Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Colonel Homer With Griffin Newman

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

We welcome back fan-favorite guest Griffin Newman from the excellent podcast Blank Check for a classic country episode! We discuss Matt Groening's only solo writing credit on the series, how it ties into a biopic from 1980, the guest star power of Beverly D'Angelo, and so much more as Homer becomes imitates Colonel Parker in a more grounded way than Tom Hanks. So grab your moonshine, say Ya-Hoo, and listen along to this week's podcast! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! Please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod! and our Instagram! Also, check out our newest shirts on TeePublic!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talking of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that made all those hillbillies go blind. I'm one of your hosts, Big Shirtless Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who is here with me today, as always? A big sack of sugar, Henry Gilbert.

And who is our very special guest today? Oh, I'd say it. I'm Griffin Newman. And this week's episode is Colonel Homer. How am I doing on the right? Uh, we're getting a lot of sparks over here, Dad. Uh-huh. Easy. Easy. Perfect. All right, everybody out the window. This episode originally aired on March 26, 1992, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real-world history.

Oh, my God! Oh, boy, Bobby. Mike Tyson is sentenced to 10 years in jail for a thing that's not funny to talk about. White Men Can't Jump tops the box office, and Silence of the Lambs wins big at the Oscars. Normally we talk about movies, but I did feel like I was like, oh, we should, it's pretty good timing we have the 1992 Oscars to talk about with our guest here in Griffin. But yeah, Silence of the Lambs, a big surprise win, wasn't it, at the time?

Yeah, yeah. We covered that movie on our podcast, Blank Check, which I host with David Sims. And that is, I think, one of the coolest Best Picture winners ever. You watch it today and it still feels like this is kind of stunning that the Academy went for it. But the other thing is, it was such a huge fucking hit. But it came out in like February, March. Yeah, March. Yeah, yeah. So it wins the Oscar like a year after it came out, which even back in those days still rarely happened. Now it's like the Best Picture winner almost always comes out in the last two months, three months of the year. But back then even, you barely got something that early that lingered for that long.

Everyone thought it was too violent. It was too weird. And not only does it win, but it wins like every major category and i think this is the uh the first time an animated movie makes it into best picture and it won't happen again until toy story 3 correct okay or no up guess yeah yes yes that but it but in the with 10 yeah in the 10 area it doesn't count the same as well beauty and the beast pulled it off yeah i was i will say i say, I was on a flight to here to record Talking Simpsons exclusively. The only reason I flew out here. And we thank you.

Yes. My pleasure. And I will invoice you guys. But they were doing the in-flight trivia thing. And the question was, what was the first animated film to win Best Picture? What? And the options were Beauty and the Beast up. What? And the options were Beauty and the Beast Up and

Toy Story 3 and it was like they flipped win nomination and then like it selects Beauty and the Beast as the correct answer and then it says like Beauty and the Beast won Best Picture. Good for Beauty and the Beast. And I said it doubled down on the fact. Did you make them land the plane?

Yeah, I said get me the fuck off. I was in exit row and I just pulled the doubled down on the fact. Did you make them land the plane? Yeah. I said, get me the fuck off. I was in an exit row and I just pulled the lever and I jumped out. Well, I was at Simpsons Trivia a few months ago and they got an answer wrong and I knew the answer. It was like panic attack time for me. Can you share what it was? It was the name, like who is the antiquarian in Springfield? And it's Hollis Hurlbut.

But they had the name incorrect in some way. I forget. And I knew I was right. Yeah. I knew I was right. I hosted, in a weird former life, I had to host a Star Trek trivia thing, but the questions were all written before I got there. And so I had to present them and I just had to trust like, well, they got everything right.

And one of the questions was that I am not a star trek super expert but even i know that wharf is the guy who says i am not a merry man in the robin hood episode and that question comes up like who said it and wharf is there but whoever programmed it made it data and i felt and when the question came up and every person in the audience got it wrong because it was they picked wharf that i was getting booed remorselessly i was like i didn't write this so then i spent the whole rest of the night doing we were going to be doing it the next day i was like yeah i have to double check every single one of these or else these star trek conventioneers in las vegas are going to destroy p i i know we're going pretty far afield pretty quickly here we do that that up front. Yeah, but I, 10 plus years ago,

there was a thing where I was up for to do like the red carpet stuff for the Sundance channel. And then that somehow morphed into them being like, we might need a person to do like the interstitials and programming, in between programming. We're gonna like test you out to be that guy. And the interstitials and programming in between programming. We're going to like test you out to be that guy. And the interstitials were all going to be sponsored by Starbucks. And they were like,

we want like a persona in between shows. Who's like kind of a hipper Robert Osborne and like younger who can like give context for the movies in these Starbucks. And I was like, this feels like a job I'm well suited for this. You know, I'm like in my early twenties, I'm like looking for any break i'm like this seems like a thing i'd be good for and then it what it ends up being is i have to self-identify as resident movie expert griffin newman while sitting like wearing like business casual wear at a starbucks using language that's all been vetted by the Starbucks

team. So they were like, you know, and it was it was comparing that Oscar season to other movies that Sundance had access to or whatever. So they were like, if you enjoyed the subtle notes and bold flavors of Daniel Day-Lewis's performance in Lincoln, you might also enjoy My Beautiful Laundrette or whatever it was. Right. And I kept on being like, this wording is weird. And there's a team of Starbucks people. And they were like, you cannot change the wording at all. Every term you use to describe a movie or performance has to also be applicable to coffee and the new roast they're trying to promote.

But the worst part of it was like, hey, here's a fun trivia fact. This year, John Goodman is in Argo, nominated for Best Picture. But do you know that he was also in The Big Lebowski? Pretty cool, huh? Most people don't know that. It was truly, that was the level of trivia fact. And I had to like say this and be like, I'm Griffin Newman, like my own name. And some guy tweeted at me and was like, hey, dipshit, your trivia facts suck.

Everyone knows this shit. And I DM'd him and I was like, my guy, I couldn't agree with you more. This was the worst experience of my life. I think everyone agreed this was mutually bad. And he messaged me back and was like, I understand. That sounds terrible. What an awful position to be in. How embarrassing.

You should have to click at least twice on IMDb to get good trivia. That's a one-click trivia fact. Not even. I don't think anyone would bother to submit, do you know this guy was also in another movie? That's not IM-click trivia fact. Not even. I don't think anyone would bother to submit, do you know this guy was also in another movie? That's not IMDb trivia. That's just an IMDb list. That's a career page.

And White Man Can't Jump, I only saw that on cable a few times. It's about basketball con men, right? Hustlers? Yeah. Con men's a strong term. Sure right hustlers yeah yeah yeah yeah con man's a strong term sure hustlers yeah yeah and it uh i mean in the box office game uh don't want to do that but uh it did defeat two big 1992 uh early 1992 movies oh this weekend when the movie when this episode airs though they weren't new yes okay yeah okay it was. One is a very sexy movie of early 1992.

Maybe it did come out in late 91. I think it's new to 92, though. Is it like Disclosure? In that ballpark, but a little earlier, with a stone cold fox. Maybe it's too obvious. I do know the

answer, but this is Griffin's game. Okay. It's not Sharon Stone, is it? It is. Is it Basic Instinct? It is Basic Instinct. Wow. Okay. And then it is a comedy, a big comedy of 92, a surprise one.

Wayne's World? It is Wayne's World. Right. Which I just know was like a January release. Yeah. Wow. I watched that. I think I watched that

twice in theaters as a kid, Wayne's World. It is, in my opinion, one of the all-time great film comedies. Really?

I don't think there's, do I like MacGruber more than it in SNL comedy world? That's a really tough one. There are a few comedies I like more than Wayne's World. So it's my default

best SNL movie, but it's almost an unfair competition. Like MacGruber, I think is phenomenal. But Wayne's World, I put up my default best SNL movie, but it's almost an unfair competition. Like, MacGruber, I think, is phenomenal. But Wayne's World, I put up there with, like, the best of Ernst Lubitsch. Wow. Yeah.

But anyway, that's what happened in the history of this episode. And joining us today is Griffin Newman, here in person. He was last with us on Pokemon. Welcome to the show, Griffin, of the Blank Check podcast. Right.

Thank you guys for having me. We were supposed to do an in-person episode a year ago. Yeah. That got punted because of Omicron. But I remember when the PokeMom episode came out and it got cross-posted onto the Blank Check Reddit. Oh, yeah. And people were confounded where they were like, in the entire run of The Simpsons, why

is this the number one episode he would pick? Not understanding that you guys have a chronological narrative to follow. But this is, I wouldn't say it's one of my all-time favorite episodes, but this and the timing just worked out well is much closer to being like a major canonical episode for me. Yeah. No, it was fun to talk about your love of Michael Keaton in that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. It was fun to talk about Ke love of michael keaton in that one yeah yeah yes it was fun to talk about keaton but this has the same thing i mean we talked about in the pokemon episode felt like a vestige of what this episode does well that the show had started to move away

from which is like you hire a guest star who isn't just the most famous person at that moment to give an actual performance with a real character. It's not just them doing a version of their persona with a caricature that looks like them. Yeah, well, this is a real Country Fright episode. That's why we had on a guy from New York City. But I mean, Griffin, you're here for a landmark episode because this is the sole episode that Matt Groening ever wrote for The Simpsons.

The only episode he ever wrote. Yeah, that he has full writing credit on. Like, technically, he co-wrote Some Enchanted Evening. Right, I was going to say. Telltale Head, I think. There's like a few in early seasons. And in 22 short films, he has a co- He's one of the-

I think he wrote a short in that. Right, but basically that episode is like every staff writer at the show at that time gets credit. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So this is like the one true Groening episode. Yeah. Whatever that means, as much as the show is always obviously a collaborative thing. Well, me and Bob have theories on why. Yeah.

The timing exactly of it. My theory, I mean, it's the end of season three. We know behind the scenes, big Sam Simon feud. They're not getting along. Matt Groening's getting all the credit in the press. I think this is him saying, I can do an episode. Interesting. And he says, yes, I had a lot of help from the staff because he's not a TV writer.

Right. But I think he felt it necessary to actually have his name on an episode because the Sam Simon feud was just heating up so much. And Sam Simon will be gone very, very soon. Yeah. Not from this earth, but from the show that takes longer when does when does Sam Simon officially leave the show is is he like lurking around in season four you know I think four he's like one foot in one foot no definitely sorry they said on the season four treehouse three they tell the story of to write the King Kong when they went to Sam Simon's house to

watch and he's be on his big TV King Kong together and Matt Groening has a joke of saying like I wasn't invited to that but interesting I think he's basically gone then but they there's definitely been enough stories in season three of like oh Sam pitched this Sam pitched that sure and uh on some outtakes for Homer at the Bat we sam simon directing the baseball players we heard his voice yeah okay so but we also i my guess too on that of why this is a kind of a response to simon is that when we interviewed jay kogan he tells us this very funny and jay kogan is friendly with mac raiding he wasn't saying this to diss him but when he was we asked him like oh you wrote on the first treehouse how did that come together and he said mac graining you know popped into the writer's

room one time said hey guys we should do a treehouse and then he popped back out and they said they all kind of i'm paraphrasing yeah they all kind of grumbled that like matt graining just showing up giving us work and then leaving to do all the interviews again that gets all the positive press like so i think it is that graining wanted to write this to say that if they were grumbling in season two of like sure graining pitches stuff and then doesn't actually do the work of writing and he's saying right here we go i'm writing this thing this is my story yeah yeah it's interesting i mean you threw me a couple options of episodes from the season this is obviously a great season almost every episode

in this season is like a good pick oh yeah um but i this was the one i jumped to just because i think it's such an interesting opportunity to talk about the graining of it all and his name being so inextricably tied to this thing that like you know i think he's less essentially a part of than a lot of animated shows which i don't say to diminish him at all what i think is interesting is like his involvement in futurama is basically what most people assume his involvement is for the entirety of the simpsons where it's like he's really on futurama every time they reboot it yeah clearly that's like his baby you know with other people but like stays in the game

