Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Children of a Lesser Clod With Matt Apodaca

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

As Homer becomes a babysitter, we welcome back Matt Apodaca from the podcasts Get Played and What's With These Homies Talkin' About Weezer! This week we talk about horrible basketball injuries, healing knee surgery, Pokemon, vapid award shows, and also a lot of Weezer chat for some reason too. Listen now for another tree-mendous episode! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

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I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that knows you're afraid. I'm your host, candy and jelly sandwich enjoyer Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today in the same room as always. Hey, it's Henry Gilbert, and is that all there is? And who is our special guest on the line? Hello, it's me, Man Up A Doc. And this week's episode is Children of a Lesser Claude.

Losers! Losers! Losers! He said Homer, right? Mm-hmm. Losers! This week's episode aired on May 13th, 2001, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.

Oh my god! mythical day in real world history oh boy bobby the mummy returns tops the box office metal gear solid 2 overshadows grand theft auto 3 at e3 and in a very interesting timing for our guest oh two days after this episode airs weezer's green album is released yeah wow a lot of things in that are uh interesting to me of my particular interest this is this is an episode just for me yeah this well i mean not to turn this uh if this podcast is four hours long in your feed it's because we're going to talk about weezer for two hours now but yeah yeah and then possibly metal gear solid 2 for uh you know the rest of it we'll start first with the mummy returns that i believe that is the one where the rock plays the scorpion king in it

to set up his prequel film that's really all i remember about the mummy return i did not return to theaters to see that one i saw the first one and it was pretty good yeah good first one then they did a third one like a decade later which was uh odd timing but yeah they needed to get in there sooner for sure and uh and then at e3 yeah so e3 was this week this is back when it happened in may instead of june or july-ish i think it was this year but the i guess to our non-gamer listeners out there the entertainment uh electronic entertainment expo i remember hearing those stories and like all i was excited for was metal gear 2 gta 3 like had like got no attention people not pay attention to it by the holiday season of 2001 complete reversal like not that mgs2 wasn't a big deal at christmas

yeah yeah gta 3 was the game that made everyone happy metal gear solid 2 was a game that made everyone mad yeah and i was no because i was working in game retail that holiday season. So a lot of angry people bringing back Metal Gear Solid 2 for trade-in. For GTA3, probably. Probably, yeah. And yeah, at E3, they lied to everybody. The theme of the game is misinformation, and that was part of the actual press for the game, where up front they were like, no, the game is only about salt snake on a boat that's all the game is and there's no other character you'll play has for 80 of the

game please enjoy it are you a ride and enjoy your mat or a disliker so i only played this game last year for the first time and i don't i don't have any problems with the variety and i can see being at the i could see why contemporarily people were upset, of course. But now, I mean, I played it in the year 2020. Wow. And it was, I loved it. Raiden is, Raiden, I mean,

Raiden sucks, but he's like, it's not a bad game because of Raiden. It's still a very interesting, it's an interesting game. I don't even know if I mean Raiden sucks. There I go pandering. Raiden in is you and you are a gamer so the game is making fun of gamer Americans and if that game came out just ten years later there would be a total like hashtag gamer rights about the game where it's like that was a bait-and-switch we demand Kojima yes yeah

like we saw with NASA free DLC uh snake and well you guys on your podcast just did or are doing uh the hideo kojima yeah in mgs2 i think of that speech about um burying people in information and losing all context and that just destroys the world as i think about that a lot yeah i i don't know why because it doesn't really make sense in today's world but i also think about it a lot too but okay weezer's green album yes uh we so matt uh we know that you are a big weezer fan yes me and bob are the other type of weezer fan who were yes well the thing is henry and i in 2001 were surly older teens who thought we knew everything about the world and uh when that game

and when that not game sorry when that cd came out for me it was the day that innocence died and i would think no day in 2001 could be worse than May 15th, the release of the Green album. But I came, that album came to grow on me and I got over myself a little bit. But yeah, there are two different kinds of Weezer fans, definitely. Yeah, there is the fans who are like, this is only 28 minutes long. And then there are the fans that are like, hey, 28 minutes, not so bad. Look at this, 28 minutes of good songs so so for me my journey as a weezer fan up to the green album was i listened to the blue album like pop hits on the radio pinkerton came out i did not pay attention to it in 1998 a friend told me like no pinkerton's the better album listen to it and

i was 16 at the time and very lonely oh Oh, yeah. The prime. The prime Pinkerton age. And so I love, love, love, love Pinkerton. I'm listening to every B-side I can find on Napster, everything, every bit of news that can be found. That song he wrote for Angus that he played at a Harvard, you know, cafe. I mislabeled teenage dirtbags getting in there as well. Oh, yes, yeah. Lots of weedus, lots of ween.

Yeah. Yeah. I got a few Super Drags and I was like, oh, this is actually good. I became a Super Drag fan. But anyway, then Green Album came out. I took my SATs that day and then drove to Target to buy it. And my drive home, listening to it in my car, I was like, I'm sad. Or I'm just going, oh, I like this, I guess. And then I didn't want to it in my car. I was like, I'm sad. Like, or I'm just going like, oh, I like this, I guess.

And then I didn't want to replay it again. And I guess I could also blame Matt Sharp leaving the band. Like that's definitely what I did then. So I mean, my story is similar to yours, Henry, because I got into them in 1998 as well. Like I enjoyed the singles from the Blue Album, didn't even know about Pinkerton. And then I heard like a song on the radio.

And I was like, oh, right. Weezer's pretty cool. And I went out and I bought their albums. And I was the weird guy in the friend group who was listening to Weezer. And people would say, you're listening to Weezer? Why? Because it was the era of, you know, nu metal was emerging. Korn was the hottest new thing.

And I was like, no, guys, Pinkerton. And obviously, Pinkerton, everyone is in love with it now. But Rolling Stone was like, this is the worst album of the year. year fuck Pinkerton and Rivers Cuomo has been getting over that trauma for his entire life I think yeah and now he's like okay fine I'll create an algorithm to help me make the perfect pop song uh and that's like essentially what he does and like but you guys experiences you could have had that I think like 14 more times since then if you had just stayed on the wagon. Well, every time I would hear a new one of theirs, I'd go like, meh.

I'd just go like, meh. But I actually felt like it was a moral victory for Pinkerton fans who knew that Rivers didn't like playing Pinkerton when I, well, geez, God, it was probably like eight years ago now that they did a tour where they're like we're just playing pinkerton okay it's the pinkerton tour we're playing i was like yes we won he has to play it but uh yeah the green album i just i remember driving home going like photographs okay i like hash pipe sure this is my adult life now yeah this is this is being an adult this sucks

yeah but i i went to a weezer concert like a year before shut down and uh it was the oldest i ever felt at something because the it was yeah the pixies were the opener so there were actually people older than me there who were there for pixies yes but then i was like okay yay they're playing a song from when i was young and then when they play something newer up jumps all these kids to clap who are like look like at best in their early 20s i was like oh i'm old now the i'm the old guy behind the kids here a lot of people excited for the africa cover uh yes who you're identifying yeah yeah. Yes, yeah. Which, you know, that's fine. I was like, fine, play Africa.

Yeah, that's what people pay their tickets for. At the show that I went to, I went to that same tour, as you can imagine. They brought out Weird Al to play the accordion on the track. That was very fun. That would be fun, man. I'm glad they mended their ways because at one point in time, Rivers was too cool to have buddy holly on the alternative polka the polka medley he said no he said i don't get it

i don't get why this is supposed to be funny but now they've mended their ways because he's chilled out a lot and i appreciate that yeah and i think on what weird al album what late weird al album could it have been where there's like a it's not like a direct parody but it's like a sound alike to pork and beans from the red album uh so i guess it would have been from that era uh of weird al i'm not mandatory fun maybe the one before that this is this see this is how you know we're all friends we all know exactly what i'm talking about there's like uh god it's gonna that's gonna bother me because there's like a couple songs on that album that aren't direct parodies of the song but are style parodies and with a little original

lyrics well there's uh there's alpocalypse in 2011 they're straight out of linwood okay uh it might be alpocalypse yes it's gonna kill me skipper dan is that oh yeah okay it's about the like the oh i love that skipper dan song i never thought i never considered it as a weezer uh a like thing but yeah i hear that now yeah yeah i think it's like an exact pork and beans um analog i think but see all right we're gonna have to cut off the weasel yeah yeah no but uh please stop me because now we're talking weird al yeah we're veering so far off course. But yes, joining us today, our special guest is Matt Apodaca of How Did This Get Played?

Welcome to the show, Matt. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about this episode and then I guess everything else that I like. And listeners, yeah, if you guys haven't heard it yet, last year did me and bob an episode of of your podcast with with heather and camel and nick wiger talking about the bart versus the space mutants very crappy game yeah yeah so many bad simpsons games fewer good ones than there are except the ones that are good i feel like are like incredible like are are like top games to me they paper over the bad ones in your memory especially for us like the simpsons arcade game of the 90s early of 1991 that makes

you forget like you can just forget everyone that was on the nintendo and just go like yeah this was the only 8-bit game yeah because if you say simpsons video game that's like the that's what people think of they think about the the arcade cabinet uh and then they maybe think of simpsons hit and run which is also really good um and then maybe simpsons road rage the the absolute crazy taxi yeah there was a settlement over this and now for the past decade there's only been one simpsons game and that's tapped out and the premise of that is what if frinky act charged you money to see references and people said yeah i'll do it let's pay let's pay lots of money to this i had to wash my hands of that game i can't remember if i've talked to you guys about this the last time like nick heather

and i were on but i sunk so much money i did i did some crazy stuff with that game. I had my friend hack it, first of all. And then I had basically tens of thousands of donuts, right? So then I can get whatever I wanted. Donuts, for those of you that don't maybe know, and you probably do if you're listening to this, but the donuts are sort of like the in-game premium currency that you could also buy. And so when I started to run low on those, I would then buy...

Because some things cost several hundred donuts probably or something to get the escalator to nowhere or any of these other premium locations, seasonal things to cost donuts. And so I was just like okay well i was going to get all of this and then i would then start to sink my own money into it and it occurred to me and i was like if you buy several of those scratchers every day you're spending real dollars some of them cost four dollars some of them are you know single dollars um but if that adds up by the end of the month you've spent hundreds of dollars you somehow have spent so much money in this game i've probably sunk like multiple hundreds of dollars not like higher than three probably but you know at the time when i was playing it that was a lot of money to me and you know what it still is yeah i know

where it came from i don't want to drop i'm not going to drop a hundred dollars right now on nothing you know i'm gonna think about it that's that is why i had similar issues with uh that clash of clans game which i have now completely kicked that's like three or four years in my past but knowing that i had that addiction to that game i never touched tapped out because i was like no uh instead just stay above it act like you're too good for it because if you ever open it up it will eat all your money like i'll i'll do all the same thing too for sure they're designed to be that way like because you're like like the psychology that you're running through your brain it's like oh it's a dollar you know i can wait 16 hours for this task to complete or I could pay a dollar and finish it.

I'll just pay the dollar. What's a dollar? I spend more on one game than a dollar. Yeah, exactly. I like how when Nintendo was getting into mobile games, they said up front, we are not making predatory games. We are making real, full, complete games you can buy. And then four years later, it's like, well, here's your slot machine you can download uh wife jpegs with yep yeah anime wife jpegs or and here's the the uh nintendo switch online expansion pack that is going to cost you 30 more dollars and they don't play good

no i uh yeah i i bought the controller and everything but then after i played it for a little bit like i really at least i split it with my husband using the family plan. So it was more like $20, not $30 more. I got to get that controller. It's a nice controller. It does seem like a bummer that the way that you're going to enjoy playing it is by then spending an additional $50 on a controller when I got, look, you know the podcast I do. I got controllers. I got controllers lying around. You don't need another N64 controller.

