart. Just imagine that you could put the child in your heart so that they're as close to you as the air you breathe. So that when you breathe in and out, you feel that little child there. You feel your feelings, you feel your needs, you feel your wants, and it's all there right in your heart.

He's telling everybody close your eyes and like, it seems corny now with we've had so much more therapy speak in that clip. I I sent it to you Bob people are sobbing it's men and women in the audience just like tears Flowing as they're being told to do this stuff by Bradshaw It does feel like a group of people who did not ever have to confront the idea of mental health Which I guess was true in that time period. No one was talking about it, really, unless you had serious problems. I think my problem, and I talk about this in therapy, is there's no inner child, it's an outer child.

Like, I never got to the phase where I had to hide that. So, for better or for worse, I mean, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Henry and I were in the video game industry, and then we did a Simpsons podcast for 10 plus years, so we're just hanging out with little Bob and Henry every day. Yeah. And we do a VHS show and tell show,

and then I'm showing my cast and crew jackets off at my favorite vintage shops of 80s merchandise. So yeah, if anything, it's like, no, wait, how do I bury the child part and become more of an adult? I haven't figured that out yet. I feel like John Bradshaw would tell us, you know what, inner child, you're doing great. I have other notes now. Like I could see why it had an appeal to, you know, baby boomer who, you know, had to grow up fast, went through a lot of stuff that made them crummy parents.

And I get that. I can see why it touched people. It's not so easy to make fun of, though. Meyer, I think, found a good inroad of, well, if your inner child was Bart, then you would just be like shitty, and you maybe should stop being that all of the time. But so Marge takes this video and is gonna now show it to Homer. In the script, it does say,

a la Martin, Homer walks in and says, what up? So not that we knew it was a Martin reference, but. That was the Simpson's sister show around this time. Yeah, when they wrote it, it was the 8.30 show, but at this time, Martin had moved over to Sundays with Livin' Single, and the Sinbad show was the 8.30 show on Thursdays. But it was written when Martin was their co-show.

Yeah, Sundays was Martin, then Livin' Single, and then Married with Children. Usually, and then, no, Herman's Head was still on Thursdays, though Herman's Head, not long for this world. No, the axe is about to fall on Herman's Head, literally. In the original script, too, Marge had rented Short Circuit 2, the director's cut, as a treat for Homer to watch after he watched the video. Oh, that seems like a movie Homer would really enjoy because I loved it when I was eight or six

or whenever it came out. Have you watched it recently? No, I have. It's been a good probably 25 years or more. Yeah, same. And then I rewatched it recently with some friends who'd never seen it who are younger, you know? And they're like, this isn't okay.

Not only the, you know, the Indian character and all that, but there's just a lot of things that I'm not aware of. Yeah, they got the brown face in under the wire. The legislation was being written and they were getting the sequel in theaters. Just squeaked it in. It is crazy to build the sequel around Fisher Stevens' character.

And like, I think Ali Shidi recorded like new dialogue. She's a recorded message in it. That's it though. It's like Anthony Edwards in Nerds 2 where he just like appears as like on the phone and as a ghost. Yeah, they kind of just almost literally phoned it in. Though it is a tale about the immigration process

and becoming a naturalized u.s. Citizen And so they you know sweet in a certain way does Johnny five become u.s. Citizen. I believe so I well yeah, I have some bad news everybody he did vote for Trump It's very similar to the end of Mac and me where the aliens become naturalized and are wearing suits and taking the oath that and They they came out like not too far apart. So it must have been a trope at the time. Man, they're both fair. That is a similar ending.

They both end at a naturalization ceremony. But meanwhile, it's time for Troy McClure. And like he said, Bob, this is just a Saturday Night Live sketch, a brilliant one, but it's not really like a scene from the show so much. Troy McClure introduces us to the Brad Goodman something or other. Oh, hi, I'm Troy McClure.

You might remember me from such self-help videos as smoke yourself thin and get confident, stupid. Well, now I'm here to tell you about the only real path to mental health. That's right, it's the Brad Goodman something or other. Marge, can I go outside and play? Shh. A few weeks ago, I was a washed up actor with a drinking problem. something or other. Marge, can I go outside and play? Shh! A few weeks ago, I was a washed-up actor

with a drinking problem. Then Brad Goodman came along and gave me this job and a can of fortified wine. Mm. Ah! Sweet liquor eases the pain. And now I'd like to introduce the man who will put the you in impr-u-vement.

Brad Goodman! Thank you so much, Troy. And by the way, I'm not happy you're still drinking. But at least you're down to one from more than 50. Folks, I'm often asked about my qualifications. Well, I may not have a lot of credentials or training, but I tell you one thing, I'm a PhD in pain. Now let me show you how you can change your life. Troy, this circle is you. My God, it's like you've known me all my life. Yeah, I think it's not just the slowness of his talking.

They leave in all of the very long pauses, which they normally clip out for the sake of fitting everything in a 22-minute show. When he reads the list of the feel-bad rainbow ailments, that feels like the speed of a normal Simpsons character talking. So I can see it's all very, very funny, but you can see why they have to devote so much time just

to get him to talk. I have said so many of these things. I definitely, me and you, Bob, have said many times, get confident, stupid. That's a great one. And nowadays, I am a red wine on the airplane kind of guy because less liquid means less pee breaks. And I often get the can of wine and I think,

oh yeah, sweet liquor eases the pain. I say, take little sips. I don't think, at the end, doesn't he say McGarnical eases the pain? Oh yeah, yeah. I never realized that that was a callback. To me, it just seemed like a kind of a funny thing Homer would say but it must be referencing this That could be or maybe that just that expression was in their heads. Yeah, I've often said that it's a very George Meyer thing to be like, oh, yeah life is just pain and any light distraction eases it

I'm really glad they didn't stick this alcoholism to Troy McClure for that long I feel like this is just a temporary side road because at this point Lionel Hutz was also brought very low That's true him there on the path of like Troy and Hutz would just be at the same AA meetings They found a smarter thing to give Troy instead a romantic abnormality But yeah, you guys I had found footage fast. You've had a lot of self-help tapes like this I was trying to remember from the last years I went to that I watched at the same time as George Meyer. The closest thing to this I remember was the bowel movement instructional tape, which was truly hitting. Yes. And he did infomercials.

Yeah, this guy, Dr. Schultz, had this new age herbal, you know, system. And he convinced a seminar full of people and then put it out on VHS It was called dr. Schultz miracle healing and it's called elimination the first step It was like a Ramada conference room that he's somehow gotten a hundred people to pay for this seminar Where he's talking about how to have more complete bowel movements and telling stories about his hang ups about bowel movements and the funniest part does is the audience cutaways. Because they're just like people looking bored. One woman's got her hand over her face kind of looking through her fingers at it. And they bring a guy up to tell a bowel story at one point.