versus like the simpsons feels like a franchise he started and then has know with other people but like stays in the game versus like the simpsons feels like a franchise he started and then has now let other people like continue and even just in terms of like it's obviously in his art style but the show is so different from the sensibility of life in hell it doesn't even feel like one of these examples of like oh a guy has a thing and then obviously people come in and adapt it to television but it has his thumbprints the whole narrative of like him coming up with simpsons semi on the fly to be able to not sell his baby you're like the simpsons is such a thing that is so thoroughly built by sam simon james l brooks and graining together at the beginning and then really evolves with all these different writers who come on that it's funny that

like he will forever be matt graining creator of the simpsons celebrity in and of himself and people i think credit him with so much of what happens well he was really on board uh in these early seasons if you look at storyboards they're covered with his notes he was very protective of the show some of the things that have an age well there'd be many more of those if he was not involved yes and he hated the apu thing like right they did it as a joke i think just to annoy him right henry i think there's definitely feels like they do so many like hitler jokes to annoy him and other and everybody puts the the very you know broad original choice of indian convenience store guy as they they now put it on sam Sam Simon who's like that's funny just

do it like yeah that also feels you know feels like they're trying to blame a dead man so people won't be mad at well yeah to be clear I'm not trying to diminish what he did at the beginning of the show it's just it was like he was incredibly important for the first handful of seasons but in a way that was like all about the tension of those three guys pulling at each other yeah rather than it being like two guys hired to help mac reining's vision hit the screen well and and i also i did get the sense with graining like right after he writes this script is when they really start taking off with bongo comics sure and simpsons which is fully his playground like he owns that and i think it is like he does especially because it is a

gracie films production yeah i think technically the boss is jim james l brooks not mac reigning yes so yes i mean look it this is also the reason i've been thinking about this a lot lately not to invoke like the horrible thing right but like the justin roiland stuff going on right now where this show hangs in like this very precarious balance and you're like is there any way for that show to continue divorced from this guy right yeah and like the only real example like that I think is John Kay but with John Kay the creepy stuff happens much much later and then damages the reputation of the show when he's originally removed from the show it's just because he's difficult and he can't meet deadlines but it was a similar thing where you're like this show is so much this guy's sensibility his art style his worldview it's so unique and hard to replicate and he's the voice

of one of the two main characters and roiland is like both characters his art style his comedy style and as much as like dan harman is the like sam simon james l brooks to roiland yeah he also has always talked about that show as like my job is to take roiland's voice which is distinctive but unstructured and figuring out how to make it functional he's never like and there's a lot of harman in the show obviously yeah but he's also like i'm trying to build this thing that he doesn't necessarily have the capacity to build himself in his voice whereas like sam simon's putting so much of himself james l brooks is putting so much of himself and greening's putting so much of himself rather than them being like let's help graining yeah yeah i mean sam simon uh

just because he left the show and was very bitter about it uh and you know graining getting a lot of the credit yeah people overlook his contributions to writing and even character design like he's listed as characters on he designed mr burns correct the character design thing is huge yeah with sam simon yeah he was an artist with an art background yeah i mean simon admits he is a jerk like or he did admit in interviews back then he's like yeah i also could be a jerk like people were right to not like working with me sometimes like he said that george car like george carlin did not have nice things to say about working with sam simon on the george carlin show yeah like so right no he was a bit of an egomaniac and a control freak and the other thing is he is one of those

guys who experienced such absurd success so young that he started to become like untouchable where i think he just had like fuck you power in his mind of like well i'm right about this and if you disagree with me i will make your life a living hell or quit you know and it's he was the youngest showrunner in the history of television at that point in time yeah which like now it feels like there are 20 year old showrunners all the time right early 20s but back then when there were three networks yeah that never ever happened and you're handing him like some of the most venerable beloved established sitcoms on television to like a fairly untested like 20 something yeah it's just at that point it's like no one's gonna win an argument against this guy yeah so i think i definitely think this

was graining trying to prove he could keep up with all these like i mean to sam simon is in this but it also is a lot of har guys, like all of these, that, you know, big shot or not big shots, but they are Ivy league dudes. They have a certain energy to them that Matt Groening as a self-made like cartoonist. Right.

He grew, he came up in the cartoons. There's, I mentioned these guys all the time, but I love their channel. This, this YouTube channel called cartoonist K-fabe. They talk about Groening's cartooning and how like he was friends with all of these guys in the 80s he knew all of the indie cartoonists like he had that vibe

and here he is like in the shark tank of hollywood it that had to be pretty rough for him in a way yeah absolutely and you know the simpsons is so much less sort of political and angry and countercultural than what he created. As much as there was this furor when it debuted of like, this is killing the American family and everything. Life in Hell is a very angry strip. And Sam Simon, infamously angry guy, even if his comedy didn't necessarily reflect it but like the magic balance is always the sentimentality that james l brooks brought and like the surprising humanity in depth that i think as the simpsons goes on it starts to become more and more joke machine intricate labyrinthian plotting yeah clever sort of uh you know uh self-awareness whatever well this is them like this season is them building the comedy machine that yes they slowly get rid of the heart that they that they were and this is arguably sort of my favorite

era of the show is this run where like the comedy machine is starting to be constructed and you're starting to get that joke density but also there could be an episode like this that really stops for human moments that has pathos and everything yeah it's funny that it's a grading episode because that isn't necessarily what you would think was his major contribution to the show yeah i was thinking why did graining write this episode right and i guess part of it is he's not a southern guy yeah he's yeah i think part of it is he does have a music journalism background that's kind of where he started he was working in record stores i think he worked at likeorice Pizza,

that record store. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like it comes from that. And also it comes from Coal Miner's Daughter. Yes. And Henry and I both watched that last night separately.

Yeah, we did not plan on doing it, but I was like, There was no Talking Simpsons sleepover. Yeah. You don't have to watch it because it's very, very loosely based. I would say partially inspired by that story.

But it's like Loretta Lynn, Laureen Lumpkin. Laureen Lumpkin. That's really the only connection there. And maybe like a few very, very minor things. Like the biggest reference I saw was the use of the word dad burned in this and in Coal Miner's Daughter. And also because Beverly D'Angelo is Patsy Cline in the movie. So they're like, okay, we can get her in this but another example of like this is an era where the show would like take a well-known movie and then riff on it in a way that became wholly its own versus

later on they start to do episodes that are like we're doing this movie yeah and we are getting as a guest voice the person who played that character. We're basically making it the same character versus going a little lateral. My theory is, especially Gene and Reese, they learned that the animators could recreate scenes so perfectly that they're like, let's just do that movie. And they also start doing that a lot on The Critic. The Critic really broke up. And when they come back to Simpsons yes right no I mean we we though also when we were looking back on their career pre-Simpsons even the episode of It's the Gary Shandling Show they wrote is a full parody of Driving Miss Daisy which is weirdly the series finale of that show it's so weird yeah it's

bizarre that that's how that show ends yeah Algin and Mike Reese are are steeped in parody. They started writing on the set of Airplane 2. That was like their first gig, like doing punch up on Airplane 2, a famously hated movie. Yes. They were on the Harvard Lampoon. I think they were on the National Lampoon, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, writing like ALF episodes where he's basically playing Johnny Carson, things like that.

So they are kind of just like working in parody mode all the time. That's like what they specialize in. Yeah. It comes out in episodes like this and in Homer at the Bat. Well, and like this same year is when Ben Stiller's show was on the air. Is that 91 or 92? I think it's 92, 93. So yeah, we're in that era.

But that show gets so much credit for like they're doing movie parodies where they're replicating them cinematically. This is a sketch comedy show where the look is important. It's not just the impressions and they're like replicating the shots and the editing rhythms and the music of everything and that sort of shifted the like oh the parody isn't just in the writing and the performance which like right is running on fox the same time as this show and the show starts to do a little more of that i i wonder if grading wasn't the writer of this if this was a like uh say a freelance script if l and mike would have just been like well if we're doing coal miner's daughter

let's really do coal miner's daughter like yeah like not just have learn lean just be you know a waitress and a honky tonk have her have her literally be well i don't know they'd what would be the sideways joke on coal miner daughter. They do like she'd work. She could work in the sulfur mine that Homer passes. Yes. Okay, there you go. Sulfur miners daughter. We figured it out. See, it's easy to write TV.

Yeah, it's so easy. But yeah, no, it just feels like an episode where however it originated, it does feel like at some point they started to actually care about Lurleen as a character and she stops being a construct or an archetype and that is like the magic of this episode for me both in the performance which is so fucking good i'd forgotten how good d'angelo is in this episode she really is you really fall in love with her by the end and and the writing where you're like this is like a real tangible human being you know there's that gag that happens in a later season is it the pen pals episode or something where there's the bowling team that is the homewreckers yes yeah and it's

jock from life on the fast lane her mindy simmons and princess cashmere yeah yeah yeah i will say her future appearances aren't quite as flattering including i spent last night in a ditch but in season 16 she comes back uh for like a sequel to this, probably because they were recording the commentary for this while Al Jean is running the show. And he's like, Lurleen, let's bring her back. Do not like that episode. And we can talk about it. It's not that great.

No. But it's like, well, those three other characters are more comedic archetypes, right? Or like plot device. I mean, like Princess Kashmir barely talks, right? Jock is just kind of like an absurd notion of the world's most romantic man. And Mindy Simmons, I think is a great performance from Pfeiffer. But the whole joke there is like, can you imagine if a woman who looked like this acted this much like Homer? Versus Lurleen, you're like, to call her a

homewrecker is sort of like almost belittling the character and the sort of like essential sadness of her, but also the like nobility of her in like, I find her love of Homer very touching in this and her acceptance of the fact that you won't sleep with me is almost the exact quality that I find compelling about you. You know, you almost feel like if Homer, if he actually returned her affection, that she would then be less interested in him i yeah she's not a person who despite the song she sings about wanting to steal her husband she doesn't mostly come off as a person who wants to destroy a marriage that she just is like oh i fell in love with the this man who is being very supportive of my career, which I guess in that regard, it's similar to Cole Miner's Daughter as it is about the relationship of the singer and the manager who's her husband.

Yeah. Yeah. Though Homer is much nicer than Dew. That's the thing. And you're also riffing on Colonel Tom Parker, right? Yeah. And I think now everybody knows who that is, right? Because of the movie.

Right. Yes. right yeah and i think now everybody knows who that is right because of the movie right yes now there's like an even more extreme idea of who this guy is and how sort of like oddly villainous he was and he looks a lot like homer actually if you look at pictures of him but like homer is is acting so purely out of like her best interest in this you know it really is this idea of him like he's not trying to get rich off of her, right? Yeah, no. He's just like, this hit me so hard emotionally. The world needs to hear this.

I need to share this with people. I need to help her. I need to protect her. And lots of people in life say that to a person who they then are going to take advantage of, like Colonel Parker. But Homer actually does mean it. Like, he's the one person in show business who means this. He's like, like no i actually do just want to help but you're like expecting in this episode that at some point he gets lured by

like the temptation of money and being able to sort of like license her out and make her do all the things that tom parker forced elvis to do make her be in 80 movies and cash the check or whatever and you expect lurleen to be more of a temptress. And like neither thing happens. They have this very odd relationship, which is mostly just based in like Homer is not the most emotionally accessible man in terms of him being able to even understand his own emotions. And this song just cuts through to him, right? Her words cut through to him. And Lurleen senses in him someone who is actually kind of being kind to

her and operating in her best interest and not taking advantage of her which everyone you sense she has dealt with in business and performance has not been and also romantically has not been and as much as like she's attracted to the fact that homer is nice to her i also think the fact that he is such a good father that he loves mar Marge, is the most appealing thing to her. Because it's not just like, I love him because he's nice to me. It's like, God, if I could get what he is to Marge. If I could be in her place and have that feeling. Yeah.

