Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Bye Bye Nerdie With Kat Bailey

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

This week's episode about nerds vs bullies is joined by the returning Kat Bailey, our friend and the co-host of the Axe of the Blood God podcast! In this Lisa-centric ep she has her own bully, all while Homer cares about baby-proofing (and gets maimed). What's the secret that causes bullying? Learn on this podcast, and be careful dialing up poison deliveries! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

I heartily endorse this event or product. your host the canadian shoes wearer bob mackie and this is our chronological exploration of the simpsons who is here with me today as always hi it's andrew gilbert and your baby is dead oh no and who do we have on the line hey it's cap bailey glad to be back and this week's episode is bye bye nerdy it's like speed too only with a bus instead of a boat this week's episode aired on march 11th, 2001. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God. Oh, boy, Bobby. Melanie C. leaves the Spice Girls, effectively ending that group.

Robert De Niro and Kelsey Grammer rock the box office with 15 minutes. And Morton Downey Jr. dies dies quite a day in march of 20 of 2001. we should mention melanie c is sporty spice that is my chosen spice i believe i said it previously on this podcast although i'm not into the sports thing i'm sure we'd have other things in common though if it came to that i stopped paying attention to spice girls after ginger left that was when i was like ah no, no more. If Ginger's gone. Yeah, so they soldiered on without Ginger for a little bit. But then once Sporty was gone, then they're like, fine.

No more Spice Girls for a while until the reunion tour. The magical year of 1997 when we were all watching Spice World and singing along to If You Want to Be My Lover. It was good times. And then that Robert De N niro movie with kelsey grammar about 15 minutes of like kelsey grammar is like a tv reporter and de niro is a hard cop who's just like come on tell me tell me how to find this guy what's the name of it again 15 minutes oh dear lord 15 minutes what does that imply is there a bomb going to explode or something uh well it's uh sort of but it's also about your 15 minutes of fame

because the killer thereafter is getting famous on Kelsey Grammer's show because he's a tabloid journalist. That's the type of deal. Now it's crazy to think that Kelsey Grammer would ever be in a major motion picture released in theaters. What was the third news item? I was just thinking about Sporty Spice. I'm sorry.

Morton Downey Jr. died. Famously, he is the namesake of morton koopa junior who i think is now just morton koopa or has been for a long time you know they severed the junior ah that's a that's wrong i don't like that uh morton downy junior i believe he recanted on his deathbed because he was a big like pro smoking guy just to be very aggressive and in your face yes yeah morton downey jr for a couple years was like the rush or uh sean hannity of his time jerry springer type two yeah actually more jerry springer because he was a talk show host not a newsreader type dude but i mean everybody talks about how like he worsened the world of television and made it much like filthier and dirtier place and he and on his show he was

like i smoke all the time and they tell me i'm healthier than ever i you can't make me stop smoking and then i you know by 1997 he finds out like actually you have like very bad lung cancer and uh yes that is when he went the other side like he said he had to like he talked about how i go i feel so bad about it i had guys who used to come up to me and they'd tell me like hey sign my cigarette pack i'm gonna smoke just like you i'm not gonna listen to the libs who tell me not to smoke and he said he regretted that but it's like easy to regret it then people were telling him he was an asshole before and he wasn't listening but but but yes he passed away uh march 2001 March 2001 before even seeing the real fallout of his legacy in the post 9-11 news demagoguery years. There's a documentary about him.

I heard it's good. It's called Evocateur. It's very good. I've watched it. It's very, very good. I mean, also, he lost his show because he lied and said that a bunch of Ku Klux klan guys beat him up in an airport right he was at the i believe it was our san francisco airport he comes out of the bathroom and he like his clothes are torn up and he has a swastika on his face that he says they painted on him but the swastika was

backwards because he had done it in the mirror and just like the lady who said barack obama's goons beat her up and the bee on her cheek was like carved in with a knife backwards. Yes. Yep. The same. Same kind of deal. When will these folks learn? Yeah.

But anyway, yes, that's what was happening back in March of 2001. Joining us today is our old friend Kat Bailey. Now of IGN, you last joined us for Lisa the Tree Hugger back in March of the year 2020. Wow. Wow. was it that long ago i believe so yeah hello i am really glad to be back on talking simpsons ready to talk about the mythical season 12 i i hear it's one of the best seasons oh sure yes we we're enjoying it this is this is actually a standout of season 12 oh yeah we just we just recorded one that's three episodes down the line from this one so listeners you're it is all on order but that one yeah dog that

sucks i apologize uh cat you were here in march of 2021 uh to me 2020 2021 don't exist like i blinked and it's suddenly september i mean this is when we're recording it so what is time exactly and cat also you are the you know co-host of the acts of the blood god podcast patreon supported as well you're you got a lot of uh stews going yeah no i i'm basically doing two full-time jobs which is a great idea on my part but acts of the blood god has been a lot of fun we've had a really good year honestly and it's been a lot of fun. We've had a really good year, honestly. And it's been a lot of fun to be on Patreon in a weird way. It was kind of nice to be able to take the podcast and make it into our own. We have a really lively community and a lot of Talking Simpsons listeners have kind of

crossed over, crossing the streams. So it feels like our two podcasts are of a piece. I see them talking about us in your Discord, Kat. But it's all nice things. Spying on us and and cat we've talked a ton about your history with the simpsons of course but did you watch this one when it was new in 2001 2001 no i think that i was definitely watching the episode still when they were in syndication but this one was not in the syndicated run i think they were only going up to season 11 so i missed this one this was a brand new experience watching this episode unclouded unjaded eyes and of course all of us were very popular in high school yes no

no issues with bullying that this episode would bring back to us i never ate alone in a bathroom for most of a year that never happened that was some other guy similar haircut very handsome i never like dreaded gym class because of one specific kid who bullied me for holding my nose when i dived in the pool like i wouldn't do that who would bring up such a specific thing not me no yeah no i i think uh obviously we're all little nerdy kids like the writers of this show so an episode about bullying uh bullying was going to touch you in some way. This is TV bullying, though. It's not as dark as actual bullying. Okay.

So were the writers writing about bullying circa the 60s? Because whenever I watch shows like this, they're like, we're giving you a wedgie or Indian burns or things like that. I don't know. Maybe my perspective was different, but I did not see a lot of that when i was in school mostly kids just being either really mean and awful or physically assaulting kids and not just not going to the halfway mark just corny cornering kids and attacking them the bullies in this are far more creative than the bullies of our childhood yeah and yeah me yeah i i do think when i first saw this i didn't like it as much this wasn't one of like my least favorite episodes uh when i saw it new in 2001 but i did think it was like

maybe too wacky but also that i was kind of tired of like oh bullying is actually caused by this kind of things because i uh when this aired i was nearly done with high school and i was just like i'm tired of hearing about bullying i don't want to hear like the secret funny reason that bullying happens i mean controversial take for me you see somebody like ben shapiro and you think sometimes bullying is necessary we need to shut some of these kids down sure and in some cases yeah you never but you know some people might grow up to be cool and not be a ben shapiro but you can't i survived to become a podcaster yeah i'm curious to know who the writer is on this episode because my first thought is it's written by a bunch of harvard dorks because the nerds of course would be thinking but why do the bullies do it it's definitely written from that

kind of perspective of trying to figure out the mindset of a bully and so then you come up with the comedic reason of well obviously we're secreting some kind of poindexteros to make it happen yeah i mean uh the writer is another of the harvard uh nerds it's it's a frankenpain on this one it's a frankenpain one which one is the name of professor frank and the other wrote marvel movies so that's how you know and before it was cool, he wrote one of them, who's also no longer with us. That's Don Payne, who's on the commentary, which makes the commentary a little more wistful, knowing how he's no longer with us. But I mean, too, Kat, I was curious to how similar this was that this is about a specific

thing about bullying within the girls at school, because, you know, that it seems to make a point that boy bullying and girl bullying is different though it seems like it's just that the boys won't touch the girl but then the girls just do just beat the shit out of other girls in in the bullying in this show well i think it was clearly written by a guy because the way she she is bullying lisa feels like they just took a guy bully and transposed them onto this character played by Kathy Griffin. My experience was that girls were just really, really mean. They would gossip behind your back.

They would say really absolutely incredibly vicious things and completely cut you down. There would be a lot of ostracizing you and you would be made to feel completely awful and horrible at all times. And so it wasn't as overtly physical, though, of course, there were girls out there who were very big and very mean and were going to like actually attack you. I did know one of them thankfully i never crossed her path but stereotypically it's more of a mean girl thing i think with girl bullies like i was saying earlier i think most bullying is kind of just too dark to have fun with on tv because in my case and a lot of cases i think it's just a long campaign of psychological torment which is not fun to watch

and that's like that's not a gender divided thing yeah bullies both boys and girls will go out of their way to destroy like they will pick a target and they'll just go after you forever like psychologically it's it's bad i hate it the shows or movies i've seen that show bullying like accurately i don't want to watch it i watch them once and i'm like i don't ever want to watch this again because it uh reminds me of feeling bad and i don't want to watch it i watch them once and i'm like i don't ever want to watch this again because it uh reminds me of feeling bad and i don't uh i'm like i don't need to see that again like i i watched that dumb movie drill bit taylor once i didn't even i it was when i worked at a video store so somebody else put it on it wasn't my choice but and then when

i watched i was like oh this actually is pretty accurate to how awful a bully is and how they get away with everything that's sad i don't like this you know i've checked up on my bullies they're not on facebook they're not on linkedin i'm hoping dead yeah you can only they got to be in a river somewhere yeah show me the bones is what i say wait for their names at the end of this podcast though i guess you know if we were to write stories like this now about our bullying i maybe the kids of today would be like, well, that's not accurate. Where's the like terrorism on an Internet page? Where's leaking of my dudes on a Facebook page? Yeah, now it's all like revenge porn and much, much darker things.

I'm so grateful I'm not i wasn't on social media when i was in high school because there would have been people who just would have been tormenting me on all of the instagrams and all of the twitters yeah the my bullies weren't in the ign forums where i was talking about you know what what would the next square soft game that's where you were a bully henry yes i hey i you know it's the it's abuse is passed down it It's handed from person to person. Yes. Yeah. Hey, I think I was nice to those people were wrong.

I was telling them that dread that FF seven's better. Sorry. I have six is better than FF seven. Well, you're correct. Yeah. Let's talk about the director of this episode though. Lauren McMullen.

So yeah, Kat said, you know, a woman didn't write this, but a woman did direct this. Definitely. Yep. And we interviewed Lauren last year. So that's on the talking Simpsons feed, Kat said a woman didn't write this, but a woman did direct this. Definitely. A woman did direct it, yep. And we interviewed Lauren last year, so that's on the Talking Simpsons feed, I believe.

Yeah, it's on the free feed as well as on the Patreon, yes. It was mainly about the miniseries we had done that year. And that miniseries, I wish I could disconnect it from the start of COVID, but that is when we started posting it. But yeah, Talking Mission Hill, we went over Mission Hill. Lauren was a huge part of the development of the series the visuals co-creator yes yeah and uh so mission hill it uh aired two episodes they burned off the rest in the summer and lauren goes over to the simpsons so this is her first of seven episodes she direct for the show before moving on to avatar the last airbender to work with some of her old mission hill pals on that one some of the directors from that show yeah i think uh many of the mission hill people went on to uh other sitcoms

and i know that the um the two creators of avatar the last airbender said they really wanted to sell that show to make an action show based on like the anime they enjoyed because they were getting very bored doing uh sitcom uh you know primetime sitcoms and then once they sold avatar of course they were going to have their old you know they're like oh yeah lauren's great like let's have her even though action is not what she did all her previous work would not make you think that she would be great as an action director but it turns out that just lauren mcmullen is a genius and an amazing just animator in general and she was on the critic as well she's been uh floating around since the 90s but she came to the simpsons for the first time in 2001 this is her first episode she stayed for

seven episodes again leave for avatar and then would later go on to work at pixar for a movie that never came out so the movie newt is something that she worked on for years. It just never came out. She was working on it when she did that commentary for this episode. Yeah. Actually, Newt was going to be the movie they released in the same window as Brave. So Brave replaced Newt as that movie. So Brave knocked Newt out of the schedule. Yeah.