And he shows the results of after using his program. It's a photo, you know, a print that got developed somewhere of a five foot ball movement in a bathtub. And he gets a round of applause for foot ball movement in a bathtub. He gets a round of applause for it. That was his moment. The seminar. Yeah, it was. His name was Mac.

And so at the end of the show, we had like a postcard for discount off of our web store and we thought, oh, let's just put, you know, let's recreate that image of Mac's five foot ball movement. We overestimated the demand for those. So we still have, we finished that tour. we still have about a thousand of those left. So hey, if anybody wants a free recreation of the ball movement photo in a bathtub from that self-help video, let us know. Well, we got plenty to give away. People didn't know how to talk to their inner child. They didn't know how to poop. Like they, people need a lot of help in the nineties. They did. Yeah.

After, after watching the video together, Marge and Homer I think are having a mature discussion and this also does feel a little meta-textual of like if characters in sitcoms just talk through their feelings there would be no conflict and it would be a boring show. AC But this is also I guess very critical of therapy because it is just finding the language for Homer to get away with being a jerk. Like I don't want to feel bad about anything and here's why. Yeah. The, uh, the life script puts them into a shame spiral. Well, but Homer, you did eat

all of her brownies. Like she probably should have told you not to do that. It is true though. You can weaponize, like, especially if you're in like couples therapy, which I've been in a couple of times, it can be helpful, but yeah, you could also weaponize it against, or you're like, Hey, remember what we brought up? And it's like, Oh no, you're bringing that up here and you can use it to make the point. Home movies had a good joke episode about this too. I remember of like gentle talk, I think it was,

but just of how the expressing of very negative emotions but of like, I'm feeling that I think that I, when you know underneath it is just like, just you want to scream at each other. Yeah, I wonder how helpful those things are too. Cause like also it's just like just you want to scream at each other. Yeah I wonder how helpful those things are too because like also it's just weird to be talking to like a long-term partner or whatever and all the sudden talk in ways you don't you know 99% of the rest of the time you interact definitely could be helpful for de-escalation of things but sometimes it just makes you more mad.

But in this case it does prevent a funny scene from happening Homer ate all the brownies and Marge they just talk through it and everything's fine. Ends with the kids going, huh? They think everything's fine. This is when Marge goes like, I'm going to stop nagging and have more fun. That's the end of her problems until the finale of the episode. This is where Homer, after passing up Surplus Storms of Mayonnaise from Operation Desert Storm, which gets funnier every year since Desert Storm that this episode has aired

Surplus mayonnaise just a funny turn of phrase You decide they're gonna go to the self-help seminar after like another great shot like Bart writing the chair in a garbage disposal Like it's the mechanical ball. That's great. Mm-hmm And then comes another fantastic little scene about sitcom writing. Well, here we are at the Brad Goodman lecture. We know, Dad. I just thought I'd remind everybody, after all, we did agree to attend this self-help seminar. What an odd thing to say.

That's great. And it made me identify as a kid, why would characters wait until they get to the establishing shot to talk about why they're there? Or, you know, on a sitcom, the two characters come home and say, I can't believe you said that to me at the restaurant. They wait until they can be seen by an audience before they do anything interesting. Right. What was the car ride back? What were they talking about then, you know, before they walked into the- And it's like, everybody knows why they drove there. They got in the car together to do it. But when they arrive, Homer's saying,

"'As you know, we all agree.'" Like, even points a finger up in the air to make it even more, like, fake and dramatic. There would also be those reminders coming back from a commercial break, like, well, that's the last balloon for the fundraiser, you know, just to remind people, "'All right, we just saw a lot of commercials,

"'but now here's, we're back in the--" And you know Prove me wrong, but I think this could be the longest scene ever in The Simpsons to take place in the same room. There's a lot of funny stuff in here, but it does feel like not the standard pacing for the show. And it does feel like another George Meier sketch where you can easily see this on SNL. It's the guru and all the different characters come up and he encounters all of them and has jokes with all of them And then there's some blackout joke. You can easily see how that is something he would write. We did an episode Henry I believe it was Homer Simpson in Kidney Trouble where Homer goes to that island of lost souls George Meyer wrote that episode and that also feels very sketch like yeah

You're right everybody telling their stories together And it's just both of those feel like perfect S&L of you instantly get in in a concept of like, this is it's why so many Saturday night live sketches or talk show parodies, because it's an instant excuse for characters to talk to each other. And same deal with this of just the one guy's at a microphone and he's going to do a presentation and silly things will happen. Like it is a perfect sketch setup. There's something old school though that I like about that. You know, like even like the Mo and the lie detector bit, and silly things will happen. Like, it is a perfect sketch setup. There's something old school, though, that I like about that, you know? Like, even like the Moe and the Lie Detector bit.

Like, that could have been a standalone sketch on almost anything, and it's just, like, a little set piece comedy. It almost feels vaudevillian in a way. So I like that throwback. In the original script, there's a couple bits they cut walking through where it's being held. There are other presentations happening they pass by the

ring man which is a guy who buys your high school class rings for low amounts of money and then sea captain has find shrunken treasure presentation and the only two attendees are other sea captains who think he's bad at finding sunken treasure I guess his only appearance in this as a is a giant pervert that's his role in this is a giant pervert. That's his role in this episode. Yeah. Do you remember the learning annex?

You know what the other classes were in that? Because it's a similar idea, right? It's paced just like the learning annex bit, yeah. Which were the Mo teaches dance and the how to eat an orange. Microwave cookery. Yeah. Oh, spit chewing tobacco. How to spit chewing tobacco is the one I remembered

Yeah, so Brad Goodman just as John Bradshaw and now I see that it's both have Brad in their name So that's the there's the joke there But just like in the Oprah clip he tells everybody to close their eyes and listen their inner child And yeah, I think food goes in here mama me They're all they're all so funny. And Ned loves his inner child. They did cut two funny inner child bits. Marge is inner child is telling her she's too boring. Barney's inner child is begging him to quit drinking because he knows the cure for cancer.

I really liked the drawing of Moe's inner child. I feel like that would be a great animation sell or like a super seven figure. I would buy that one. Now Moe was like Polish or whatever Syslack implies, but when the Super Mario Brothers movie came out in 2023, I did post, why you no talking with a U accent no more? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Yeah, it's great. I like to think of Moe as a shamed Italian immigrant. I like that. Then after everybody listens to their child, then Skinner takes the stage. Principal Skinner, let's try some rage work. I want you to pretend this dummy right here is your mother. Okay, I'll try.