It's the most appealing thing to her, I think. You know, Bob and me were talking about this beforehand, too, that this has Act one they want to have funny homer is a stupid jerk jokes but it does uh it unbalances slightly acts two and three yeah i guess it means he's a complicated guy too yeah yeah yeah i mean like i think that act break in the commercials that would follow kind of like reset your memory of homer because he's much sweeter in two and three like he yeah i guess i mean we'll get it into the episode but um he does abandon his family you know as far as as far as they know he's gone he's out of the picture yeah it's at the end of act one um if matt graining had left his wife around the time he did this episode this would be remembered as like close encounters of the third kind these justification movies of divorced men uh one more preamble thing i want to

go over though is that uh this is technically the first homer gets a job episode in which they don't try to justify that within the show there's no built-in scene of homer asking for time off or worrying about like oh interesting but i have a job at the plant and like mike reese was saying on the commentary plant conflict yeah yeah just it's not there's not even like a scene with burns or anybody else there and mike reese was saying on the commentary like this worried us like because there was still the reality of like no Homer has his nine to five. But at this point they realize Homer gets a job can be a device for an episode. And we saw in the past he was like the capital city goofball. Right.

He went to capital city to work for his brother and, you know, becoming like a car engineer or whatever. But in both those episodes, there was at least some mention of the plan or some scene with burns or whatever but this is treated more as like a hobby and a passion project and i also think this episode's smart in terms of like him getting off the train right at the moment where it maybe would become an all-consuming career yeah yeah you know she's just sort of starting to have her breakthrough where it's like you believe even though the show isn't wasting time showing us this, that he still could be working at the plant every day, nine to five. Yeah, there's in Coal Miner's Daughter, they kind of have that moment where they're like, no, you're famous now. Like, we don't have a job anymore.

Like, your song's number one now. Right. You've been on the Grand Ole Opry 17 times in a row. We're on the roller coaster now. Yeah. You can't get off. Also, it's like, once you're successful, you're successful, you're not going to not be successful. You can't stop being successful.

And then your biopic gets boring. Yeah. You got to start taking some pills if you want to speed this thing up. Or the Telltale whiskey bottle has to come. Also, that movie, not to just talk about that movie a bunch, but it does hit all of the like walk hard jokes of like, like oh the bloody rag her dad's coughing into boy he's gonna last long in this movie and they play the titular song at the end it's what you're waiting for yes well now it's time to sum up my whole career in one song i was

a cold and it's a great song and and in this era of most biopics just having lip sync in it right she's fucking singing it like yeah, it's an incredible performance. This Sissy Spacek's a good actress. Good-ass actress. She's really going somewhere. The Simpsons will be right back. She's a beautiful country singer. You said she was overweight. He's a balding family man. The Simpsons will be right back. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. And they'll both find out. What's wrong? If Homer has a cheating heart. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. We care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? I never thought I'd see another woman in Dad's life. What are you talking about?

There's Sarah Lee and Jemima Betty Cracker. On an all-new Simpsons Thursday. Welcome to the break of the podcast that stands by its manager. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Griffin Newman from Blank Check. We had him in studio to record it. It was so great to record in person with Griffin. We love his podcast, Blank Check. We love his podcast as well, The George uh podcast as well the george lucas talk show you should check that out on youtube he does so many cool things and we were so appreciative

of his time and coming over to record with us thank you so much griffin and follow him on twitter as well and if you enjoy the talking simpsons podcast with cool guests like griffin you should know me and bob do this is our full-time job thanks to the support of people at patreon.com slash talking simpsons for five bucks a month those folks get to know that they're letting me and bob live our dreams but they also get a ton of exclusive content including each month a new episode of talking futurama and talking the hill us going through those series just as in depth as we do with the simpsons we're in season four with futurama season three of king of the hill and you get a giant back catalog as well of us covering every episode of the critic mission hill and many of our favorite episodes of batman the animated series please check it all out for

yourself patreon.com slash talking simpsons but if you want something even nicer than sitting on fiberglass hey you need to sign up at patreon.com slash talking simpsons premium level because that is where you get an extra podcast each month what a cartoon movie me and bob going through an animated feature film crazy in depth just like we do an episode of the simpsons often Often over five hours, sometimes over six hours long. This month, if you sign up, you'll get to hear us talk about Chicken Run, the 2000 stop-motion animated film, Aardman's first film, a huge moment in stop-mo animation as well.

Last month, you would have heard us talk about Superman, Batman, World's Finest, the first meeting of the two characters in the Bruce-Tim DC animated universe. We have a giant back catalog covering films like tokyo godfathers dumbo everything from akira to a goofy movie spider-man into the spider-verse to beavis and butthead do the universe check it all out for yourself and all of the extras you get at the five dollar level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons uh but hey speaking of movies this episode begins with basically a series of skits of The Simpsons Go to the Movies. What's a multiplex like in the early 90s?

It feels like they kind of do this sketch every 10 years to update their commentary on the moviegoing experience. We just covered Jaws Wired Shut a few months back, and it was like, okay, what is a 2001 movie experience? Well, now there are commercials, and there are like word puzzle games you look at before the movie starts. Is that episode Autumn Shanks? Yes. Yes.

Which is one of my favorite Simpsons jokes. That's a great joke. Autumn Shanks. Yeah. I love that Apu repeats it a second time just to really drive home like, yep, it's Autumn Shanks. We did that joke. We have a bit of parking comedy. Also, yeah, it's the Googleplex, which these were math nerds making a joke about

the word google long before it became a household word for everyone but also the idea of like can you believe how absurd these theaters are with eight screens yes yeah i in 1996 a 24 screen theater opened up in my suburb in florida and i thought like it was the most advanced amazing thing i'd ever seen before like it was and I would go on to work at that movie theater for three whole years. AMC. Well, that's right. 2000 was when the AMC 25 opened in New York, which felt impossible. Especially in New York where real estate is so cramped.

We're like, what are you fucking saying there are 25 screens? It felt so... Do each of them have one seat that was the the magic of the movies that have like oh i can go to like four different movies all of a sudden this is yeah yeah uh and i lived this thing of trying to park in a movie theater parking lot multiple days a week for three years when working at amc theaters yeah yeah this compact car thing this also feels i don't know i was just in northern california where my mom lives and to go to the movies it was the reverse of this of like they

we came in a regular size car and every car was an suv or a giant truck we were trapped in between all of them yes but all of these jokes about parking are from people who live in la yes really yes springfield becomes la when they need it to yeah yes when someone has some an axe to grind yeah uh and yeah we have a joke about like well look at all these movies now and the honey i shrunk the kid parody of honey i hit a uh i hit a bus and school bus school bus uh and earnest versus the pope although i i think bart is pitching the first pitch for that joke where he says earnest cuts the pope although i i think bart is pitching the first pitch for that joke where he says earnest cuts the cheese it's like was that the first pitch

both of those thrown out both of them attacking disney films the company that would later uh interesting and then look who's oinking of course of course i mean this feels very indicative of the the sort of simpsons starting to establish itself as like the harvard lampoon the erudite comedy yeah we're making fun of this dumb lowly comedy trash that america eats up like slop i don't think there's mean to other movies now i really don't encourage shows and it predicted 93s uh look who's talking now which to me feels like the most defeated movie title. Like, look, okay, this is happening now. We don't know. It got out of control. But yes, the family seeing the movie together.

We would never do the separate and watch movies separately. Like it was always just, well, my dad, I think I saw three movies ever with him in a movie theater. Really? And they, my parents didn't divorce until I was 30. So they, but yeah, my mom just took me and my brother to movies all the time that was my dad was that figure because my dad worked a lot the week my mom was mostly main parent and then the weekend my dad would basically have to like take my brother to little league shit and take me to a movie and i we the other one would have to go to the other but i saw so many movies with my father and he would just tolerate the movies we wanted

to see. There was never the I'm going to go watch this and meet you back here thing. My dad saw Forrest Gump, Batman 1989 and Saving Private Ryan. It was another big three. Yeah. Those are like three canonical. Those are dad friendly movies. Now, I echo the thoughts of our friends on We Hate Movies, but showing up at the theater without knowing what you're seeing is psychotic behavior.

Yes. Psychos. Absolutely. Who doesn't plan these things in advance? That's why I want to work in the movie theater, so I could see a movie earlier or be on the inside track as much as I could and feel like I'm part of this world here of movies. The only variation on this I will do sometimes is be like i have no plans i'm near a movie theater what's playing at this movie theater but then i look it up and i'm like a dork who knows what all those movies are yeah and they're already on a notes app i have saved

list i have saved and i get to cross one off you know and now every movie theater uh that there used to be three movie theaters within three blocks of me now they're all closed except for one that is full of rats uh it's full of rats and also it is closing so okay oh is it a regal is it a soon to be fallen it's a regal yeah and those rats are going to be homeless right oh god they're going to come across the street to me but tuck your pants into your socks everybody uh but yeah so it's them picking out movies it's funny that marge gives them money they run off to sneak into an r-rated movie seemingly yeah i love they pick homer picks the stockholm affair which he thinks is like emmanuel or something right but it's actually like the hunt for red october pretty much with at least you see a sub you're like okay

i guess this is on foretic yeah yeah yeah it's some clancy-esque grisham yeah i love that one where it goes oh political like and also that it's about the greco-bolivian alliance like nobody cares about if reese is friends with yeah this like six second scene of this movie just sums up all of these tom clancy thrillers for me especially like the the notable name of the hero like get me jed colic which is like this is jack ryan it's so funny they were so big and they were also like thought of as popcorn movies you know they weren't like your serious oscar bait films it was like people love to sit and watch character actors seriously argue yeah they're in it sometimes i even feel like now they pitch jack ryan is like

like they've cast a new bond when they cast a new jack ryan it's like it's that's not a big deal to me i'm sorry no no yeah it's like uh is harrison ford with him twice uh ben affleck ben affleck yeah oh i remember that ben affleck one they they had it like it was one of those things where they filmed it i think before 9-11 and then it comes out after 9-11 and i got shit our political movie feels very different now some of all fears yes but was still a big hit and then chris pine and then now of course uh yeah oh yeah jim from the office yeah that's right yeah that's his real name office jim yes everybody's favorite good news lover um but but Ooh, they all look great So, what are we going to see?

Ernest cuts the cheese Honey, I hit a school bus Look who's oinking, look who's oinking Since we'll never agree, why don't you kids pick a movie Your dad and I will pick a movie Then we'll all meet in the lobby later, hmm? Thanks, Mom Two tickets for

Let me guess, look who's oinking That's right Sold out Oh Maybe we could see something a little more adult Two tickets for... Let me guess. Look who's oinking. That's right. Sold out. Oh. Maybe we could see something a little more adult. Why, Marge, you frisky little devil. We'll take two tickets to... The Stockholm Affair.

Oh, the paper called it a taut political thriller. Political? Oh. Mr. President, disturbing news. Serious cracks are developing in the Greco-Belivian alliance. Get me Jed Kulik. It's now time for, like, this is the part where it really felt like grating to me because this feels like a series of Simpsons shorts,

like Homer's long thing of trying to drink a soda. This feels like a Simpsons short that would have been on Tracy Ullman. Yes, yes. No, there's some fun visual gags in this the ice bit is so fun yeah um but also yes this is like your classic you know i i like multiple eras of the simpsons i enjoy watching pretty much all of the show right but you do get to the point i feel like it's a big season nine and on shift of like act one is sort of like a misdirect right and then the actual plot reveals itself and then act three there's some big twist beyond that where the episodes become like so jam-packed with story versus this you're like everything in this opening

which does feel like it's kind of its own like isolated sketch short film is still setting up the central conflict of this which is like homer not being thoughtful right yeah yeah and that like it the major shift in his behavior from act one to act two is like lurleen unlocks something in him so all the gags here are just so tied to just homer being kind of thoughtless yeah which is an evergreen great starting point for a simpsons episode and it ramps up marital tension yeah like it works it works for that but i i i'm also glad on the commentary we get to know who did the soda bit that it was suzy dieter who'd go on to be one of like their best directors and the first woman to direct on the simpsons people should listen to

our interview with her she's really good she told us a lot of stuff about the highs and lows of being the first woman to direct on the simpsons uh but the cartooning in it is just so funny like homer homer's face how it's my favorite is how after spitting out all of the the giant pile of crushed ice he pops back into the same facial expression like that's my favorite of it and now i griffin you see a lot of movies obviously in theaters uh my experience recently has been uh people the pandemic has made people a bit feral because they're all like wandering back to theaters but the line between the theater and their living room has blurred so much that there's a lot more uh a lot more conversations are happening than i've noticed in the past huh uh i've maybe sensed that it's it's such a i mean

it really is just a it's a roll of the dice right yes you're beholden to the strangers you're stuck in a room with i do i do feel like there's a little bit of that i i went to see a way of water in imax and i was sat next to a family uh and i was sort of like oh this is cool that like families are going to see Avatar together what you know it's like over the holiday season and I was sitting next to like a teenage girl who like tiktok'd the entire movie you know and she just kept on taking different clips and then posting them and then sending them to her friends and it was sort of like this isn't the behavior of a bored teenager who hates that she was dragged to this movie.