Boy, you know, in both those cases, a female director didn't last long at pixar on those put the pieces together yeah but uh no i was and that means she lived in our neck of the woods for a time which i like yeah she's actually it's funny you mentioned uh the harvard thing cat because laura mcmullen was president of the harvard lampoon she followed conan o'brien after that which you wouldn't, the way she acts is not like talking with her. She was so like mild mannered or just, you know, chill. You wouldn't think she's the type of person who, when I think of the president of Harvard Lampoon, I think of an overachieving like comedy nerd, but she is just, again, I think

she has like a real quiet brilliance to her that makes her underestimated as a creator. And on top of that, like as a woman in the field, I think probably she got overlooked a bit, unfortunately, too. She sent us stickers, Mission Hill stickers. She sent us some damn stickers. She was so nice. I think a lot of women who came of age in that era and really succeeded in a very male dominated kind of area like the Harvard Lampoon would probably be ferociously intelligent,

but, you know know aren't going to be overbearing about it right they're going to be kind of in the background but they're they're out there you know they're amazing she showed too much pride she probably would have been voted would not have been voted to she'd be like oh this bitch is too full of herself they'd have said and in 2013 she was the director of the oscar-nominated mickey mouse short get a horse which is amazing it's six minutes long seek it out watch it she's a genius she should have won it yeah she should be an oscar winner yeah and they were incredibly lucky to get her this time on simpsons i absolutely

she didn't say this but my feeling is that she put a lot more investment into this than a lot of the other directors were at the time and i think it's i'm not saying the directors were being lazy but i do think the directors knew we got to pump this out the producers kind of the writer producers don't give us as much space to be expressive so let's just stay a color in the lines you know and when mcmullen shows up who she was just the supervising director of a full series i think she was not she wasn't going to let that feeling take her over she's just like no i hey this is a funny drawing it breaks the rules i don't care like let's draw a cool drawing here i think it helped that matt craning was very busy with futurama because there's a lot of very fun

drawings like the one i have in my uh my google meet background that are not on model but they're just fun to look at and very expressive i i think she didn't care as much about the rules as like i think there were a lot more rule followers who did the safe thing in this era of Simpsons and, and didn't like make his creative drawings, which, you know, I've said it before, but another reason people feel about the downturn of the series, uh, starting from season nine is that, you know, Brad Bird left the show, David Silverman left the show, the animation got more rote or just coloring in the lines. McMullen brings back some of that more creativity and looseness to it.

Hearing her talk on the commentary, she's like, well, that seemed like a cool thing to draw, so I drew it. Or I was really invested in this character, so I put extra work in designing him. Scully jokes. He says, you're putting more thought into this than we did but it's true like it's actually true and i think she can tell too it looks like a vintage episode in a lot of ways especially at the beginning i was taken aback by just how much this stood out compared to other simpsons episodes of the era and and i also saw her most like recent credits she had directed co-directed the uh the lesbian mermaid episode of disenchantment the one everybody remembers from disenchantment that's

right yeah uh and in hearing her talk about newt when we interviewed her like i i felt bad asking after because she had said like it was like watching a building fall apart in slow motion or whatever it's just like a tragedy of a film that didn't get finished but yeah she's great and so nice to us like i i'd love to talk with her again because we only scratched the surface of her career and like she directed those great king of the hills too like yeah that's looking king of the hills she was on that show for a little period of time yeah for this i hope that someday that dream of the gus and wally show comes to be and then she is the supervising director on that too that would be great yeah yeah this episode also has a big guest star in it kathy griffin who barely says anything they they comment on that they say like wow why do we have her talk so little when it's

kathy griffin who's known for talking a lot like why why did why did this character have to be kathy griffin uh though selman has a funny joke of saying like oh yeah kathy griffin but like she is a bully to the nerds around her in real life so that's why they thought she was good casting for it and uh it's almost a uh it's almost an ironic casting choice because as you were already saying she is really verbose Like she can't stop talking often to her detriment. And she, in this one, she just basically grunts and occasionally yells at Lisa, but that's about it. Like it's very kind of monosyllabic character.

At the time she had done this, she was just off of Suddenly Susan, the Brooke Shields show where she played the role of V Vicky which caused a lot of confusion because at the same time suddenly Susan was on there was the show News Radio with the red-headed actress Vicky Lewis who played a character named Beth yeah I I confused them a lot at the time even though they're very different looking actors yeah but it's you know it's the redhead sidekick character basically Vicky Lewis on Mission Hill yes yeah even that's even know it's the redhead sidekick character basically vicky lewis on mission hill yes yeah even that's even funnier wow i didn't even one of those shows was much better than the other news yeah everybody if people remember anything they remember news radio

they do not remember suddenly we're not remembering our favorite suddenly susans i'd remember veronica's closet first before me too dan cortez lit up the screen. That's right. This was during her transition year when this came out for her because she had stopped being on sitcoms. She also played Alice on Dilbert a year before this, but that show ended. Jeez. And so then she would pretty much just go back to being a full-time comedian you know randomly appearing and stuff and then soon after this would become the star of her reality show my life on the d-list which you know really did make her even more famous because she was just like yeah she hangs out with people who are more serious more famous than her and she has you know a real joan rivers quality to her of the time and and

then of course she became you know the co-host with anderson cooper of the of the new year's shows where she would constantly make jokes at him that were obviously like, I know you're gay, but you're not out. Ha ha ha. Those kind of jokes. She, hey, I can say it. She has a bit of fag hag energy to her back in those days. Henry just flashes gay card. It's safe.

Yes. Yeah. But and lastly about her, I mean, well, at the time of this recording, she's going through a difficult bout with lung cancer. She is currently recovering from some big surgery. She seemed to be in good spirits when we last saw it. We wish her nothing but good health. We don't have a jokey jingle for this anymore. Yes, we got rid of it.

That's okay. That's good. Yes, yeah. We're done. We've had enough times where a tragedy happens after we record that. We're like, no jokey jingles. I say bring it back at least temporarily for the guy mentioned in the Blackboard opening. The guy referenced.

But I don't wish him to not die. I hope. I hope. Yeah. I know what you mean by that. No, no. I want the death jingle played. I want to curse him.

If only. Yes. And yeah, I wish I had the right. But yeah, I wanted to joke about kathy griffin because there's that funny thing about that like blogger that like lived in her house and wouldn't go away like you just started to be a squatter which that was a pretty funny story it was uh what yashra lee was uh guy's name yeah i think so and then the guy just vanished from twitter because it was just too embarrassing that he was like he was one of those viral twitter guys and

then when people found out that he was this weird squatter in Kathy Griffin's house that she had to like call the cops on. So that was pretty funny. But, and, and of course, Kathy Griffin got canceled for no good reason for, you know, the harmless picture of her with like a dummy's head that looked like Trump. Like it was bloody. Who fucking cares? Yeah.

Yeah. But anyway, I, I wish Kathy Griffin nothing but good health. I'm glad that it seems like her most recent surgery went well. Good luck to you, Kathy Griffin. The Simpsons will be right back.

Next Sunday, Homer goes on a baby safety crusade. I'll draw bunny faces to scare Maggie away. She's not afraid of bunnies. She will be. Will he be safe or sorry? Daddy's protecting you from all this sharp steak. Here, hold this a sec. Ow!

An all-new Simpsons next sunday welcome to the break everybody for this very baby-proofed episode of talking simpsons and a big thank you to our guests this week kat bailey always fun to have her on check out her patreon funded podcast acts of the blood god if you're a fan of role-playing games. And be sure to follow her on Twitter. And if you're a fan of this podcast, you should know Talking Simpsons is brought to you by many great subscribers at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. Those subscribers help me and Bob do this as our full-time real jobs. And for five bucks a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you get access to so many things you get to hear a giant back catalog of exclusive podcast miniseries of us covering shows like

mission hill the critic king of the hill and futurama only if you're a patreon subscriber and coming very soon our 10 week long podcast miniseries blabbing about batman the animated series where we're covering our top 10 episodes of Batman the Animated Series. Super in-depth just like we do with The Simpsons. So please check it all out and so so much more at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. But if you want something even nicer than a repress it all prescription you should sign up at that premium level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for 10 bucks a month you get all the five dollar things i just mentioned and then you get our monthly

super premium what a cartoon movie podcast me and bob have a sister podcast what a cartoon where we cover an animated series twice a month in super detail and historical accuracy and then at the end of each month we cover a animated feature film in super depth research often over four hours sometimes even over five hours long our most recent one this month is going to be batman beyond return of the joker a film that is great and also has an interesting release history. And we have a giant back catalog covering so many things. Disney films like The Lion King, classics of anime like Kiki's Delivery Service, reason stuff like Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, Shrek even, and tons, tons more.

Check it all out at patreon.com slash talking simpsons uh but yes bob you did mention the sign gag here the chalkboardboard gag. Yeah, Vice President Dick Cheney, God forbid. He had his fourth of five heart attacks in November of 2000. We were recording this a little bit after 9-11, and I'm sick of seeing these fuckers alive. Yeah, Dick Cheney especially, man. I'm saying slow, painful, natural causes. This is not me saying anyone go out there and do anything. I want heart attack number six. Destroy this man. it's a wish you're putting out into the world you're not

well you're not saying harm against anyone is it a low road yes yeah but it's one i i walk every day dick i i'm so pissed yeah that chalkboard gag made me furious to get all over again because yeah i remember when it was 2008 and they're leaving and sorry january 2009 they're leaving office and he's in a wheelchair you know at the obama's inauguration and i was thinking all right he didn't die during an office which that's too bad but he's on his last legs he's gotta be he's in a wheelchair and that asshole is dick cheney is still alive still so we won't feel bad if anything uh if if, the sixth one comes for him before this post. Like Henry Kissinger.

That guy just keeps going. How does he do it? Unbelievable. Norm MacDonald's dead. Yeah. How's the world fair? Bob Dole outlived him. Yes.

Can you believe that? And the Twitter account, he didn't write it, of course, but it said Bob Dole is very sad or whatever. Yeah. Boo. But yeah. 20 years later. Yeah. That's what the chalkboard

gag is all about they're finally it's their first uh real w administration joke they do of very few ones they would do then we come into the episode proper with a very funny parody of a cereal commercial for stabios for itchy and scratchy look Look who's making breakfast. I think it's grosser than if he was hacked to pieces that when scratchy is cut open to feed the kids, it's like a surgical cut or like a mortician's cut. So cold. Yes, yeah. Y'all have any strong Lucky Charms takes?