Tell this dummy mother exactly how you feel, right now. I'm annoyed with you, mother. Not just annoyed, angry. I'm a grown man now and I can run my own life! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Shh, shh, shh, calm down, calm down. I'm a grown man now and I can run my own life Moving you can sit down now. We're still going antiquing on Saturday, right mother Sheer is going for it there man. Yeah. Yeah, they're really escalating the Skinner Agnes antagonism because in the Halloween episode that's when mother took away my car keys for speaking to a woman she was right to do it.

What was the inflatable bath pillow fight? I think that's coming up right? Yeah that's in the cops one. Yeah. Thankfully they cut that joke from the Beatles episode where she's a very creepy lady who tells them not to have sex. I'm glad they cut that. Yeah she literally is Norman Bates's mother.

In this case, honestly, it feels like they hadn't discovered this yet with Agnes. Her name isn't even Agnes yet. She just looks at him silently for the joke instead of Tress McNeil calling him pathetic or whatever. I do love the comedy of Skinner. So openly shows how much he hates his mother and then just sits back down next to her like nothing happened. That's so great. That dynamic is so funny. I always liked the Agnes Skinner stuff.

I was seeing another thing I think is consistent in George Meier's stuff, which is it's the sadness of growing up. Lisa learns that Washington actually is very cynical and hopeless, or Bart becomes a cop while Lisa learns she won't be a professional musician and in this one Bart sees that being a smart aleck eventually has its limits. I see that as what Meyer is exploring here too a little bit.

I think that message sort of hit home for me too, you know, as a smart aleck kid. It did sort of give me pause. Now, do you guys think, this is something I was thinking with Brad Goodman, how much of a phony is Brad Goodman? And do you think, now I read it as, Brad Goodman sees that Bart is disrupting his authority in the room, and so he pivots to say, actually, this kid's great, and we should all be like him.

Or is this a natural movement for him, I guess? I think he's looking at the clock this entire time. Yeah, that was my take too, is that he is a bit of a phony. That just seemed to be the Simpsons take on most of these guru types. So I think that would make sense. Bart has just good enough comedy of like a human going, earth to boring guy.

Like these are not super clever, but clever enough for a 10 year old. It's hard to write intentionally bad comedy. So you got to give him credit for that. I also love how Brad Goodman reacts back to him with just like, I'm not so old-fashioned, am I? Apparently a lot of these were Albert Brooks ad-libs, which is something he would famously do

in all of his performances, and it was hard for them to decide what to keep. With season one, they did put a lot of the jock outtakes on the DVD, but they didn't do that in further seasons. I'd love to hear the, I don't know, two hours of Brad Goodman we didn't get. Did you know who Albert Brooks was before hearing him on The Simpsons? Absolutely not Nick. No, yeah, me neither.

I was much more aware of his brother at Super Dave as a kid. Oh, me too. Yeah. Yeah. I think I only knew him from, well, my dad was a big fan, but like the Nick at Night reruns of the early SNL seasons, his short films. And so I loved him in those. I don't know that I put two and two together that he was the voice of Jacques when it aired, but there was one that

I don't think is online anywhere, but anybody can seek it out. It was like, I think very Albert Brooks premise where there's a national audience research Institute that's going to tell him how to improve his comedy. And it's just this corporate building in Phoenix where there's like a focus group watching his comedy routine and being like hooked up to electrodes being like that's not funny, that's not funny, I'm not laughing. He does almost a therapy thing in that where he locks himself in a room with the person who absolutely hates his comedy to see if he can convince him to like him. And he says no no matter what happens don't let me out of this room, you know, until I

convince him. And of course the guy's like, I hate you and you're not funny. And he's like, let me out, let me out. It's such a funny short, but I don't think it's on. Maybe it's somewhere like on archive.org or something, but I love those shorts. And then I think I finally put two and two together like, oh yeah, that's the guy who's the Simpson's gas. Yeah, we got the internet around the time you only move twice aired and I decided who is this guy that's been on the show a bunch. I looked it up and I thought oh he's in all these movies my video store doesn't have. Okay. Right. I

think his movies are now much more appreciated. The Criterion collection has like put most of his directed films out now at this point. I think I just got the Defending Your Life Blu-ray in a new sale from Criterion. It was a little while later. Maybe he was in after Hank Scorp point. I think I just got the Defending Your Life Blu-ray in a new sale from Criterion. It was a little while later, maybe he was in after Hank Scorpio. I think it was seeing, I think it was like a real life

for Defending Your Life playing on Comedy Central was when I finally really appreciated it. Now he's like still a living legend of comedy. Like everybody loves him. There's that two-part documentary series that was out recently. And yeah, I think he's kind of having a Renaissance. But here he was doing it, I mean, mean from season one he was doing it as like a

favor to James O Brooks or whatever I always felt like. Brooks got him you know made him a more serious actor in people's eyes thanks to broadcast news and then he is incredibly miscast in I'll Do Anything like it is so ridiculous. He's basically playing like a an asshole executive type well actually he's Joel Silver specifically. It seems all wrong. But anyway in this case Goodman calls up the parents to stage. I love Homer eating two candy apples at the same time. Just great. Marge thinks her hair is normal. Her reaction to being told like is clearly shock value. She's like, is that what they think? Yeah, I guess the showing how much he is a fraud,

I think the cracks start to show when he does snap on Marge when he kind of loses control a little bit, but it's still not too intense. And also I think Meyer says that it's supposed to be pronounced a Ruttiger, but the Nancy said Ruttiger, so they just went with it. I like Ruttiger better. It's funnier, it's just a funnier word.

This is where Brad Goodman sends the town into a fury. People, I am excited. I can sense a change in the air tonight. You are all going to start living, really living. Hey, living, living. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Just the ladies. Be like the boy.

Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy.

Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like the boy. Be like boy! Be like boy! Just the ladies. Be like boy! Be like boy! Now the seniors in the back.

