Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Blood Feud

Episode Date: March 16, 2016

In a loose, fun episode,Bart gives blood, a giant head is given, and a trip to the infirmary with most unexpected results – all in the final podcast of season 2!

This week's episode of Talking Simpsons is brought to you by Geek Fuel. Go to geekfuel.com slash lasertime to sign up for a box of geeky goodies sent to you directly. And if you sign up through geekfuel.com slash lasertime, you will get an exclusive Star Wars item worth $20 added to your first box. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, where we smell like an elephant's butt. This is your host, Bob Mackie. As always, who else is here today? Chris Antista. Bony girl arms, Henry Gilbert. Chinless, will you?

I'm Dave Rudden. Wow. And yes, this is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of The Simpsons, and today's episode is the season two finale, Blood Feud, which aired on July 11th, 1991, because Fox was trying to make the season of television extend to the summer in some weird way. I guess it didn't really last, but Chris, what happened on July 11th, 1991? Oh my god! Man, Bobby! The Ron Reagan

show premieres, Sam Goody passes away just before he can watch his famous record chain, uh, that dates back to World War II, do the same, and Nickelodeon debuts three new original cartoons, Doug, Rugrats, and Ren and Stimpy. This is a better week for animation.

Rerun of Ren and Stimpy. Sorry guys, I didn't mean to be missing. Ren and Stimpy and The Simpsons were probably the most crucial to the television movement of animation. Oh, for sure. And Rugrats was being animated by

Klaski Chupo at the same time they were working on The Simpsons. They probably got the contract based, like they got in the room based on their work on The Simpsons. Oh, you saw their first season of The Simpsons? We can do that for you, but for us, and we'll do it and it'll be babies! And we'll make all the money. Yeah. Rugrats. It's a duck man. And Sam Goody

was a person. Yes, he was a person. It was a nickname. And Ron Reagan is still alive, right? I think so. Everybody thought he was gay, but he's married to a woman. I thought he was gay until you said that, actually. He's married to a woman. Everybody's like, oh, you're gay.

Is it his mother? Lots of gay men are married to women. I was going to say, those aren't mutually exclusive in any way. That's true. Hugh Jackman! I think you probably won't be talking about him hosting Saturday Night Live in 1986. It's happening on 30-20-10, actually. Yeah, but why would you talk about that?

There's no clip. It's one of the deadest seasons. Really? Yes. Wow. He makes a whole joke how he's the second most powerful person in the world. That is a giant plane. Probably protecting the Super Bowl as we speak. It speak spewing dangerous chemtrails everybody i have to get out of here or hey we should probably if there's problems on the street we should be

seeing one of those signs that alert people that there's problems right that sounds familiar like the episode starts with that's true yeah i mean i feel like I like this episode a lot. It does feel like senioritis in which they are just having so much fun with just a singular idea. They're just kicking around this singular idea of Homer writing this letter to Mr. Burns and the consequences of that happening. So where do we want to start with this episode? Well, so they start with what seems to be a parody of a very L.A. thing, though now you see these warnings on on highways everywhere but i think it did get started in la which is a very highway town of just these boards telling people there's a problem and weather conditions there's a traffic accident slowed we see them all the time amber alerts i love amber alert i love that at the christening of this that the mayor says they

made it possible by burns doing his civic like his legal obligation of putting that sign up. But Mr. Burns isn't there and he's not doing so hot. We've got to get a doctor. Absolutely not. No quack sawbones is going to apply his leeches to me. As long as there's an ounce of strength left in me. Just quack sawbones. That's fucking awesome.

I mean, that's an old time thing for him to say, but I also feel like he would use that kind of medical help and not new stuff because he's stuck in the past. Oh, he'd be more into sawbones. Well, no, he'd be into phrenology. An elixir is all Mr. Burns. Yeah, but didn't he study the... The phrenology is different, though.

He doesn't want a crappy backwoods doctor. He wants fancy, like, Victorian-era doctors. crappy backwoods doctor. He wants fancy Victorian-era doctoring. That's what he wants. The people in the nick. The kind that delivers babies into tongues. Or that Kellogg guy. I made a movie about him. Since the Blinky episode, this is the most we've seen of Burns.