I'm curious. I hate those squeaky marshmallows. They mess me up uh yeah it's like a little foot when you bite into them yeah they were never uh when they get soggier they're a better marshmallow and of course we got to live through in our childhoods when they decided well we have to frost the cereal bits in these two they can't just be cereal bits anymore you know charms was the most coveted cereal when i was in in school and we were actually being able to give it them no really oh you mean like

the little boxes those marshmallows people the kids love the marshmallows they weren't my favorite growing up as a kid i'd i wouldn't say notable no sir but if it was my pick i'd have gone with like cocoa puffs or cinnamon toast crunch or apple jacks it was my pick I'd have gone with like Cocoa Puffs or Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Apple Jacks it was my brother's favorite though and he would do a thing that honestly my mom should not have let him do which was he just picked out the marshmallows and ate a bowl of marshmallows several times and my mom was just like I'll just eat the cereal that's like okay just all the marshmallows it's no that's too much that's like five percent of the bag yeah maybe yeah I think part of the

fun for my brother was the system of picking out the marshmallows himself and then eating them i i had to buy a box of crunch berries recently for this uh video thing that i did back in may and i was like uh you know what i don't like these that much anymore but i'll chip away at this box over the next couple of weeks i still have it i have not touched it since then i need to throw it out uh you're you have you have an adult's teeth in mouth now you can't it'll tear it apart it's not made for for those uh for that fiberglass anymore stabios are a good parody of the lucky charms with even just naming the different pieces that are in it and they're part of a nutritious breakfast which includes a blade sorry a plate of broccoli i love that i blade of broccoli. Until doing the super close watch of it,

my eyes were always drawn to Scratchy's head going gray that I never noticed that his complete breakfast has a plate of broccoli. That's how it's officially a complete breakfast. I don't know if they still do this, but that was the thing they would show you in cereal commercials where it's like, well, this has no nutritional value,

so you must eat toast and eggs and ham and a stack of pancakes and a glass of orange juice and a glass of milk and maybe a muffin or two they were acting as if kids were going to cut down an entire forest a big great after leaving yeah yeah you know i uh still watch cartoon network every now and then for like uh that craig of the creek series for instance which i really like and so when i put on the app for it i occasionally do see like a frosted flakes or fruity pebbles commercial they don't do it as obvious as in our childhood of saying like part of this complete breakfast but they do show when the kid is sitting at the table with his uh you know giant bowl of sugar that is fruity pebbles he is surrounded by the things of uh that represent that so it's still the visual i thought the lie that the breakfast industry made up has now been debunked that you don't you

don't need 28 calendar calories to start your day we i think now you just accepted like look if i'm buying my kid this sugar cereal i know what i'm doing we all know what we're doing let's either either do it or don't but let's not lie to ourselves i think the last time i had yeah an actual like i did try one of those magic spoon i i feel like i'm doing an ad and we're not but the magic spoon ones their whole promise is like oh but it's low carb but it tastes like fruit loops or whatever and i had one bowl of it i was like yeah it's fine but i also i do feel like i've grown out of eating cereal now which is crazy because I used to be a cereal fiend in my 20s and early 30s. But really, I'm not I'm not a cereal guy anymore. I'm here for the cereal discourse.

You turn this into a cereal discourse. People need to know my thoughts about crispics. They're good. Oh, I love crispics. Yeah, I got I got a box up there. If I ever am in a cereal mood, I'm like, all right, let's get the crisp. By the way, it's 5.49 p.m. We have not eaten dinner.

So that's why we're talking about cereal. That explains it. You know, listeners, I think you can tell when we have long talks about food, that's when we've skipped a meal and we're doing a podcast. It was shocking to me that Itchy and Scratchy killed the mom because rarely is violence ever done to someone who is not one of them. That's true. Yeah.

A severed head with blood around it. That is, I mean, I guess it is meant to make you uncomfortable with how gross it is. That's why Lisa Collins. Most of me is still in bed. Hey, kids. Look who's making breakfast. Itchy and Scratchy. That's right, kids.

Never start the day on an empty stomach. It's delicious. Want to try? Yay! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ooh, so cold.

Wow, pink daggers. Green hatchets. Yellow ice picks. And Stabios are part of his nutrition! Hey, if you guys made breakfast, where's Mom? Here I am! But thanks to Stabios, most of me is still in bed. That ad campaign may have crossed a line.

What can you do? Sex sells. Homer, you're still here? You should have left for work an hour ago they said if i come in late again i'm fired i can't take that chance and kids you're gonna miss the school bus it's only two blocks away i have a question for you if on the itchy and scratchy violence scale what is the most violent itchy and scratchy cartoon there is and where does that fall on this continuum because i think this one is quite violent having eating out of the the corpse it's very having the severed bloody head oh that's uh that's intense cutting open a corpse that is full of soggy cereal and eating it is uh very disgusting up there it could be up there with

him getting his fur torn off by the escalator. When I think of the grossest one, it is Scratchy having his fur ripped off and seeing the muscle and sinew on his bloody body. And like the zoom in on his skinless body. He's leaving a trail of blood behind him. Yes. And on top of that, he has his, I mean, who isn't afraid of escalator things as a little kid of like escalator is gonna eat me so i i think that is the grossest one i do think him in the blender is pretty bad too but uh yeah i think but this is right up there with it like which mcmullin really loves doing

itchy and scratchy she's very funny with those two yes as lisa sees it she says that ad campaign may have crossed the line homer says yeah what can you do sex sells and then yes as lisa sees it she says that ad campaign may have crossed the line homer says yeah what can you do sex sells and then bart and lisa look at homer like he's insane which i really just love that they just give a beat of like you're what the fuck did you say like yeah well he's clearly uh on his way to getting drunk this morning uh i mean homer is fired from his job in this episode he's never had his after this. That's why he invents a new one. Yes. This bit of Marge racing to get these kids to school,

this feels like it could have been a season two kind of joke. Absolutely. Especially with the soundtrack. Oh, my God. That is such an early season two kind of thing. Yeah. To use the saber dance from Aram Kitchatatourian's ballet, Gayane.

I knew that off the top of my head. I'm not just reading that. You weren't reading it off the screen? But that song, The Sabre Dance, is used in eight million things for this very kind of thing. I'm surprised it's not Powerhouse. It's either Sabre Dance or Powerhouse for this.

But yeah, just the bit of them, there's so many funny drawings. Marge brushing their teeth together uh there's so many funny drawings marge brushing their teeth together like that's so good walking backwards down the stairs taking off their clothes and putting on new clothes i was mad that bart didn't stay that there's clothes didn't say switched at least for the next scene yeah that bugged me but uh i also liked marge rubbing lisa's throat like swallow swallow swallow yeah and uh yeah homer's line of like they said if i come in late again i'm fired i can't take that chance that's a great line

uh but yes the the whole sequence is amazing the drawing of homer jumping into the air to eat the thing bart spits out is really great i love that drawing i mean there's so many times where it just feels like mcmullen thought this should be a funny drawing let's draw something fun yeah instead of just what's the most on-model way that it would look like for Homer to jump in the air? Now, could Homer jump that far in the air? I don't think so. Very high-energy sequence, and not in an annoying way.

I think that a lot of Simpsons of this particular era loves to have a cold open that's as wacky as possible. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one. Oh, yeah, no. But this one feels very on-brand for the Simpsons open that's as wacky as possible correct me if i'm wrong on this oh yeah following this but this one feels very on brand for the simpsons in a very fun way and i think as you already saying they uh just see really inventive drawings and how fast everything is moving it just really gets you into the flow of the episode immediately i think especially in the first half so i was

watching this with some friends of mine plus the rest of the people in my household and there's quite a few chuckles uh early on like organic chuckles you know that's that's on the right track when it's doing that i only buy my chuckles organically i uh i think too what helps this bit is that like unlike say nine whole minutes where they shop around for tombstones or visit a carnival or visit a carnival and then decide here's when the story starts in this case it's just three or four minutes of it instead of uh wasting a whole bunch of time they actually get onto the plot of the episode pretty quickly yeah even getting to school is related to the plot it's not like they go to

like a milkshake shake convention or whatever and then and then they're like time for school yeah it goes from the itchy scratchy cartoon to getting ready to the bus chase to the house inspector like back to back to back to back uh and i love the hairy marge design too like missing his shoes staying on her dress uh one sock in her hair and the bus drag race is probably some one of the funniest auto bits that i've seen in quite a while it's been a while since auto had such a funny scene i love his like you eat my dust yeah oh god it's they go to this uh terminator 2 and the car and the bus rearing back right yeah it does a wheelie yeah and they go to this like terminator 2 zone. Yes, that is the 6th Street Viaduct from Los Angeles' Boyle Heights neighborhood. It was in one million movies.

I believe it was first made famous in Greece for its big car race. Then Terminator 2 has it. They Live has it. Anchorman has it. Once it became famous enough, then things like Anchorman or the beastie boy sabotage music video they would do races through there because it's like yeah that's the race place like uh and unfortunately though that viaduct is no longer with us it was replaced in 2015 and demolished could they do that it's yeah i guess it never truly carried water after it stopped raining in california yeah yeah i guess

so yeah but it's it's movie history like it people got to film there and you just got to feel cool like oh wow they're filming in the place where like the terminator drove by uh or where uh danny zucco drove his car or whatever yeah but uh yes i also love the way that race is like again this felt like a real like animatory touch the bounce that the car has when it goes up and the bus has all the kids bouncing in the air yeah the kids are loving it so there's two big deleted scenes that are on the dvd for this episode uh the first one is honestly i wish they'd kept it in there because it's a really funny drawing so when the bus pops a wheelie and the race is happening they then drive

by a sign and behind the sign is Wiggum and Lou in a cop car and instead and Lou's like a chief why aren't we chasing after him Wiggum's head is turned away from him and then he turns his head to face him and Wiggum's mouth is open and a humming bird is flying around in his mouth and he says like no wait you're gonna scare it and it's just it's very strange it's kind of like how wigum looks like when he gets his lockjaw from eating it but it's it has a hummingbird in his mouth i uh scully says they cut it because it just looked too weird but i wish they'd have kept it in it's a fun weird drawing but yes the the car chase is going so well that millhouse compares it to speed to only with a bus

instead of a boat we also get a very brief reference to world industries a real skateboard company and their flame boy mascot flame boy real mascot just a drawing of him uh it's very it was but it's so fast you can barely even recognize it uh yes then they crash down and marge you know she's right to celebrate her win She gets ahead of them and makes them get on the bus because she earned it. But then in a very funny bit, they completely get to the school. And then I was like, no, we actually have to turn back. I like how violently he stops and all the kids just fly forward. Yes.

Because he travels about a foot before hitting the brakes. Because he stops and he's like, hey, we're at school. Oh, actually, no. But the kids are all standing and they all fall down. Yeah, love that. But it's but the kids are all standing and they all fall down. Yeah. Love that. Uh, but it's time to pick up a new kid. And so then the second half of act one comes, uh, becomes very observational stuff about being the new kid at school.

I was a new kid a couple of times. It was no fun. I think it, it only made my alienation where I was probably going to be bullied at some point anyway. But if I wasn't the new kid and could just have been a kid like oh they've known me for like four years we bullied him out if you're a new kid bullies are like oh well this is a fresh some fresh paint uh a dry canvas for our paint i was only a new kid once in fourth grade and i think it helped that the class sizes were so small that uh it was easier to integrate because it was like maybe 20 kids in a class.

So my fourth grade, my fourth grade classes had 20 other kids in it. So I guess they were more welcoming that way. That's nice. My experience was that the new kids were kind of novel. And so everybody would be inclined to be nice to them, at least at first until the novelty wore off, at which point then people could kind of sort them into

in group and out group and decide why or not they needed to be formatted because kids are awful i think it helped that personally for my situation that i was coming from a public school to catholic school they're like tell us teach us the secular ways and i was like what are all these prayers you're saying i i need to learn these quickly what's it like to wear sneakers at school oh yeah beltless i was beltless before uh but yes as uh as the new kid is being picked up all the kids have their own vision of what the new kid would be and honestly this sequence uh we talk about how this reminds us of things from like 20 10 years earlier in the show but when they find out selma has a new boyfriend and black widower, it's the same like three people imagine things jokes. Or also when Homer imagining his perfect day, like, is this the best day of my life?