No. I don't need to justify another plastic thing in my house. Well, yeah, I guess too, listeners should know, Matt, we talked about it in your last Talking Simpsons appearance, but you have at least one Simpsons tattoo. Has that collection grown since then? The collection has not grown. I've over-quarantined. I will say I have batted the impulse to get more tattoos because I was just like, well, I can't just, this can't be my quarantine hobby. I can't, I can't make this my, my baking bread, uh, just getting covered in tattoos. I have one though.

And it's like probably the one that everybody that likes the Simpsons has, unless it's like someone's weird belly button and like being like, so Simpsons characters, like weird asshole or something um but i have the i have the moth heart uh tattoos is is what i have that i got not as like a mother's day gift but it was like around that time and i was like hey mom look and she also had seen the simpsons grew up you know sort of grew up with us watching the simpsons and thought it was nice. Thought it was sweet. She's also a tattooed person. No, I mean, I think that's a perfect Simpsons tattoo because it's both. It is a Simpsons reference tattoo, but it is like a tattoo Bart got in the show.

Like that. It's much better than Homer's Starland vocal band T-shirt. They suck. You know, there's a tattoo in this one that i'm like man i kind of want the one that's drawn on millhouse i'm almost like boy that's pretty cool maybe that'll be the one i get someday yeah the homer or a tattoo approximation of ralph's hand under the healing scab i think henry has been dreading even talking about this for the past almost seven years of this podcast.

I've brought it up a number of times. One of the grosser things I've seen. We'll get to it. We've seen Homer's eyes crust over, I think, in this season. Maybe it was last season. But now, like, wounds crusting over is a real theme in this later Scully period. Hey, Henry, wounds got to heal. I know.

I mean, it's healthy. Those platelets are important. Yeah. The last preamble question i want to ask you matt was like do you do you remember seeing this when it was new like uh you're uh slight a little younger than me and bob so where uh yeah did you see this in 2001 when it was new i definitely did like i don't have a distinct memory of seeing it but this was like in my sort of prime simpsons watching years because like i i watched it before i was probably old enough to watch it probably i was in the group of kids that were watching it that uh well i guess it wouldn't have been barbara bush telling people not to watch it

because that's a little before my time too i would have been too young for that. But I'll guess the Clintons didn't approve either. I don't think they loved it. No, yeah. But yeah, I guess my grandparents remembered the warnings of one Barbara Bush. So they were upset that my mom would let us watch The Simpsons. And of course, I didn't understand any of the jokes or anything like that, you know, because I was a little kid. So it was just like a funny cartoon where the dad chokes his son

to me. I must have seen it because this season, I can't even remember what else is in the season, but I probably watched all the way through to like, honestly, like maybe season 17. I was like a pretty regular Simpsons watcher like even when i had when we fight when we first got like tivo like later than everybody else i was like

recording the simpsons and i was like this is great because i can just now i can watch this anytime i want this is like this is my dream like you know and now my dream is has been re-realized with the way you can stream any episode of The Simpsons at any time now. It's really the have all the donuts in the world moment now for The Simpsons. Yeah. And it's like, oh, I'll just keep watching the same ones I have on DVD. I have seasons one through ten on DVD. The DVDs are all the way on the other side of the room.

I can't just put them in. Exactly. What am I going to get up and pop this in? You got to find the right disc too. Yeah. Exactly. I got to look at the little, the paper on the inside of this thing.

I was always bummed that, I wish my DVD set was more uniform though, because at a certain point, because I was not buying these myself. I was getting them as gifts or like when a new one would come out, my mom would be like, surprise, I got us the Simpsons box set. And then when they started to do the head ones, like the ones that are shaped like heads,

we would get that. And I don't like those as much as the box. And so we only have two of those and they're Homer and Marge. So the whole set looks just a little off. I will say it was a little little off. I will say... I wish it was more uniform. I will defend the head boxes in one way, and I said this before,

I don't like how they disrupt the flow of my season box sets on the shelf there, but those head boxes are indestructible. With all the plastic they're made from, they survived over a dozen moves in my life. Oh, yeah. No, man. If I had gotten those as gifts i'd

have slapped him down i'd be like no no head box for me i i made sure i made sure to get the box i was one of those people who sent away for the season six non-head box and there was a there was a letter and they're making fun of you for that i know but but and then well most shamefully though in my move it was gone i lost it in my last move. So I don't have any more. That's probably a little rarer. Because if you had to send in for the non-head, that means there's fewer of those just around. They go for more on eBay.

That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And then we stopped at 10. Because I know that they released season 20 ahead of some other ones. Because it was an exciting time for the simpsons like well let's put this out before even like season like 17 or something and then so like i don't know if they made it all the way to season 20 but i know that they did

like they got to like 20 and then maybe some seasons missing before that i don't think there's like a season 19 box no they filled in the gap they finally they did get up to 19 that was the last one they did and i believe that was uh maybe two or three years ago now oh sorry it was 2019 it came out uh around this time so yeah yep and i feel like so like they're still making them well well we've heard from behind the scenes i think al jean the show runner said as much that they have recorded commentaries for episodes beyond that that were meant to be on the Simpsons World app. Even if they weren't going to be releasing DVDs, they'd at least exist on that app.

But the app, you know, obviously has been defunct since Disney Plus came around. So there are recorded commentaries somewhere out there. Someone should just upload them, I think. Yeah. Put them on the... This is the thing I don't understand. This is a separate issue.

But, like, every streaming service should have commentary yes they're available it just like as an extra audio track like it'd just be interesting why not we had said this with another guest yeah we're repeating ourselves but i totally agree yeah because especially like all these streaming services they want to up engagement like minutes watched all that stuff like yeah it's just these files already exist just put them on your streaming service people will watch them more i i don't understand it yeah netflix is adding games oh yeah and they're starting like i don't want that yeah and they start like there's i know there's a netflix podcast division they're building up too and i'm just like oh yeah okay you can do that but could you just put a commentary on like robocop and i'll

watch it i know there's like i would love to hear the super bad commentary yeah like whatever it is the simpsons will be right back. Next Sunday, parents beware. Homer opens a daycare center. Why did you put my name on the sign? It's just a legal thing to protect me. And childcare will never be the same. Peek-a-boo!

I've never seen the baby get tired of it before the adult. Peek-a-boo! An all-new Simpsons next sunday holy mittens we hope you're enjoying this week's podcast and our big time guest matt apodaca from the get played podcast everybody should check that out and all the other cool podcasts matt does uh like his one about weezer that me and bob delved into just a little bit this week thank you very much matt for coming on to the show and if you're enjoying this talking simpsons podcast you should know that me and bob can only do this as our full-time job because of the support of subscribers at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for For just $5 a month, you not only get to keep me and Bob employed,

but you also get a ton of exclusives. Each month, you get one new episode of Talking Futurama. We're deep into season three. And one new episode of Talk King of the Hill, of us covering the second season of King of the Hill right now. That's just the beginning, though, because you get a giant back catalog of all of the previous Patreon-exc of us covering a ton of episodes of futurama king of the hill the entire series of mission hill and the entire series of the critic plus our 10 favorite episodes of batman

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and next month with South Park, bigger and longer and uncut as chosen by our patrons, we go super-duper in-depth into an animated feature film, often over four hours, sometimes even five-hour-long podcast, super in-depth on the animated feature film often over four hours sometimes even five hour long podcast super in-depth on the what a cartoon movie podcast you can only hear that if you are at the ten dollar level and you get all the five dollar things i just mentioned a huge back catalog over three years long covering films as diverse as kiki's delivery service to beavis and butthead do america everything in between I'd say over 220 hours of

What a Cartoon Movie podcast at your disposal in addition to all of those $5 things. Check it all out at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. I remember seeing this one when it was new I think probably now I think back to like what a one-two punch it was that I did not like this one when it was new and then two days later I get the green album and I'm disappointed by that it's just a lot of a lot of teenage senior year disappointments but you had a you had a rough week but look i i was about to i was graduating the next uh in a couple weeks after that it was it was a weird time but now that i watch this i'm like i know what the expectations for season 12 are and i'm like this has good jokes in it and

is also very rough because it's tired writers at the end of the season yeah that's what it feels like to me and i have a brief preamble thing about this episode so the reference of the title is a reference to the movie children of a lesser god so that was a 1986 movie that was notable for being the film debut of deaf actress marlee matlin and it's about romance and drama in a school for the deaf and i I know Al Jean, this movie is stuck in his brain because there's two references to it in The Critic. Wow. Yes.

Oh, man. Right, right. Well, there's Children of a Lesser Godzilla. And then when Jay Sherman is a con, he is saying that, oh, Marlee Matlin and Holly Hunter are just being so noisy. Keep it down, you two, where Marlee Matlin is a deaf actress and Holly Hunter played a mute woman in the piano. And that's the joke. Right. being so noisy keep it down you two where marley matlin is a deaf actress and holly hunter played

a mute woman in the piano and that's the joke right if you weren't watching movies in 1993 you might not understand there's uh there's several critique jokes in this episode i'd also say yeah and oh one other thing i have for this so aljean wrote this episode this would be the last new episode he wrote until 2014's i won't be home for christmas he's written three more since then so he took a long time off of writing episodes to be a showrunner for the next uh for last new episode he wrote until 2014's i won't be home for christmas he's written three more since then so he took a long time off of writing episodes to be a showrunner for the next uh forever yes yeah wow up to now yeah yeah aljean uh we just passed 20 years of aljean and he starts he takes back over showrunner season 13 he's doing it to this day he co-show runs it with matt selman so it seems like it's like

half the episodes are selman a show run half are gene ones but yeah this is the last one of gene as just uh i wouldn't even call him staff writer because i think he's still like co-exec in this season 12 yeah yeah this i'm sure this comes up every episode. It's longevity is staggering. Obviously, it's like the longest running show, but it is just like, not to put anybody out of work necessarily, but it doesn't have to be. They can stop it.

Not even coming from a place of like, this show is bad. It should be off the air anymore. Because honestly, I've seen, I haven't seen a ton of new episodes, but I've seen a few newer episodes that I was like, this was good. This was a good a good one this was good but i just don't know if i mean because what are we gonna do they're all getting these people are getting old they're all gonna die

yeah people have from this show have died i don't know if i need to hear a new homer because like you know what new kermit sounds like well right like we don't know if we need this i mean disney won't let homer yeah stop talking i mean we don't know this yeah we don't know this but i can say for sure disney has cast the new homer and they're just waiting like probably chris pratt yes yeah we're recording this the day after pratt was cast as garfield and i'm trying to just contain my rage as much as possible i don't know We had already forgotten that he was Mario. We had forgotten. If it was one or the other and just one of those,

like I'd be less mad. But that it was both like back to, definitely when the negative reaction came to his Mario casting, the people at Sony were probably like, ah, shit, in three weeks we're going to announce he's Garfield. It's going to be a problem. I was thinking, what would he sound like as Homer? But you can't actually do an impression of Chris Pratt.

He's the unflavored ice milk of actors. He's not meant to have any kind of flavor. Yeah. And he's just like, duh, oops. He doesn't do it right. I mean, Jack Black is much more Garfield or Seth Rogen. If you're going to have, if it has to be somebody famous, who's a famous comedy person, both of those people say Garfield or Mario to me much more than Chris Pratt.