We like Roy! We like Roy! This is madness. He's just peddling a bunch of easy answers. And how? This is a little bit of like, Lisa is the one sane person in the crazy world kind of story, but they only do that for like about 30 seconds as well. Yeah, it feels like the baton is being passed to her, but it's really not. Yeah, well, she's not that invested in stopping Brad Goodman. Mainly just she wants people to know that she's

smarter than everybody, and she's the only one who sees through it. I have to say that my favorite thing in The Simpsons is dumb groupthink scenes. So the crowd scene, they're like, give us hell, Quimby. I love that. And you get a little bit of that here, too, where just everybody is all of a sudden peddling

a bunch of easy answers. And how? And there's almost the ah-hu. It kind of laughed to it. I just love it how easily persuaded the crowds are at Springfield. I also love antiquated sayings like and how or I'll say. I try to work those into my daily rotation. And I'm sure I'm very irritated. I'm just now realizing that when I say and how, or I'll say. I try to work those into my daily rotation,

and I'm sure I'm very irritated. I'm just now realizing that, yeah, when I say and how, it probably comes from The Simpsons. Otherwise, where would I have heard that phrase? And I love Karl Post hugging the books. Like, he's bought multiple copies of every book, too. Just ate them up. Everybody is caught on in the fever of it.

In the original script, it does say Kent Brockman says fucking and then it puts the word bleep it next to it. So they call it out in that original script too. Oh, actually is an original script thing I need to mention because it comes into the deleted ending. Another thing they walk by at the seminars before they go to the Brad Goodman one is a how to massage your wife thing. And the guy says, put the coconut oil on your naked wife. And then Homer goes, ah! And then runs away, like, cause he walks the kids into like a sensual room.

That'll be important for the original finale. But then everybody is getting into it. Bart thinks he's a god. This also is a little bit of Homer becoming the chosenosen One here. Yeah, I can see that. There's some elements from other Merkin things. Like going back to the trampoline,

it did feel a lot like the elephant, where the elephant now becomes an attraction he's charging money for and children are being hurt by it. Yes. I thought of Stampy too. Similar idea. This is full of a lot of ideas that are done well enough here but get expanded on better

in later Merkin season. But this is still early in the Merkin time. They did cut a bit where in the original script, Dr. Hibbert gets into pranking a fellow surgeon by hiding a boxing glove inside somebody. And then when a surgeon cuts open the guy again, the boxing glove pops out and hits him. Also the Kent blasting his mouth with two whipped cream canisters, that's so, as a kid, I am sure I imitated that

because I saw Kent Brockman do it on TV. It's why we couldn't keep whipped cream canisters in the house. It was meant to be applied to the tops of things. Right. It's why we had to switch to Cool Whip. It's why you can't do it that way with Cool Whip. I just heard comedy podcaster John Gabris

like live do a Whippet hit on a thing. Like I was an innocent child, I never did these things. Well now you don't need to buy the actual product. Now they sell the canisters at gas stations. I have seen those. The brain damage canisters. Yeah, I've seen those littered around and been like, what was somebody doing, you know,

pine box derby or whatever they would use, you know, they put the CO2 cartridges in the back of those. But no, I think it just teens up to no good. After all this, we see that it's not all cracked up to be because Lovejoy decides he's going to get in on it and the slow boringness, like it takes so much time, but it's so funny if somebody trying to play music and being bad at it is so good. I love the timing of it. Yeah, you can barely tell he's trying to play the entertainer. I wonder if they had to license it, you know?

If it was recognizable enough. It's so realistic the way he goes, like, I can do this. I mean, I've probably said that many times. Like, no, no, no, don't. I can do this. I can do this. And having an audience. Wait.

Nope. Yeah, wait. Maybe failing to play a clip correctly at some live show. I think I probably have had that kind of like, wait, wait, wait. Now you guys had found Footage Festival. We can learn some things from you guys. You have a well oiled machine of playing the clips and introducing them. Well, yeah, except when we were doing it,

we did a show in Denver like two weeks ago and we still play our clips off of, we burn a DVD, you know, we edit the VHS clips together into montages and then we author ago, and we still play our clips off of, we burn a DVD, you know, we edit the VHS clips together into montages, and then we author a DVD, and we play it on a PlayStation 3. And people in projection booths are always like, what are you doing? We'll just play it off of a laptop,

or, you know, we can play it back here. But the reason is, and I'm sure you know this, and having worked in video games, it has the best remote control. It's a Bluetooth remote. So a lot of times we'll play like in a big old, like we've played the Egyptian in Seattle, which is like a big old movie palace and places like that.

And we can set our PlayStation up in the booth behind like a foot of concrete and it doesn't need like a line of sight. So we can be on stage or at the front of the movie house and do like a slideshow of our favorite VHS covers. It's just instant. It just reaches through everything. So we always say, ha, there's a method to our madness. For some reason when we were in Denver, the connection was bad and it kept like screwing up and I didn't think we'd have a show for a

while. The audio was all messed up so we had to quick take an intermission and rewire it then it was fixed. But even two decades into this, we panic over technical things. Oh, and you guys, just like my recent trip to Denver, you guys went to Casa Bonita, too. Oh, man. Yeah. What did you think? I loved it. I loved it. Yeah, it really looked. We'd been a couple of times before with this local artist

who called himself the mayor of Casa Bonita and was very upset with when the South Park guys bought it because he's like, it's not going to be the same. So we went there expecting it to not have the same charm, but I thought it was vastly improved. Like I get if you grew up there, you know, maybe it's too slick for you now, but still smelled like chlorine and refried beans.

And just, you know, the food is better and the puppet show is actually funny. But other than that, it felt the same. I loved the mid seventies-ness of it everywhere. It was wonderful. Yeah. They made that documentary when they revealed like, okay, you know, how should we bring this back? Like how modernized do we want it to make it? At one point you can see, I think Trey Parker says it should be like 1970s idea of what the 1800s were like. And so they, sure enough, they have like,

I guess the prospector that gives your fortune, you know, if you put a quarter in. But he's wearing a Farrah Fawcett shirt under his flannel, you know. So it's, I think they nailed that detail. It's kind of a creaky 70s idea of what a 1800s Mexican mining town would look like. I remember when I got the fortune out of it, he was like, tarnation, you know, back in our days, we have tons of monster cereals. That's all, just count Chocula. It was great, great. He says back in my day, but he means 1974.

Right, exactly. Yeah. I like that attention to detail. And then the puppet show is all food items that were discontinued, but made into anthropomorphic versions of like the beef plate. The sopapilla is like a little showgirl on a swing kind of thing. were discontinued but made into anthropomorphic versions of like the beef plate. The sopapia is like a little showgirl on a swing kind of thing and very funny.

It was magical, it was. Then Bart even realizes things aren't so fun in the classroom. The wireless was an invention by Guglielmo Marconi. Who can tell me what his first message was? I want a change of my name! Ah, good one, Millhouse. Anyone else? The first message by wireless?