It's a return of the dream balloons, which they've not had in a while. I mean, I wish they were a bit better than a little boy on a unicorn and some monster. Yeah, the monster's okay. I do like Ralph's stupid vision. Oh, yeah, there are three. That one didn't make it live, actually. The Ralph vision is good. And honestly, I'm into the goat being the new kid.

Bring on the goat. That would be a good episode concept for some reason. I don't know why. I like that the goat seems to be wearing the clothes of the goat from he ha's opening even like yeah ralph wants to meet the star of he ha uh and just the the laugh ralph gives to himself like ha ha ha like just thinking of that made him laugh uh but the real new kid is here it's francine mcmullen talks about how she worked very hard to design her uh that she loved the idea that like she'd have a very business-like approach to being a bully and she's always walking around

with a lunchbox like it is her briefcase yeah Lauren wanted her lunchbox to be a Leon the professional lunchbox but nobody at the animation studio knew what that was and they thought she was crazy they're like what is leon see that attention to detail and caring that's why she's an oscar nominee guys you know go above and beyond like lauren but but yes the new kid arrives and nobody likes him red hair what's she trying to pull those shoes look canadian she'll never fit in oh it's tough being the new kid someone should go talk to her yeah somebody should one hour dry cleaner man that's fast i like bart just shutting that down like i'm not gonna help but you know i'm gonna actually play the jingle for it because i do think

it's not as in your face about it but lisa's belief here is one of empathy and empathizing with somebody who also is being bullied and she will then it will be a take that lisa's beliefs moment because her empathy is rewarded with violence and pain so i'm gonna play the jingle take that, Lisa's beliefs. Hey, I was here when you inaugurated that jingle. Right. Yeah, Yardley Smith rightfully complains that every Lisa story is about just her getting crushed. Yeah. It's never making a friend.

It's always like meeting an enemy. I did actually have that happen to me. There was a kid who was sitting next to me in band and I had the temerity to start talking and she said, don't talk to me. And from that point on, I was a target because I was on her radar from that point on. Yeah. I should have just kept my head down. I shouldn't have said anything. The second that I tried to start strike up a conversation it was over so i take that as a lesson never engage ever in middle school i had an experience with a person who i was like oh that guy needs a friend and then i regretted it instantly like oh no one talks to them because they're annoying and i and if i felt that person was annoying they really had to be annoying also bob you've been there enough now what is a canadian shoe what's it look like uh they're well made and good for uh rainy weather and cold weather

i like it that all the kids are like trying to find something to uh ostracize this kid about they're like what do we got here red hair okay uh the shoes they look canadian we don't know if they're canadian but they look it you know that frankie says relax kid he's on the uh the the verge of the like ironic t-shirt movement so he's good he's cool actually why isn't that one of their regular nerds why did they invent one nerd for that instead of making it you know database or martin or or millhouse or ham i love they just need to heighten it as much as possible to be able... For laughs, as it were. I guess none of them have headgear on.

Yeah. So they needed to embed again with headgear. We do see the return of Data, again, because Matt Groening is gone. Yeah. He hates Data's voice. Data's voice is so great. I love Database.

Yes. You use his full name because you respect him. Yes. Well, Database is... I identify with him quite a lot. I don't like being squeegeed though don't do that to me but uh i i but yeah the the kid this joke though isn't it martin's wang computers joke again isn't it sort of but i guess he is not a potential target because of his

shirt i suppose those 10 year olds in 2001 don't know about Frankie. He goes to Hollywood. Cut to home, and Homer just is not at work, which is useful for him because they get a knock on the door. Kids gone? Yep. It's great to have some time just to ourselves, huh? You read my mind. So, this coffee's good, huh? Yeah.

The milk really takes the edge off. You know, I think our marriage is... I got it! I got it! How I do! Your baby is dead. That's what you'd hear if your baby fell victim to the thousands of death traps lurking in the average American home. Springfield baby proofing?

You really scared us. Sorry about that. But the truth is, your baby Maggie Simpson is dead. Dead tired of baby proofers who don't provide a free estimate. Let's start in the kitchen. I love that. It's a bit similar to Mom, Dad, Bart's Dead. Sure.

Dead series about going to a too scratchy land. Oh, that's what the joke was. Okay, I was going, that sounds so familiar. They've done this joke before. Thank you. But I do like the context of a sales, a stranger saying this to them and then saying it again. So I think that's like-

Doubling down on it's great. With their big smiling face, like your baby is dead like yeah oh god and and also i just love this sequence that it starts with homer and marge like entering into an uncomfortable conversation about like our marriage isn't doing great and then we don't have anything in common do we uh and just once they get the knock on the door like oh thank god something interrupted that thought we don't have to think about our marriage being in trouble like let's just let's answer the door it feels like the lead-in it feels like the lead-in to another episode like maybe natural born kissers or something where it's like we're about to go just kidding that plot's not happening

we're doing a totally different plot one that just has no bearing on anything whatsoever but just just roll with it it's fine you know that clearly they've forgotten the the joys of their exhibitionism that they learned in that episode they need to they need to just go have sex in a public place again and then they'll they'll remember what their marriage is really in front of this woman perhaps with the big butt exactly hey invite her along man with that i mean it's already getting a little bit kinky with the whole baby thing they're on their way. We saw you in our living room.

We dig your vibe. Yeah, we do. Yeah, this baby proofing stuff, apparently it came from Don Payne, I think. Yes. Who found out his house was a death trap because of they're having a kid at the time. And this is their experience. And I was like when we grew up, I don't think there was baby proofing or there wasn't an industry but i have a scar above my right sorry left eyebrow because of how sharp coffee tables were in the 80s if you collided with a coffee table you could have been decapitated

so i was running as a toddler crawling just smashed right into a coffee table those corners will kill you ouch man i uh my scar went away but I had one, but it was from a dog biting me as like a two-year-old. But it was also in the eyebrow region. Yes. They're just so tasty. I, too, have a scar over my eyebrow. It's amazing. This is me climbing out of my crib and falling and hitting a toy and splitting my head open,

which I do not think any amount of baby proofing would have prevented. And honestly, probably says a lot about my mental state anyway now this uh yeah i mean baby proofing maybe it's a racket maybe not i don payne said he learned that like oh my entire house is a death trap to children and uh but i i also felt very old hearing that story because i'm like oh that child must have graduated college by now the baby he's talking about and also i i do think that uh mcmullen the line is the like i don't think a baby would have a caboose that big and then marge is like oh what marge is offended versus like oh man no really i think mcmullen drew her i'm not saying it's a cartoonishly large butt but they drew her with a bigger butt than most women have drawn of

butts in in if i may let me talk about the butts in simpsons um uh ahead of its time yeah like uh big butts they're definitely in they're judging her for her big butt instead of appreciating it i know i mean nowadays she would absolutely be appreciated this was 2001 eyebrows were skinny and butts were skinnier. Yeah. And you had to wear terrible bikinis and made your butt look as flat as possible. I love the very purposeful way she ties the bonnet on, like this very purposeful flourish of her tying the bonnet,

just like, I'm about to do this thing. Part of it for her is just acting like a baby in front of adults. Oh, absolutely. This is like a kink. And if you're into it, it's fine, but don't put this on other people. And Tress is doing some fun is this is like a kink and if you're into it it's fine but don't put this on other people and tress is doing some fun my kink i find that very uncomfortable i was like please stop no god i hate these kinds of sequences well also because tress mcneil is very good at baby sounds so she and she's doing them well in character i forgot just how great this

scene is of her trying to open the bottle and then when you find out what it is a big laugh for me yes the perfect heightening sorry no the the animation on it again like mcmullen and her team did an amazing job like the movement she does of smashing it down and like when she has to stop to get her breath like the there's so much like extra movement in there like these are all extra things like flourishes not normally seen in a season 12 episode. Like I said it a million times, but like they were so lucky to get McMullen at this time. Like the loss of Mission Hill, which deserved at least a second season. Like that was the Simpsons gain in this case.

Yeah. But yes, Homer. Homer, here's how much it costs to not have a dead baby. She got it open. You see how quickly your baby could have been drinking this Similac baby formula? No! This is such an eye-opener. I always picture the kids dying in the living room.

Okay, with the window bars, toilet latches, dingo alarm, and grapefruit squirt shield, your total cost would be... Wow, I'm rich! Three dollars? That doesn't seem so bad. That's the price of the clipboard. Here's your estimate. Mm-hmm.

Ah! We don't need your high-priced safety junk! Thank you. Maggie falls out of the window. Maggie nearly did actually die. I was going to ask you folks on the podcast here, was Mr. Yuck a universal thing?

Mr. Yuck? Oh, definitely. Okay. We learned all about Mr. Yuck in school. Okay. Well, in the South, they let you drink poison, Henry. They encourage it. It was our main industry.

Yes. But Mr. Yuck, when I Okay, well in the South they let you drink poison, Henry. They encourage it. It was our main industry. Yes. Mr. Yuck, when I was growing up in the 80s, there were these green stickers with a face making a yucky face on it. And you would put them on bottles that you shouldn't drink and they gave us these as kids to bring home and give to our parents. Like, hey, Mom and Dad, put

this on bottles that I'm not supposed to touch. But when I got them, I was like, don't patronize me. I'm not going to drink but when i got them i was like don't patronize me i'm not gonna drink the dishwashing liquid get out of here uh but dishwashing liquid has so many like uh delicious looking apples on it or whatever it might taste like apples you got to find out i'm not saying i did that once or twice as a little kid but no i i probably could have used a mr yuck once or twice in my in my childhood this bit of her trying to open it and then just taking it as like yeah oh it's so easy to open like I love that I also love Homer consistently throws out people with it who give him estimates if you give Homer an estimate

you will be thrown out of the house but but the layout of the shot of her being thrown out like it's from you know they could have just done it on a very flat angle of her like flying out of the house it's like an up angle of her flying above the camera like it's it's a really creative use of that shot this is explaining the joke and i will do that but i do love how she gets it open because she's trying to tell everybody like a baby could open these things but she uses both the height the strength and the knowledge of how to use tools as an adult woman to open the bottle, and it ends up being Similac. It's so good. It's baby formula.

But also, March has to be very stupid, too, alongside Homer. She got it open. Yeah. It's a really good sequence. I wish this lady had stuck around for more of the episodes. She's very funny. But they throw her out. They decide they're not going to take care of it.

The one line I really liked and wrote down was Homer thinking, I always imagine the kids dying in the living room. Oh, yes, that's great. I was like, $3, that's not so bad. It's like, no, that's the price of the clipboard. So, yes, we come back to the school. Francine is all alone. Nobody likes her.

Lisa, and Lisa, She just can't take it Look at the new kid hogging the teeter-totter. It's like she owns the place Yeah, she thinks she's babe pig in the city. Give her a break Remember your first day at school not as long as I keep taking these Well, someone's gotta make her feel welcome Hi there. My name's Lisa. What's yours? That's a good act, Brick.

Now, don't feel bad, honey. Did you know back in grade school I had a bully problem myself? Everybody went kung fu fighting. Those cats were fast as lightning. Good times. And Homer just walks away because his line's over. Is Homer committing a hate crime there against Smithers? Making it Smithers does make it worse to me.

Actually, I don't like Smithers having gone to the same high school as Homer. I know, right? I mean, they'd already done this bit because he was like the announcer for Homer's gym class or gymnast thing. So it has been established. But I still don't like it. This makes him like grade school friends with him. For some reason, that feels crazier to me.