There was a good, there was a good casting for it that I can't remember now who they, who somebody on Twitter said. So this was me bringing this up was absolutely worthless i don't remember who tweeted it i don't remember who they said i just remember that somebody there was a casting for garfield that i was like that would have been good also while speaking about la things uh and aljean hearing where he came up with the idea for this like this is also an obscenely la episode the guy's getting injured in a basketball game that's because of his generation of comedy guys gary shandling would do a basketball game like oh it's the gary shandling basketball game like i've heard conan o'brien talk

about it in interviews or bob odenkirk talk about in interviews yeah it actually started with uh it's gary shandling show he would do that every sund Sunday as a way to work and actually, you know, exercise. He'd get all the writers in. So Al Jean and Mike Reese probably went to these games, maybe played in them. Al Jean's a pretty tall guy. I'd pick him on my team

if I was there. Oh, like tall Jean. And then on top of that, it also comes from like Al Jean is trying to, he's a guy in Hollywood who's trying to get his kids into a daycare

and says it's the hardest thing in the world to do in hollywood and speaking of the critic that was a critic uh b plot of them trying to get penny into a preschool man that's yeah hey is it that hard i mean hey i guess you know writers you run out of lived experience once you come into la so all you got is like yeah it was hard to get my kid into like this millionaire's daycare it was tough yeah and his idea was if i ever wanted to stop writing and clean up i could just open my own daycare because everybody in la needs a daycare or a preschool it's just so hard to find one uh the final act is uh all about award shows which is yes yeah it's you're right it's so la yeah But I guess let's let's start the episode proper. Then it begins at the Y. And I think for a good first act sketch of the Simpsons go to the YMCA.

I think it's a good I think that's a fertile territory. And I our local Y just reopened, Bob, or not just now. It's a few months into it. Now we're back to mask free for at least, I don't know, 24 days until they're saying masks back on. So you're going to be spending that time at the the local y is that right yes yeah i i would bet after thanksgiving we'll have another surge and it's masks back on yeah but yeah yeah i grew up enjoying the y because i had like friends who worked there like it was the employer of about seven members of my best friend's family. Oh, wow.

Sure. I enjoyed the Y a lot in my day. He was just like, well, if I lose my job here, I can always just work at the Y. Yeah. I feel like the Y, every town has one, right? I remember there was a local Y in my hometown. And look, it's got the song. It's got representation here on the simpsons they're they're huge yeah well i mean also in living in the bay area like there's the

the gay element of the ymca is much stronger here even just from the song i don't know why seems very corporate yeah it's gotten more corporate well hey every fucking gay guy here it works for a silicon valley company is a rich asshole so that that makes sense to me and and i say that as a gay man who yeah who only tangentially works for a silicon valley company through patreon not technically there are landlords yeah uh but but yeah i like this instruction at the start of just like oh we know you'll not sign up. You're just using this for free. Just Homer's responsible.

You got that right. Like, no way. I, you know, 60 bucks a month. Not so bad for a wife. If you actually use it. Yeah. Yeah. But yes, then we get a joke about Burns name in the over 85 basketball league, which I looked up some peach basket basketball facts for this one.

I did, too. Did you know that? So, yeah, James Naismith, the Canadian who invented this, originally used peach baskets. Then he realized it's a big pain in the ass to get a ladder out whenever someone scores a point. So they made a hole, but the hole was not big enough for the ball to drop through. So you'd poke at it with a dowel to get the ball out. Oh, my God. through so you'd poke at it with a dowel to get the ball out oh my god it's it's yeah like it was 15 years before they finally were like should there be a hole big enough that it just falls

out and somebody has it like i love that the the old the people who are old enough for the invention of the basketball are playing it and just like yeah we still play by the old rules of just getting i mean also back then that was before dribbling was invented and it was just like just passing you they couldn't afford nets there was a spanish american war there's a there's a funny moment with that we're like mr burn like somebody i can't remember what the joke what the slight is but somebody slights mr burns and he starts like muttering like uh under his breath like oh yeah i can't remember what he's saying i love he says i'll get the ball out of your peach basket one of these days oh yeah that's right it's like uh but it's a funny thing to mutter like and be upset about you know i think aljean episodes make

us have to do the most research because they really do he has a lot of just like oh here's another real world thing because after doing that joke now we're going to another we get to meet lugash yeah and i have the this is not fun trivia because it's based on uh u.s gymnastics coach bela caroli sorry if i miss said the name uh who defected from romania 1981 that's the jokes they're making here i was like what's he up to today well it turns out all of the sexual abuse that happened recently with the women's gymnastics team happened on his ranch oh yeah and uh yeah it happened at the carolyi ranch boy yes i'm really not looking forward to season 13's little girl in the big 10 now no that's his next appearance and it's all about how he trains young girls apparently he

wasn't there he wasn't like privy to this maybe he knew things maybe he didn't that's his story but it happened at his ranch oh boy that's sad one of the two problematic people that appear in this episode yeah wow i i only knew the name the from gene it. I was like, oh, and yeah, he trained Nadi Komanichi and Mary Lou Retton. And I should have realized it'd be something horrible. Here it's just jokes about a very intense screaming guy with a Russian accent. And of course, the joke of him calling Lisa grandma at eight is because usually you, it is a sport for the young Olympic level gymnastics. I looked this up at the 2021 games. It is Beckistani woman named Oksana Chusovatina.

She competed at 46. She didn't win any medals, but you know, an Olympic gymnast at 46. That's impressive. yeah yeah oh yeah i feel like anybody uh that enters the olympics is like the most impressive person alive like unbelievable i can't i can barely get up yeah off the couch uh it was uh yeah the armchair olympia commentators this year was always fun. Just to see people be like, ah, they didn't, that karate guy could have put his leg higher. Well, just do it.

Just get it higher. And then comes a joke that I half like. I'll play the clip here. Yeah, me too. Yo, boy, this class is tight. You go from slopper to proper. Cool. Welcome to my etiquette class.

The proper young man. But the black man said, Are you accusing my husband of misleading you? Good gracious. I should bust a cap in your ass. I don't like rapping granny jokes about a cap in your ass. It's a hauling ass to Lollapalooza joke.

Bart's saying, but the black man said Yeah. He could have probably, but the black man said. Yeah. Yeah. He could probably could have just said man. That's why it's funny. That's funny that Bart is just like, but a black man said it. This must be the hip hop class. Like, it's.

Yeah. I agree. And I like that the fancy lady is married to him. I like to imagine that as a couple. That's fun. But. Yeah. That does. That is sweet. That would not stick around in the continuity, though. The wealthy dowager. Yeah. married to him i like to imagine yeah as a couple that's fun but i don't think that does that is

sweet that would not stick around in the continuity though the wealthy dowager yeah yeah but she's she's like are you accusing my husband like but then that she does the sideways gun hand and said like i don't like that that's they learn they've learned from each other yeah uh a very roundabout way to make fun of uh young boys etiquette classes that were taught in Dennis the Menace cartoons. Yeah. And there's nothing else with that. Bart is not taught to be a proper young man.

That seems like the pitch for an episode in itself. Bart goes to etiquette class. I'm sure they made it. Oh, since then? Yeah. It doesn't come back at all. I mean, nothing really... Lisa doesn't come back at all like it's just uh i mean nothing really like lisa doesn't become a gymnast and in this episode either but like they don't really address

any of that after this because then obviously the the big story is then what happens to to homer homer's injury distracts them all from their their plans yeah isn't that something so they're picking teams that was the opening bit there i just want to say that if i was skinner i'd have picked mo before homer like i know mo's got sock garters but and it's bent over and works in a bar but he's wiry i have to assume he's in better shape than homer i think he plays he stands all day yeah yes exactly and uh and, I kind of want Comic Book Guy's Muttley t-shirt. I was thinking of you, Henry. Yes, I like that Muttley t-shirt.

It's perfect. Like, Comic Book Guy honestly should always have on a Muttley t-shirt or some other. I know that would make the animation much harder for them to constantly change his t-shirt, but I think that's perfect. I wonder who forced him to join the YMCA and get active. I assume his doctor told agnes yeah agnes that's true yeah she got in there she's like you know this could be good for you yeah we've broken up but i'm worried about you i've just yeah yeah about you but or maybe that's how he thinks he's gonna get get her back you know oh yeah she well you know if he could play on Skinner's team,

maybe Skinner could put in a good word for him. Or maybe he gets over into the pool where the senior swim is happening and they sort of brush past each other. You're right, Henry. There are so many references in this. It's very critique-y because Homer mentions Hoop Dreams, which is the name of the documentary from the 90s. Yep.

And then Frank has shoes with Flubber on them, which is the absent-minded professor. Frank is the nutty professor. There are two wacky professors. So absent-minded professor was played by Fred McMurray in the old Disney show or movie. And then for the remake, it was Harry Anderson from Night Court. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, and it was also Robin Williams in the 97.

Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. As watching this in 2001 as a youngster, I thought, oh, referencing that old, like the 1997 movie Flubber. And that's like four years ago. I didn't even realize it was a 50 year old movie that he was referencing. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's funny to think about that there was a more

contemporary Flubber, but this reference is the other one, like the real Flubber. I guess in both versions of Flubber, Flubber is used to help a basketball team get better at basketball, which is just cheating. Like, that's cheating. Yeah, and it doesn't seem like it'd be that much more helpful unless you, like, really practiced with the flubber. Like, if it was a last-minute addition, you would not be calibrated correctly to use the flubber to your advantage. You'd be not unlike Professor Frank in this scenario,

bouncing all over the place. You'd be on your ass. It wouldn't be working out. Oh, I have some breaking breaking news by the way chris pratt was just hired to play the nutty professor sorry the absent-minded professor in the new remake okay oh no he's playing he's playing nutty professor 2 they're making that again and he's gonna be that too let's go let's do it yeah he he can host the nutty professor ride as well like he he's he's a man i did about chris pratt he's a guy at three theme parks you can you can see him at lego world for the lego ride you can see him on the jurassic world ride now that got updated for it and you see him on the guardians

ride at disney there are so many ways to experience chris pratt can i eat chris pratt is there some sort of pratt meal? There's got to be like a Lunchables or whatever that's Lego with his Lego character on it. I gotta think. There will be with Mario for sure, right? And then Universal will have Chris Pratt and Mario. Man, he's going to be the voice.

He's going to be the voice of Mario at the Universal, isn't he? Or at least an imitation of his voice. It's not going to be Charles. It at least an imitation of his voice it's not gonna be charles it's a me mario hey it's me but it's gonna do it now you'd have more excitement you'd be like hey it's me i i see no one can do a chris pratt impression oh it's impossible but yes then then comes our next clip which is uh where they where mcbain enters the story very unnaturally now before we begin fitness buff rainier wolf castle would like to say a few words about the springfield ymca

oh hello i have purchased the springfield ymca i plan to tear it down and turn the land into a nature preserve where i will hunt the deadliest game of all now let's play ball where lenny is taking off oh that's a foul i am taking a ball and going home hey hey that's not your ball the chase begins apparently they wanted any basketball player to play the role of rainier at least be in his place doing this uh shtick but everybody said no no one wanted to hunt lenny for sport it's it's insane that al jean as he tells it on the commentary he's like we last literally every nba player we

possibly could and all said no i'm like I you would think like that some benchwarmer on the Lakers would say like I'll be on the Simpsons yeah you know right or the Clippers like if they tried it now if they tried it now they would do it they any any of them would do it why did the 2001 Clippers players think they were too good or for the Simpsons yeah he just mentioned Shaq and Kobe but I'm sure there are a few others down the line i mean maybe there were some that were like you're not famous enough for us like i i could see they did that but yeah in 2001 were these nba players scared to have a joke about shooting a man like hunting a man was that the joke maybe yeah maybe the secret is that they were all doing this anyway. How did you know, said Kobe Bryant.