It's that she like doesn't know how to process her enjoying it in any way other than sharing with people in real time. I'm enjoying this. But then I'm like, you're missing every other moment because then you have to like look at your phone to upload and you're locked back in. And then she'd be like, is spider hot? You know, you know, Birdman warned us of this. You know, your generation only cares about getting viral. It was fine. I usually I'm like really on edge when people are on their phones within my like immediate like range of vision because of just like the bright avatar simp I am bought all of the collectible AMC concessions items, which is like a bright glowing plastic cup and glowing popcorn bowl.

So I was emitting so much more light than her on my lap that I was just like, you know what? She can do this. I'm not going to be distracted. It's only fair. That's funny, man. You know, I've heard some chattiness post pandemicpandemic, but yeah, it is a roll of the dice. I feel like the first movie I saw after lockdown, I believe it was Cruella. It was with my mom and stepdad because she showed us 101 Dalmatians when I was a kid,

and we owned a Dalmatian when I was a kid. So like, oh, this will be fun to see. You're building a good case for why you saw Cruella. Yeah. Okay, we'll allow it just this once but but yeah so there was a bit of talking though it did i was feeling a lot like boy everybody is just used to just chatting with each other during a movie i think what you're maybe right about bob is that when i hear people talking at the theater now it doesn't't feel like people yelling back at the screen

or being loud and obnoxious. Or even asking questions like, oh, what do you say? Like what Homer does. Right. It just feels like people just having a normal room tone conversation with no awareness of the fact

that they're in a public space. Like they're just casually talking about whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Though, if I could complain at the one chattiest group i've been in a theater with recently it was we have friends who work for riff tracks i love riff tracks i love it i if i could make one if i worked at riff tracks i could make one change i would have them at the start of any live riff tracks thing that can be viewed in

the theater with bad moments have a sign up that says you are not in riff tracks you aren't funny don't say jokes yourself it's on the screen like because we are surrounded by people at the movies who are like they're in i get it you're in your riff tracks mood you're you're in your early 40s like we are you want to make jokes like mystery science theater but shut up i mean mike nelson has intimidating dad energy i'd listen to him if he lectured me up front. Exactly. Bill Corbett and Kevin, they're the nice dads. He's the bad cop.

Though, you know what? Today, we have much more control over our own ice ratio to soda or drink. Yes, which is nice. I go very light on ice with a sugar-free Powerade usually if I get a drink at the movies. No more sugar. I usually do i either do if it's like a cook freestyle machine a raspberry ginger ale that sounds nice or or i do maybe a lightly flavored seltzer but i like homer it seems like he has this sort of like deeply deeply crushed ice yes yeah which is the good ice i like that type of yeah i usually go for a coke

because i i never drink it anymore and i like just the syrupy movie theater Coke. You can taste like the waxy liner of the cup as well. There's just something about that. There's something about it. It's incredible. Yeah. So then we have a- It tastes even better out of a glowing Avatar cup if you're willing to pay an extra $57 or whatever.

It wasn't that much, but it was bad. Well, hey, if I could show you multiple cups i did pay 57 dollars for at uh at galaxy's edge yes yes i have a couple of those as well yeah that tiki glass uh you know i should drink out of it once i feel like okay but so they also do a quick cut to bard and lisa which actually does feel like a sequel to there is a late era allman short called scary movie where bart and lisa maggie go to a scary movie together but the end joke is that the movie scares bart more than it scares bart and lisa so this also feels like raining taking more from that same same area and one thing i noticed for the first time i've seen this like a million times

this episode is they're reusing old space mutants movie footage yeah it's it's space mutant fives the land down under footage yeah even though they're seeing space mutant six uh at least based on the marquee this is near the end of the space mutants jokes has the video game come out already at this point yes yeah the previous year it was like spring of 91 was barbara's space mut basement okay yeah a very crappy game we've done several podcasts about it so we know it's such a weird one i i'm sorry if you guys have already oh no no many times but to be like the the game the reality of the games is so heightened from the show with the stakes and being like he's now fighting characters from the movie franchise

that exists within the show. And Bart doesn't have enough boss fightable enemies, too. It's like, well, you got Nelson, you got Sideshow Bob. Where do we go from here? And as eight-year-olds, we didn't know it was a They Live parody. No, no. Four years after the movie. That's true. Yeah.

It's just funny that those early games are all so combat-based. Yeah, that's the only way you can interact. It's also they were making it for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle kids crowd, not the comedy nerd crowd. The cool guy Bart sort of fans. Oh, what a bodacious dude. Right. I also like that Bart is like double fisting candy bars too, watching it.

Like he's not just one, but one bite from each. Also when Homer is talking about what did that guy say when I said, who's that guy? That is watching. I just watched the Fablemans at home with my mom mom yes and that was i had i heard comments like that several times from my mom i also like that homer like cracks the twist that he's being like a dumb idiot who can't follow it and then he gets ahead of the movie but just has so little regard for anyone else that he ruins it for the rest of them. And that twist is the twist at the end of the first episode of Darkwing Duck. Yeah, yeah.

Big coincidence. But yes, in our first clip here, Marge and everyone else has enough. I think that guy's a spy. Well, of course he's a spy. You just saw him go through spy school. Oh, wait. I heard how this ends. It turns out the secret code was the same nursery rhyme he told his daughter.

Hey, it's pretty obvious if you think about it. Oh, shut up, Homer. No one wants to hear what you think. It is a really uniting thing in a movie theater where somebody finally tells off somebody else in the theater. And you all just applaud along with it. You're like, yeah. Or when someone gets kicked out of a bar or something. It makes you feel good about humanity just like oh we all

work together on this i had i had one of those going to see everything everywhere all at once uh like opening weekend and people were excited for this movie it was playing really well and it was two women behind me who were doing what we're talking about just like having a conversation talking about anything and everything they want to talk about and they like drop something on the floor and they were both using cell phone flashlights to find it like clanking around and everything and i like turned to them and complained and they did the like you're fine you're doing fine focus on the movie and i was like i can't because you're talking they're like you're gonna be okay honey and there was we were the row in front of them and then the row behind them,

I like made eye contact with the person who had also nudged them and asked them to stop. And then at a certain point, like 30, 40 minutes in, we looked at each other and we like both walked out of our aisles,

tag teamed, and we're like, we're both going to fucking complain now. We're strangers. Right? And we went down to the manager and he was like, and you're both sitting next to her

and we were like, we don't know each other. This is an illustration of how bad the problem is that we have so quickly become friends and at the end of it we like shook hands they kicked him out we felt so satisfied that it won but i think that's such a key to this episode is that like homer's selfless but the thing that gets him to drive so far is like he's so deeply embarrassed by the fact that marge embarrasses him in public and everyone applauds you know that he is so conclusively proven wrong but he but he's just so thoughtless but he has experienced the movie how he experiences the movie right it's

like well he's this is more of the big dumb kid homer not the needlessly cruel everything i do is cruel but her like gripe with him her hitting a boiling point is like echoed by everyone in the theater yeah he just feels like a piece of shit this this is the same season where homer spoils the end of empire strikes back on opening day as well yeah he's he's a bit of a spoiler this season and you know what too the the animation is correct when that soda hits homer's head a more of it hits into marge's hair than it does onto homer it's good it is they they keep that accurate and graining has a funny story that this was inspired by his friend telling off two rude women in a movie too uh which the punchline of it is they the women do move and

then they say are you happy now and graating says his friend replied i won't be happy until i see you burning in hell and then their boyfriends enter the movie theater they said but nothing happened to them at least but they were worried the whole time yeah also it's funny to think when homer is commenting on this sub looking fake in four seasons he will be the captain of a u.s navy sub in the much more direct parody of crimson tide and simpson tide yes yeah that's a good i like that so they talk about a political thriller that's a good one i need to rewatch or crimson tide you're saying not not that simpson side yeah no crimson tide rules yeah it's uh it one of my favorite things is the conversation about who's the best uh silver

surfer artist like that i was like how is this in a movie that's the last time tarantino like does punch up on someone's movie it's like this alternate branching timeline you imagine where he doesn't become an auteur who can do whatever he wants and occasionally people bring him in to just make dialogue more fun yeah it's there's also another great line where a guy says like how did when a character has to ask a stupid question about how something on a sub works for the audience then another guy responds like how did you get on this sub if you don't know this yeah like there's there's some really good stuff of that but they're driving home there's a good joke of bart just drawing on the back of homer's head calling him one unhappy pappy a great squeaky marker sound they love that on this show man i love it too yeah and yes homer tells mars that he he lives with a certain carries

himself with a certain quiet dignity. And she robbed him of it. Such an incredible joke. It's like a perfect Homer joke. That he is this buffoon. Even at this point, he is a big stupid idiot. Everybody knows that. But in his mind.

The pomposity. Because as you say, I like to think. It's framed as, yeah. And he delivers it like we've all felt at one point in our life we're like i've been in this quiet car ride the whole time thinking of the perfect comeback i'm gonna say and now that we've parked the car i'm gonna say it right and yeah it's the thing that you know makes homer still a lovable character is like his greatest offenses like this are usually out of as we're saying a sense of obliviousness like a big dumb idiot kind of thing and it's like his heart's in the right place but

he doesn't know the right thing to say in the right time to say it all of this and i like that it him driving away feels less spiteful than him being like i need to work through some shit like yeah he just doesn't really know what to do with himself and how he feels he wants to be alone not like be have a big argument or whatever yeah yeah i i do i mean uh too much media now is all about like apologizing like apology fantasies like what if this person apologized to me in the entire movies about that but i feel like uh in this case there should be some uh making it up to marge he makes it up to marge by not leaving her, basically. Yeah.

So, like, I don't like how he acts here because, again, in Acts 2 and 3, he's played as, like, a sweet man who doesn't know any better. But this does feel a little bit cruel. But, again, the act break and the commercials that follow will, like, kind of wash that out of your memory if you're watching this in 1992. Right.

I also like Homer thinks he had a good line to go away on and he has to come back to give maggie back yes which i think that's the better button obviously like lisa's saying the the negative stress ball isn't working it's cute but i think homer dropping off maggie is a better yeah i agree yeah uh then we have a series of visual gags that also just feel i i don't know and that the these gags being very visual also feels a little graining of like just a series of smells or also the flaming pee I love. That totally feels like it would have been a series of repeated gags in a Life in Hell

comic too. Yeah, absolutely. And I also like it's such an elegant sort of story explanation while being a funny joke of like, why does he drive this far away? Right? You're right. He wouldn't have maybe gone like multiple towns over if not for the fact that in that state that he's in at that moment the idea of that ribeye steak is the most alluring thing and he will drive as far as he needs to and then

to get to that point where it's like it doesn't exist now what do i do with myself wow yeah you're now making me do the math joke here because later he'll say to mo i was 100 it's 100 miles away yeah and it said flaming pizza 75 miles away so he drives 75 miles to flaming pizza then the remaining miles to spittle county that's so funny yeah that it's you're right he is left with nothing else to do after then also after being bedeviled by smells including open sewers next 40 miles i think is my favorite of the lines yeah also oh no yeah so homer finally arrives at a uh a real honky tonk beer and brawl uh-huh and uh and it i think it's i mean there are honky tonks and cold-minded stutter but i thought it felt more like the the nightmare one in blues brothers is what it felt to me oh

sure sure yeah yeah the way especially with all the violence like nobody gets beaten on stage the steel cage bar yeah yeah and and of course they're all drinking fud because it's the backward south i i also loved hearing on the hearing on the commentary that jeff martin their one like texan writer was like guys come on eventually he just had he was like stomping his foot like come on guys we're not all rednecks like you know you don't have to make all these hillbilly you hear about like spittle county and weevilville and uh yodel and zeke yeah oh the yodel and zeke joke is incredible but have they ever sold fud at universal no i don't think because i know they will do special seasonal limited time duff

variations i would love a fud day you know or a fud month i i didn't know they actually had duff i thought it was just sam adams and like a well it is called a duff you order it but i think it does there's an asterisk i as i recall there's like an asterisk of like well sam adams if you have to know the brand but it's a different varietals and they will do what they do like dufftober fest where there was actually a new special seasonal duff is that just a seasonal Sam Adams maybe yeah but it's a different flavor I wish I wish they would do like a country music month in there and just have like have a lurline cosplayer or whatever that would be fun or even just like if if in conjunction with booking country

music acts to play yeah legitimate country music acts they sell fud especially in universal uh in orlando i feel like they get it even more now by the way talking about dumb dumb idiots who will buy expensive cups you can literally just serve me the same beer but upcharge me for a limited fud mug and i will buy that. We all will. Yes. Well, I mentioned this before on podcast. I want to pitch it to Griffin because, you know, Galaxy's Edge has that cantina, whatever it's called. It's like still have not been. I have gone to Galaxy's Edge twice and the first time was early enough in COVID that