I mean, we're getting closer than ever to Homer at camp grade school friends with him like it's uh for some reason that feels crazier to me than i mean we're getting closer than ever to homer at camp with every single person he knows as an adult yeah we'll get there uh so on the annoying canon this is an annoying canon stuff but it makes me think of so smithers when they were quote unquote hiring uh homer and like the origin story of how he got his job at the power plant they make it seem like smithers like is older than homer and like the origin story of how he got his job at the power plant they make it seem like smithers like is older than homer and that he went to a prestigious college right and that he knew all of these guys right and now they've completely changed it so now he's just one of the many schoolmates of homer yeah any adults they're all the same age all the adults mr burns will be there

uh one thing i wanted to talk about was like now that we established the bully and that she's a bad person on the commentary, they talk about the original direction the story was going to take. And they are so in love with the original idea. They talk about it for five minutes and have deep regrets about not doing it. And the original idea for the story was that at the end of Act Two, Lisa takes a swing at the bully. She misses, hits Principal Skinner and is sent to Juvenile Hall for the story was that at the end of act two lisa takes a swing at the bully she misses hits uh principal skinner and is sent to juvenile hall for the entire third act and they're like why didn't we do that that's such a good idea i i like it yardley on it she's like what the hell yeah like she's she is upset that she lost a better part for her character too yeah

yard i i think yardley is pretty uh maybe she had a couple of drinks on this one she's having uh she's letting loose with her opinions on these episodes but i love that i'd i'd rather her do that to be nice like i prefer the critical yardley to the like oh that's very funny yardley who just is complimenting everything uh i think that's a good concept for an episode actually i am actually surprised that they didn't keep it in their back pocket and just go with it it's not too late it's never too late for an episode like that you could just fully redo this episode just rename the characters update a couple maybe they did i wouldn't know yeah i guess so it could there's a lot of episodes i haven't seen it could happen in season 28 uh hey uh also i love that millhouse

references babe pig in the city what a weird thing we're missing a third sequel reference because we had speed 2 we had babe pig in the city we need one more man yeah where's his electric boogaloo reference you know that's too hacky they wouldn't do that in 2001 that's ahead of its time i guess so yeah that's true because in my childhood i certainly would have liked some repress it all i tell you what they sell it now. It comes in bottles at the liquor store. And it's pretty good.

Yeah, it works. I mean, it works for a night. I guess you got to keep up your, you know, it's just like any medicine. You got to do it all the time. I mean, it's shocking, though, to see like Lisa punched in the face and then having a black eye in the next shot. Violence is never done to Lisa in the show shot like you violence is never done to lisa in the show before this like basically never bart's been beaten up plenty of times so far so many times they kind of have to let that go this episode later in the episode they make it clear

bart is not bullied he does not uh let off the point dextrose uh later but it's like but we've seen bart horribly beaten and bullied in previous episodes he's millhouse adjacent yeah the episode where bart becomes a nerd does that mean that he started to excrete poindexteros at that point must have been once he got the glasses and the hair care stuff that that's the one it started to come out but maybe it is that he's too close to millhouse all the time and millhouse exudes so much of it of the pheromone that bart has it rubbed off on him splashing on the bart yeah uh homer's remembering he was a bully thing too also it's like it's a less funny version of the amazing joke in husky bobby in the king of the hill episode right yeah hey fatty you're fat yeah i also the fact that he sings kung fu fighting an old ass song,

that makes me feel like it's an Al Jean pitch. He's like, wouldn't it be funny if he sang a song from the seventies? So yeah. So that song is from 74, but when they, wait a minute. Yeah.

So they flashback and, you know, conceivably it was established that they graduated 74, but now we're 10 years later. So he should be an 84 graduate. Yeah. So it makes less sense. The more the show goes on

obviously but i also just feel bad like he punches smithers glasses off like fine punches to the gut bully though but if you're punching the face that's that's fun that's too far and bully somebody's got to pay for those marge suggests all the ways that she could befriend francine and Lisa first suggests jazz fusion, which Marge says, let's put that in the maybe file, which also that's kind of Marge's catchphrase of like, that's a maybe, or let's put this in the maybe pile.

She's Marge has put many things in maybe piles. And then it comes back Malibu Stacy, which I was trying, I looked into this. So Lisa basically not the Malibu stacy never appeared again but after the lisa lionheart episode lisa didn't do much malibu stacy stuff for a while i definitely think bill and josh because they wrote the lisa lionheart episode they decided they would have turned down any uh lisa plays with malibu stacy. But in the Scully years, Malibu Stacy came back

and like Lisa just plays with Malibu Stacy's again. And Skinner, sorry, Smithers wrote the musical. Yes, yes, yes. That entire sequence gave me a heartburn, I might add, because when you're being bullied and then you go to your parents or at least my parents, I think you're kind of wanting, I don't know, sympathy or that kind of thing. And instead, you get a lot of bad advice on how to deal with the bullying. It's like, no, no, no, this is not a personal failing. I am dealing with a vicious, vicious person. And please, I just need you to make me feel safe. OK, so all those tips and tricks you get from parents in those moments, it's just like, can't you just talk to like a teacher and make it stop like yeah you you're my parents go do that you know i have to negotiate now

yeah it's like oh maybe they do it because of this maybe they do it because of that like i don't care why they do it i would like it to stop like i don't yeah that that ultimately was how i felt about bullies even though i'd see shows not this show when i was at my most bullied but like i don't know like a nickelodeon show would say like well a bully is actually just this or stand up to a bully in that and it's like no no no no especially like if you ever try to hit back at a bully what you learn is that like they were waiting for an excuse to actually fight you and you are not as good a fighter as your bully almost certainly you you can maybe get a sucker punch in on them but that's the best you're getting you know uh but yes marge suggests that they play with dolls

they uh bring their malibu stacy uh which lisa has the the cute little line they're not dolls they're aspiration figures uh play on the old term of like it's not a doll it's an action figure that boys would say uh this is where there was another deleted scene when Lisa says she's going to bring the Malibu Stacey. She says, oh, but she needs to be a little sassier. And there's a dial on the back of Malibu Stacey that when you turn it, her ponytail goes shorter and shorter on her. And then as she's doing it, Marge gets concerned

and she's like, not too sassy. She's got to go to grad school. But then there's another very funny scene of Homer starting his own baby proofing plans that baby proofing crook wanted to sell us safety covers for the electrical outlets but I'll just draw bunny

faces on them to scare Maggie away she's not afraid of bunnies she will be I love that it's great logic from homer it's classical conditioning all that homer can draw our bunnies so he's gonna make her scared of bunnies he's not gonna learn to draw a scary thing he's just gonna he he'll go the other way

around it i love that i i mean just his delivery of she will be and also his his pronouncement of that baby proofing crook uh and also like covers for electrical outlets are not expensive no they're like 59 cents or something yeah they're nothing i did have those as a kid my parents did invest in those in my i had i had some sharp corners and i had uh i i had times where i found out later in life where my dad kept his guns i was like oh that is very reachable for a toddler. Why did you? I never discovered it as a toddler.

And the vicious dogs, Henry. And the vicious, yes. Biting at your eyebrows. Cat fucking dog. Continuing on the cat was not a smart child tip. I did, in fact, stick a key into an electrical outlet when I was maybe three or four because I was not smart. I wanted to see what happened. I discovered what happened.

It was very painful. So kids are dumb, or more specifically, I was dumb. I've heard that every outlet is a secret door. You should try it. There's treasure behind it. You just happened to find one that wasn't that, but you will soon. This is to weed out all the stupid children in our audience.

We cut back to the school. Lisa is talking to her bully. And this is when she finds out that the bully broke into her locker and stole her Malibu Stacy. And again, oh, what dynamic shots. The way she bites off the head, spits it, and bounces it off of Lisa. And then the shot of Lisa looking down at the doll's head in shock. Like, that's such a... I love every shot of thatisa looking down at the doll's head in shock like that's such a i love every shot of that it really looks great and i mean just the extremeness of francine not only stealing her doll

but breaking into her locker to tear it apart like that uh kathy griffin is very scary in her couple line she has here and her guttural yells are they they're intense right like yes uh there she she really dives into the character with the very very very little amount of uh material that she is given and this is when lisa gets stuffed in a locker another very funny drawing that bob has on his background for this uh one and then followed by that we also see that millhouse and ralph were both shoved in a locker next to her they're their totem pole as ralph says and then we come to a scene that okay i'll say i don't like this in 2001 i thought it was way too cartoony i actually really like this scene now oh i love it it's so well animated and so violent yes uh in there's no blood and i guess that's how they get away with it

the last scene where he's pushing the nail back through his hand, when the scene cuts, you can see a little blood in his palm. Oh, God, man. Yeah. McMullen storyboarded the whole sequence, and God, it looks so great. So Homer is using a nail gun to put safety cushions around things, hands the nail gun to Maggieie uh and this also made me think about how so many of the allman shorts were about maggie's in danger but actually she's

fine it's other horrible things happen other people and this bit of like her the shots of her laughing with the nail gun that then cut back to homer having a nail fully go through his hand and to the other side like obviously homer's a nail fully go through his hand and to the other side like obviously homer's a cartoon character but this is nerve damage on a real person like your hand doesn't work the same after that nailing his ears to the wall oh that drawing of his ears like the way it works in sequence like right hand first then left hand against the wall then he moves his head out of the way and the nail smashes a picture of him right dead in the forehead yeah uh and then nailing his ears like you never think about what homer's ears look

like if they were to be stretched out and here like mcmullen imagines like well here's what homer's flattened ears against a wall look like it's pretty crazy uh the whole sequence works so great and then when march comes into the room homer's like please help please maggie's about to kill homer as you know she's pretty good with a gun as we have we learned already i really like how uh even after marge rescues homer maggie still has a nail gun as he goes on about like i found my new crusade and then maggie that just fires more nails at him after he's done talking he's like get her out of here uh yeah he uh here's here's homer describing his baby proofing the house to marge now do you realize how unsafe the american home is baby accidents occur every three minutes i'm the one who told you that yeah but this is me talking look i already encased the telephone in concrete how are you supposed to dial reach into these

holes i use a carrot. Isn't that a little excessive? I mean, how are the buttons dangerous? Baby could order poison. Oh, that's ridiculous. Poison delivery service. A gift basket of poisons is on its way. Oh, I'm a horrible mother.

Of course you are. Marge, I finally discovered the reason God made me. To protect his tiniest, most breakable creatures. And I've got to share that gift with the world. Get her out of here. Homer is going to kill his baby. I love that, get her out of here. It's just, God, the pain.

The pain. I also love the reality of it that maggie shoots three at once they could all hit homer but that would be too cartoony it's actually much realer like one goes straight through his hand oh god it's very looney tunes but i don't know it somehow works because again like you said the animation in this episode, but also they do a surprisingly great job of pacing out these individual scenes. So they never feel too slow, but they never are too kind of insane. And it's that kind of pacing that I think is pretty rare for this era of The Simpsons. I love how he's just like, get her out of here. Like he's in so much pain.

I love the gift basket of poison. I think that whole bit is hilarious i don't know why maybe it's just a repetition of the word poison over and over again and if you're able to dial a poison place even without talking they're just like if you've dialed this number you get free poison you poison uh and marja is like i mean it's like well that's ridiculous and of course the audience is going of course that's ridiculous but then they're like, well, that's ridiculous. And of course the audience is going, of course that's ridiculous. But then they're like, no, no, no. There's actually a gift back to get a poison in this phone. And Homer's reply of like, of course you are, to her saying she's a horrible mother. I also love how Homer just matter-of-factly says like, I use a carrot.