This is a Burns-ass episode. You can tell how they're just getting so antsy. Every four episodes, Burns. Nothing but Burns. Probably in the pitch meetings, they're just like, so what if Burns showed up? Like, what if Burns did that? And this was also, I don't know about you guys, but how I learned about blood types. Yeah.

I'm afraid it's not that simple. His blood type is 00 negative. It's quite rare. But I'm B positive. Damn, this common gutter blood in my veins. Yeah, I didn't know anything about blood types. Now I didn't found out because it was episode what my blood type was.

I, unlike Bart, asked my mom and I am O negative. Double O negative is not a real blood type. It's not. And neither is hypohemia, which is the disease they claim he has, which is lack of blood. There's a similar condition with a similar name, but it's different. But there is no double O negative blood, but type O negative blood, I think 7% to 9% of

the population has it. So I figured there had to be someone besides Bart in the world. It means antigens in your bloodstream. Like A blood can't go with B blood. If you give somebody the wrong blood type in a blood transfusion, you will hurt them. But O negative can go with anything. It doesn't have the same. I got to say, they messed up the science, too, that Smithers says he can't give his blood because they're not the same blood type.

Burns immediately says, thanks for that kidney. You cannot donate a kidney if you don't have a matching blood type. That's true. I didn't think of that. That's impossible. Unless, like, Burns ate it. I hope someone got tired of that blood type. We really need that sound bite on the computer. I know. I don't know why I don't think of that. That is impossible. Unless, like, Burns ate it. I hope someone got tired of that. We really need that sound bite on the computer.

I know. I don't know why I don't have it yet. Maybe Smithers just, like, went through, like, he went on the black market and got a kidney. Or, like, killed somebody and took their kidney for him. So then they find out about the blood. I did, like, this. This is like a Lenny and Carl scene. There's so few scenes of Lenny and Carl doing stuff up to this point. I give him my blood except for one thing.

What's that? I don't wanna. I can't believe you guys. There's a human being out there with millions of dollars who needs our help. And you don't want to cash in? That's why you losers are stuck in this crummy dead-end job. You know, Homer, I am your supervisor. Sorry, Derek.

Carl was his supervisor. Probably them being in the same room finally led them to get the correct voices. Yeah. Because that does not really happen that often. They couldn't give it to one or the other because they were at least standing next to each other. From here on, I think they have it fixed. If you're just joining us, this chronological breakdown, you can hear them as the wrong voices several, several times throughout this season. Oh, so here's that mother quiz I was talking about which i definitely i reenacted it dave would you call it your yeah

line of the show that's the joke my mother knows everything about her family oh yeah what's my shoe size 4b how many teeth do i have 16 permanent a baby earmuff xl ring i don't want you wearing rings it looks cheap but three allergies butterscotch and imitation butterscotch and glow in the dark monster makeup impressive what a terrible life Bart I love butterscotch and monster makeup

yeah and imitation butterscotch so he can't even have the face I love that he found out he's allergic to the monster the monster makeup implies a moment like three Halloweens ago he puts on the glow in the dark monster makeup and has a reaction he can't have regular monster makeup.

It's a wonderful noodle incident for The Simpsons. But yeah, just the bar part of that, I love that. Impressive. And it gave me more respect. I think as a kid it gave me more respect for my mom. It made me realize all the information she was cataloging about you. I still consult my mom,

and I used to tell my grandma when she was alive, like, when is so-and-so's birthday? Or like, how do I do this thing? I'm an adult, and I should know. Yeah, and then she gives me the answer, and it's correct, and I'm like, fucking weirdo. Would you know that? What a loser. It was weird that they almost acknowledged how few hairs that Homer has.

Ah, yeah, how many hairs are on my head? Technically, I guess it is three. Yeah, but she gave the right answer, which is exactly what we wanted to hear. Yeah, exactly, because that's how good she is. You haven't put on any weight. So then Homer finds out Diaz double. This episode, man, this is David Silverman-directed episode, and he explodes in animation in this one.