I didn't want to be indoors for that long drinking. And the second time I just couldn't get in. So I'm still dying to go. Well, you probably know the rules and that it's like a reservation. You're in for a certain amount of time. You have to order two drinks i want that but i want that from a mo's experience because the current mo's universal it's like the families are in there kids are in there there's no dank or anything and like i i could actually set a drink on fire if you were admitted

and had to buy it and there were no kids around yeah yeah no it's a good it's a good argument i do like just being in that space but it is like right it's half bar half just additional seating for crustyberg and you can actually play pool instead of it having being a table with like glass over the pool game yeah yeah yeah no i i agree i mean it's like i have a similar thing with uh cheers where if you go to the original bull and finch pub they're like like, in upstairs, we have a replica bar. And they're like, it's a replica bar in the sense that it's like the basic dimensions of the Cheers bar, whereas like Bull and Finch is like a much more crowded, small space and whatever.

I'm like, it looks nothing like it. And I don't need a guy doing a fucking Ted Danson impression, but I want a guy giving me that energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, with uh springfield and universal my theory remains that i feel like if they wanted to do cooler updates now disney wouldn't allow it they'd be like nah that you you're locked in time for what it is we will not allow you to get any better because we're waiting i do love it though like i'm despite living in new york i'm an annual

pass holder for universal because the universal annual pass costs like 20% more than a one-day pass. So basically, it's like I usually go to LA at least twice a year. And I like that for that price, basically, I can feel like I can go to Universal for like an hour and just get a Krassi burger or a Cletus chicken sandwich and walk around Springfield for a little bit. And I feel like that was worth my time. Totally. I do like it environmentally. Yeah. And I do wish they sold fun.

But I think you're right, Henry. If Disney had control of that Simpsons land from the beginning, and we know why they didn't. But if they did, I'm sure there would be no alcohol there. Because we're getting cigarettes removed from Krusty the Clown toys and things like that. Don't even get me started. Furious. we're getting like cigarettes removed from Krusty the Clown toys and things like that so yes furious no yeah that they well and also they yeah they wouldn't serve if they put it in DCA they could serve alcohol at least like I and there is large swaths of Disney California Adventure that you could shove Springfield into but I love how duff forward it is i like that you have duff beer gardens and you have the seven duff like statues and and even in orlando there's a similar thing statues why did

i say it like that maybe and hey you know if it does move to disneyland in like five years by then maybe they can finally figure something out with harry shearer and pay him to allow his characters to actually appear uh in an eclipse of it but i do wonder if they just when it's up or whatever say like we're gonna make you pay a lot more money and you are allowed to expand this and do more and they allow that to be the one thing outside of their control because it feels like when it's already a liked thing it would be weird for them to take it back do it their own way and not be able to probably devote as much to it as universal can because they have so many more competing franchises you know yeah the rumors i i read well i like one of those oh this is what

inside the magic says type deals but it's it's like oh it's a 20-year contract so 2029 or eight i think is when it might run out but we i guess we'll wait and see there yeah yeah the the simpsons do have a presence at d23 they've they've been bulking it up over time yes yes and and disney plus and you know oh yeah i mean it's every month i feel like i read a new news story that just repeats the same thing of like, this one service says that Simpsons is the most watched thing on Disney Plus. After Homer says, FUD me, which that's a fun line, we first get introduced to Yodelin Zeke just for him to be horribly beaten on stage. And if you follow Yodelin Zeke, he makes it to Yeehaw. So Homer could have hitched his wagon to Yodelin Zeke.

There'd be no infidelity issues there. That's my favorite joke in the episode is starring in alphabetical order, yodeling Zeke, opening with yodeling Zeke. And he still is bandaged up from this horrible injury that happens to him here. And so Lurleen takes the stage. We learned the drink service is going to briefly stop, which people get so bad they throw things on stage on stage including a live pig that is very well animated of it landing and then running off of the stage oh god like i know every millisecond of this bit because of the uh songs in the key of springfield cd oh sure starting with our next acts are singing late waitress lurleen and i just i've heard that so many times in the context of the cd and the show but the cd is what really

familiarized me with that song. Yeah, and so Lurleen takes the stage in a song I'll just drop in later in the edit right here. All right, all right, ladies and gentlemen, he's all healed up and he's back for more. Let's give a big, drunken welcome to Yodlin' Zeke. Yodlin' Zeke. Yodlin' Zeke. Yodlin' Zeke.

Yodlin' Zeke. Yodlin' Zeke. Yodel-ay-hee, yodel-ay-hee, yodel-ay-hee. Our next act is our very own singing waitress, Lurley. So I'm afraid drink service will stop for just a few moments while... They're all yours. Stupid Marge, tell me to shut up. Thank you. Tonight I'd like to try something a little different. It's a song I wrote while I was

mopping up your dry blood and teeth. You work all day for some old man Sweat and break your back Yeah. Then you go home to your castle But your queen won't cut your slack That's true That's why you're losing all your hair

That's why you're overweight Uh-huh That's why you flip your pickup truck Right off the interstate That's right Except for the pickup truck There's a lot of bull to hand you. There's nothing you can do. Your wife don't understand you, but I do. No, your wife don't understand you, but I do. I said no one understands you, but i do i said no one understands you but i do

hey hey lorraine i gotta say something to you i listening. Your song touched me in a way I've never felt before. In which way did it can? And yeah, her song is very sweet, and it is filmed like the stereotypical biopic, like discovering somebody scene. This is one of those things where watching this as a kid, I did not understand there was any comedy in this song. I did not interpret it as satirical at all because it is so earnestly sung.

And it's a kind of a nice song that I was just like any joke in this I'm going to take at face value. Yeah. If you watch the journey the songs are taking, she starts off pretty on the nose. But by the end, she's saying the words Homerer and marge in her lyrics right yeah it's uh which is great because in yeah and coal miner's daughter they have a joke like that where she sings a song about her husband's infidelity and she's writing it in front of him and he's like who's this song about and then she like kicks his foot like like you don't know yeah yeah which lorleen is uh yeah her design is really great like it is with her big hair and her big eyes and shapely figure she's

they tried to make the sexiest woman you could in a simpsons graining style yes yes but yeah this seemed like when i just watched elvis uh on hbo max and which i wish i'd seen in the theater just to like share in the ridiculousness of his colonel parker is so crazy i think it's kind of incredible i i i i i am it came back around at the start of the movie was like what what the hell but by the end of it i kind of always like we we are the same i i just i think my my defense of that performance is a he's in a basler man movie right you have to compete with everything going on around you right yeah but b also it's like a literal performance of that guy does not capture the weirdness of him when you watch interviews with the guy he's kind of boring right so you cannot do a straight impression that will actually capture the energy of like what the fuck is up with this guy and you

need him to sort of feel like an alien in order to have this sort of like reveal at the end of like who is he what is his entire thing made up it's i did not expect i did not know the whole movie was framed around him when i went into which is a fun it's like death dream i mean there's a million elvis movies to this point like there's been so many elvis biopics so i can see why baz luhrmann on top of just his decision was like well this is it on super speed like just as fast as it can be yeah yeah which and also as a comic nerd I liked that they I felt like I'd never seen an Elvis biopic that made so clear yeah he was a nerd for Captain Marvel comics like that's why he dresses that way oh I didn't know

this yes yeah he Captain Marvel Jr. yeah the bolt, the hair curl, the capes, all of that. The cape, I never thought about the cape. Beverly D'Angelo, though, I think best known to most of us as the mom from the National Lampoon vacation movies. She was cast in this because she plays Patsy Cline in Coal Miner's Daughter. I say this in the most flattering way possible. The way she plays Patsy Cline is the way Amy Poehler would have done it, I think. It's like a very comic kind of manic character it's funny that this is like a more nuanced performance yeah yes yeah actually her friendship with uh with loretta lynn in the movie it does

feel like a tina fey amy now you mentioned it yes amy poehler maybe that's the dynamic i was thinking of yeah but yeah beverly d'angelo also wrote two of the songs in this episode. She brought Your Wife Don't Understand You and Bag Me a Homer to the table read. I didn't know if they asked her, but those are hers. Yeah, I must have known that at some point once again from reading the liner notes of songs in the Key of

Springfield over and over again, but I forgot that completely. And those are the two that are on the album. Bunk With Me Tonight I think is the most beautiful song. Matt Garening lyrics to that i think alf clausen just did the music and presumably jeff martin did write the last song because he was the guy writing all the songs at the time that i think is unique about this era and the best simpsons guest performances is you have actors who aren't obvious voiceover actors giving performances that don't feel heightened at all for animation this is such a quiet performance sometimes literally there's such a sensitivity

to it and i feel the same way with mr bergstrom uh what's the other one i was uh thinking about oh meryl streep as the lovejoy daughter meryl streep is really good at acting in that way yeah but you're like those are like full characters, kind of behavioral, quiet, conversational performances, which is hard to do in voiceover because you're rarely actually talking to someone else. And your instinct is to put too much spin on every single line because you're isolating lines. You're not getting in a flow of conversation. Yeah, Yeah. No, this, you know,

this was coming at the time right around when the Batman series, the Batman series will start six months after this, but it's similar feel of like hire a character actor. Like don't do a cartoon voice for a cartoon voice. But yeah, this is so different from Simpsons. Even like eight years later of just like, I am celebrity. Wow.

Celebrity. And then the celebrity does their shtick. Even, you know okay it's not literally rodney but it's the whole bit is that we know it's rodney he's doing rodney yeah yeah you're supposed to be like at least at least in those cases uh with on bill and josh's era i love that they just wanted to cast old men who were not commercially popular it was not the lady gaga's time. They're just like, we want Jack Lemon to just do Jack Lemon from Gary Glenn Ross. We love Mike Scully,

and he's been very nice to us, but he cast Mel Gibson in his episode, and meanwhile, Bill and Josh, they put Lawrence Tierney in one of their episodes. There's a big difference there. But who was the more hateful person, I wonder? Lawrence Tierney or Mel Gibson? Tierney might have been angrier. Sure. there yes uh but who was the more hateful person i wonder where's tyranny or mel gibson i've been angrier sure yeah well you know a guy at his age i feel like if you asked him about the jews he

might have a similar statement unfortunately unfortunately yeah i like her song also mentions all these things homer identifies with he's like that's right except the pickup truck yeah uh but also yeah i learned for the first time that Beverly D'Angelo, her life is crazy. At 17, worked in the ink and paint department for Hanna-Barbera. She was a singer before being an actress. She was not somebody who wanted to be a movie star. She was married to Al Pacino for many years, which is a very odd couple. I forgot about that.

She started as a backup singer for the band that would eventually become The Band. married to al pacino for many years which is a very odd couple i forgot about that and she started as uh like a backup singer for the band that would eventually become the band so wow she was a musician too and as was sissy spacek before she became an actress yeah i also read i didn't dig farther into this i read some headline about her that said too that she was like in an open marriage with a duke and i was like wait what currently or at some point i think this was in the past okay this was listed next to her like had kids with al pacino no not the i don't think it's the kids who are the gamer kids that made al pacino do the game awards this year that was did you see this maybe them okay no i know i heard about it i did not see it he was uh quite lost I'd say. It was funny to hear him on stage say, like, I can't see the notes there, but games are nice. Yeah.