Like it's a styling wand. And just the visual of the phone encased in concrete is really strong as well. You know, the only big note I have on, I like all the baby proofing stuff with Homer pretty much, but my biggest note is just, it's weird that they do this B plot of Homer cares about taking care of kids. And then four episodes later in Children of a Lesser Clod, that's the A story. Yeah. I confuse scenes with this from that episode yeah exactly i so glad this didn't have the scab one uh i can at least wait another month or so before we cover that one in the disgusting scab it's been 20 years you came around on the nail

scene i did but i don't think i will you know watch me be uh change my mind but i don't think i'll change my mind on this one that scab is so gross uh so uh but so yeah so homer homer's baby proofing go back to the school we get to see martin being um horribly tortured but i guess you know it's not so bad if martin was crying through this you'd feel awful instead he he just has uh you know like a nerdy correction to it which only gets him more tomatoes thrown at him uh which russi she's russi's a lot of voices in this it's a busy one for russi yes lisa wants some help with her bullying she approaches nelson jimbo dolphin kearney and uh this is uh i i like the bit of the bullies acting like hollywood types of like uh you know we were just talking about

that nelson going on like oh the here's the history of bullying you'll be surprised some facts about it i also when they see her quote-unquote indian rope burns uh that they ask like are you sure this was done by hand and she's like yeah she's a real purist like i love kerny inspecting her wrists and just admiring the craftsmanship professional Professional appreciation. It gets back to how they wanted to make Francine a professional nerd, right? So Jimbo Dolph and Kearney are professionals as well. And they appreciate the excellent work that she's putting in. This is when they find out the gender of the bully and they will not do it.

Because I for a second thought they were going to say like, hey, I don't fight girls or whatever. But it's not that they there's no like issue with it that they don't want to punch a girl it's just that they they worry that girls will fight dirtier than they do and that they might fall in love which you know what girls do fight dirty i i have to say so they're right to fear that uh and also it implies that there was another episode where like nelson fell in love with a girl bully he tried to fight save it for the future uh but yes then uh nelson like lisa can't believe it she's like wow and then so nelson you know tells her uh walk with me again like a real hollywood big shot uh and this is when lisa starts to try to understand. Twist! Nice work! You sure this was done by hand? Yeah, she's a real purist. She?

Sorry, we don't do girls. They bite and kick and scratch. And sometimes we fall in love. Wow, there's so much I don't understand about bullying. Yeah, there's a lot of history there. Did you know it predates agriculture? Let's walk. Finish the job.

I just don't understand Francine's motivation. Why does she only go after the smart ones? That's like asking the square root of a million. No one will ever know. Someone will. I'm gonna crack the bully code. Once she cracks the bully code at the end of this episode,

shouldn't there be no more bullying in Springfield after this? Or the world. Or the world, yeah. All the nerds will just smell like salad dressing. She just inadvertently discovers world peace. She got rid of the Poindexteros at the end of war. And it's as common as salad dressing so anybody can afford it uh but yes uh then cuts to homer driving around in his we care car which is

it's a cute little design i like the the giant baby doll with a knight's helmet on as he drives you know we care is not that creative of a name do you know how many things are called we care oh every preschool is called we care of course even is it the we yes yes that's the joke i guess that is the very obvious joke anybody would think of yeah they should be suing the whoever did it first got to sue fox for that and uh yeah coming up after this i just want to name check it it is the seventh of eight total nrbq songs that have been on the show during mike skelly's run man that's at least he's shamed he's ashamed of it on the commentary he's like yes i got them again like i know a hunk hunk of burns in love is the final one of his run well and i mean

that's one of the last ones he did in his show run in 2013 aljean not not the fan of NRBQ that he is. I guess, which would you rather hear, Bob? NRBQ or like old ass songs like Moon River or whatever? Oh, boy. Yeah. At least I know the latter, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I was also surprised that they bothered to get Jan Hooks for one line in this.

But when Homer helps up who in Manjulaula like manjula actually has a line here i kind of like the bit that homer look of course it's an insensitive joke about people's hindu beliefs but that's kind of the point of it and then homer seems to go like oh i'm actually hindu as well but you don't see me make a big deal out of it which that's odd yeah say and his line is oddly clipped off at the end i it felt like an error or something yeah it uh there's two other bits there's that and there's a bit where lenny and carl appear on scene at the very end of the scene in act three that i was like is there not a next line here that got deleted but it's not in the deleted scenes on the disc so lenny and carl just drinking on the street for

no reason yeah same with homer should definitely it definitely feels like homer's about to turn a corner and be like oh and you should also change this and it leads to another joke but instead he just says like hey you don't hear me uh fussing about it and next scene uh and yeah and rbq's always safety first from the 1997 album you're nice people you are from their first kids album so they went down that route i guess it fits for this kid section then too yeah and uh hibbert has like an inconsistent amount of kids a number of kids i look that up too yeah this is like just just named on the wiki uh hibbert's third son right because if you look at the family group shots of the hibbert family as seen in bart's dog gets an f or bart sells his soul it It is him, his wife, Bernice, his daughter, and his son.

And yeah, there's like a Rudy style character and a Theo style character. From the Cosby show. Though I would guess that this baby is like, oh, in the Hibbert family version of his sitcom, that's the Cosby show. They've given him a baby by season 12. Like you need a baby to add some more stuff to this. to this also the baby looks weird it's it's not it's a nod baby it's not yeah his his hairline is not really he should have the hibbert hibbert's kids all have a consistent hairline this baby does not have the same hairline it's it's strange but obviously because hibbert is a is a cosby reference

he enjoys some jello-O with Homer. Like, that's a joke. Homer filled the pool full of Jell-O. Babies falling into pools is actually, you know, is one of the many tragedies that happens too often with babies. I actually almost drowned in a pool as a baby. I was thinking of that. Yes, I've told this story before. Yeah, I was taken care of by a neighbor, and my mom came to visit to pick me up.

She had a pool. Normally it was very secure with it. But this time I got out and fell to the pool. And my mom who was, she tells the story, she was like seven months pregnant or something. Had to reach with my brother, had to reach into the pool and pull me on. And she said she never saw something as scary as me looking up with no emotion on my face from a bottom of a pool it was supposed to be this way mother but yeah in this case it's jello that he bounces into and of course there's always room for jello

with hibbert a die cosby all right okay yeah I forgot about that. Well, you know, we don't think about Cosby and Jell-O much these days. Speaking of not playing the death jingle or the anti-death jingle. Yep.

Get him down in hell too. Come on. And then it cuts to Homer saving Ralph from being run over and the man that he launches out of the car must be dead.

Homer kills this man. I know he twitches, but he's dead. I only knew about severe tire damage spikes from The Simpsons until I moved to California, where parking is actually at a premium here. Back in Ohio, just park wherever you want. Park on your lawn. Nobody cares. If you found a parking space, good on you.

Just park here. When I first came here, seeing signs that were like, hey, this is just for Walgreens parking. I was like, oh, that's not in Jacksonville, Florida. just park here yeah no when i first came here seeing signs that were like hey this fall this is just for walgreens parking i was like oh that's that's not in jacksonville florida i encourage you to count up homer's body count because it's i'm sure it's quite high at this point oh yeah just counting all the people in the net yeah yeah oh man all the guys who drowned under him in the net not to mention he in simpson tide he sends a boat uh like a full battleship over a waterfall and so you gotta think there's you know dozens dead in

that if not hundreds and then on top of that homer launches a guy out of a torpedo which actually is like a corpse on screen that you see he does kill there you go like you just named almost a dozen right there and of course when hom Homer's stopping for New Billboard Day, about seven cars crash up behind him and instantly catch on fire. So he definitely kills those people. There you go. That's your new project. Great YouTube video.

Yeah. It'll be our answer to our pal Drew Mackey's every gayest moment. It'll be every Homer homers. The Homer sides. We'll call it that. We'll edit this out. We're making it uh so is this the return of wendell uh yeah so he well i mean you'll see him in the background right but i couldn't remember the last time he puked i think it was once in homer's odyssey right and that was it i think so uh so yeah this is the return of wendell in his

okay i just remember the last time i saw him puked and there could be one after it but it's all the kids puking at martin's party but he's the one who pukes in the bounce house in the bounce house okay yeah so that was them remembering his original characteristic which was uh in the background for about 20 years of the opening as the kids fleeing the bus because wendell threw up yes yeah and his natural state in his character design is just him holding his stomach as he's sick but this this is like vomits dripping from his face yeah they could not draw in 1990 no now they can't and i was like does wendell sound like this

because we just recorded uh lisa's substitute and i found out every woman voiced wendell at some point i see yeah not as hard and fast as they are with like Milhouse or Martin yeah so they remember Wendell they also remember Rowdy Roddy Peeper yes yeah because uh Lisa asked for security cameras because she knows that Willie loves to tape people as he as every Scottish person does it listen to the music it's he's evil uh though i mean honestly i understand that willie is very worried about paper towel rolls but it actually is very sus to put a camera in a children's bathroom yes even if it's just pointed at the sink and the towel rack and not at a toilet no i never thought about that yeah okay thank you thank you for making that

even darker, Henry. I'm sorry. Maybe it's a teacher's lounge bathroom. He's watching Mrs. Krabappel poop, I guess. Sure. His overreaction to seeing the red stripe is really good. I love it. It makes it worth it.

Those red stripes are gone now. You don't have the paper towel. Honestly, I feel lucky if I can use a paper towel roll in a bathroom. It's usually just the just the air the the air blade or whatever it's called yeah i do like that wendell's apologizing for his vomiting and then well he just says like it reminds me of why i got into this business like that's that's a good line once again willie is a professional everybody is very professional in this episode uh also i do wonder if these security camera jokes are a little bit about

columbine do you think i was wondering if it was more of a chuck berry joke oh well sure in that regard but i i think of the i think of the idea of like oh they installed security cameras at school and willie pretending like they didn't could be yeah just the the heightening of like the security like the police state of the school because this aired almost four years after columbine which uh yeah i mean i i guess when you talk about bullying in our generation that is a component of it as well uh it happened in my near the end of my freshman year in high school and after that like all the fun was over everything uh and obviously bob you went through some stuff yeah which people gotta listen, they got to pay for the podcast to hear that one.

Yeah, you have to listen to the third Talkie Futurama. Yes, yeah. That's premium content, Bob's horrible page. You can hear about the worst thing that could ever happen to a high school student, and it did. I'm sorry, Bob. It's okay. That's why I didn't say anything on this podcast. I was like, I have a story that could outstory either one of you.

Yes, yes. But anyway, Lisa is analyzing the tape. Hey, that time she looked right at me and didn't touch me. Hmm. Of course, the nose clip. Hey, Willie, I think I'm on to something. Check this out. Not talking, eh, Willie? Just listen then. I think I'm on to something check this out not talking eh Willie

just listen then I think I figured out what sets off that big ape Francine Willie Willie it's a genuine horror movie yeah in the end of act two great i love willie's thumbs up also the paused shot of her being like yanked out from under the the table like again that mcmullen

could have boarded that or asked her team whoever did it laid it out that could have been a very flat shot of lisa being pulled out from under it it is a dynamic camera angle that's kind of like fish eyed even when lisa is pulled out in it like it's it's needlessly uh an extra flourish to it that i love and and also just how proud willie is he's like oh lisa's looking on the camera and she can see i replaced it pretty good right and also lisa has written is stupider than usual her saying just like not talking willie that's okay hey let me just i like that but yes this uh this is the new third act there then i wish she did just go to juvenile hall but instead lisa realizes that somehow smell related this uh dangerous uh what makes her be violent and so after the break it's at the marvin monroe memorial

gymnasium so character is still dead he will be unkilled and i think about three years yeah 2004 i think yeah yeah that's fine i don't like watching lisa scrape sweat off of nerds it's gross it's uh it's for science uh and also wouldn't the joke be better that Milhouse enjoys being scraped by Lisa? Why does Database seem... I mean, of course, I'm fine with Database being a freak who likes having his sweat scraped off of him. But shouldn't Milhouse enjoy doing that when Lisa does it? I don't want to think about that. I'm actually kind of glad that they went with that.