It was... Our tent's caller will receive tickets to Supertrap! Oh, geez. Everybody's a comedian. And hey, this is the first episode we're recording since Pamela Hayden announced she's stepping down from the role of Millhouse. That's right, man. I'm appreciating her more now hearing her in these. So who else did she do besides Millhouse? Jimbo was another

one of the major roles that Pamela Hayden did. I'm drawing a blank but like just random female characters she will step in to play them as well but mostly Jimbo, Millhouse, and occasionally Martin when Rue C. Taylor was not available. There are so many classic Millhouse lines that I just, I guess it's gotta change. You know, Dr. Hibbard doesn't sound the same, and you know, it's always a little alarming when you're away from it for a while, but I guess that's one of the things in animation,

is you don't just have to like, come up with a reason for people leaving the show. You can just sort of recast them. It seems like it was on good terms, at least. It doesn't feel like she posted it on her social media. Who knows, a year from now maybe there'll be a wrongful termination suit in the courts. I have some theories, and I guess we'll talk to them

on Talk to the Audience this month, but it seems like there's a lot of people who have been there for 30 years that are suddenly leaving, and it's fine to leave a job after 30 years, but I'm wondering if Disney's like, well, this place is falling apart. We can't afford to pay someone with 30 years of seniority. I could also see that.

They're like, we know a 30 year old who can do just as fine a millhouse for scale. Yeah, I mean, the whole Disney clamping down and trying to become more profitable seems like a pretty good reason why they might have been asked them to take pay cuts. They said no, things like that. But how long do you think like Shearer and Dan and Julie will keep doing it? Boy, yeah, I mean, we plan on doing this podcast for a very long time, hopefully the rest of my natural life.

And we are going to live through the deaths of Harry Shearer and Julie Kavanaugh at some point. And I mean, they seem in good health, but Harry Shearer is as old as Joe Biden. And they stopped letting him go out in public. So I wonder if that's not far away for Harry. May he live 30 more years. Yes.

May he live to be as old as Mr. Burns. That'd be great if he was 104 and voicing Mr. Burns. That would be, oh, imagine how great that would be. Oh, now I hope that happens. It did feel like on the regular treehouse this year, Marge and Burns were sounding better than they had in a little while. And we were not sure how that happened,

but maybe they found a new process or something, or they caught them on a good day. But yes, voice actors get old. We live in a better time than compared to like, the original Fred Flintstone didn't last very long because everybody smoked and drank so much back then. And actors last longer now in voice roles. I think the most significant voice change that I remember is when Kermit, you know, when Jim Henson died and then his son took over Kermit,

and it was pretty alarming when you first heard Kermit in like Muppet Treasure Island or, you know, and you're like, oh, it doesn't feel right, you know, it feels different. But then you get used to it and you know, you become a person who doesn't like change. So the show will adapt, it's more powerful than any one actor but it will be sad. Yeah, it's weird, like Kermit number two was Steve Whitmire but he was directed in a ton of stuff by Bryan Henson.

Oh maybe that's what I was thinking. They worked together a lot. But I think he ended up playing Kermit for almost as long as Jim Henson did. So he just became... It was a rough transition for me as a kid with the Christmas Carol movie. I think it was the first time he really took over. But then now third Kermit, I'm like, I do not have a stomach for third Kermit.

Get him out of here. I could only accept so many Kermit voices in my lifetime. I've been lucky like other characters. I like Knock on Wood. All of the Ninja Turtles are still around. Most of the original Transformers voices are still around. So these characters still, Freddy in Scooby Doo has sounded the same

for 20 years before I was born, like 15 years before I was born, like Frank Welker.jpg, as you guys like to say. He's been a constant, so there hasn't been as much replacement voices in our lives, but yeah. It's gonna happen. Peter Cullen is still doing strong as Optimus Prime, right? So yeah, yeah, we shall see though Of course, he just got replaced in the movies He's voiced by Chris Hemsworth was just him in the Transformers one and he was fine. I'm not I'm not gonna be too negative

That's the fully animated one. That was yeah. Yeah, that was the one that just came out in theaters Yeah, CGI one. Yeah that self- that just came out in theaters, the CGI one, yeah. That self-satisfied laugh that Pamela Hayden does for Millhouse, such a great little joke that I, imagine I make that noise every time I feel good about a tweet I make. You go, ooh. So isn't that social media now of everybody

just jumping to the, like everybody tries to make the joke at the same time? Especially if you make the joke, and then you get replies with people saying, no, I have a better one. Yeah. Blue sky. I don't see it as much, but that was really something on Twitter. If you have a good enough joke, your replies will be, here's me telling the joke for you

worse with more words in it. Oh, it's arrived at blue sky in full force. It has. Oh, yeah. I got it. I'm making the transition. I think next week to blue sky, just, you Yeah. I got it. I'm making the transition, I think, next week to Blue Sky. Just, you know, I got all the advice about putting the top tweets you've got

or the last 10 up there. So you kind of have a stable of things when people follow you. So working on that. But yeah, I've heard it's less toxic. Sorry to see that people are doing the hat on the hat joke thing already. There are not as many bot replies that are just there to start an argument with me. Yes, I've noticed. We'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Yeah. Also apparently the actual first message he said was, can you hear me? That's boring. Yeah. It's no what hath God wrought, which is way better. Then Bart sees that even spitting on the overpass has been taken from him, which is clearly killing people.

Like people are dying off screen. When you've got headphones on, the foley of all the people hawking and spitting on the overpass has been taken from him, which is clearly killing people. Like people are dying off screen. When you've got headphones on, the foley of all the people hawking and spitting, by the way, this is 31 years before Hawk 2. They were way ahead of the game. Then there's a great bit of Lisa giving Bart bad advice as he questions his identity. Please, everyone in town is acting like me.

So why does it suck? It's simple, Bart. You've defined yourself as a rebel and in the absence of a repressive milieu your societal niche has been co-opted. I see. Ever since that self-help guy came to town you've lost your identity. You've fallen through the cracks of our quick fix one hour photo instant oatmeal society. What's the answer?

Well, this is your chance to develop a new and better identity. May I suggest good natured doormat? Sounds good, sis. Just tell me what to do. Ah, that's great. Just tell me what to do. That's how you become a doormat. So funny.

This is Lisa being more self-serving instead of helpful. When she suggests good natured doormat, it's to control Bart better. Yes. It's a bit of a sub-dom thing happening between the siblings there. It's a bit odd. So in the original script, this is where Brad Goodman actually appeared in Act Three. Oh.

Bart and Lisa decide they need to confront Brad Goodman about it, so they go to his hotel room. Then they say, like, please, you have to tell everybody to stop following Bart. This is what he says back to them. My seminars work, but not for very long. You can't solve deep-seated psychological problems in a superficial 90-minute workshop. Maybe I should stop doing them.