The D'Angelo kids are not terribly old, I think. Well, I know Pacino has a lot of, like, teen kids, which is like he's, I mean, that's a movie right there. 80-year-old Pacino taking care of teenagers yeah but but yeah so Homer is deeply touched by this song nobody else gives a shit she doesn't even get like applause afterwards and she goes back to it she's this diamond in the rough that needs somebody to tell her I guess this is like coal miner's daughter in that they do frame it like Loretta Lynn wouldn't have gone on stage if her manager husband didn't physically push her on the stage sometimes. Though, boy, our relationship, you know, this is not an endorsement of that relationship in the movie. The movie pulled no punches.

I don't think the movie's endorsing it, right? I guess not. Depiction is endorsement. Oh, yeah, that's right. Every single time time anything that happens in a movie the filmmakers think is good and they like yeah they all love it i love you made that great point about in clockwork orange your podcast about that that if you like clockwork orange you of course agree with everything in it and you want to do those things the movie should

start with retweets and unequal endorsement every movie every movie just to make that clear but yes homer has this revelatory thing which you're even supposed to i think for a second think his revelation is your wife don't understand you but i do and he's like i'm in love with this woman i'm sick of my wife but that that's not his revelation no it's just that he thinks she has a beautiful voice that the world should hear yeah yeah but it also is like as we've said it calms him down it makes him more sensitive and thoughtful for the rest of the episode not to be corny but it's this kind of like beautiful statement on art where like homer's this gloom who like cannot express himself right it's like stepping in it and this song cuts through to him and speaks to him in a way that he can't quite crystallize and the only thing he knows how to do

is like other people need to hear this. I need to help her. But it does change his whole demeanor. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you.

Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care?

It does unlock a thing for Homer. I like how he explains it to her. I've got another little clip here of Homer trying to explain to Lurleen. So what's your name, stranger? Homer J. Simpson. My name's Lurleen Lumpkin.

That's a pretty name. Oh, you think so? Maybe. I'm not sure. I forgot it. Bye, Lurleen. So long, Homer J. Sampson. Hello. Where were you all night? I was just up at this bar in Spittle County.

You should have called. I was very worried. Marge, let's end this feuding and the fussing and get down to some loving. Marge is already suspicious there with that. But yeah, I also like that the cut between acts is Homer stayed up with her like all night. Perhaps to responsibly not to drive home drunk. Sure. Yeah.

Which is a level of responsibility that fits for season three. Homer less so seasons 13. Homer. Yeah. But yeah, that he'd it's just really cute. Like he stayed with her all night talking about things, though. Again, if I was Marge and like, oh, you stayed up all night talking with a waitress at a bar? Okay.

But also, to your point, Bob, he never properly apologizes to her. But he comes back and is immediately like, I have no interest in fighting with you. You know, his tone is so different. Even if he then jumps to the love and shit. They start him off in Act 2 with just being very childish. Like, the line readings are just very, very childish. And, like, it could be that Homer doesn't know he's kind of having an emotional affair with this woman. And I think that's what they're trying to play at.

And I wish at the end he wasn't, like, regretful about not having sex with her. That little moment feels like they wanted to cut the sweetness a bit. But it's like like i didn't i didn't ever want homer to be interested in her like that you know and the mindy simmons episode happens season five yeah yeah which i mean it's like that episode's a better exploration of that uh what if homer actually did want to have sex with the woman instead all the entire time right whereas like this i i think it's so much nicer as an emotional affair and the thing that he almost can't put his finger on for most of it that isn't just driven by attraction well it's interesting too in the mindy one that it's done entirely unbeknownst to marge like marge is very active in this one and she's like no no i can see you're gonna leave me don't leave me but in that the only joke is that marge is like disgusting and sick when he's trying to love her like that

that's all the joke is with her yeah but also you saying you know the homer's lines his line readings are very childish like it's starting at this point there is just like an innocence to lurleen she is so earnest you know she's so kind of delicate and like damaged by the world that i think he just like calms down almost in her presence which is so much of it you know the opening part of this episode is manic and it's joke dense and it's cut between the movies and all this sort of stuff and he just likes that she like changes the temperature yeah they don't play they could dig into it even more but this is also about like it could be of homer is sick of his life like he's

sick of being a dad he's sick of going to the movies on weekends and crawling out of car windows right he he just want and like he's sick of being on the simpsons he's sick of how simpsons episodes run boy yeah is this is that what mac reigning's saying here too and i don't know if we covered it He's sick of being on The Simpsons. He's sick of how Simpsons episodes run. Boy, yeah. Is that what Matt Groening's saying here, too? Yeah. And I don't know if we covered it. I forget if we mentioned it, but this is like the one man who has not sexually harassed her. Because when he comes up to her and says, I need to tell you something, she's like, okay, go ahead.

And it's not like, I want to fuck you or whatever. It's like something very sweet. What thing do you need to say to me? Yeah, like all right this is the same and i mean yeah it takes her even like four more times meeting him before she even says like okay seriously you're not going i was sure you were going to proposition me at some point in this like yeah you have to want something else but yeah homer just loves it so much i as he said the scenes of him singing the song, I love the little like him moving things up and down while he's singing it. It's so great. On the DVD, you can see the original layout sketches of it.

It's one of the rare ones, which makes me think David Silverman did it because usually he's the guy supplying them with the art for that stuff. I think he's the only guy who bothered to share and scan that art back in like 2001 to give to the dvd manufacturers i think homer maybe killed someone with this with that that man who got his gallbladder removed yeah he might be dead lenny carl meanwhile they have now reached level of bowling buddy with homer they're you know lenny is a good singer he's i like his little soft singing of there's a kind of hush all over the world tonight another one of my funniest moments for the episode yeah he's just so like oh really and he's kind of whispering it of just like doesn't want to hear other people say yeah well if i know you henry i think you're more familiar

with the carpenter's version of this correct i do love the carpenter's version but i will say herman's hermits i did i have actually heard that song live sung by them oh in in the early 90s right around when this episode aired i was living in atlanta and i became a junkie as a 10 year old of the oldies station i listened to it all the time other adults then could not believe i knew lyrics to all of these songs yeah and uh at the atlanta braves baseball stadiums they basically had like hey you know all those pippy here in the oldies they're all going on tour like Chubby Checker, the Paul Revere band, whatever, and Herman's Hermits. And they did sing this song. I really only remember Chubby Checker, though, I have to say, because he was a bundle energy even then.

I can't believe there are three recovering precocious children on one podcast. I know, right? How does that happen? No, I, yeah, it was, I look back and it's weird. I also think of like, Hermann's Hermits then in 1992 are probably younger than they might be Giants are now, who I would see now on stage. That stuff is always so upsetting. There was that graphic that was going around of the ages of the cheers cast yes yeah that all or or if you go to see the new postal service tour like to celebrate 20 years since the first album it's like holy shit 20 years oh no i mean even coal

miner's daughter the premise is what did happen 20 years ago and then you think like this is like them telling the story about like fred durst or something right these days right yes uh man but yeah the uh homer also he's you know i don't know if it's an intentional reference because the ball would need to be blue but it is a ball with his name on it just like the infidelity ball that marge had with jacque as well interesting yeah uh but uh mo is more jealous than marge even when he learns that homer went and drank fud i like he says i thought they took that off the market after all those hillbillies went blind it's a more sensitive mo because he's just like oh homer oh candy can't take it so homer head back to spittle county i didn't watch the movie

deliverance until my teens because i was like every cartoon i watch has a deliverance reference i needed to know what these are so i finally watched it in my teens this is one of the more tactful deliverance references because even tiny tunes would have like squeal like a pig jokes yeah yeah which it's i mean those jokes too were just how you could. We said this about a lot of movies like Rain Man. The Crying Game. The Crying Game. Making a movie reference were really just how you could make very off-color jokes you couldn't just make without the movie reference. Sure.

You could use a movie as euphemism for the thing that happens in the movie that you can't actually put on broadcast television. Yeah. I mean. A lot of puts the lotion on its skin right yeah i mean post crying game so many transphobic jokes got to be on tv just because they're like well no it's the crying game yeah you could just that was the other thing you could just say the crying game yeah it was a real crying game situation just how i felt like i i'm remembering on a cruise uh my family went out We saw a stand up and he said What counted as a joke was he says

Oh is that hair gel or is this something about Mary Situation I was like that's not You just said the title that's not a joke That's not a joke also one of those situations The whole point of that movie is no one ever Puts cum in their hair like that It's not one of those But I guess it would have been

He on this cruise it was a PG-13 set. He could just say, oh, is that jizz in your hair? Right. Which, you know, at least he'd be more direct. Which also, by the way, would not be a funny joke. If some comedian was just doing crowd work and meant like, hey, you there in the front row, you got jizz in your hair? You'd be like, what the fuck is that based in? Some modern day Don Rickles.

So Homer heads to Laureline's cute pink trailer. And this is when he finally pitches to her really why he cares. Well, if it isn't Homer J. Simpson. Lurleen, I can't get your song out of my mind. I haven't felt this way since Funkytown. Oh, aren't you sweet? Do you think I could get a copy of it? Sorry, darling.

All my songs are up here. I'm basting a turkey with my tears. Don't look up my dress unless you mean it. I'm sick of your lying lips and false teeth. Earlene, we've got to crack open your head and scoop out those songs. I don't know. Come with me. Oh.

She seems scared that Homer literally means to scoop the songs out of her head. But this also was reminding me of elvis like this moment of like we got to get that like let's record this you're you're a big star now yeah we're gonna do this but to make it modern for 92 they instead of doing a make your own record it's a make your own cd for for 25 cents where i just love how it just chunks out just it's your quarter yeah uh henry did you ever i mean question extend to bob as well but we're in henry's apartment so it feels more relevant to ask this did you ever at any point own the playmates lurleen lumpkin set no i i did not because it was this it was the trailer oh

that's great oh really okay they did it was their run of like doing the celebrity voices as two packs where it was like a mini play set so it's lurleen in like guitar playing pose with colonel homer in the full outfit in the trailer and i was such a big not a complete but i had most of that line at the time and then unfortunately sold off or gave away most of it and now have been not trying to piece it back together but selectively rebuy certain things that was one of the sets i skipped on at the time where i was like that one's boring i don't need that and watching this episode i was like fuck i'm gonna go on ebay and buy that lurleen set i want to have a desk lurleen that can i believe it plays the songs as well yeah not just isolated lines i think it has like longer

sound clips oh that's cool i didn't know she came with her own i mean that's that's barbie playset level of like it's like a whole little contained yeah no i i've seen the ones of you know the one i've been most tempted on and i probably will buy eventually is the bill and marty set because like you know me and bob are a bill and marty type yeah he's at our microphone i will say from my memory that was the worst selling set ever. It was at the moment where that line was so successful that they were like, literally anything we make can sell. And then they just did two guys in a radio station. Don't even see that often. More often, they're only heard.

And it's like a boring environment. Two guys who look kind of boring. There was no like Homer included. Yeah. Well, we're slightly older than griffin and these toys came out when henry and i were too old to have toys bought for us but also uh too young to be making any real money so it was like the era of five dollar minimum wage so it's like i could buy one simpsons toy for every hour i work but i also need to like eat

and pay rent and stuff so i was i was in a store where we sold them and it was heartbreaking yes the age difference for me was that this was like peak allowance age where it's like i have nothing i need to pay for yes other than simpsons toys i mean my meals are given to me i i did have the full mattel action figure oh sure the early 90s i didn't have that as a kid even the couch and the tv but yeah no i didn't i didn't have it later i would, even the couch and the TV. But yeah, no, I didn't have it later. I would go. Also, too, though, this was when I became a bit of an anime lover. And so if I went to Suncoast Video with $25 in my pocket, I could either buy a Simpsons

set or one VHS of two episodes of the Ranma 1 half anime. And I went to the Ranma 1 half anime. That's what I would do. But Homer gets a song, and it's just like in the biopics instantly discover like hey i have a friend at a radio station i'm gonna play it like in in coal miner's daughter they harass the radio guy to play it live like it's it's uh it's more direct than uh than just the luck of somebody coming upon it and i think that this kind of scene is like a specialty of lg because i've seen it three times now where there is a song playing on the radio that kind of changes everyone's behavior.