I just want to hear Database talk more. I feel so right. This then leads to, well, if you want to talk about being uncomfortable with a line. Oh, boy. At the same time, it's also great. Yes. This entire scene is great, and I love the Nelson stuff, too. So, yes, Drederick Tatum, not Mike Tyson, arrives in school.

And so, as heavyweight champion, recognized by nine of the 14 sanctioning bodies, I sincerely urge you all to stay in school. Thank you. Thank you, Dredrick Tatum. That was truly a K.O. Knockout oration. Need a ride home? You really don't want that.

Trust me. Mr. Tatum, do you mind if I swab you with this damp rag? No, not at all. Swab away. Whoa, whoa. Nobody mentioned a beaker. Please? It's for science.

Oh, for science. In that case, proceed. Lisa, this is outrageous. Explain yourself. Shh. It's working. Look. Nelson, what are you doing?

I don't know. I can't help myself. Hey, cut it out. I insist that you desist. Sorry. I'm so sorry. Yes! Please don't hurt me. You leave me little recourse. Oh, man. So Tatum's going to horribly beat Nelson in front of all these people, I guess.

Yeah, it'd be like two very dark jokes. I do like the idea that Tatum is aware I am a monster. Yes. I will do unspeakable things to you if you want to date me, and I will also murder a child. The way he says, you really don't want that. Trust me. And the way Edna kind of backs away. I was like, ooh.

They thank George Meyer for that joke. Yes. And it's a blink if you do. Sorry, blink if and you'll miss it kind of joke where they don't put too fine of a point on it. They just kind of move on. But yeah, in hindsight, whoa whoa that's that's really intense yes yeah and of course i mean it trades off of mike tyson's criminal history as well of course which makes it you know obviously more dark i assume he's there for community service reasons

right yeah he doesn't say it but obviously i would say too i mean he is a local boy from springfield so maybe he's just coming back to his high school but you know he really fucked up as you said i love how convenient it is that a heavyweight boxing champ is there and now he's like whoa whoa nobody mentioned a beaker nelson is dead yes nelson has been killed uh i also love that was a that was truly a ko knockout oration that's good i and yeah uh so another deleted scene this is the last one right after the wedgie they give a little more setup to the next scene that happens with homer and marge it's homer has now put maggie inside a series of springs that holds her up like basically keeps her arms and legs busy so she can't get free and nail him some more i'm assuming but so homer is satisfied

with that and then marge is like hey well now we can watch what i want to watch and then marge turns on the tv and uh oh man this joke somebody somebody's uh wife had this on in the background while they're writing a simpsons episode that's all i gotta say somebody was mad their wife was watching the view and they had to let you know about it. Here's Homer learning from the TV. And now the Estrogen Network presents Afternoon Yak. Man. Canceled.

The safe baby craze. It's sweeping Springfield thanks to one crusading parent. That's me! Safety dance! You can dance. You can dance. Everybody look at your pants. But while Homer Simpson has made our babies safe, he's made infant-related businesses cry. All the way away from the bank.

How are your baby crutch sales? Uh, terrible, Kent. And cartoon character band-aids forget about it look at this baby i'm not a scratch on him and i got boat payments the dream is over shut her down boys oh dear god what have i done of Springfield, we need your help. Please, skin your knees. Put dice up your nose. Let Kat sleep on your face.

So first off, Kat, what do you think of a women's show being saying man and boo? I mean, that was a very 2001 joke, right? Who gave these women a show? Sorry to talk over you. Casual sexism was very much a thing at that period of time so uh it's kind of a south park joke i think uh yeah it's very or no family guy that was a very family guy joke right there yeah yeah homer's response is to get you the viewer to say yeah yeah homer cancel that no more of this women who just hate on men for no reason i'm absolutely certain that a good chunk of the simpsons audience circa that time like

had a good laugh at that and we're like absolutely uh they just want to boo men they just hate men that's all these women do uh afternoon yak is quite a name for it yes they're wearing their viciousness on their sleeve just like these women won't shut up they they also accredit that to george myers oh george come on uh okay so i love the plot i love the turn this plot takes in which homer realizes he's hurting the businesses that profit off of babies being injured so he must stop his crusade the funniest thing in the background is the sign joke, in my opinion. A1 baby crutch.

Oh, yeah. Number one, it's funny. Just the idea of a baby crutch store. Number two, the idea that they want to be first in the phone book. So they're A1 baby crutch. Perfect. That is perfect. I missed that bit of it. So you're right, Bob.

Very perfect. And all of the soot-coveredot covered blue collar workers marching out of the baby greeting card factory that can only make baby greeting cards they couldn't change their business plan and the guy goes dreams over boys it can't it can't be greeting cards for anything else than a hurt baby it can't even be congratulations on your baby yeah it's only for hurt baby but that was his dream to uh have his cards go out to hurt babies it's beautiful it's uh yeah i mean it's a great little it's a great little sketch and uh also homer because homer sings this for the until i did it in karaoke i actually did think the line

was everybody look at your pants i think i did too but of course the real lyric is everybody look at your hands which also doesn't make sense which is just as stupid yeah yeah but i think it fits for homer to be singing a song from 1982 it's uh at one point it's when bart was born so he could have still been listening to pop music then i also just love the incredibly sweaty line it's he's made infant related businesses cry all the way away from the bank but it also feels very this is the other part where it felt abrupt homer is basically doing the soylent green run of like no everyone do this and and then he runs by lenny and carl and it really feels like they should say a

line after that they should not be there if they're not going to talk like drinking out of bags there has to be like some sort of joke but it's not on the DVDs. Maybe it was written and boarded and not actually animated. Who knows, but it's not there. Or it's a bad joke, and Scully's like, well, we're not going to put a bad joke on here. It looks dumb.

Yeah. Let cats sleep on your face. That's my favorite of the specifics of what could happen to a baby. What's dangerous, I thought it was like, oh, you'll suffocate with a cat on your face, but also it's like when the cat wakes up, if it's startled, it's going to slash the crap out of your face.

As all cat owners know, even as adults. And so then we cut to the 12th annual big science thing, as it says on the banner, which will be paid off when Frank just says it like a science thing later. Again, Lauren McMullen, she had her team had to design a room full of wacky scientists yeah you can only see the first three rows thankfully still it's a lot yeah and she made sure to design three that look like the three stooges but apparently they were rarely seen together in the shot but you like you can spot a champ every now or a curly here and there i really love the incredibly cartoony and silly design of the mousetrap scientist because he he seriously looks like he'd be in season two of the

show yeah he's great and yes they have to smash uh the it's a mousetrap that kills the flying saucers that are always over the white house finally they can be stopped but so lisa is about to do her presentation she's feeling very nervous because the inventor of the walkie-talkie is there and he's not there with his wife march knows who he is and what his wife looks like it's great knowledge for her character google tells me the inventor of the walkie-talkie is canadian inventor donald hings in 1937 i would assume he's dead yes long long dead but uh before that he was a philanderer but yes frank as usual is very nice and supportive of lisa i wish they'd done more

stuff of lisa and frank uh being friends i like them as a pair uh but yes lisa has a theory to present but not everybody wants to listen scientists scientists please looking for some order some order please with the eyes forward and the hands neatly folded and the pang of attention. Pi is exactly three! Very sorry that it had to come to that, but now that I have your attention, we have some exciting new research from young Lisa Simpson. Let's bring her out and pay attention. Little girl, little girl. Let's not listen. My study is entitled

Airborne Pheromones and Aggression in Bullies. Bullies! Bullies! I'm afraid. For as long as there have been smart people, there have been bullies to prey on them. From Galileo... to Sir Isaac Newton... and even in the animal kingdom.

But why do the brawny prey on the brainy? Is it jealousy? No, the reason is chemical. That's impossible. Chemicals are our friends. She's a witch. Please, Dr. Coop, let me demonstrate. Is Surgeon General C. Evercoop calling her a witch there.

Still alive at the time. Now, one frame of this presentation has become one of the most irritating memes on the internet. It is the millennial slash zoomer version of sarcastic wonka. Hey, look, it's okay. No, it's not. It's been used in okay bits sometimes. I've only seen it used in irritating ways. Okay.

The most irritating one is the whole let people enjoy things phenomenon which uh boils up the blood and angers up my brain i don't want to talk about it but i believe it says like not liking something isn't a personality uh it says why hating popular things doesn't make you an interesting person there we go that's so i disagree yeah let's talk about it but uh yeah this this her turning away and going, but why? So it makes Lisa look like she's mad, but she's like Riley asking a question. But in that one freeze frame, look, she's angry and holding a card and saying, I got a truth to tell. Starting it up, I was like, oh, yeah, this is where that new meme is from.

And I was waiting for it at the start of her presentation because like, oh, yeah, this is posed perfectly for it but it's but to find out that it is like a mid-movement single frame from 19 minutes and eight seconds in the episode like that and it's just like a one step forward as the thing is moving up like that also you know now knowing that the meme bothers me because it's like she's not presenting something there the screen is moving upwards the screen shouldn't say text on it maybe that's why i'm so angry the thing that annoys me about that particular meme is that i see it a lot in gaming subreddits and yes subreddits and that kind of thing and almost always and usually it's somebody putting their dumb idea into print so that people can yell and agree with them and almost always that idea is extremely bad and developers should not implement that at all but that is what i associate with this

particular meme according to the knowyourmeme.com that meme was first used or found on reddit in may of 2018 and it really took off from there so I've also seen one with Kirby, the Nintendo character Kirby doing that. You know, I'd rather see that one than Lisa. You know, Kirby, it slides right off of him, but I don't like Lisa. It also keys into Lisa being a complainer and a snotty complainer, which I don't like about her,

that being a detail for her. You know what? You guys have sold me on it it's only used by bad people i i don't like that meme if you've used it uh give us more money as an apology as an apology and stop propagating it i also love that the old man voice it goes like let's not listen like he goes he says that twice in it it is it is the the finger thing means the taxes of this scene it is they just like dan saying it so much i i really love drawing of galileo and then a wood carving of isaac newton being bullied those those are both very funny drawings you know you mentioned south park earlier this ending feels

like a south park ending like i how many south park endings have like cartman or stan or kyle presenting an idea like with a speech like actually I found out it's this this you know this giant societal problem actually can be solved by a thing that doesn't exist and now let me explain the thing that doesn't exist like I don't want to say they ripped off a South Park beat but we I we go back to it a million times that Selman said on a commentary they were jealous of South Park when they were writing these seasons. So, I mean, it's a very South Park ending too, in that it invents a thing that isn't real.

So it's not even a real solution to, you present a major problem in life and then you go like, oh, but obviously here's a silly thing that's not a real solution. And it won't be used within this universe either. Yes, it doesn't exist after this episode's over. And also Lisa is not a famous person for discovering this major discovery. But yes, for Lisa to prove her thing to C. Ever Coop and everybody else, Francine is wheeled out like a caged animal. And I love this shot of Lisa saying, you know, thanks to Francine's parents.

And they just wave like, yeah, it's very normal. We caged our daughter. Hey. Also, her parents both look like nerds, too. I got to think she beats them. scene's parents and they just like wave like yeah it's very normal we caged our daughter hey also her parents both look like nerds too i gotta think she beats them if it's genetic maybe like the appearance doesn't matter maybe i i do think that there's a little bit of a joke in there saying no no lisa discovered that it was actually poindexteros and all that but the show is kind of sneakily saying no it's actually the parents the parents are completely enabling her say she'll punch herself out at a certain point yeah i love how uh cooperative

the parents were with lisa you know just like hey can you cage your daughter for the science experiment oh sure lisa yeah uh she she's gonna get tired out eventually yeah i so the lisa shows off how it works she puts the point dextrose when she does this thing with a giant swab it reminded me of taking a big old covid test recently i got one of those coming up yeah also there's a funny bit too where lisa says every geek dork or four eyes amidst this when she says it she looks down at four three guys in the front row who all not in recognition like i'm the geek i'm the geek, I'm the dork, I'm the four eyes. First she uses

the point dextrose and then they let her go. I love the guy telling Frank like, are you mad Frank? Put down that science pole. Yeah, sorry. Great line. I love the science pole. The science pole is hilarious. Do you buy those at the same store as the surgical two by four?