Anyway, could you hand me my flip-flops? And then they leave. That's nice. Yeah, it would have been nice to see another return outside of him being a golden statue. Then we hear Kent Brockman introduce the Do What You Feel Festival, a stark contrast to the Do As We Say Festival, which was clearly started by Nazis who fled Germany in 1946. German settlers in 1946, great line. I love this joke, but it does, again, point out

the weird pacing of the episode where we start Act Three with Kent Brockman, there's a few scenes and it's like, what is Kent Brockman doing now? Let's go back to him again. Was the poster a parody of an existing poster that they show for the do-it-your-feel it's like a military guy you know blowing bubblegum or something I wondered if that was like a famous propaganda poster that I just didn't

recognize I tried looking for whatever the references and I don't know it's a military guy like blowing bubbles with a wand ah okay not bubblegum but but I don't know if that's an existing photo or a parody of an existing photo, but I do like it. Yeah, that'd be a good piece of art. It's like Patton or something. That's who it looked like, yeah. Groundskeeper Willie is telling everybody he would become mayor and kill every single one of them

and burn the town down, which he wants everybody to hear. He knows the mic's on. Meanwhile, Otto is letting everybody park wherever they feel like, which this does feel a little like Meyer being kind of self-mocking of just that he, you know, he's an anarchist lefty sensibility, but he also is recognizing like, well, if everybody just did what they felt like, you know, you do need to park in a parking space

correctly for society to function, is his argument here. So we get into the Do What You Feel festival. We've got Ned and Carl playing steel drums together to Wiggum's delight, which I think is an adorable image. Yeah, they've got these funky little headbands on too. Yeah, it's like a Muppet performer headband, right? Yeah, yeah, like those little hippie braided headbands. And meanwhile, Marge's sisters are riding around naked like they're Lady Godiva through the city. And then Sea Captain is the only one who is turned on by it.

I think George Meyer just having fun with bad writing, but I love Skinner going, good lord, they're naked. Just saying a very obvious thing, yeah. I also do like the joke of Homer saying, like, oh, I can finally relax without listening to the man. It's like, but Homer, you do everything you feel like all of the time. He's really wearing his Homer the heretic style

religious leader garb. Yeah, when was the last time he had those bear slippers on? I was trying to, that's such a great character detail. It might have been Homer the Heretic, but we're doing season 15 now, and I think Al Jean brought that look back for one scene. Good for them, it's a good look. In the real world, you can wear Homer slippers

that are putting your feet into Homer's mouth instead of the bare feet slippers. Those are disturbing. Yeah, but they should make the actual Homer bear slippers. It would be a deeper cut, but I would buy them. Apu is riding on skateboard with Sanjay, Little Jom Shed, and Pahu Secheta, Nahasapima Petala.

I didn't know she had a name. Oh, I guess she introduces herself at the beauty pageant. I definitely had to look that up. This is before he has his socked up, so this is Sanjay's family here. This is Bart saying, oh, everybody's copying him. There are so many Bart clones out there that he's worth mocking.

And then we also pass by Smithers getting as directly gay as he did up to this point. I will not call ice cream ice cream. I'd only call it iced cream. And until rewatching it, I didn't realize it was from this episode. This so-called iced cream. I do love the identification that a boathouse

is where gay things usually happen. Yes. And that him and Burns were like alone in a boathouse one night, and like Smithers knew it was the right time to make his move, but he chickened out. Like, it sounds like they were like both a little drunk. Basically, I'm writing fanfic now, actually. Oh, you can find about 30 people it was the right time to make his move, but he chickened out. It sounds like they were both a little drunk. Basically, I'm writing fanfic now, actually.

Oh, you can find, I bet 30 people have written the Boathouse scenario out. Seven people have drawn it. Then Quimby, after openly praising his mistress and how he's just comfortable with what a womanizer he is, which I do feel like in this current political climate, the guys are just like, yeah, I am an alcoholic. Yes, I am a racist.

Like, yeah, they just go like, yeah, I am a womanizer. I don't care. The shame is gone. And Quimby was there ahead of that. They asked an animator to draw a woman with large breasts and boy did they ever. And she even like leans into the crowd so they can see her cleavage.

Which Sea Captain takes advantage of. Yeah. But now it's time for our other big guest of the episode for all of 10 Seconds. This man's name wasn't double-boated, huh. Oh, it didn't feel like it. Hey, I hear you, buddy. I don't want to judge the rightness of your ego orientation, but my inner critic says you should have done your job. Hey now, Marge, let's not should this fella to death.

Yeah, next you'll be laying a guilt trip on me for not oiling that phatis wheel. There is James Brown, the late James Brown. Yes, and by the way, 1993 marked the release of his 56th album, Universal James, and he was very prolific obviously to the point where his 57th release in 1998 is titled I'm Back, in case you were worried. Like, oh my god, we've had annual James Brown albums for 50 years! Is he okay? No, I'm worried. Like, oh my God, we've had annual James Brown albums for 50 years. Is he okay? No, I'm back.

I think the only thing that stopped him from recording was being in jail for two years. Yeah, so, I mean, obviously a musical genius and problematic guy. I guess that's probably an understatement. If you haven't seen it though, I think right after that jail sentence, there's a clip when he was on a talk show on CNN

called Sonya Live. You know, before YouTube, we would trade videotapes with other weirdos, and one of the legendary tape-traded videos was James Brown on Sonya Live. And he's clearly on something. And it's early in the morning, and he just keeps shouting and being like, what'd you say? And then like, hey, it's a man's world! Like, just singing out of nowhere. And Sonya, the host, is like, yes, thanks for reminding that it's a man's world. Like just singing out of nowhere.

And Sonja, the host, is like, yes, thanks for reminding that it's a man's world, James. Every once in a while, I forget that. And then he's like, what'd you say? It's so funny, because she's just trying to keep the ship afloat, and James is just on another planet. He's on video for that, right? Yeah, you can see him.

I remember him just being sweaty and just zooted to the gills. I've seen this clip before. We might have even played it the last time we covered this episode. Oh, maybe, yeah. I did find this was linked on the Wiki for the episode, but in Entertainment Weekly in April 1994,

they did an article of contacting about a dozen guest stars who'd been on The Simpsons to celebrate the 100th episode. This was the quote they have from James Brown. It was good, clean, fun, and humorous. And we need more of that around. Long live The Simpsons. That has a real written by my agent vibe or manager. George Meyer has said they repeated it many times

around the office of like, this bandstand wasn't double-bolted. They just love how he says double-bolted. Yeah, and I love the caricature of him. They don't do caricatures this grotesque anymore, but we can be honest, he's got an interesting skull, an interesting facial features, much like Steven Tyler, who they also gave a very ghoulish caricature.