Like, Homer is the Homeriest he's been at this point. He is a cartoon all over the place, but great. Just his dance when he finds out, like, you've got a date with a doctor. It's a great, like, a lot of great character animation. I think he had more time to work on this. Yeah. And there's a scene that's very similar to another scene he animated of the I'm the Magical Man from Happy Land with the gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane.

Make people happy. Do you mean, as they call it, Homer's fairy voice? Yeah. You don't do things like that to be rewarded. You do them because a fellow human being needs a helping hand. Marge, you're my wife and I love you very much, but you're living in a world of

make-believe with flowers and bells and leprechauns and magic frogs with funny little hats. Yeah, Mom, we got hoes. Marge! When you see Homer bouncing around and wiggling his fingers, it's totally David Silverman. Anytime there's a finger wiggle or someone using that. That gets ahead of us, too.

I really love, it's too long to be a line of the show, but I do love the story of Hercules and the Lion. Oh, yeah. Bart, it's not like I'm asking you to give blood for free. That would be crazy. You're a little young to understand this, but when you save a rich man's life, he showers you with riches. Don't you know the story of Hercules and the lion? Is it a Bible story? Yeah, probably. Anyway, once upon a time, there was a big mean lion who got a thorn in his paw and all the village people tried to pull it out, but nobody was strong enough. So they got Hercules and Hercules used his mighty strength And bingo

Anyway the moral is The lion was so happy He gave Hercules this big Thing of riches How did a lion get rich? It was the olden days And that convinces him to do it Thing of riches

There's something I do like the line that Otto calls himself bloodletting tech dude. This is definitely another Otto situation where he's like, you shunned him in the episode. They shoved him in. Unlike Burns, we did

get tired of Otto just like them. We're sure. He does another scene of he just sings, I believe it's Iron Man. He does that. It is, yeah. We also see Shakespeare's fried chicken, which is just this very minor thing that popped up up until maybe season 2.5.

Yeah. It's like a jingle or something in an episode. Yeah. I don't recall that. It's in the one where Homer, it's in Homer's Odyssey when he's flipping through the channels when he's depressed. It sounds like Rupertania. Yeah, exactly.

I wish that was one of the things at the Springfield at Universal Studios. Instead they have Cletus' chicken thumbs, which is not really from an episode on, say, Krusty Burger or the frying Dutchman. I did like the little joke of the elevator scene, too. The guy doesn't know he's in the elevator.

Oh, forgot to do that. Yeah, that is awesome. There's a couple jokes in this episode that just everybody delivers so efficiently and so that that is me when i'm at the checkout at a supermarket i'm like okay swipe my card hit yes and hit i don't know yes the second time and i'm just standing there and the like adult and yeah oh holding up this line. Oh, and I think this is some great Burns acting when he gives his epitaph. Charles Montgomery Burns. American. And patriot.

American. Patriot. Master of the atom. Scourge of the despot. Oh, tyrant. hear his mighty name and quick smithers i'm back that was the blood draining into him from that sound is a bit much just like yeah doesn't he always need blood from that point on like hypo and he has a lack of blood it just means he needs a transfusion but does the thing that's making him lose blood stop? I'm sure he found an orphan or something.

You see, he has all of the diseases, which creates a Three Stooges effect. That's right. Well, yeah, that trip to the Mayo Clinic also showed it was impossible to draw blood from him. The needle went through him. Like meringue, I believe the line was. Which is so disgusting. They think Homer is going to get something from Burns for giving the blood, but he doesn't get it. And he just gets a card that is like, thanks.

Which, do you guys think that Burns owed them money or that he should have given them money? Like, it is. Yes. As Marge says, it is for its own reward. They saved a person's life and that's what they wanted to do. But he has so much extra and literally gained his life. Yeah. I don't know.

He should give them the amount of blood. If we're being real, the amount of blood he probably needed and was taken from a 10-year-old boy, Bart would be weak

and tired and sick for quite a while. He's absolutely owed some kind of gift. I mean, that's not the first time Bart has given blood, though, in season two, either. I think he does.

It was just a part of the social contract. He should have realized, I should give them some money. He is Mr. Burns. It's like the writ large version of, oh, you gave me a ride to the airport? I'll buy you dinner or something. Oh, you're having people over at your house? I'll bring you some beer. There's many things you can do.