Now Shaq is hanging around with his animated pal, The General, all the time. Yeah. That's true. Selling his Shaq pizzas at Papa John's. I've said it before. They need to call it Papa Shaq's. Just get rid of any of the John stuff. They absolutely have to.

Yeah. He's on the box. Just go all the way. I don't want to think about Papa John Schnatter every time I go to the Papa John's. I'd rather think about Shaq. Oh, yeah. But, yeah, this makes me think. There's multiple times in these last couple years where McBain or Rainier appears out of nowhere.

And I'm just like, oh, was this another celebrity's focus joke? And then the person said no. And they're like ah just make it mcbain it works there we uh that we couldn't get a famous person but i i always welcome a reference to the most dangerous game i always i like it except in the film the pest that's the one place i don't like it in the john leck is on the phone uh i also like lenny's just the way a good line reading on lenny just going that's a foul like he's just so muted and he's disappointed in everyone yeah he's like yeah he understands

lenny lenny is a fundamentals guy so he actually understands the rules of the game how the game works and so he's like actually like um that's a foul i i also would say i don't think that lenny and homer should both do the air jordan pose like have have one of them do a different dunk pose for for their thing i and then also comes another like other than the time homer wrote lenny white carl black on his hand i can't think of a joke before that actually is about carl being an african-american i can't think of a joke before that actually is about Carl being an African-American. I can't think of a previous one. Maybe not before this. Not before this. Yeah.

There are, in this episode, obviously, like, there's stuff within the, like, the culture of the Simpsons that have aged poorly and have, you know, been called out over the years but i like hadn't seen an episode that like so specifically had like i guess racist jokes in it like like um like obviously they have stereotypical like characters and things like that but this one has like bart calling the guy at the door like the black guy is like is rough but maybe not like overtly like a racist joke that sucks he could just call him like hey the guy outside uh that's cleaner implying that carl is good at basketball and then showing it because he's black is also like so you know that's like that's weird that's weird for the simpsons to do because they don't really do that necessarily like none of the characters who are black like doc they don't really ever comment on anyone's ethnicity necessarily and then there's a

joke later that grandpa does yes and it's like what are they what are they doing well in you need to consider that this is the year 2000 we told ourselves that racism was over yeah that's true yeah we did squash it. I forgot. You're allowed to be racist if you don't really mean it. Yes. Yeah. If it's funny, you're allowed. Yeah, that's right.

It's a very, I think, if I can think of their 2000 reasoning for this, obviously this would be a joke they would never do now. Yeah. But I feel like their reasoning is like, oh, it's about how you shouldn't stereotype African Americans as good at basketball but this guy actually is very good at basketball and he fulfills every stereotype so i guess it's supposed to be a mind fuck that you're like well what do you think now are you we're stereotypes right on this guy but what should it be or yeah i i i may be overthinking it but it's it's just also weird to have a. Like, Carl's race is very rarely brought up on the show.

And it's worth noting, too, that the Simpsons writing staff, very white. Very, very white. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. 100%. I don't think they'd have a full-time African-American writer for another, like, two years. Yeah, Wilmore. Yeah, Wilmore.

Yeah. Yeah. And both black guys in this episode are voiced by henka's area yeah like yeah do you know what i mean so it's like it's just one of those things that it's it's a deaf absolutely a product of its time right like hopefully they wouldn't do that what season are we on now season 35 33 yeah 33 well no i mean carl is voiced by an african american actor now so and then same with him so yeah but uh but anyway then then after that stereotype we get a stereotype about the scottish which is they they play basketball in their kilts

with their ass hanging out you know willie's got a good butt i'll just say i think he keeps for weeks this guy yeah and as we've seen before he's he's packing up front too which is what's really freaking them out so i think then homer they're losing the game and homer's got a plan and i love this yeah this uh i have the clip for this because the audio on this is is the joke okay guys i got a secret play I've been saving for the Olympics, or possibly the Final Four. And it goes something like this. Hi, Skinner, I want you to block out Harold. Moe, you take Professor Prank.

Homer, you take Groundskeeper Willie. No way am I taking Groundskeeper Willie. Yes, you are. Are you a team player or not? Oh my goodness, an untied shoelace. I'll just get down on one knee and retie that. Eat my dust, mortals! I'm okay. They make it sound so painful.

Yes. It's not pleasant, but such a funny execution of, like, you think the plan is going to be so crazy. And he's just like muttering a very straightforward plan, which is very funny. But then also having an argument with himself before that is, is,

is, is so perfectly Homer. Um, and then just, yeah, a truly violent injury. And it's a, a great joke about cartoon whispers that are

audible like yeah should be going like but you can tell every word he's saying like yeah like uh like you can just hear it perfectly it's so funny now i think me in 2001 was already not in a happy place with Simpsons about having to see Homer's thumb cut off a couple episodes before this one in Trilogy of Error. And now I had to see another realistic, horrible injury for Homer. I mean, again, I know it is. I'm being a hypocrite here because I think Homer falling down the ravine is funny and it does not make me feel like gross and uncomfortable.

But these injuries to Homer, the thumb and then it's very well it's not actually realistic how he hurts his knee but yeah the injury to his knee is real they're very specific yeah and it could happen to you yeah I know that's why maybe that's I'm always doing dunks off of people's backs yeah you gotta be careful when you dunk that's like the number one thing that can happen to you is like they call it the simpsons injury when you go over the hoop yeah with your legs so high yeah yeah skinner is a strong guy launching homer that high yeah he's a veteran uh and yeah this goes back to the gary shandling thing again because a lot of people playing in those games were getting injured because they were all over 30 not doing any physical activity for the rest of the week and then playing very hard so a lot of people playing in those games were getting injured because they were all over 30, not doing any physical activity for the rest of the week and then playing very hard. So

a lot of these basketball games resulted in major injuries for these TV writers. It's so funny to me to think about those real life games. Like, obviously, like, what a cool, like, thing to have been a part of. But it's also like, do you have to play so hard? Like, it's just like, we're just having fun. We're at Gary Shandling's house. Like, we don't have to play so hard like it's just like we're just having fun we're at gary shandling's house like we don't have to go like what's the what's the outcome for for going harder uh you're getting out all the aggression when gary shandling shot down all your jokes in the room that week yeah well now matt your generation you guys uh you guys play smash brothers together you don't play basketball yeah we would yeah imagine gary shandling being like okay like who's your main yeah that's actually you know what conan o'brien he went from that uh that path he was

one of those basketball guys and then on his show he played smash brothers and to and was disgusted and every guy on that thing's like oh yeah mario's this guy and donkey kong's this guy but Donkey Kong's this guy. Yeah, Homer's horrible knee pain. It's just something like they were so into giving Homer a realistic injury with realistic sounds and just him screaming in pain. It's so, so awful. So yes, Homer heads to the hospital. He finds out it is an ACL tear, which as a pro wrestling fan i know that like

that takes pro wrestlers out for like nine months so yeah homer homer has a very fast recovery in this one uh but but when homer is diagnosed he also gets uh some treatment he enjoys homer i'm afraid you've torn out your anterior cruciate ligament. Did you say anterior? Yes. Now, how did this happen? Maybe a little morphine would refresh my memory. I don't know. I'm still a little hazy. Oh, yeah.

Now I remember it like it was yesterday. It happened today. Hey, man, you're harshing my buzz. Anyway, it all started when I was... Predicting the opiate crisis in America. That's true. I think that's something that I remember from being a kid. I remember that joke specifically and being like, what's morphine?

It taught you that it's fun to take and that it feels good. Yeah. And that if you just ask a doctor for it, they'll give it to you. Yeah. And they have like a syringe right there ready to give it to you. It was a fun swerve from, oh, it felt like yesterday. It was yesterday. I like it was today yeah this afternoon good right and the way dr hibbert delivers that line is so funny he's like kind of mad that he like has to correct him he's like

that was today you idiot and also that he keeps giving him morphine that's only gonna hurt his memory but homer homer being bribed by morphine is very funny too uh homer likes to be knocked out though because like there's i can't remember what season it is but there's like a there's like a chloroform runner in an episode where then he like tries to chloroform himself and he doesn't do it right or something and it doesn't work or something he was addicted to chloroform for a time the writers the writers went through their chloroform phase he was chloroform licking toads yeah that's right yeah yeah he's no stranger to uh i guess getting zooted he loves it so he's not not licking toads as homer said it yeah yeah homer's fantasy is fun and all i think my i don't like the moon saying you go homer i think

any like a you go girl joke even in 2001 is like that's hacky the lip sync is off so it felt like there was a different line there yeah but originally but the jetsons him getting hit by george jetson's car i like that i'm really funny yeah like truly super funny anytime uh because isn't um the great gazoo like pop up in the episode or something oh yeah yeah but uh but he's he's not a great gazoo though he's osmodeor yeah osmodeor yeah totally different totally different damn straight henry yeah and yeah then uh after homer passes out it's also great he's like and then george jets, and then he just is like being shaken as he's just unconscious. They even have another joke about like,

these are these jokes where they're, it's the show commenting on like, wow, we've sure done a lot of this in season 12. They were addressing your complaints, Henry. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Homer's getting surgery again. We're watching it again. Marge should not welcome a hysterectomy like an unneeded hysterectomy she shouldn't want that that's dangerous yeah that seemed a little that to me is indicative of the writer's room as well like probably also no women in the on the on the staff or very few women at one there was one probably one and she wasn't there that day but uh but yes when homer leaves the hospital i do like

how they find out oh he got a spinal cord injury he just fell off the gurney but that's fine he'll be fine yeah that made me really laugh that's super funny also i mean well you know uh the all these jokes about the expensiveness of health care in america that they're only funnier now it's only yeah that was a real simpsons did it yeah i mean uh you know though your hospital porno films now though just bring your phone with you you know although they probably will charge you for your wi-fi you're right insurance prices yeah no free rides at the hospital hospital haircuts and porno films is a funny i mean they charge you to hold your own baby so it's true yeah yeah

oh man the wi-fi prices at the hospital must be pretty high yeah and then i think actually okay not counting the scab the grossest moment to me is homer running off and re-injuring his knee like that yeah something about the re-injury of it disgusts me more it's really the sound effect it just feels like three broccoli sorry three celery things being snapped together yeah and it's like it it seems like it was worse too because they just fixed it yeah like you know like so it it's it was seen it seemed more fragile somehow this time uh and you know i it's cute enough like a Homer doing a hey look and then running off. But the fact that a bear is just there and on screen for like 20 seconds. On the commentary, they don't like it either.

In fact, it seems like they don't like this episode. They're very negative on the episode. Yeah. Al G goes like, my name's on the writer for this. But, you know, it's like. It's really collaborative if you think about it. Yeah. It's also a real redundant thing in the episode.

So they end act one with Homer leaving the hospital. And I guess because he needed a second surgery after injuring his knee again. Act two begins with him leaving the hospital again in the same position as he had back to. But but Homer is told he's got to stay off his leg for at least two weeks. And Homer, you know know doesn't want to sit on the couch watching tv all the time and i do love homer's just very extreme selfishness just saying like no they don't nobody has it as bad as me in that hospital what do you expect me to do sit on the couch and watch tv all day that ain't my style man yeah and also this episode is about just

throwing up your hands and going like homer doesn't work at the nuclear plant anymore you know not his job you'll never see him there uh he calls it something else too which is really funny the nuclear yeah he's he uh like this season is uh well it was last season where they did the joke of homer just going like i think it's pretty obvious i don't about where he works then we have a cute little gag that homer's drinking buddies are all basically dennis the menace or leave it to beaver characters asking if he can go out to play i especially like the barge is shooing him away like you shoo barney gumbel i guess he's is he supposed to be eddie uh the bad boy eddie haskell eddie haskell it'll leave it uh maybe i wonder you know lenny's got one of those hoop and sticks and i tried doing Is he supposed to be Eddie, uh, the bad boy? Eddie Haskell? Eddie Haskell in Leave It To Be.