It happens here. It happens in around Springfield with Blenheim's Murphy. And it happens in the Billie Eilish short as well. It was so crazy. It was in the Eilish short, too. Yeah. You identify like, oh, it's kind of just a sequel to these all this song stuff. The Mo gag is so good.

Yeah. That he only says it for that uh just to know nobody that he's not gonna have to fulfill it and especially not to barney yeah i also love mel is just getting his just the shit slapped out of him by crusty here yeah because he's dating his sister and there are rumors there are like uh there's um there's some things online about how mel is actually married to crusty's sister when we see his wife barbara she's uh this this green-haired sure woman that could be a coincidence but maybe someone was paying attention because crusty signs off on the relationship after the lurlean song there's no conflict anymore tells her to take him to the

take her to the copa yeah that's a great crusty is a famous guy from 1955 who is there frozen in that era of fame yeah yeah we said it in the realty bites episode but look that one up when mel is bowling uh with barbara in a house that marge is showing somebody cared enough to give barbara the exact hair color of crusty i like that somebody cared uh also in the jail i love they mentioned that it was george meyer who said pitch the line it's payback time we're beating the shit out of these guys i will say if you look screen right when there's the joke that all the characters like it even softens the inmates and they start hugging guys screen right one of the inmates hugs a guy uh and they fall they lower off screen and i feel like there's a little more than platonic love going on i feel like it is it is narrowly close to the

prison rape gags i was so funny back another example of you can say drop the soap and it is loud on any platform for any audience age and it's just it's that thing norm mcdonald used to say of like he would watch like two and a half men with his mom and they would make some joke of like oh she let me in the back door entrance and his mom would laugh and he'd go mom that's a butt fucking joke and she'd go like norm watch your language and he's like but why is she okay laughing at it if it's euphemistic in the same way where you're like the amount of things that like stalk in like violent rape jokes by being like soap yeah look over that yeah it's uh oh yeah

henry it's here it's in this scene and i can't believe i missed it no this was the first watching it very closely i was like wait that guy is making the unnamed uh inmate is making bedroom eyes yes right there griffin if you can see that wow yeah it's uh i i never noticed it before so they and i he looks very worried yeah i also think that like that might be one of those um stick it to matt grating bits because matt grating did not like jokes like that and try to not have them in the show but it was the style at the time unfortunately yeah it's uh i mean again coal miner's daughter would not be made the way today the way it was made either everybody loves it even lisa loves it i i like it's very natural that lisa loves this because

she feels connected to homer like, you actually appreciate music now. I didn't know you had this in you dad. Yeah. And also it's like, there's an emotional intelligence, you know, like country music is all about like the, the emotionality and the interiority of,

of the feelings being expressed. It's not like he's just into like a disco doc, you know, or funky town right yeah steve miller that song is oh yeah ghostbusters theme that's another one he likes right yeah technically starland vocal band but he then turned on that okay uh but yeah no actually that funky town line i was like oh right yeah it's funky town is one of the most repetitive like garbage songs ever just like won't you take me to funky town over and over again it's like a robot man asking to go to funky town too have you guys ever seen

dan klein's funky town bit no great great comedian and comedy writer dan klein has a bit i it's he's performing a bunch of places different forms but i think the one you can find most easily on youtube is when he was working at college humor he. He did it for the staff of College Humor. And it is him doing a one-man funky town where he plays every different instrumentalist or vocalist as a different character. And it makes you realize for how repetitive that song is, how overcomplicated it is, and the amount of different sounds it has going on. I'm looking this up. It's very good. Of course, part doesn't like

it he prefers shock djs which is funny that he i like that he puts it as shock djs not shock disc jockeys or shock jocks yeah shock djs which yeah i mean uh stern was the big deal this time me and bob were not aware of stern until uh well actually you knew about it before i knew it because of the e-show like in the late 90s i have a truck driving uncle I guess he used to drive trucks and he was way into Stern and because of that I know a lot about the the 90s era of Howard Stern but I never say on air my dad was a big Stern guy but he would try to not play it while we were in the car but sometimes if my mom wasn't there, it'd slip a little. He'd slip a little in

and we'd play it until the moment where he asked David Duchovny about his penis and then he'd quickly change the track. He'd try to see if there was an uninterrupted 15-minute break where Stern wouldn't say anything untoward and that rarely happened. I think I read Private Parts when I was 11.

Oh, wow. Maybe 10 because it came out in 92. And then I saw that movie with my uncle and it was slightly awkward if he had the company started on his dick he's not stopping I just remember that so distinctly hearing so David the company you got a big dick

and my dad just rushing for the nom I forgot there was that entire series Californication just about how good he is at fucking but he's also like I'm just so good at it it sucks poor me this rich guy i and also during like season three of that show uh he and taylor only uh get divorced because of his sex addiction and you're like right so you're doing the show yeah still doing it

really it's the whole i was rehearsing a play excuse right yeah it's like i i had similar feelings of that like will arnett was doing bojack horseman and then during that he got divorced i was like okay yeah and did flaked yes oh flaked even more so yes flaked is literally about him like falling off the wagon right yeah yes but but anyway marge is getting suspicious about this like she's she's like oh it's nice but uh homer just says no it's to get her to be a big star like that jerk in the cowboy hat and that dead lady which that's a funny thing to call patsy cline that dead lady yes yeah she's wonderful i could feel her sweet country soul in every digitally encoded bit country music sucks all it does is take precious airspace away from shocked DJs whose cruelty and profanity amuse us all.

Shut up, boy. Marge, what do you think? Well, it's nice, but who is this woman? Well, right now she's an out-of-work cocktail waitress, but she's going to be a country music superstar like, uh, that jerk in the cowboy hat and that dead lady. I don't like you hanging around some cocktail waitress mars you make it sound so seamy all i did was spend the afternoon in her trailer watching her try on some outfits well hi lurline we were just talking about you uh i think i can come over let me ask my wife it's a date yes when homer says again he's stupid and innocent right but when he says watching her try on some outfits like a not stupid person would know why it would hurt your wife

right here right yes and what he's doing is innocent but he it's the absolute worst way he could phrase it it's a date yes right yeah it's not reading the room like oh we were just talking about you when lorlene calls uh so yes homer approaches uh it goes back to a tornado has hit in between those days and yes lorlene is trying to ask homer to take some credit for it and even he's going like don't thank me lorlene you should be thanking your brain like even then he's like nope i don't want any credit it's all it's all he's the anti-colonel tom though also yeah the the writers sure love making up all those names the triplets bonnie may yeah which those are the names of like every time loretta lynn says her kids names in the movie too i was like oh yeah that is just the names it's ellie may

billy jack but not billy jack that's a that's a failed movie star yeah successful for a while oh that's true yes yeah yeah but it was he went too far going to washington yes that one one step too far yeah i i also love that she says you know asking for something in return and homer says well now he's gonna ask for a glass of water but i feel good kind of guilty about it uh and uh it was mike reese who pitched the sack of sugar joke which apparently the censors grumbled at and then listeners i plugged it in in the break you heard the commercial it's right there front and center in the commercial it's uh yeah but uh also i noticed here like oh yeah her pupils are so big like and the color brown briefly in the episode for the close-up, I guess.

Yeah. And as Homer is listing the reasons, I have a quick clip here. This was hidden on the DVD tracks. Dan and Beverly D'Angelo actually improvised a lot more of excuses. I mean, they actually put it on the DVD. I want you to be my manager. Really? Well, I should warn you, I'm not great with figures.

Oh, that's okay. Or people. Well, that doesn't matter really. I make a lot of stupid decisions. Well, nobody's perfect. I have no experience and I'm a slow learner. Well, that never stopped anyway. I'm not organized.

Well, I didn't think that's important. I don't know anything about the music business. But neither do I. I did bad in school. I didn't even go. A lot of people didn't like me everybody loved me especially the football team they were pointing out that uh most of the guest stars even then didn't really hang around but she

was there for a whole day she was like collaborating with them and also all of the male writers were following her around you feel the difference yeah in this performance yeah no the the male writers were uh very happy to have her around i think they i think they joked that the only person they hung around wanted to follow around more was adam west i think he was the biggest hit on the set that day uh but yeah they even goof on him getting in the colonel tom parker outfit when they say it's like it's made from a thing where uh vented for elvis that sweat actually cleans it yeah that's pretty great that movie is nuts i i really like that i really like it too yeah i think it's real good but then again unlike uh bob i i actually did like moulin rouge even though i know it's stupid and dumb and

loud i loved moulin rouge at the time i haven't re-watched in a while i it's not like i think my opinion would change but it's a movie i'd be curious to see again i saw for the first time when i was like 39 so okay that might be rough it's the wrong time to watch it i think yeah yeah yeah i again watching the movie too that there's the bit where elvis shoves the mic into his mouth i kind of like literally like sucks it and at first people thought like well that's a silly thing for baz lurman to put in the movie it's like no it elvis really did that they're just taking a thing. He really did. Man, I took my little cousin to see something,

Doctor Strange, I think. And he played the trailer for Elvis before. And my cousin's like six, right? And he was like, God, that looks so much fun. I want to see Elvis. Elvis is so cool. And he was like asking me about it. And I was like, well, the real Elvis.

And he was like, what do you mean the real Elvis? And for him, he saw the trailer and he was like well the real elvis and he was like what do you mean the real elvis and for him he saw the trailer and he was like they're introducing a new superhero like it was he understood the pump and circumstance of the trailer but he was like this must be a new franchise the notion that elvis was real blew his mind and then i was like yeah i guess if you are looking at a trailer like that and you're like you you don't jump to there was a real guy who dressed like this talked like this like everything about elvis is so over the top yeah i mean it's easier to accept like he's adapted from a comic book yeah and now he's being played in live action for the first time i think it's been

20 years since we had regular elvis references on tv and movies because this was like the heyday of that with this we just had a graceland joke in homer at the bat yeah and uh then there's like a honeymoon in vegas with the flying elvis's and all the elvis sightings that were happening things like that but it's all that i'm just like even if he's seeing elvis references on tv does he think of elvis as an archetype like robin hood or something right is he a mythical figure that now there's a new movie of it's just like oh it's a new zoro movie it's right well this movie this is one of those pop heroes yeah will will rob schneider return as tiny elvis oh we need that we need that comeback boslerman it wants to continue the elvis saga but smaller i also like the marge you know when she confronts homer about it she's she's trying to be like she's covering her eyes like i don't

want to look at you and i was like oh actually maybe you shouldn't look at me yeah because i am now i've now gone all in on this country music thing yeah marge look at me i don't want to i'm mad at you i'm sick of that waitress and all the time you've been spending with her and this whole country music thing. Uh, then maybe you better not look at me. Ah! Homer! Where did you get that suit? A friend bought it for me. Was it Lurleen? No.

I think it was Lenny. Don't lie to me. Are you having an affair with this woman? No! Have you kissed her? No! Has she kissed you? A couple of times.

I want you to stop seeing her. I can't. I'm her manager. Her manager? That's ridiculous. I won't allow you to spend any her. I can't. I'm her manager. Her manager? That's ridiculous. I won't allow you to spend any more time away from your family. Marge, you're standing in the way of my boyhood dream of managing a beautiful country singer. Your boyhood dream was to eat the world's biggest hoagie,

and you did it at the county fair last year, remember? Marge, Laureline's gonna be a big success, and whether you like it or not, I'm going to be there. Fine. See if i care i love the exchange of like did do you kiss her no did she kiss you a couple times it's like well i can't stop her from kissing me like also i feel like homer has a freudian slip there where he's like it's been my dream to manage a beautiful country music singer like he says beautiful in there i missed that he's letting some out but uh mar he then says it's a boyhood dream so to really deconstruct this rudder this

is the first time they've done the your boyhood dream was blank and they show a silly picture because in marge versus the monorail he'll say monorail conductor was boyhood dream was blank, and they show a silly picture. Because in Mars vs. the Monorail, he'll say, Monorail conductor was boyhood dream. She's like, no, it was running out to the baseball field, and you did it last year. Then season five, he'll say you wanted to be a blackjack dealer. She'll say you wanted to be on the gong show. So this is the first one of that, though.