Oh, you help me move? I'll buy you all dinner. He did not have one of his uncharacteristic changes of hearts in this episode. Well, so then Homer is so pissed off, he writes a letter. Fart, take a letter. Dear Mr. Burns, I'm so glad you enjoyed my son's blood and your card was just great. In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic. You stink.

Could you read that last part back to me? You stink. Good. Yeah, still there was a zeal, though, with a kid who's allowed to curse. Not curse, but just say something bad. I like how supportive Bart is in this. That's why I think in a previous episode, Bart mailing the letter for him would be Bart trying to get Homer in trouble. But in this case, it was just Bart was so gung-ho.

He was like, yeah, Homer, you got to do this. He's doing punch-up on Homer's jokes, too. I like it when they have the dynamic of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. I like just, this is a very vaudeville routine to me. The last place I saw it was in my hand as I was shoving it into the mailbox. No! Yeah, Homer, Marge talks Homer out of it, and then Homer has a dream where he's strangling Mr. Burns, but it turns into him putting syrup on pancakes, and that makes him feel better. You can visually see his anger dissipate and turn into love of of food again and i just love that froofy music over like

and then and then he gets to eat pancakes that morning his dream comes true stop it i'm starving he dreams he dreams low i could go for some pancakes me too really good uh meanwhile burns wants to write his story like his tell his story i love this bit with a ghost writer that sent me to wikipedia me too first question have you slept with anyone famous well countess von zeppelin did i what in blaze now you listen to me you bark in basement boulder there i'm not some dizzy starlet who can't string two words together i can write this thing myself you're fired just like a countess von zeppelin so invented the zeppelin if he well the the ferdinand von zeppelin he invented the zeppelin

the zeppelin company and his daughter let me double check this so if the countess he's talking about is his wife who was countess von Zeppelin, she died in 1917. Which, I don't think that's it. If it was his daughter, Elena, that Countess von Zeppelin died in 1967, that's more possible. That's not old enough. It's got to be her grandmother. Well, no, she was born in 1879. That's more like it.

She was approaching 90 when she died in 67, so you could see Burns with her. These people were celebrities? The Zeppelin! You know what Zeppelins are. They're like the Kardashians. Name the wife of the creator of the Segway. Jill Segway.

Daryl Segway, but I remember. If you've watched Venture Brothers, in the flashbacks they sometimes show up like Thaddeus Venture Sr. or whatever. The one who, he's in a Zeppelin. I think he's based on the Ferdinand Zeppelin. He was this inventor slash baron or whatever. Just a money elite who also invented shit. That's an interesting character.

I have to imagine that the Zeppelin family was facing a lot of controversy after the Hindenburg. That's why they called them dirigible's after that, right? There's one more deep cut in this scene, and this show is about deep cuts, so I don't feel too nerdy for saying this. The ghost writer is going through the books he's written like hell I can't. One of them is called The Unsinkable

Sedrudin Mahabharata. I'm like, who is that? Is that a real person? I went to the Simpsons Wikia which is an amazing source for even a character that appears for

8 seconds will have the webpage on there and apparently he is a Hindu priest that does a yoga show in the Simpsons universe

you see him once and he's mentioned twice if you remember the clip it's like a Hindu guy going tilt your head back and forth that's him it's weird that they guy going tilt your head back and forth. That's him. It's weird that they gave

him a name and he was in three episodes like this. I don't know what they were planning for him. I'm guessing someone knew a guy with this name. That's why it's so specific. It is so specific. Yeah, just like Armin Tamzerian is the name of a guy. We'll get to that in like two years, I guess. But it's so specific. I'll be right. Four years.