Uh, maybe. You know, Lenny's got one of those hoop and sticks and I tried doing that recently. We went to this, uh, this old timey cannery. Oh, really? And it's like, you can live like people of this era lived. And they had a hoop and a stick and I tried it for about three seconds. And I said, you know what? I'm glad video games were invented in my lifetime.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause I'm no, I'm no hoop and stick speed runner. Man. So is it basically a hula hoop and you just poke it with a stick to see if you keep it moving i mean hula hoops are a fantastical invention in the hoop and stick era okay it's just like a wooden hoop i see man you start rolling the hoop and then you kind of poke it with the stick to keep it going oh man that's

and then you wait for uh smallpox to kill you as it usually did yeah i was gonna say it's probably a good thing that at the time the life expectancy was lower because if that's like you all you had to do i'd pray for sweet release also i guess you didn't know any better you were like thrilled with the hoop and stick well you know back then you couldn't count on anything but alcohol being like pure and like not full of yeah botulism so you're drunk all the time anyway yeah that's true yeah and if you don't if you came back with all of your like limbs from your factory job it was a good day and you had what four hours free on sunday once and that's that was your afternoon

yeah and you probably went to church. Yuck. Homer, though, is so bored in this next clip. What am I supposed to do? Just sit on my ass and watch TV? That ain't my style, man. Now, Homer, there are people right through that door that have it much worse than you. No, they don't. Everyone's having fun but me.

Boigy, boigy, boigy, boigy, boigy. Mrs. Simpson, can Homer come out and play? Homer won't be able to play for a long time. Could you make me some jello? You show, Barney Gumbel. Well, I can still hang out with you guys. Sorry, I got a baseball game in 15 minutes. And I've got a rally for Take Back the Afternoon.

Oh, the tables have turned. Now you're the shut-in, and I'm the hip young dude. There goes my wagging finger. I love there goes my wagging finger. I like that joke a lot. Really funny. I think, too, this is them denying you a chance at another plot. You think this could go to like, oh, through Homer's injury, he gets more in touch with his kids.

And it's like, nah, the kids just go like, nope, I'm out of here. Craig escorts him away. Yeah. You know, this also is kind of similar to Jaws Wired Shut, where Homer has another injury and it makes him more in touch with Marge. A lot of like Homer is hurt and learns a lesson through it. Yeah, because he has to listen more instead of do his own thing. So he gets to appreciate Marge for once in his miserable life.

And Lisa's take back the afternoon is a reference to the 1970s women's rights movement against domestic violence called Take Back the Night. So there you go. That's another one. So many very specific references here. And then comes Abe just being super racist, like which the joke is on him that he is that racist. Of course. Yeah. But I suppose the joke is that Homer, Abe thinks he's doing a nice thing by befriending a Chinese man, but he calls him Ping Pong, not Craig.

My name is Craig. Yeah. I just enjoy, I mean, it's sketchy that he's saying this, but it's funny that that's one of the things he does to pass his time. He's like, you can befriend a Chinese person. Yes. Yeah. Well, Abe thinks he's doing him a favor he's like yep this chinese person no friends he's got just me and it sounds like craig just is an employee at the retirement home he's not his friend yeah he's like oh his their friendship is him chasing him like trying

to get him back into the nursing home. And Abe's very dismissive. Sure it is. That's also a very Al Jean thing, I think, too. A character being told, my name is this. Sure it is. Yeah, it's an easy way out. You don't have to really have more of a punchline if the person saying it is just like incredulous they're like yeah okay that's the button that's all you need yeah yeah uh so then there comes another very weird

bit about homer trying to have a cat and dog have sex and um i was like oh this is like homer not only it's all it's funny enough him saying like the loyalty of a cat and the cleanliness of a dog. But to shove Santa's little helper in Snowball 2 into a sack, play Marvin Gaye's Get It On, and then tell them they're not making love correctly. I was like, wow, they went all the way with this one. Marge wanted to marry the pets years earlier. Homer's finally following through on that. Yeah. And the funny thing is to me about this is he's been

locked like at home for like 10 minutes and this is like the first thing he thinks he's like oh finally i'll get to do my great experiment homer's restlessness at this could not compare to what all of us felt uh in the last uh 18 months yeah no i'm like i'm not even there yet with my cats not yet you're leaving yeah but you know give them credit they paid for the real song i think is the marvin gay i don't think that's even a cover i think they paid for the real marvin gay let's get it on uh at the time i knew because i i watched uh high fidelity which is how the movie yeah that uh i i didn't know it until jack black told me like no hey marvin gate's good i'm like all right i guess i'll listen to this guy i knew it from setting

the mood of course just kidding but uh but yeah then in a very 2000 era joke as well ned shows up to ask homer a favor hey! Oh, it feels so good to talk to another human being! Stupid Flanders. Hey, Homer, I need to ask you a favor. My babysitter canceled and I got tickets to a Christian rock concert. It's gonna be one wholesome evening.

So, you think Marge could take care of Rowdy Roddy and Typhoon Todd? Well, Marge isn't here. She had to identify a body at the morgue. That's not my Uncle Lou. And this man's not dead. That's what I've been trying to tell you. That's just gas escaping.

Would you mind watching the kids? I'm kind of in a pickle here. Well, it would keep me company. And this pickle you're offering only sweetens the deal. You mind watching the kids? I'm kind of in a pickle here. Well, it would keep me company. And this pickle you're offering only sweetens the deal. I love that line. This pickle you're offering only sweetens the deal. Yeah, I like that joke too.

The Marge part of that thing, though, to me doesn't work. It doesn't work as a joke to me. Only because if Marge's relative died in a way that she had to go identify the body, that would be the story, right? That would be the thing that we're all talking about. Like, Marge's relative was, like, gunned down or, you know, died in a way that they're unrecognizable. You know, at this point, they're not that interested in Marge.

They're just like, get her out of the house. I guess Mole man looks like a disfigured corpse sure sure yeah we need a reason we we need a reason for homer to watch the kids and if marge is there she would of course do it what could we have her do that she's not there you know it's a lot like in simpson safari they in the start of that episode, Homer is taking the kids shopping. And your thought would be, why is Homer ever doing this? This is Marge thing. And so they have the kids say, yeah, Maggie needs to go to the emergency room more often. And then there's this one scene of showing that like this. So it's really just to get Marge out of a place where logically she would be the one babysitting the kids, not Homer.

And then also, yes, in a very 2000 thing, Ned is accidentally going to a Chris Rock concert. out of a place where logically she would be the one babysitting the kids not homer but yeah and then also yes in a very 2000 thing ned is accidentally going to a chris rock concert it's a joke about just what's the dirtiest concert you could go to or stand up you could see i guess chris rock i guess i mean there were like filthier comedians but certainly chris rock was known for lots of swears in his stand-up then yeah what a funny thing for for uh flanders to get wrong though too that's just uh and he's like not he he's surprised at what he heard but he it didn't sound like he was like he didn't ruin his night he comes back still thinking he's a preacher yeah he's like yeah this was a preacher and he had a different way of doing things than i would do but i respect his state i i listened to the preacher not all told after this on the dvd is the one deleted scene in the episode that's at least it's on the dvd

ned is after homer says the the pickle thing ned tells the boys kids Mr. Simpson is a lot like a monkey. Fun to watch, but not to copy. So that was a cute little rhyme, but I see why they cut that. So then we see a trail of junk food from the TV to the kids. Homer's just feeding them a bunch of crap, which I feel like when Ned comes home and sees that, he should go like, oh, you should not be, you're not good at babysitting at all. You fed them garbage all day. Exactly.

Yeah. And they stay up all night. There's everybody has to forget everything they know about Homer to be OK with him to be a babysitter. He's just shaken. He's shaken by all the swears he heard. Yeah. He's not. His senses are not about him.

Yeah. His his ears are still ringing like, you know, war movie when a grenade goes off too close to somebody. He like still he can't believe what has happened to him. And so he's just willing to let something like that slide for now because he's not even really noticing it. But all right. You know, I got to play the clip because it is one of the most like YouTube poop scenes of this era of the Simpsons. And so even though it involves a parody about a guy who sucks. What do you like to play?

Pokemon. Pokemon? Pokemon with the pokey and the man and the thing where the guy comes out and the thing and he makes a fart. So did you boys have a good time? Yeah, Mr. Simpson was really funny. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Anyway, thanks again. Hey, it was fun. My kids are sick of all my stories. But they just can't get enough of me. Can Mr. Simpson watch us every day? Oh, Roddy, he's not running a daycare center.

Don't tell me what I'm not doing. So you are running a daycare center? Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Oh, I sure would. It would give the boys a place to go after school. Then I'll do it. Just to see the look on your face. That's the one.

Man, Dan Castellaneta's Cosby is so funny. Going back to Trails, when he does that in the Bleeding of Murphy episode. Which is basically a sequel to that joke. Yeah. But yeah, this Bill Cosby version of Kids Say the Darnedest Things lasted only from January of 98 to June of 2000. So already off the air, probably written while it was still on the air. But it lasted long enough for The Simpsons and Family Guy to both do parodies. And the joke behind both parodies is Bill Cosby is the one saying funny things.

All he does is talk and not let children talk. Just his. Yeah. You discovered an interesting timeline with that joke bob because i always consider that like you know one of the many i i've talked a lot about what a pissed off little boy i was then but i i also you were an adult man henry yes yeah 17 uh but i was like oh family guy ripped off simpsons with this one with this like simpsons just did the kids say the darndest things bit and now

like two months later family guy's ripping it off but bob you discovered an interesting timeline on that yeah the uh i mean there was like a year-long hiatus between the second and third season airings of family guy so this should have aired back in uh sorry the family guy episode that came a few months later probably would have aired originally in the fall so it would have aired before this yeah way before this so i would have actually been thinking like oh simpsons ripped off a family guy joke man that's uh like uh but in both those cases those two together got cut into like a bunch of early internet well early but like you two poop and you're the man now dog i remember i remember seeing that pokemon in the club like yeah that's something i really remembered from seeing it like when it originally aired because like that would

have been at the time you know obviously we know what we know about bill cosby now but at the time i loved the cosby show and i loved like the simpsons and i loved pokemon so like this was like a joke that my brothers and i would just like say like we would just like do an impression of him doing that like from the show like uh and thinking it was so funny and now it's like the whole thing is weird yes yeah i i back then you could just say like if you just said pokemon that's a joke like you just said it's such a funny word it's just a funny word and then what if Bill Cosby said it even funnier yes I mean yeah I I will say on the family guy bit in Brian Goes to Hollywood they use it for plot purposes

too it's not just that he talks nonsense the whole time but he actually prevents Stewie from taking over the world because he takes his glasses from him. So it at least works out to a joke in the end. But this is just them going like, man, this Cosby, the Cosby version of kids say the darndest thing sucks. Like that's a main stance. What it really is, is you know what? We're like a few seconds short.