So I just love seeing him. It's such a fun design. Also, it does feel like a runner they had for Quimby at the time of like Quimby introduces like a, you know, R&B musical legend. Like it was first Barry White and now James Brown. Though maybe it was just an excuse to meet James Brown as well, which, hey, I get that.

I feel like he's another one of like, don't go to his scandal section. Or controversy section. No, complicated man. Again, spent two years in jail. Listen to the music. Yeah, we get to see like Marge slowly getting back into her nagging.

And okay, now I believe Bob, unless I remember this wrong, it was, I think maybe this was also Burns' Air, but this is one of those episodes where David Silverman like put his foot down about stage directions being too crazy, right? I'm remembering Burns' Heir as the big one because that involved a zoo train crashing, correct? See, I did remember that too,

but then in this script, that's in there. Oh, okay. Maybe they were misremembering and maybe that scene was originally in here. Yeah, so I have the stage description now. It's already really crazy what they ask the animators to do, which is a Ferris wheel breaks off, it smashes into the zoo, the zoo animals escape and start attacking everybody, and then it is a gigantic riot of everybody in town fights everybody. Now that already is crazy to ask your animators,

but here's the description from the record draft. out. A man in a helmet explodes through a wall marked human cannonball. At the end of the train, the cabooses set on fire. An absurd number of clowns stream out, some in flames. They put each other out in seltzer bottles. Many dangerous wild animals leap from behind cages and make a beeline. For the festival, tigers and several large apes run amok among a panicked crowd." Wow, very complicated. I don't think they had time for that in this third act, but just the ferris wheel full of people crashing through the zoo gates was enough. Yeah, and they'd already drawn hundreds of wounded soldiers, or you know,

they've already done that for the gun with the wind parody, so they're exhausted already. Thanks, Bob. I thought it was at first Burns' Air, but when I was reading this description, I was like, boy, this sounds like the one I thought they said was in Burns' Air, but hey, we'll see if I get to that script if somebody uploaded that to Internet Archive.

We shall see. But yeah, then not only that, but as the riot happens, the giant mob choking each other, it's so great and so complicated, I don't blame them for reusing it in Lisa on Ice and Homer versus the 18th Amendment. Oh, okay, so this layout reused, but God, everybody's moving. There are so many people doing different things. Isn't it great also the timing of like Moe yells at Skinner, turns around to then yell at the squeaky voice team, and then he puts his fist back and then spins back around to punch Skinner on the other side of the frame. It's great. We never heard Moe's

opinion on Skinner until now. Yeah, store-bought haircut and perfect posture. And having Squeaky Voice team tell Moe he hates the sound of his voice, like that's such a great exchange too. It's just funny putting two characters who haven't interacted together together, you know? I mean, five seasons in, that could be a fun, you know, thought experiment for the writers to play with. And as everybody fights everybody, Marge realizes

she should have nagged more. Then we see they almost blame Brad Goodman, who they've turned into a literal golden idol that have women throwing laurels. Like that is from the Ten Commandments, right? The Charlton Heston film, I mean. And the Bible. Sure. Let's not forget the Bible. It happened in both places, yeah. So the riot happens, they realize they have to blame Bart, everybody turns to Bart. Now in the original script, it's not as funny. Originally it was Homer goes, Bart, come here. And then Bart jumps into his arms,

but then Homer just starts strangling Bart and says, I've got him. And then Marge convinces Homer to drive away instead. That is funny. That's good. Not as funny as very slowly getting away. This just is so funny. It's great.

I feel like there are a lot of getaway with this in season five, but the just shrugging off the ending completely, everyone just gets distracted is funny. And a very David, like I just think of tons of episodes of Get a Life. Like I think, which he was the co-creator of, but Chris Elliott would just die at the end of season or no lesson would be learned or the wrong lesson. So it seems like continuing that.

Oh, you guys are big Chris Elliott fans as well, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was a huge Letterman fan and grew up just being blown away by Chris Elliott and his characters. And so loved Get A Life. And then was lucky enough, I worked at the Letterman show, got to meet Chris Elliott and asked him to do like a pre-taped bit, which is a fake public access show I hosted called Talking Beards. So the idea was we'd play public access clips and my partner Joe would say, well, you've had a long running show. And I'd say, I don't like to talk about it.

And then we'd show my public affairs show about beard maintenance and beard issues. And Chris Elliot came on as a bearded celebrity. And it was so funny to write for him in what his character is, kind of snotty. And he just would make a meal out of it. So yeah, huge fan. Oh, man, that's great. So in the final scene here, yes.

First they give up on chasing Bart for no good reason. And then everybody shrugs their shoulders, and there is no moral to the story in our final. It's the lore of cider. Fresh cider is so good. I mean, it sure is. Mm-mm. Too long, Duckies!

Damn, they're very slowly getting away. They're heading for the old mill. No, we're not. Well, let's go to the old mill anyway. Get some cider. That's a good idea. Yeah, let's get some cider. Let's go. the old mill anyway! Get some cider! That's a good idea! Let's get some cider!

Let's go! Oh boy. If only Bart had been a better old model for everyone. That's unfair. The lesson here is that self-improvement is better left to people who live in big cities. No! Self-improvement can be achieved, but not with a quick fix. It's a long, arduous journey of personal and spiritual discovery. That's what I've been saying. We're all fine the way we are. It's that new show about the policeman

who solves crimes in his spare time. Crank it, Homer. You busted up that crack house pretty bad, McGonagall. Did you really have to break so much furniture? You tell me, Chief. You had a pretty good view from behind your desk. Ah, McGonagall, eases the pain. You're your desk. Oh McGarnagall eases the pain You're off the case McGarnagall! You're off your case chief. What does that mean exactly?

It means he gets results you stupid chief! Dad sit down. Oh I'm sorry. He really hates the chief. He's on McGarnagall's side. He hates the chief like he hates the crusty Dean in the School of Hard Knockers. Exactly. I really want to know what ending they rescued because this seems very drastic where they create an entire parody that you don't see and it's all video stills of the family.

It's funny, but I love the McGarnagall bit they do in The Boy Who Knew Too Much so much more that I really want to see that Clint Eastwood caricature arguing with the chief. I mean, I love the description of the show being a policeman who solves crime in his spare time. It's like, but that's his job. Right.