That was so nerdy, but I love it. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. What is up, Talking Simpsons fans? Chris here. Briefly jumping in to tell you

this show is brought to you by GeekFuel. And if you go to geekfuel.com slash lasertime right now, you can get a free Star Wars item worth $20 just for signing up for a mystery box. What's in the mystery box, you ask? Six to eight items, an exclusive t-shirt, and a $50 value of Kit and Kaboodle featuring famous stuff from Marvel, DC, Nintendo,

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I believe you have a letter for me. Okay, Mr. Burns. What's your first name? I don't know. The one thing about this... I love this line. I don't think the writers were committed to making

Homer this stupid yet because when he leaves, he goes, great plan, Bart. He was stupid enough to think the writers were committed to making Homer this stupid yet. Because when he leaves, he goes, great plan, Bart. He was stupid enough to accept the plan, but not to think of why it could go wrong. So he wasn't that stupid yet. But he does do something equally stupid later on when Mr. Burns confronts him in the office and says, who are you? And he says, Homer Simpson.

Don't. Yeah. That was a big name. Homer Simpson. Yeah. I don't have that one. But yeah, it's another talk to the brain scene. This is a vivid memory of my father losing his shit at that line specifically.

Well, by the way, this is a plot. I think they copped to it in the commentary. This is a plot from A Honeymooners. In an episode of Honeymooners, Ralph Cramden wrote an angry letter to his boss that he mailed and then regretted and was trying to get it back. I'm so mad. I've got to get that letter back and hit my wife. See, Honeymooners did it See, honeymooners did it. Honeymooners did it.

The scene opens with this glorious mural within the post office. So great, yeah. And you know our post office downtown is this huge historical building, and there's a mural in there, too, that was painted during the Depression. Back when the public works, they spent money on that instead of the flop house that the post office has turned into. The Berkeley post office is garbage. Garbage, man.

It deserves to be shut down and turned into a strip mall or whatever the city of Berkeley wants to do with it. Stamps.com warehouse. Burns fires Homer. And I like Homer's plan of how they're going to survive this. Here's a plan. You can move in with your sisters and raise the kids. And I'll die in a gutter. It's practical and within our means they always told me i was going to destroy the family but i never believed

it that's okay bart nobody really believed it we were just trying to scare you i just like the to think back to previous episodes that they would have said, like, you're going to ruin this family, you're going to ruin the family. They didn't really mean it, but now he has. And this is the second time Homer's been fired, fired. Like, he's had a new job, too, but I think the only time he was fired was in the Safety Inspector episode.

Homer's Odyssey, right? Homer's Odyssey, yeah. I think that's when he was officially fired. But he did not decide to kill himself in this one. No, no. He has more about it. He has more reason to be depressed in this one, I'd say. Oh, also, Burns' book. I love Will There Ever Be a Rainbow. That's such a good Simpsons joke. I thought it was from like four seasons from now.

I love Will There Ever Be a Rainbow. They reference it again. In closing, gentle reader, I'd like to thank you. What's that you say? Me thanking you? No, it's not a misprint. For you see, I enjoyed writing this book as much as you

enjoyed reading it. It's just such a writerly joke. Like a bad writing of the kind of froofy stuff that a dude would a rich guy who insisted on writing his own book would write. Who thinks it's very clever too. Like, oh, they're going to love this.

Nobody's ever thought of this. But yeah, Bob, you said they did it again. I remember it being an item in Virtual Springfield. Like, you could find copies of it. But wasn't it... Oh, it was in... I remember it, too. The Old Man and the Lisa...

Lisa and the Animal Slurry? Yeah, yeah. He comes to talk to their class. He talks about, you must slay these three demons. So not crazy. There's a reference to these three demons. So I'm not crazy. There's a reference to this book again. Yeah, in season eight. And Martin's reading out of the book and tells him, according to your biography, you're worth this much.

And it's also in the background. I remember now from, I can't remember the name of the episode, but it's the Homer and Mindy episode. Last Temptation of Homer. Oh, yeah. In that episode when they're at the energy convention in the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant booth behind them are copies of Burns' book. And I love that cover of him. It's great. I'm surprised he doesn't have his toupee on that cover.

That's true. But this was the age of the Simpsons getting a lot of books. Like a TV show could conceivably have many books. And I bet the writers really wanted to write Will There Ever Be a Rainbow. Wow. Would I read the shit of that right now? I would read it. If you get like those writers to write it, I would read it. Let's kickstart

that. There was a little moment too that I liked where Burns is going to have Homer beaten horribly too. This is the first appearance of Hired Goons. Yeah, Hired Goons. His name is, this one's Joey. He's appeared as a just unnamed goon other times, but I just love the, it's so little and short.