What do they watch on tv yeah they need to watch tv so up next there's a segment i want to do called uh nrbq watch oh no now i wish we would have had a theme for this earlier running out of the mike scully years but in case you don't know matt nrbq is mike scully the showrunner from this era it's his favorite band and on the wiki there are eight listed appearances of their music in the show there's actually 10 two that i discovered this is one of them one is in a trilogy of error that's not on the wiki hey guys update your wiki another one is in this one so when we have the establishing shot of uncle homer's daycare we hear the nrbq song encyclopedia from

their first kids album so there you have it that's the hidden, one of the hidden two that are not listed on the wiki. So 10 total appearances of NRBQ within the four years of Mike Scully's run. Wow. Man, I mean, just the licensing rights on that, that's got to add up to $100,000 at least, those 10, right? I mean, maybe more with how much they rerun. I mean, you get less over time of course i mean there's probably getting like eight cents or whatever in the mail for this well i mean matt

if you ran the the simpsons you'd hire weezer for at least 10 things you'd be like no no certainly at least one more time than the episode that they're in you'd uh i mean every scene in this episode like you just like i think it's i think this song from weezer would really fit in here it does feel like mike scully is doing promotion for their new album because there's three songs they use from that first kids album from like 98 yeah that's uh nrbq i wonder how much impact it did have on their sales it made people aware of them and had sure yeah it made me aware of them mike scully even appeared in their like documentary around this time you want to see my

mike scully uh with his uh wonderful mullet of like 2002 you can watch that documentary yeah the uh man i should have known that so i thank you bob for looking that up don't worry yeah the wikis need to update. They don't mention that that's an RBQ there. And then, you know, I had learned this lesson from mafia movies that you put things in your wife's name. So that way, when the police arrest you, they can't confiscate that material. That's why you put things in your wife's name. So Homer's already planning for his future arrest in making this in your wife's name so homer's already planning for his future arrest in in

making this in march's name yeah planning that seed early for yeah that's what did they call that shekhov's uh arrest yeah uh and yeah all right here's a joke i hate this joke it grosses me out then it still grosses me just turn your mic off for this show, Henry, so you're not gagging into it. I can hold back the gags now. I can do it. But here it is. Is your knee really gross under there? See for yourself.

Ew. Can I touch it? Sure. Go for the gusto. It's healing over my hand. It knows you're afraid. You know what? I appreciate that joke now because Homer refers to it as a sentient being.

Sure. That can sense fear. If it was just the scab going over Ralph's hand and then end the joke there, it would be a much worse joke. Sure. Sure. Okay. I can see maybe why that joke rubs against our our purest like sensibilities of it right like because it's not it's not really it's not something that can happen it's not real that can't happen right it's it's it's so it's a false premise and it's also like that there's not

really that kind of stuff in the simpsons like there's obviously like supernatural things of course like but that's only reserved for halloween episodes except i guess there isn't that episode where kang and kodos are outside of halloween let's not talk about that no yeah yeah so like you when you watch the simpsons you understand it's a cartoon but that it's like it's like it's less real than King of the Hill. Right. But more real than Family Guy. This is something I'm working out right now. This is like this is the scale on the. So it's like somewhere in the middle where you sort of buy the realism of the Simpsons. But then a scab healing over betrays that sensibility that goes more toward the Family Guy needle on the scale.

Definitely. Goes away from the king of the hill i also think that they're being influenced by unfortunate comedy trends of the era like we mentioned ironic racism was one of them another one is gross out humor because we are just a few months after freddie got fingered that's the that's the temperature of comedy in 2001 you're right yeah we didn't know what was happening. And then, obviously, then the world changed forever. But not before. No more scab jokes then. So I guess two other bits of it that always grossed me out was,

one, just that it's such realistic coloring of a scab. It's like the browns and red, which, I mean, that makes it grosser, too. It's like seeing the bone inside ofer's thumb when his thumb got cut off and second i do as a kid i did skin my knee bad and like it was a scab that kept healing wrong and i swear like it grew into uh jeans one time and i had to like re-tear the scab off this is disgusting and i'm sorry to say it but but I think that also has why it's specifically extra gross to me. Sure. Yeah, I previously had said that this gross joke made me hate this episode.

I now have to watch this episode again. This is like 20 seconds long, and once it's over, I'm like, okay, this isn't a bad episode after those 20 seconds. I moved on. that will be our cover right right oh just ralph's hand and golf in the scab i guess it kind of has i'm saying please don't please don't do that okay yeah i won't do it if you if you want it i'll do it but otherwise uh but uh but yeah the then uh apu drops off his kids to a baby prison and runs away. Like you said before about this change for Apu, Bob, you've said it's like it's the dead end for Apu as a character.

Like it just, he's the tortured father now. That's the only thing he can do with Apu's character. He's a vessel for all the writers who sometimes resent their children. Yes, yes. And yeah, I mean, talk about voices and all that we've it's been said enough of course yeah uh but yeah and his joke here is that he has eight children and he hates it it's awful you wouldn't want it it's hell if you could put them into prison and abandon them forever you would and you'd be happy you'd be happy and free to do so. There's a funny joke on the commentary.

Matt Selman calls Apu's kids the eight monies because he named them all and he created them. So he gets character payments for them. So whenever they appear, he gets lots of money. I love that. Oh, there they are, the eight monies. Yeah, he probably gets another like $3,000 every time they appear on screen.

I should try that. Make up, if you ever get to write a simpson script make up at least 10 characters and one of them recurring potential yeah at least one of them's got to catch on uh name them all you know make up disco stews like uh older cousin who's in country stew western stew honestly it's dumb that there aren't multiple stew variants i i wonder if they've kept that they've held that back for like they you know someday too easy maybe if i came up with it right away they're like well let's you know let's no go back to that well later it's too good they'll save it for like the big disco stew special episode they got to save it for just the

right time but yeah so homer is loving taking care of these kids a whole month passes which again very fast to be back on your feet after acl surgery from from my knowledge of it homer blue shorts also just weird is brown shortsy also odd but blue shorts even weirder on homer yeah you shouldn't see homer's knees yeah homer gets one more morphine for the road i do love uh hibbert's just always with the morphine. Yeah. He thinks it's cute. Yeah.

Which, like you said, that's America now. Always with the morphine. Every doctor happy to give it out, just like Hibbert here. And so then Homer is, despite being better, he's still helping these kids. Peek-a-boo. Peek-a-boo. Peek-a-boo. Peek-a-boo. Dadek-a-boo! Peek-a-boo! Peek-a-boo!

Dad's been doing that for two hours. I've never seen the baby get tired of it before the adult. Yeah. Peek-a-boo! Uncle Homer, will you sing that crazy song we love? Okay. Is that all there is?

Is that all there is? Is that all there is? If that's all there is, my friend, then let's keep dancing. Remember the last time Dad sang us a torch song? Yeah. Hey, Homer, I thought you were only going to do this daycare thing until your knee was better. Yes, but then I thought you were only going to do this daycare thing till your knee was better.

Yes, but then I discovered the joys of raising children. What about us? Don't worry, honey. You'll have children of your own someday. Then you'll know my joy. I was 19, but that joke taught me the term torch song. Me too. Yeah, me too.

Which means a sentimental ballad a genre of music made famous by billy holiday i think she's she's probably the most famous singer of torch songs i just like that the kids love it for some reason and they're then bart and lisa are jealous that they don't get their rendition of it i uh you know i remember watching it the first time and hearing like sing that crazy song i thought homer would sing you know like a 60s hit or something like yeah a more famous one i appreciate that they dug deep for like a thing that is not even played on the radio all that much and at a very like slow and wistful song that also is mainly sung by women making it funnier than homer sings it as

well i think that song has a lot of spoken parts in it too yes yeah peggy lee now yeah it's a it made famous by peggy lee but pretty much every diana ross judy uh liza minnelli like a million people have sung it's a real bummer it's definitely funnier than him doing like uh like a contemporary song like if you like to like if he did like limp biscuit or something who let the dogs out yeah exactly or like back then if you just sang like you know the pina colada song like that was a joke and like homer could have sang that that's funny enough but is that all there is is a much funnier one yeah i mean if you've never listened to the song it really is just a bunch of talking and then singing the part Homer sings.

And it's just in the Peggy Lee version of Easter just saying like, oh, yeah, when I was a kid, our house burned down. As I watched the flames, I just thought, is that all there is? Is that all there is? And the song ends with her going like, and I know what you're thinking. Why don't I just kill myself? Right? Well, then that'd be the biggest disappointment of all. So no no until then

i'm just gonna keep dancing and drinking i was like damn that's why it's not on the radio yes yeah bart and lisa not enjoying this and homer uh obviously not understanding why we get a quick little bit of the schoolyard where i think bart's realistically describing his relationship with homer is just like, seriously, he's a bad father and he emotionally scars me through neglect. I'm like, oh, that's a darker direction. Like, and just him saying like, oh, he's a bad dad. He's like, you know, he's an alcoholic, neglectful father.

I do like Ralph's line about like, he read me a story about Chinese food. That's really good too. I guess it's the menu. Homer is reading the menu to him. Mm-hmm. that's really good too i guess just the menu homer is reading the menu to him and i really i want that drawing of homer rules on millhouse's stomach like i kind of want i i'm really good yeah maybe an inner thigh tattoo i'll be wearing it but it's it's just so it's such a cool just homer drew himself on a motorcycle he loves yeah it's not something i've seen i think i think he would be really i think it'd be really good yeah a deeper cut tattoo i can go with and people would for sure and especially me

being you know an older simpsons fan like you would not expect me to have a season 12 tattoo making it yeah even more surprising but yeah bart bart just describes all these things and then also that he finds out that millhouse was given bart's jacket like homer's just giving away bart's clothes now like that's also pretty cruel yeah that doesn't seem that doesn't seem right that's like that's like pointed that's like that's something you do to be mean yeah it's not even just neglecting it's just like uh some other my kid has this jacket it looks way better on you millhouse you look good in it also the uh just the line of like i think we know your dad a little better than you do that's such a courageous condescension for millhouse which apparently aljean pulled from mike reese's real life where his friends growing up knew his parents through uh work related stuff and they're like oh no i think we know your dad

a bit better than you do yeah but and there's a good bit too that ralph just follows a butterfly off screen because he needs to leave for the next shot to happen so he just sees a butterfly and walks it's a natural ralph move yeah so uh then homer is playing a game of asking kids to swear which uh you know hiney is a swear to millhouse mittens is one to ralph that's all right yeah really good and then boobs is one to nelson and not necessarily a swear maybe some maybe not polite dinner conversation for a nine-year-old to be saying boobs you would think millhouse or you think nelson knows all the good swears but yeah that he just says boobs yeah if there's no they don't do this and maybe it's, this isn't funny, but I would have just

bleeped whatever he said. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think it's a better joke. They don't really do that on the show. So it would be weird, but it would be funny if he just said something like really like bad enough that they had to bleep. Yeah.

No, they did. They did naturalistic bleeps earlier in this season when homer was like swearing and driving the kids around they should add that i also love lisa's like very like world weary critical they like they're always laughing laughing at nothing yeah you know what i change it i would i guess it would be nelson says boobs millhouse says hiney and then ralph says something like that they bleep and everybody goes like, oh my God. Where'd you learn that?

Yeah. Bart tries this plan that'll give Homer's heartstrings a much needed plucking, which that's a good saying. I like that. Yeah, exactly. Too smart for Bart, but very good. They roll a photo over to Bart Homer and it's him with Bart and Lisa and he instantly just says like oh what a great frame for my for my license for my daycare so funny I

gotta tell this story because if you're wondering why Homer gets more cruel around this time it's because Dana Gould is on the writing staff and he actually had a very abusive father growing up and he still does I think he's still alive. So Dana Gould is on his podcast. He tells a ton of stories about his crazy parents, especially his mean dad. So this is based on a real life story from his life. So when he was young, he won a Boston comedy contest. And he framed the newspaper article with him in it saying, Dana Gould wins the Boston comedy contest.