Such a creep. So the original script ending, or at least record draft ending, instead of the family sitting on the couch together, it's just Marge and Homer in bed together. And they apologize and basically come to the same conclusion of, you know, self-improvement is too hard, we should do something else. And then Homer says, well, hey, I know what we should do.

And he pulls out the coconut oil from earlier and he's implying he's going to give Margie a sensuous massage. And then describes that the camera pans to the trampoline watching on, almost like a magical entity going like, yes, I saved the day. Well, I do think that's fun, but then they get rid of the trampoline and we never see the massaging your wife class. So I don't know how they got to the family on the couch, but I do think they probably had the same dialogue of, oh, home improvement is hard, and then they just decide, ah, you know, let's just have a cop show parody instead in there.

But like McGarnagall is just, it's such a great name of a seventies cop show name like Mannix or whatever, just or Columbo. Like it's, it's just a one name kind of goofy thing. But in this case, yeah. And also I liked that Homer's idea of like, Oh, what is self-improvement? Yeah, that's what I've been saying. We're all fine just the way we are. That's what self-improvement means. I might make a cast and crew jacket for McGarnical. Maybe that's the next frontier for my museum, is fictional TV shows that should

have had cast and crew jackets. I want to suggest that Talking Simpsons should have its own cast and crew jackets that say Bob and Henry on the front. We really should. Yeah, man. I think I'm going to blow our next ad money on that. That's going to be the great use of Patreon funds.

Every year, a new patch of someone in our lives is like, oh, I got my wife patched this year. The doughboys are on again. Let's give, you know, yeah. Well, we would have a Nick Prueher patch as well, though. Thanks. Thanks, guys. This episode is patchy as far as like a written story that

tells us, like, it's so all over the place Brad Goodman disappears act three has nothing to do with Marge being upset at things But God it's full of hilarious moments in it and it's gorgeously animated Like this is the Simpsons are doing so good that when they give you a B plus effort It is the best episode of any other TV show most of the time The bar is set so high that you can't help but notice when an episode like this is a little weaker in terms of structure, in terms of pacing.

It's still solid gold, but compared to season five, I still feel like it is the weakest one, but it's like super great instead of amazingly great. So it's not a huge insult for it to be the weakest of this 24 episodes or 22 episodes. Where does season five rank for you? For's, for me it's maybe like my third or fourth favorite season. I still think season six is my favorite.

Yeah. For me, it might go six, seven, five, four. I think it would go, but five is very high for me too. Yeah, I'm always surprised that like, yeah, six, seven, like even, which seems kind of late in the run, you know? For me, even, you know, that whole compressed time thing. But the fact that they were still firing on all cylinders and taking more chances and, you know, Conan's at his full strength around that time. And so I thought this was a great episode. So many

lines that I used to this day that I forgot where they came from that jog my memory. And yeah, love the trampoline bit, the soiled mattresses at the beginning. So yeah, A episode for me. Thank you for joining us, Nick Pruer. I love that thing I saw you in. And that thing was Chop and Steal, a great documentary. Thank you. Thank you very much. Always good to be back.

Please let us know where we can find you online, more about Found Footage Festival, and your tour that's happening right now. Yeah, we're on our 20th anniversary tour, which goes through the end of January. And then we'll start our new show in the spring. You can go to foundfootagefest.com for all those details. And we do a YouTube show, if you were not coming to your city, called VCR Party.

And we have special guests on, and we watch VHS tapes we just found that week in our office. And if you like animation, we've had both you guys on our Shattered A Day Morning Cartoon Show, which is a far less well-researched show where we watch old, forgettable cartoons. Well, but you did talk about Sonic with a Sonic voice actor, so, you know. Yeah, Jason Griffith was on it. I've never gotten more angry comments on a... Because, believe it or not, people not only take cartoons seriously, but video games have very devoted fandoms that will let you know if you've gotten something wrong Some would say psychotic, but I'm not a doctor You're not Brad Goodman. No, don't have a PhD in pain

It's always awesome to have you on Nick. Thank you so much Nick. Yes. Thank you guys Thanks so much to Nick Pruer for being on the show Please check out found footage festival and all that they do But if you want to help us out with our show and get almost 200 bonus episodes on top of that head on over to patreon.com talking simpsons and sign up at the five dollar level and when you do you'll access the nearly 200 back catalog episodes of full length mini series we've covered things like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman the animated series and the critic and that five bucks a month also gets you new monthly episodes of both Talking Futurama and Talk King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman the animated series and the critic and that five bucks a month also gets you new monthly episodes of both Talking Futurama and Talk King of

the Hill and on top of that you also get everything we do one week ahead of time and ad free. If you don't like ads, five bucks a month will destroy all ads in your life at least on our podcast. So please head on over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up at that five dollar level but there is also a $10 level. What is going on there, Henry? Bob is talking about our premium podcast that we do each month, which is what a cartoon movie a heavily researched podcast about an animated feature film. If you like hearing

us talk for nearly three hours about an episode of the Simpsons, how about a heavily researched thing? Like almost six hours about eight crazy nights. The holiday film by Adam Sandler that has a ton of history to it including we interview Lou Morton the co-writer of the original Hanukkah song about the creation of that and our most recent one in the wintery holiday spirit we just covered Frozen one of the biggest Disney animated feature films of all time. We did a ton of research on that one, too. And you can only hear over six years of what a cartoon movies if you are a premium level patron who also gets all the other ad free stuff at the $5 level. You can hear us talk about too many things to list. If you liked all this 90s talk in here, I bet you'd like

hearing us talk about say Space Jam or all of the Disney Renaissance films and Even our longest podcast ever who framed Roger Rabbit. We talked about that for six and a half hours. It's all ad free It's all right there at patreon.com Slash talking Simpsons and I have been one of your hosts Bob Mackey You can find me on Twitter in blue sky as Bob servo and my other podcast Of course is retronauts. That is a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash RetroNauts.

Sign up there to get two full length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, what about you? You can find me on Twitter and Blue Sky at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G and I'm also on Instagram as Talking Henry. And if you're following me and Bob in those places, you should also be following the official account at Talk Simpsons Pod in all of those spots.

At Talk Simpsons Pod keeps you up to date when there is a new podcast live, when we go on tour, when we have cool announcements, you stay up to date if you follow at Talking Simpsons. Plus, if you want an easy to explore list of our free episodes that we've released in the past, head over to TalkingSimsons.com. Thanks so much for listening folks. We'll see you again next time for season five's Boy Scouts in the Fridge.

We'll see you then. I told you this was a bad idea. Alright, alright. I'll get rid of the trampoline. Hey, Krusty! I'm bringing back the... You just keep right on driving.