It's like half a second but when he turns around and say what like it's just his body shake like what beating no kick got it that's so great and when they shake hands and then it's like we like i wish this handshake would last forever i think that was them the writers recognizing hanging a lantern on this is the end of the episode and we should be over but oh we have to wrap up a different plot line that's when smithers uh convinces burns to not have homer beaten and fired yeah and that this is the most human smithers has been to that point again harry shearer yeah bringing it i love his performances in these early seasons well i like

this uh very su Seussian performance here. We'll get the Simpsons a present. An extravagant present. A mad, unthinkable, utterly impossible present. A fabulous, grabulous, zip-soup fabulous present. And it's David Silverman animation, you can tell.

As he's moving, it's like a very animatory type scene too. He's moving up an escalator, so he's a moving piece while doing act-outs. I guess the first time, Mr. Burns is the Grinch, essentially. Yeah, he'd be more of the Grinch in the, what was it, Springfield? Last Exit to Springfield, where he's like, they sing without blenders, they sing without blotters. So right before that

it's a very brief Moe's Tavern scene and it's not even all that memorable like the Mike Roch is the call but Moe says something

that I read all the time in like Life is Hell books where he says Moe's Tavern where the elite meet to drink

elite meet to blank was a thing in Life in Hell books like where the elite like there's like this ad for uh it might have actually blend like into some simpsons stuff too but like a barbecue place called called like uh where the elite meet to eat their meats or whatever i just remember where the elite meet it was just a common thing there are a lot of life life and hell isms uh scattered throughout for sure that was so short. That also felt like just a filler scene.

Why was he calling Moe's just to kill time? Or was there a purpose? Well, yeah, it was... Homer was killing time. Yeah, he was commiserating about being fired, and he's like, I'm drinking to forget my problems. And Bart's like, you shouldn't do that. You should drink to enhance your social skills.

I was also, when that scene started, I was waiting for the jokes from Dog of Death, where he has to dance for money for a beer. I thought that was coming. I was like, no, this is the other time they were poor and he's drinking. I was thinking it was going to be when the Germans took over the power plant and Burns was going to come in and get talked down to. Nobody loves you, nobody. Again, I failed.

So there's a lot of jokes about the specificity of mall stores in the early 90s. Yeah. I love Smithers on that banjo. It's really good, that banjo. Just a dumb... I need a gif of that. Just a dumb look on his face. Like...

And Burns scowling at him. My only observation... This seemed like a dated mall joke 10 years ago when every store in my local mall and here were all chains. Yeah. Now mall chain stores are pretty much dead and you go into our local mall, it's still hustle bustle, but it's all local people with punny names. Yeah, that you've never seen outside of

that mall. Yes, that you'll only see in the mall. The 80s all over again. I mean, there's still H&M if you want to go to a place that's like garbage cheap underpants, which I need some more of. It's usable fashion. Do you guys want to hear the names of all the stores? So we have the Tambo Shanter Connection.

Maybe Dave could explain what that means. Sweet Home Alabama, the store with things from Alabama. Wicked Excess, which is sort of the sharper image kind of place.

And then we finally have Plunder Pete, which is where they get the head of Extopolopikettle. Extopolopikettle. Look out, boy. My girlfriend worked in one of those stores where

everything was hand-carved and looked stolen from a native land. It's where you'd find a lot of rain sticks. As a 10-year-old, I was like, ooh, rain stick turnover. What if I turned over all five of the rain sticks? You'll annoy your parents five times faster. I'm sure the employees of those things love it. So I have a personal story about X-Tapalata Kettle. Oh, boy.

For one of my art classes when I was in high school we had to do this thing it was like it was called a to z so we had to do like 26 frames and each letter of the alphabet had to correspond to a painting like you could do fruits like apple banana carrot carrot fruit but what i did was oh i'll do 26 simpsons characters one for each letter letter. And a lot of them I had to cheese it by using a last name or something. But X, I was like, what do I do for X? What do I do for X? And I had to look through that Simpsons episode guide, and I'm like, X Topalopakettle,

because they had that glossary in the back. And that was the X entry. It was the only thing that could have been the X entry. Was Z Artie Ziff. It had to be. And Q was Quimby, comma, mayor. See, life before the internet, kids.