He frames the article and gives it to his parents. When he comes back to their house a little bit later, he sees that the frame is still there on the wall but his article has been removed and what's in the frame is now a larry bird uh ad for snickers so yes so cruel that's and of course it's boston so they love larry bird more than their son but still yes yeah obviously that's though that his parents just looked at that like yeah that's a great frame thanks son and just dump what'd you win i don't care yeah no i uh yeah the whenever funny meanness comes in the show i think like oh that's dana gould's trick right there like that's the the gould move to do it so funny yeah we go to the commercial we come back homer is doing a trick with the tree which homer has to

weigh about 2 000 pounds for this to work i it's a flimsy tree yeah i guess so homer homer uses his natural weight to pull the tree down so then it springs back and forth smashing all the kids around inside which again i feel like if any adult were to see that then they'd be like you're not good at being a babysitter homer yeah you almost like ralph has the good line that he almost died but like no he did almost die you shouldn't be taking care of kids the parents aren't watching him i love to the millhouse's line it almost it there's a great pause after that that it feels like all the characters are going like, oh, you're a bad, like, that's a bad joke, Bell House. We're not laughing at that.

But, I mean, yes, Homer then gets some good news. That was tremendous. Where's Ralph? I almost died. Homer, this man is from the Good Guy Awards. We honor people who make life better for the community, like you with your daycare center. I contributed by not objecting too much.

Aw, that's my girl. Anyway, this film crew will shoot some behind-the-scenes footage of your amazing work. Is there a snack table? It's already set up. Don't film this! Yeah, I just love Milhouse'shouses after he says that was tree mendis yeah that's that's like that's lame it's lame the millhouse said that millhouse couldn't wait

to say that he was thinking of that on the way up to the tree house he's sitting on it the whole time yeah also that's this is their position on marge in the episode that all marge does is not uh not object too much at something and allow the story to happen but yeah this then turns into so they say they really rewrote the third act which i don't know what the original third act is that uh they but this definitely feels very like i mean we just talked about nrbq they filmed their documentary with scully then like literally documentary crews were walking around the lot at the time filming them so i think i have a feeling that's where this is coming from

it's also the dustiest old plot device that a person is undone by something they said or did that's shown during an important moment that's true yep yeah not or played like audio playing not the most creative uh thing yeah which even gene on the commentary like boy seems like homer's really setting himself up for a comeuppance here yeah but uh yeah the uh i also like homer don't want to be filmed while gorging on free snacks that are offered to me if no when we were at that earwolf place i did not want to be filmed drinking the uh the cold, the wonderful free cold brew. Yeah, yeah.

That's, I mean, you don't want that anyway. It's too much. It's too strong. It was pretty strong. Yeah. I enjoyed it. And Matt, in your comedy world experience, do you have any favorite snack tables or the craft table you've enjoyed? I mean, we had pretty good snacks at Earwolf.

I'm like a cereal guy. So we'd always have cereal. So any time of day, I could have cereal. That's good as a fun snack. I mean, I've been on a couple sets, too, where they will have a breakfast burrito for you. And that's good. That's like, oh, hell yes, a good breakfast. But then you just ate a breakfast burrito for you and that's like good like that's like oh hell yes a good breakfast but then you just ate a breakfast burrito and you're waiting around all day so it's like you know you win time you lose some yeah what do you think of all these

teamster jokes too from utah that's something that i was so shocked by because i i mean i guess not shocked by but obviously with what's like going on with like all the conversations around cruise uh and iotsy and all that stuff i was like this this this episode is anti-iotsy no i will not stand anti-union in general yeah yeah it's true yeah no they they radioactive band had similar jokes about like lazy entitled teamsters not doing their job i think i'm just jealous that these guys can take breaks mandated breaks that's true yeah i know come on they work hard for those break over it yeah yeah yeah they do you know maybe two of these jokes about teamsters come from them being animation writers and so they don't work on live sets as much and when they do they they're instant they don't appreciate on live sets as much and when they do they they're instant they

don't appreciate their teamsters as much as i think yeah they don't see anybody doing actual work they don't see somebody like even animating or anything you know so there's like we just write this stuff yeah i bet i've heard on those other sets those teamsters like take all day to build a set or to move a couch or whatever my other producer friend told me he tried to move a couch or whatever. My other producer friend told me he tried to move a couch and the Teamster said he couldn't. It was their job. But I also like that Homer, like Lisa, when she's kicked out of her room by the Teamster, she's just handed an Apple box to sleep on.

Very insidery bit there. Then when Homer like steps on Bart's arm, that's another, that actually is very painful looking. Like just realistic, just like, ow, just. Absolutely.

And just what an asshole. He deserves what Bart and Lisa are going to bring to him here. I believe it. Daddy thought you were a pile of cables. No, I also, okay. Homer's getting this good guy award.

He's running a business. This is not a charity. He's making money on this. I mean, I, I feel like the good guy awards, especially this kind of honor should go to somebody who's at least doing it charitably, not a charity. He's making money on this. I mean, I feel like the Good Guy Awards, especially this kind of honor, should go to somebody who's at least doing it charitably, not a guy running a daycare business he's paid for. That's why the New York Times called it pointless. Yeah.

Yeah. Fine. All right. Then they make the Good Guy Awards pointless within the show. I guess you're right. Not only is Homer just not paying attention to him, but in this next next scene he is straight up stealing the valor of their work from them teamsters are sleeping in my room we're just resting our eyes because the thing is there are no bad kids ow you stepped on my arm sorry daddy thought you were a pile of cable tell me about the homer cares program my

kids wear these hearts to remind them they are always loved. Aw. Did you make them yourself? Yes, through the magic of caring. Night will come soon. There's got to be a way to get back at Dad. Well, I've been cutting the felt kind of crooked. No, we've got to show the world what Dad's really like.

Then everything will be back to normal back to normal they know that they're plot devices now they're just like all right we got to get everything back to normal that's status quo time yeah they're like we gotta wrap this thing up and i have also been in the world of feeling like oh well if i cut this heart a little crooked they'll know i'm not feeling good like just like oh if i do this job slightly badly yeah i think homer's a bad guy there because he he's just lying he didn't make those hearts he made bart and lisa make it so it's not even that he's not paying attention to them he's putting them to work and stealing the credit like yeah he's really not unlike somebody who you know doesn't respect the

crew on a set exactly yeah looks worse every day there's new news about iotsy and they point out on the commentary the teamster supported them during the writer's strike yeah yeah i i know that uh i maybe they were at least feeling bad even then in 2008 they're like oh yeah we did just do a whole writer's strike and the teamsters were with us on that but yeah you know i gotta say i'll give it to scully too i i compliment every time we talk about the writers guild thing he unionized the staff like it was not a staff show until season uh wga show until season 10 scully did that and i've seen him on twitter you know call out some big names of like hey uh oh you you got your big new animated series huh it should really be wga like all these other ones why isn't it yet like which

that's cool i'm glad he's he's he's a uh established name in the animation world and he's calling out others and saying like hey why isn't your show why isn't your show union yet i like that but yeah so it's time for uh a fun joke about fair use in this next clip i'm a nice guy i'm a hell of a guy and tonight we honor you stop the music stop it one more line and we have to pay for the song now is anyone here from Springfield? You know we are. Ugh, it's a crowd. So, what's in the news? Oh, right, the bus disaster. Very sad. Now, my first award is for biggest people pleaser.

You can walk all over these doormats. So, that joke made me think there's a magic number of words you can sing in a song on tv and that it counts as fair use and if you sing more but uh from my limited research on google that is uh not true that is yeah it's uh what defines fair use is very vague which leads to many lawsuits it's why that uh no stairway joke in wayne's world was ruined after the theatrical release they couldn't even play a few notes of stairway to heaven yeah i guess it i i don't know much about it either but it it it varies from like from media you know from like thing to thing i mean nobody's knocking down the doors on my weezer podcast for example but

like that's for commentary and like and stuff so like that's like weirdly like allowed if you play a certain amount of it um and are talking over it and like speaking critically of it i wonder if they got away with this i wonder if there's even like if it's even a bone of contention um i wonder if they just like this is a joke we're just singing it for this joke so it's like this is why it's okay i want i wonder now where they might have even even just paid Don Rickles for the rights to use it and just make a joke that like, oh, the joke is we're not paying rights, but we actually did pay for the rights.

Yeah. I think we even get questions from time to time, like how do you guys get away with playing all those clips? And I say, uh, duh. Yeah. Because I mean, technically fair use isn't real if a company wants to threaten you enough. Sure, yeah.

If you get a takedown notice like well i mean i don't think we're going to try to take go to court if disney sends us a takedown notice on it but i like that our ability to use fair use allowed us to play a joke about fair use from crusty right but yeah the uh the bid he's doing is what don rickles act was in vegas that apparently or you know he'd come out and say, I'm a nice guy. I'm a hell of a, like his whole, I'm a nice guy shtick. But in between the sung lyrics, he would insult someone in the crowd. Yes.

Yeah. In a hilarious manner. Pretty funny. Again, more racism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But hey, he's a nice guy.

He told you. It's okay. But I also just love like, what's the news? All right, the bus disaster. And he doesn't even have a joke about it. He just mentions it. Yeah, not even set up for it. Then they have a joke about people winning awards.

And Ned becomes, despite the fact that he's a people pleaser, he actually is pissed that he loses the award and like storms off like it's the Oscar. We see Skinner is having minor surgery i think after it's the fallout from homer's uh dunk yeah i think so like he like displaced his hip or something like mother theresa had been dead for years at the time this episode aired so they had to call her mother theresa jr really funny a lot there's a lot tied up in that like so mother theresa a nun had a kid and is named junior yeah yes yes yeah and a fun joke about uh internet streaming technology in 2001 that's great i love that on the commentary even they go like oh this is kind of dated that the

joke is about no one would watch tv on their computer ever like which is how i've watched the oscars the last two years is just having it on streaming on a computer oh yeah then comes a very george meyer joke of that the show is sponsored by hypno coins they're known for their sturdiness yeah hansen's hypno coins which if it's a joke about a thing that could be bought in the back of a comic book george meyer would do that kind of joke 100 i also think talk about them being like worried about the writing of this episode they have a joke of crusty saying a joke that's not that much worse than other jokes done in the episode but he goes like uh who writes

this crap like it's him it's him shitting on the jokes they wrote for the episode yeah exactly but they were really into subtitling mr teeny backie back then. Seeing Mr. Teenie say, I think it's remarkable I wrote anything. It's one monkey with one typewriter. Then Homer finds out he's about to win the award. He's actually worried, even though he was told he was going to win the award before, but he's pretty dumb. So I'll cut him some slack there. And so yes, they play the video of how homer helps the kids i really do love just

how long his car catches on fire like it's like a good 10 seconds that shot of his car on fire consuming his car and then does he catch on fire he does right no he just like it it just misses him yeah but his like he's standing by the door and engulfs everything but the door. Also comes a reminder of the joke I hated. His scabby red knee became an infectious beacon of hope. Yeah, it's a delightful metaphor. To make me gag one more time. But then Homer is revealed to be a big phony. I guess you could sum up Homer in two words.

Big phony. This is the real Homer Simpson, a beer-drinking meanie. And he gambles like crazy. I'll call. Three nines. Oh, I almost had a straight. Come to new papa. Hey, what's the deal?

We just spliced in some home movies. What do you think? Well, I'd rather reserve judgment until I... Oh, my God! I'll make you good! That is completely taken out of context. I love that cover. You see that to this day. People go like, that's completely out of context. Like that cover to you i you see that to this day people go like that's

completely out of context like no no no but in what context is chasing bart with a mace uh forgivable exactly i think al genus talked about or maybe matt graining seeing a substance trading card and had like homer drunk under the christ the Christmas tree on Christmas morning thinking that's a very dark image for our show. Yes. So I like seeing another version of that within the show. The detail I always forget is that is that not only is Homer unconscious, but Santa's little helper sniffs at his underpants region and gags, meaning Homer has soiled himself. Yeah.