It's gotta be the same. Those stores are the sales are booming there. Unlike the baby crutch store. And so, yes, Lisa then discovers that she can make the bully not attack. And this is our longest clip of the episode. But it's the bully solving ending. My God, she stopped in her tracks. The little girl's invented some sort

of bully repellent. Actually, it's just ordinary salad dressing. So that's where that went. The pungent vinegar and tangy roquefort block the smell receptors, rendering the bully harmless. Congratulations, Lisa. You are truly the standout of this year's big science thing.

A gift certificate from JCPenney? Yes, you'll love their slacks. Oh, honey, we're so proud of you. So all her bullying was just to get some attention. No, Dad, didn't you listen to anything I said? Just to get some attention. Listen, Lisa, I'm not going to let you get away with this. So all her bullying was just to get some attention. No, Dad. Didn't you listen to anything I said?

Just to get some attention. Lisa, help! Ow! That's so good. Get down. Watch out. Yes! The repellent's all gone.

Don't worry. She'll punch yourself out. Suck fist, Dr. Dork. Someone's going to sleep well tonight. Look at her pound that nerd. She smells the nerds watching uh that's a good joke apparently that was an idea by the storyboard artist for this act christian roman who worked with the lauren on mission hill he directed a few episodes yeah it's uh i'm really glad she credited him because i think that's another bit

of like uh i think a problem at this time is the the writers view the artists as people who just follow their orders and here a funny bit at the end that's all visual that could only really work if it's done well was pitched by the border and you know the scully and his team's of the writers credit they were like yeah that's good let's have that be the end of the episode and and i mean that christian roman guy uh he was like their top boarder at the time on at simpsons he gave he did the latter day boarding guide and the aughts right right and then he left uh for the disney shows phil moore and american dragon jake paul uh no relation to those jake long oh jay oh then i'm i'm thinking i got the paul brothers on my head i'm sorry there i and also he's like he's worked at pixar for over a decade now right yeah and you know mcmullen she

she really lifted up her her artist in that case i think so yeah i wanted to go back to that meme really quick because we're not snobs uh we don't approve of that meme i do approve of three lisa memes i think henry you might be on the same page as me i approve of lisa getting her coffee cup filled up oh yeah lisa leaning forward and disassociating. And Lisa looking up at Marge. Marge has her hand on Lisa's shoulder. She's looking up. It's from the Corey hotline scene, except someone has photoshopped a computer in front of Lisa.

That's good. I like that. Yes. Even though it violates the integrity of the scene by adding a prop, still funny. I still laugh every time. So we approve of at least three Lisa memes. Oh, yeah. No, the coffee one, of course course coffee one's great yeah that's our listeners with our delicious

content yeah my favorite is when it says dumb bitch juice and me but uh yeah i know yeah there's there's lots of great lisa memes see it's so many to choose from hey or you just go with the liver and onion memes those are still good it's still good it's still good so this whole bit here i also wanted to play the whole thing because i think that's actually the only clip where i have um kathy griffin talking in this episode this bit here too of uh them getting bad prizes this was a runner then like before this there was a logan berry scented candle that bart gets right and of course the walking tour of springfield won in the marathon so it was it was a bad prize runner at the time i guess nerds buy their clothes at jc penny yes yeah uh you know my mom would certainly have got taken me to jc pennies for my

yearly nerd clothes for the start of the school year that's where you buy sensible clothes right yeah the prices are well i guess do jc penny still exist i don't think so i think they in sears had a suicide pact they're anchoring dead malls at this point yep now malls are just for pop-ups of something that can exist for like two months and then you leave the mall and never come back or getting vaccinated in the parking lot oh sure sure yeah also depressing now i might add if you just drive past one they look like freaking ghost towns even around here where malls were somewhat healthy now it's grim oh yeah grimmer than before i don't know if i talked about this on the podcast before but

in the summer i went back home and i went to the local mall just to be like what's going on in there like last time i was there only a third only a third of the storefronts were actually open now there is still little hope they've just sealed off hallways where there used to be stores where there's like well there's no there's nothing down this hallway so don't go down it you're never gonna find anything so the hallway just doesn't exist anymore they didn't shut the game stop was a particularly depressing they just put a wall in front of it there was never anything here uh ain't no ain't no game stop stopping there never was uh yeah i i also uh a real jerk ass runner of homer this time i'm not listening to people and just saying like no dad didn't you listen to anything i said all just to get attention

homer ran from his uh street rants to this uh 12th annual science thing. Yeah, he's only there to ignore Lisa and misunderstand her. But I did really like the joke of beating up, even in 2001, as a grumpy Gus who would complain about any episode, I did like the joke that, we know you're a nerd watching this and the bully will beat you up because they know you're a nerd.

Smashing together Frank and Coop's head in front of the screen over and over, it did look painful. Yes, yeah, it did. Also, like, suck fist Dr suck fist dr dork like that's a good line too and and then of course over the credits one more dose of always safety first we only have for it one precious nrbq song left before we're out of them i now here after hearing again what the third act would have been i think they should have done that instead lisa and juvie is a funny idea this whole thing of the science of nerds and bullies like i don't know i it feels it feels too too high concept i i would have rather stuck with the lisa character

i know that scully said the big reason they didn't do it was that it takes you out of springfield and you have to create a bunch of new characters and you'd rather stick with the characters you know at the school so I get it but uh they they lost out on a good joke there actually a friend of mine from this era this was one of the last straws for him when it comes to the Simpsons where it was this one he really hated the idea of the nerd sorry the bully repellent and then uh the scream Pillar episode is the one where he stopped watching entirely. I think that's next season. Ah, yes, yeah. I mean, the bully repellent idea,

if you kind of take a step back and go, oh, that's a weird gonzo idea, but it's just very appropriate for this era of The Simpsons. But if you're in the moment and you're thinking about, like, The Simpsons has lost its way, the bully repellent thing would,

I'll admit admit I rolled my eyes when they're like uh Poindexteros and everything like oh yeah this is very much of that era but I don't know they eventually carried off the concept I mean her running around beating up a convention of scientists and then leaping at the camera was sufficiently funny that I am willing to forgive its foibles and and also i i think the revelation that it's salad dressing i like more now because instead of like lisa invents something they just go like no she just discovered salad dressing works with this she didn't have to invent a solvent or whatever so that's where that went yeah i love margie so like she's not proud of

lisa she's mad that's like hey i looking for that. You should have asked for that. Yeah, like, and so we just recorded a very bad episode of season 12 recently. And I was like, are all of them like this? Because we were doing a lot of twos in a row. And coming back to this one, I was like, oh, this one is great. The ending could use some help. But I think the jokes are great. And McMullen's direction heightens everything. Yeah, yeah. are great and mcmullen's direction uh heightens everything yeah yeah all of the future ones that

she'll be directing them up to the three years from this one in 2004 and i think even even on weaker scripts she always brought something animation wise like they they were lucky to have her unlucky to lose her and they really uh should have tried to keep her around instead of burning her out on the simpsons movie. That's for now. Yeah. Thanks again to Kat Bailey for being on the show. Kat, please tell us what you're up to and please plug the hell out of Acts of the Blood God podcast. We heartily endorse that Patreon or service.

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me on the show again. It's always a blast. I'm out and around the internet. My day job is over at IGN. I'm on Nintendo voice chat a lot these days talking about Nintendo things. So that's fun. But I also have

Acts of the Blood God. It's an RPG podcast. We have a Patreon, patreon.com slash bloodgodpod. Lovely little community. Very active. Discord. It is a lot of fun.

Go. So go check us out. We're on all of your usual pod catchers and if you like talking Simpsons and Retronauts, you're going to like Acts of the Blood God.

Trust me. I think so. No, it's always fun to have you. I really enjoyed the one you did about talking about animation instead of video games on Acts of the Blood God about the Evangelion rewatch with your special guest, Emily Vanderwerf. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the super chill conversation that we had. Though, having said that, listening to your movie,

your What a Cartoon movie around End of Evangelion, after doing that, I really wish I had listened to that episode before I did my episode because, wow, you all really went in depth with the actual research and everything. I did research, but you all went like double

and I was just like, wow, I learned a lot. And I thought I knew a lot about Evangelion. That used to be our longest podcast at only five hours. Yes, yeah. Now it's been beaten by, I think, like 12 minutes. We decided to work harder for the next one. We're doing like audiobook-length episodes at this point.

It's pretty amazing. It's what Evangelion deserves. Definitely. But thank you. Oh, absolutely, yeah. Thank you so much, Kat. So thanks so much to Kat Bailey for being on the show please check out her podcast network over on

Acts of the Blood God that's on Patreon but as for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these episodes one week at a time and ad free please go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons sign up there for five bucks a month you'll get just that but also access to everything behind the five dollar paywall that includes all of our limited

miniseries over a hundred bonus episodes you haven't heard about things like Mission Hill and The Critic and Futurama and King of the Hill, but coming very, very soon in just a little over a week, we are going to be doing Blabbing About Batman, the animated series. That is our Batman, the animated series miniseries. We're doing 10 podcasts about our 10 favorite episodes of that show, only behind the $5 paywall, only at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Sign up now and get it as soon as it goes live on October 29th. And we also have a $10 level. When you sign up for that, you get all the $5 stuff, of course, but also access to one mega long podcast once a month,

only for patrons of that level or higher. And what is that, Henry? You are talking about the What a Cartoon movie podcast. The one Kat was just complimenting us about. That is where we cover an animated feature film super in-depth. Now you may know that me and Bob do the What a Cartoon twice a month our sister podcast talking simpsons and well once a month we cover an animated feature film in the same super in-depth style we this month they're doing uh to coincide with that batman podcast we're doing batman beyond return of the joker one of

the best batman films ever made and before that we we did a cavalcade of Disney renaissance. We covered Lion King, Hercules, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and we did the Rotel Dorado, an overlooked but still very good DreamWorks 2D classic. A giant back catalog of over 170 hours of what a cartoon movie podcast at your fingertips at that premium level in addition to all the five dollar things bob just mentioned you can see a list of all of them very easily if you go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to discover more details that's patreon.com slash talking simpsons so as for me i've been one of your hosts bob mackie you can find me on twitter

as bob servo and my other podcast is RetroNauts. That is a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. Find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts. Sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month. And Henry, what about you? You can follow me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G.

Stay up to date with my life. And if you follow me and Bob on Twitter, follow the official Twitter account of this podcast at TalkSimpsonsPod if you follow at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter I promise you you'll know when new episodes go live on the free feed when they go live on the Patreon when we have a poll when we announce a new schedule all that fun stuff you I know you learn about it when you hear us talk about on podcast but you would learn so much earlier if you followed at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter. Thanks so much for listening, folks.

We'll see you next time for the latest episode of our community podcast, Talk to the Audience, and we'll see you then. But it's way too high and so This time I'll just pretend Oh, then I will live to climb again. Ah, ah, ah. Just remember, always safety first.

Come on, people. Move it. I want to see some sweat. I am not mastering another stare until you explain the purpose of this monstrous experiment. I believe the key to bully nerd antagonism lies in your drippings. Then I shall drip like a pot roast. Excellent. Now don't drip like a pot roast. Excellent. Now don't mind the squeegee. Oh, the scraping seems wrong, but it feels so right.