School before the internet. That was terrifying. This cost Mr. Burns $32,000. It's a good gift. I love his line when Bretman Smithers is questioning the price. He's like, don't you dare sell me this moment with your price taggery. Price taggery. It's perfect.

And then I love, I did capture, I didn't get that, but I did capture when he delivers the gift. Mr. Burns, you brought us a present. Why, what did you think I was going to do?

Have you beaten to a bloody pulp? To show there's no hard feelings, please take an advanced copy of my book. Will there ever be a rainbow? And now, young fellow, I haven't forgotten you. Here. Wow, a crowbar. It's to open the crate, stupid.

I would have loved a crowbar. By the way, the ex-Topalopakettle thing also ties into the weird tag of the entire episode where Lisa is teaching Maggie words. That's right. Aztec. I made the note that Lisa didn't have much to do in this episode. Not really. I like that they gave her something to do, and I did like the slight pass. Well, it wasn't passive-aggressiveness.

It was just Lisa saying, I want her to have a better childhood than I did. And Marge is like, we did our best. It's like, goddamn. You're saying we were bad parents. Maybe they knew this episode was going to be on the summer, and they're just like, we've got to teach the kids something. Yeah. I love, what's the name of the stupid thing? Extopolopocat.

Extopolopocat. Did I say that right? Extopolopocat. Think about how Mr. Burns says it. Extopolopocat. It's the lucky cop. The popping lucky cop. This is one of the few instances of any continuity in The Simpsons.

That's true. It stays in their basement for years. I think it's the artist caring. I think the artist just put it in in the basement, and obviously the idea of, like, well, they must have had to take out their floor and lower it in the basement. I mean, the fact that it's in their living room,

it can't get in their living room. There's no way unless they take out a wall. The Simpsons' basement, like a Batcave quality. out a wall. It gives the Simpsons basement a Batcave quality. It's the giant penny of the Simpsons house. It's a dinosaur. And you're right. How do they get it in the house without taking it down a wall? I mean, getting a couch through a door is hard enough. And why don't they resell it?

If it sells for $33,000, they could probably get a decent amount back. What if Mr. Burns comes over and it's not there? He comes over a lot. Yeah, I like their reaction to it, too. This is how many times... Whatever it does, it's doing it now. Well, I'll let you get

acquainted with Señor Extrapolapa Kettle. There you go. Shit, I forgot. Never mind. How many times do you think Mr. Burns has been over to the Simpsons house in season 2? At least three. He watches a fight. He least three. Four. Five.

He watches a fight. He gets painted. Blinky. Blinky. How fitting that he ends the season by leaving something of him inside of the house forever. Meanwhile, he's got something of Bart inside him forever. I said it on me floor. It's creepy.

And this episode ends with, I give the Simpsons shit for them, just episodes ending with the writers through the characters shrugging their shoulders and saying, it's the end. We got to 22 minutes. Like, it's over. Who cares? But pretty much that's what they say

with the moral of the story. Yeah. The moral of this story is a good deed is its own reward. Hey, we got a reward. The head is cool. Well, then, I guess the moral is no good deed goes unrewarded we got a reward. The head is cool. Well then, I guess the moral is no good deed goes unrewarded.

Wait a minute. If I hadn't written that nasty letter, we wouldn't have gotten anything. Well, hmm. Then I guess the moral is the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Perhaps there is no moral to this story. Exactly. It's just a bunch of stuff

that happened. But it certainly was a memorable few days amen to that it's a it i mean that's almost like a critique of the episode by them like it's just a bunch of stuff yeah i think this i mean this predates a show about nothing i think in the mission statement where this will lead us into season three where they're not going to be moralizing as much they're saying like we can tell a fun story without it having a point. I don't see them being as

I guess catty with the audience about it. It feels like a conversation writers are having with each other. Like what's the message? What are we telling people? What are the stakes here?