In some way. Yeah. He's not just under he also stinks like real bad like that is so dark i think this is them just reflecting on like oh homer as we write him on the show is a monster like this is just yeah how homer has been written for the last four or five years of the show homer is truly a monster who uh if anyone reacted to it realistically would put him in jail yeah but just i'll mace you good like that one is so great that they had to put it in their their next clip show as well gump roast it's just and the way bart screams ah like

he doesn't add a joke to it he's terrified he's about to be bashed with a mace by his father. The kids are being taken away from Homer after he goes up on stage and chokes Bart in front of everyone, which for once, every person reacts realistically to seeing Homer choke a child. Like, oh my God, they're going to take away their kids. Homer then kidnaps a bunch of children. Krusty can only say the term soccer mom is thrown around all too often these days then as homer's taking the kids away he even promised them frosty chocolate milkshakes them self-referentially going back to the old shorts i love that the way homer

just goes like frosty chocolate milkshakes just that he's breaking down and losing it we haven't seen milkshake one yes yeah they haven't drank a milkshake in 10 years at this point yeah and so and kent brockman was just standing there filming homer commit a crime too like does not prevent it just reflects upon it and this is when again this definitely feels like written way late in the show, but I am glad, damn glad that they realized Arnie Pye is still funny and he can be used for a good joke. Yeah, I was looking it up. He has not had a spoken line since season six is Bart's Comet. Wow.

Yeah. That long with no Arnie Pye. He's so funny. I can't see through metal, Kent. Yes. I like that. So at this point, unfortunately, matt had to go do some work he was being flagged down to do some podcasting work so he won't be with us for the rest of the

episode but he will come back at the end to give his final thoughts we recorded that before you had a chance to uh leave so thanks again to matt yes thank you matt but uh yes let's hear that arnie pie's finest moment. going, Mr. Simpson? I'll tell you where we're not going. Jail. Then you better turn. Uh-oh. He's jumping out of the car, Kent. He's trying to climb over the fence. Now he's realizing he's too fat. He's digging a hole like

a dog. Now he's given up on that and he's running back and forth. He's climbing into a pipe and he seems to be stuck his legs are dangling in a comical fashion oh it's the saddest thing i've ever seen arnie arnie how are the children i can't see through metal can't yeah i think al jean just remembered arnie pie yeah yeah because he was in bart's comic and uh john swartzwalder wrote that he was around from the beginning but i think like dave merkin and mike scully just forgot about this character completely and there's there's no uh i guess no not a lot of helicopter usage

in their episodes you know bill and josh too they didn't really touch on him much yeah i even though he's so funny and i love the voice dan made up for arnie pie i i still love him and again arnie pie with arnie in the sky is an underrated joke uh but but yeah this is just like he comes screaming back i almost feel like they wrote just a you know joke about how la tv is always about oh police chase happened let's film it and then as they wrote a police chase joke they wrote i was like holy crap right arnie let's bring him back yeah and arnie was a episode one debut in some enchanted evening production episode one yeah they've been thinking about him for the longest time back when every character well a lot of side characters the joke was their

name and it also brings back to like kent and arnie hate each other yeah they don't like it's like you're not the time kent uh like i want make the news. I also just love that not only his petulance of like, I can't see through metal, Kent. But, you know, him narrating that entire sequence makes for a good podcast sound, I think, too. And another great line of just like, I'll tell you where we're not going. Jail. Then you better turn. Like, that's a good just combo there. Smashing right into the tree outside of prison. That Homer was actually driving all of the children into jail of all places i do think

2001 me also did not like that after that joke they then just have a thing come up on screen that like several mistrials later it's like oh homer doesn't go to jail for this or anything that was i think that was written way after the fact where they needed to find some way to get out of this, all of these many crimes. You know, I guess that at least gives an excuse to it, I suppose, which is more than we said it on the Trilogy of Error one. When Teenie shows up to be like, oh, this ending doesn't make any sense. That should be on every episode in season 12 other than Trilogy of Error.

Like this ending does not make sense in that homer technically just got away with like a major crime of kidnapping children that everyone witnessed in film and they don't have lionel hutz to help them anymore yep he's he's let's say lionel hutz happened off screen like let's just say he's handling a lot of their stuff off screen this ending too is just so funny because it resolves very just matter-of-factly. Just, yeah. Why did you rat me out, kids? Was it because I showered love on those other children while ignoring you? Yeah, pretty much. Well, I learned my lesson.

From now on, you two are the only kids I'll care about. Oh, and Maggie. Now let's all enjoy the snack table while we still have it. The Teamster said they'd pick it up by five. Yeah, that'll happen. Teamsters. And I think that, oh, and Maggie, I feel that that came in later, too. Definitely has a different room tone than the other one.

There's a third kid. Stitch face. Yeah, actually, that's pretty mean of Lisa and Bart to give Homer a picture that's just the three of them and leave maggie out of the photo unless it was taken before maggie's birth which you know possible but the speediness of homer saying it made it even funnier i'm just like oh yeah maggie and again another you always go out on a teamster joke it's a crowd pleaser yeah these people who want breaks i know it's uh it it could not sound worse at the time of this recording when it's a lot of interrogation is being made into the world of like teamsters and other iotsy members is the crew given enough breaks are they being mistreated are you going

non-union and using an even worse crew you mistreat yeah i mean you hear these stories from people that work on sets not understanding the world of, you know, union labor, where it's like, well, yeah, that guy, all he can do is move that cable. No one else can do it. That's because no one can replace him. We are used to being an industry where it's like that guy got fired. Well, you do all what he did. Yeah. But it's like, no, they have very specific jobs so they can retain those jobs.

So they're valuable. Yeah. Well, also, we've we've seen like if an expert doesn't do something on a set, things can go real bad. Yes. Yeah. I was watching one of those documentaries on the making of Aliens. And it tells this story of like they film it all in the United Kingdom. And the crew on there wants to stop for tea time.

And it's driving James Cameron crazy because he's like, no, you work all day. Let's get this done. And I'll give credit to this documentary. It actually did not like side other ones in the past that have been like James Cameron, the genius just wanted to get his work done and make great art. And here's tea time interrupting it.

It actually does take this, it's at least more balanced of saying, well, yeah, those guys earn their tea time and they're going to take their tea. Like it's the rules on the job and they're not going to break those the same thing happened on the muppet show actually you know jim henson famous workaholic worked himself into the grave basically they had to stop for tea time they wanted to work past five or six but the british guys shut the lights off on them like you're not doing your puppet show we're going

home i wish you see if american comedy writers complain about american teamsters they they wouldn't last a second with those old british teamsters who are just like no it's tea time hey like there's in the aliens one there was a story that they had set up the like a one of the queen confrontation into the movie scenes they got all the fog they want great and then it's tea time and in comes the lady with the tea trolley opens the door all the fog leaves and uh but again they needed to respect their tea time the the doc implied that it was because cameron was trained by roger corman who had literally no rules and just were overworked everybody that cameron's like well that's how you make movies you work 12 hour days in america

we're like, what? You want four weeks to raise your little baby? Get back to work, you pig. Oh, what? You didn't even have the kid. You're the father. Get the fuck back to work. Yeah.

That's great country. This ending is, I like that Bart and Lisa very simply stay like, yeah, that's why we did it. You did this. Bart and Lisa have no lesson to learn. Homer had to learn the lesson I'm glad unlike other times where Lisa apologizes like dad I know you're trying your best I'm sorry I got mad at you like they're just like no you were bad and we're blame it's good to see Lisa not lose I guess I guess relatively yeah it's true yeah but yeah that is our thoughts on this

episode I'm curious Henry now we got over several humps on this podcast. There's the Maude death. There's the Panda love. There's the hand with the scab growing over it. Yeah. Is there anything else coming up for you? Like, once we get past this, it's smooth sailing. I think, honestly, the show chased me off enough as a regular viewer that there wasn't. I couldn't care enough with the season 13 was less appointment viewing for me.

So, I do think I at least groaned of like oh no wait i thought of one oh no piss me off oh no well it's when bart is tethered to homer and that the there's a video camera of judge constance harm inside the cable i was like that's dumb like that one pissed me off i thought you meant like some sort of disgusting injury or sexual assault or um oh i mean there's definitely a transphobic joke of that i mean so that's not good there's gonna be about a thousand coming up yes so get ready for that roller coaster right but you know nothing big no no big gross one so i think i think we've passed all of those and in all cases they were less bad than i remembered them so i think i think as we've diagnosed many times we were very angry teens who uh couldn't deal with problems let's say sexual frustration

yes powered a lot of our anchor which is why we love weezer yes so yes we recorded our plugs for matt earlier so let's hear those and then we'll go into our own plugs so matt any final thoughts on this episode yeah i mean for mean, for me, I enjoyed it. I watched it twice in 24 hours, as I mentioned to you guys before we started recording. And there's stuff in it that sucks, but there's some really, really funny jokes in this episode. And yeah, I overall enjoyed it.

I don't know if it's like, I can't remember what the exact pace of season 12. It did sort of make me want to go back and check out post-season 10 stuff. I know there's some gems in there. I wouldn't say this is a huge, great episode, right? But it's not terrible. And some funny Homer stuff. You know, I love Homer.

So Homer episodes are always really funny to me. Yeah, overall, I think it's a pretty solid episode. Not the best, not the worst, but laughs throughout. Yeah, thanks so much for joining us, Matt. Please let us know where to find you online and more about how did this get played. Yeah, so we had just wrapped up Hideo Kojima for the second time on how did this get played. So that's where we did a bunch of, we did dig into Hideo kojima games uh for an entire month we did uh oh we did police knots we did bacti we're doing or we did um metal gear solid 3 and then uh we did

death stranding director's cut uh which you know gotta keep talking about uh death strand and get the good word out of that but that's yeah we talk about video games most of the usually worse and weirdest kind of stuff but for a month we do hideo kojima and that's out on mondays and then you can follow me on twitter instagram at matt apodaca or at twitch.tv slash matt apodaca where i stream some games uh every now and then and then if people liked our weezer talk at the start of this you oh yeah people should go back and listen to you you have made a new episode too recently but your your weezer podcast is great oh thank you yeah it's called uh what's with these homies talking about weezer and uh great. Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's called What's With These Homies? Talking About Weezer. And it's exactly what I do.

Talk about Weezer and get all that good stuff. So thank you so much, Matt. Yes, thank you, Matt. Thanks for having me, guys. It was super fun. I love talking to The Simpsons and it's good to talk about it

with people who actually really care about it and like it. So this was a blast. Thank you for having me. Thank you. So as for us, thank you again for listening

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sister podcast what a cartoon we're twice a month me and Bob cover an animated series super in depth just like we do an episode of the Simpsons we have tons of fun on that we have tons of fun doing that so much so that we do an extra long podcast at the end of each month called what a cartoon movie where we cover an animated feature film crazy in depth often for over four hours long that super premium podcast is only available for our top level patrons at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you get a giant back catalog of films covering stuff as wide-ranging as batman beyond return of the joker beavis and butthead to america a goofy movie akira tons and tons more. We're recording this so far ahead of time. I don't

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and we'll see you then. I'll take Professor Frank. Ah, you won't regret it, my good man. What with the passing and the dribbling and my shoes made of the flubber. And away I go! It's frightening. Oh, that was painful.

Oh, the flubber is burning my feet.