What are we doing? But it's like it doesn't matter as long as the episode was funny. Yeah. Like you guys alluded to the senioritis before. I wonder if it was also like we don't know how

to end this exactly. Let's just talk about how we don't have an ending. Yeah. Hey, that it was also like we don't know how to end this exactly. Let's just talk about how we don't have an ending. Yeah. Hey, that's funny to say we don't have an ending. Let's just talk about that. It feels like the pretty punk rock way to end the season of the most popular show on television. It's not as lazy as, say, the Loch Ness Monster working at a casino.

That's just lazy. But I mean, within this universe of 1991, a sitcom, including The Simpsons, would end with 30 seconds of sweetness, hugging, music, and this is what happened and this is how we're different. But this one is just like, eh, just a bunch of stuff happened and you had fun and that's all that matters.

Didn't you have fun? We did. And they even laugh at the end. That's the one thing that made it feel not like a current one. They would have just ended with Homer saying, like a bunch of stuff that happened. But they have a little family laugh together moment and then like Maude Flanders would walk in

like what did I miss or something stupid like that you know you know they would like try to tweak you like that but yeah that was a great end to a great season

of The Simpsons season two much better than I remember it deserves a lot more credit than it gets on an episode of Laser Time for our hundredth episode it's just called

Simpsons Reference because we couldn't stop making Simpsons references before we had this it's finally helping an episode of laser time for our hundredth episode it's just called simpsons reference because we couldn't stop making simpsons references and like before we had this it's finally helping us channel it into something more productive lives and yeah but we yeah i said a second season is hyper underrated really great and the the building blocks of how great the show became do start to emerge in the second season pretty wonderful yeah and if you like that uh this is the show is brought to you by Patreon, patreon.com slash LazerTime. It's where you can get all the season one episodes exclusively.

We'll be doing a season two recap episode there exclusively for patrons who help make the show a reality. We're going to learn all about the music videos and all the weird stuff that happened in seasons one and two that were not aired. Some factoids. God-awful DVD menu for season two. A lot of complaining about that.

But yeah, season two was great. I thought it was going to be slower. There's maybe two episodes I thought were kind of weak, but the rest, like I enjoyed watching them. I enjoyed getting these jokes that I can only get now that I'm an adult. And I enjoyed the animation, which definitely improved. And season three, I think, is the best animated season, period. Four.

Three, four, five are the high points, I think. But three, they're just, we'll talk about it then. It's the last Chupo one. Yeah. It won't be until September that you hear our next episode which is when season three begins again

with Michael Jackson. Oh wow. I cannot wait. I was looking at John J. Smith. I was looking ahead at season three

episodes and I thought I can't wait to talk about all of these. I'm so excited for all these. But yeah thank you for joining us for

this exploration of season two. We hope you'll stick with us for season three. I've been Bob Mackey, your host. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I also host the Classic Gaming Podcast Retronauts. You can find that on

usgamer.net or retronauts.com or just search for it in your iPhone program podcast thing. I don't know what that's called. Everybody else, what do you do? Who are you? Oh, I mean, there is LazerTime, the podcast that started it all on the Lazer Time Podcast Network. People are slowly liking less than this show.

There's also, if you like the bit about the history at the beginning, you've got 302010, where we take pop culture 30 years ago, 20 years ago, and 10 years ago that week, explore all of it. Plus, I've got my own podcast, Cape Crisis. Give that a listen, everybody. And there's also Cheap I've got my own podcast, Cape Crisis. Give that a listen, everybody. And there's also Cheap Podcast, a pro wrestling podcast

where we don't have X Topalopakettle, but we do have X-Pac. That's just as good. And Vigigame Apocalypse for you folks who like the goddamn Vigigames.

Pokemon! And VG Empire, which gives us talk about video game music. You can find all the information about those on LazerTimePodcast.com. Where I wrote an article that I need to update

a list of every Dead Simpsons guest star to give you an idea of how long the show has been. Are there many more? There were 70 by last count. Not counting Phil Hartman and Miss Krabappel. Bob Newhart's still hanging on. Yeah, that's weird. That night did.

So yeah, thanks for joining us. We'll be back next week with Season 3. See you then. See you then. Wow. Infotainment.