In Principal Charming, they do have basically the same joke of Homer saying, what, don't you remember we did that? The car was shaped like a bowling pin like they so it's the maturation of that running yes and it's much funnier to say your boyhood dream was this and then just show a crazy picture of homer doing something i think this is the funniest one too yeah a gigantic the world's biggest hoagie yeah which uh i bet comes from the same place as him eating in uh selma's choice where he's constantly eating the sandwich he will not put down and it makes him sicker and sicker which we've all been there haven't we oh yes yeah so so yes homer uh they head over to the springfield versions of Memphis's Sun Records. And these Buddy Holly jokes, I

actually knew as a kid because we won free tickets from that same radio station, Oldies radio station, to see Buddy, the Buddy Holly story musical in Atlanta, which is just, it is also one of those biopics of just him saying like, basically he has a song about like, boy, I've got all these great plans. Oh man, what big plans I've got right at the end of it. Before they say like, he has a song about like boy i've got all these great plans oh man what big plans i've got right at the end of it before they say like well time for my airplane yeah yeah and i i think the animators are very tasteful about drawing this attractive woman but when they're at this record studio and lurleen approaches uh you know walks away from the camera they've never drawn her from behind before and they're really enjoying it here she has like like betty boop proportions like absurd jessica rabbit would fall over

yes and when she walks into frame it is framed on her butt first like it is it's hips swinging hips first i mean this is the most upfront she is of like i am trying to steal your husband like she sure she comes in extremely flirty and to obviously his wife says like and you are like and and also during the song when she says i've fallen in love she is looking at homer in the eyes saying i've struck out a love that is true like eye contact and marge is seeing that but homer can't see it but i like that you know they let these songs play out at a good length and you have just kind of nice pleasant visual gags of bart blowing on the window and maggie spinning on the record and then the marge teeth

grinding which is great and lisa gets to actually like join in and have a saxophone solo yeah nice uh actually here i'll plug in this song right here. Well, come on, boys. Let's break some hearts. Oh, the bases were empty on the diamond of my heart When the coach called me up to the plate I'd been swinging and missing and loving and kissing My average was.008

So I spit on my hands, knock the dirt from my spikes and missing and loving and kissing. My average was.008. So I spit on my hands, knock the dirt from my spikes, and pointed right towards center field. This time I'm hitting a home run. This time love is for real. Hey, Dad, can I do a hand-bomb solo? Stop it!

I've been slumping all season, but now I found a reason. Stop it! that's right i finally bagged me a homer we're gonna have to cut you off we're getting some kind of grinding noise on the track again i'm used to the album version uh so the bart interruptions i feel wrong to me i forget they're here it's like oh right bart asks if he can hand bone and he blows on the glass. Yeah. I also like that Mike Reese admits on the commentary, like, we sped this up too much to fit time constraints. We were worried the song was too long.

And so I also, in Mike Reese's book, he makes a point of saying musical episodes came to be one of his favorites because if you commit to a song being in an episode, then that's like four pages you don't rewrite. Yeah. Yeah. It saves a whole lot of time in the rewrite room. There's three songs in this act alone. Yeah.

It's like backloaded with all the songs. And then, like you said, Bob, this is written by Beverly D'Angelo. And we watched her performance in 2014 at Simpsons Take the Bowl at the Hollywood Bowl. Oh, wow. Beverly D'Angelo came in on stage, was even dressed up to look like uh lurleen and perform the song live it was it was a lot of fun they were they were god i wish we could have gone to that then that looks so cool like yeah they they had her there they had kip lennon to sing the uh the michael jackson songs from it too yeah yeah they uh and it was Azaria Cartwright and Yardley Smith were there.

She was the host. I think that was the only cast there, though. Harry Shearer didn't want to partake? Surprisingly not. In 2014, like a year before he's about to quit the entire show briefly. Hey, Le Show's got to go on the air. You know, someone's got to write it. I should give more Le Show a chance. We're going to bag on it every. You know, someone's got to write it. I should give more of the show a chance.

If we're going to bag on it every year, there's like 40 years of it. I have no idea where to find it or where it airs. Also, a classic Homer line. It takes two to lie, one to lie and one to listen, which is a line that makes no sense. Yeah. And a great one that Homer just walks right past it. But also, this is there's only one deleted scene for this episode and it's because they put it in an ad and the ads on the dvd it's where lisa says wow i can't believe

dad's got another woman in his life and bart says what are you talking about there's betty crocker sarah lee and jemima like yeah it's kind of an easy joke i think it was right they were right to cut it yeah but i'm glad that it gets to live forever in that commercial i also just love the emphasis beverly d'angelo sings this great entirely but her emphasis on that's right yes that's right i finally bagged me over and oh that teeth grinding sound i am one of those like when i clean with like a brush that sound sets me off and the same deal with like this teeth grinding sound. It always sets me off. The animation on the grinding is so good.

Oh, she's so mad. Yeah. I also just love round, goofy Simpsons teeth. Yes. Some of my favorite drawings. Yeah. And she almost, her mouth starts to turn almost into like a Wallace and Gromit, Aardman mouth.

Yeah. It stretches out so wide. Yeah. So we get a success montage which is also in every uh movie music biopic okay griffin when did you as a kid get these variety jokes like i they were in like tiny tunes and and this and i was about to say tiny tunes as well yeah no i think this was a case of because i was like watching so much of this. I was reading a lot of Mad Magazine. I think it's one of those things

where I reverse engineered what the real variety was from the references first. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients

that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? I think when I would see something like this that I didn't get that was clearly riffing on real life, then I immediately went, I need to figure out what this is in order to feel smart. Variety doesn't do these type of headlines anymore, though.

No, variety headlines are like incredibly boring, which is just like Disney announces Captain America 4. It was that Animaniacs song. It was called Variety Speak. They would translate the headlines, and then I retroactively understood all of these. in America for it was that that Animaniacs song it was called Variety Speak they would like translate the headlines and then I like retroactively understood all of these but I think that must have been my first exposure yeah I think this is reference to like Hicks Knicks sex flicks or whatever like the the erotic movies didn't play well in rural parts of the world or something I think that's what it was yeah I oh so it's literally riffing on like an

infamous real one you're saying yeah and I've seen so many parodies of just that headline. Yeah. Like Hicks, Knicks, Sex Flicks. I can look up the actual one. But yeah. I also really like it. It's a family operation. They're all kissing the records.

Like. Yeah. I got to hope Homer at least sold enough records. They make the joke that Homer loses a ton of money on selling her contract to Togasaki Corporation. Sure. on selling her contract to uh togasaki corporation sure i hope they sold enough records to at least get back the uh investment he made of their life savings into the place yeah i think my my feeling watching is oh he came out even yeah but i think that's key because like homer can't have really benefit he can't have gained wealth from her it needs to remain a sort of act out of the kindness

of his heart yeah just so no one corrects us and that's the most important thing about having a podcast of course uh the reference is sticks nicks hicks picks and the meaning behind that is people in rural areas did not want to see the depictions of rural life that they were not interested in seeing those sorts of movies so they they didn't see coal miner's daughter not interested uh so homer after all this visits with learn lean one more time privately alone in her trailer and uh he tells her that i mean honestly i am really impressed that homer with zero music industry connections books her on the equivalent of hee haw in that universe like it's really it took years to cultivate connections to to book guests on a

podcast like yes homer does this immediately that haven't said a good example of oh the show's 22 minutes long yes yeah it doesn't have time to explain everything with the length of the story it wants to tell and the depth of it basically let's just say yeah who called him and like hey we heard this song on there we want your girl and it's it's a local show let's say right yeah you could also just go like talent undeniable right they hear her and it just makes sense and yeah exactly actually it has to be local and live for the end of the episode to work actually yeah yeah that's true yeah i said this up front though but like what a beautiful sequence what like a genuinely beautiful song i'm sad this is not on any of the albums. It should be. And like one little thing I noticed is that Lurleen is trying to tell him a direct message

and she even like scooches closer to him as she's playing the song. One thing I noticed this viewing is Homer moves over a little bit when she moves over, not out of fear, like, oh no, get away from me. He's like, oh, I'll be polite. You need more room. Right, right.

Our normal amount of distance is, oh, you accidentally nudged close to me. That's okay. I'll just move away. Guess what, Lurleen? I got you a gig on TV. Oh, Homer, you're as smart as you are handsome. Hey.

Oh, you meant that as a compliment. Now, on this show, they want you to sing two songs. Maybe we should give them something new. Well, I have been working on something that could really heat things up. Let's hear it. In this trailer I get so cold and lonely

Lying there awake at night muttering if only you weren't married so I might ask you to bunk with me tonight bunk with me tonight

oh bunk with me tonight I'm asking will you bunk with me tonight oh that's Will you bunk with me tonight? Oh, that's hot. There isn't a man alive who wouldn't get turned on by that.

Well, goodbye. Uh, Homer, there's a hidden message to this song that you may have missed. Really listen. Bunk with me tonight With me tonight I'm asking will you bunk with me tonight? Lurline that's right.er jay i gotta think about this the way she is staring him in the face and saying bunk with me tonight he doesn't get he's like oh man not a man alive who wouldn't get turned on by that well see ya and the way she has to i love

d'angelo again great acting in this silly character has to say bunk with me. Like she has to over enunciate it while pointing at Homer and putting a finger on his lips of like, eh, like he finally, finally gets it. But once again, I think that's why she is so attracted to Homer is like, you know, introduced with her begrudgingly accepting that someone is going to say something harassing to her. Right. And then he's the first guy who doesn't. with her begrudgingly accepting that someone is going to say something harassing to her right and then he's the first guy who doesn't and even the more overt she becomes in her come-ons he at no point reveals that he is only with her to at some point you know sexually exploit her and it's like the more it flies over his head i think the more hung up on him she becomes and it's starting she's maybe even starting to take it personally like no seriously like right i have am i not desirable like let's have sex come on yeah uh but yeah he

her her song is so uh sweet and intimate like it is really done well yeah i think graining graining uh wrote a good and graining is quick to say i wrote the lyrics i didn't hear the music i'm not trying to take too much credit for it yeah it's nice. I mean, it's nice on the commentary in general. Grading is very like, yes, technically I wrote this one, but we all know it's not just me who wrote it. Like, yeah. But Homer runs off in this moment and he says, I got to think about this. Like, he's not breaking things off just yet. So Homer heads home and this is when Mar marge she has to make one final plea

to homer all our money's tied up in this woman if she fails we're broke if she succeeds i have no husband i don't know what to root for you don't i gotta go homer later marge lurleen's on tv tonight i gotta get ready just so you know you and Lurleen were out judging that grease pig contest, Maggie cut her first tooth. That's great, honey. Say, have you seen my rattlesnake headband? They're not even listening to me. Sure they will.

Kids, will you come in here? You've got a wonderful family, Homer. Please don't forget it when you walk out that door tonight uh i gotta go as much as i hate that man right now you gotta love that suit bart is aware that he's about to lose his father maybe like he's he's but yeah i you know this this maybe feels a little jim brooksie to me too that this is not it's not directly like marge isn't saying do not leave me i know you're thinking of leaving me there's almost a quiet resignation to her feeling like i i know where this is going there's nothing i can do at this point but please let me present to your family one more time to

make it clear like this is what you're losing yes you're giving this up if you do this yeah it it feels like a sequel to the one in uh life in the fast lane homer discovered the glove and that he says to margie compliments her how she makes him lunch but he doesn't he doesn't say please don't leave me he's just like you're really special you know that's like uh just trying to find any hook to bring uh them back right yeah but and the i forgot the kids are just in their sunday best to present them as like look at your your sparkling children yeah here's them at their best level yes i also i love how patty says you don't like just you don't that's that stuck with me a long time now we have to talk about hee-haw all right i want to just quickly say also uh a thing i caught in the the bit with the gallbladder surgery is cavner does

the voice of of you know the aid yeah she's like a nurse yeah you so rarely hear her pick up just little one-shot characters like that even if only for a line yeah and then it's immediately distracting you're like well that's really capped because no one sounds like her exactly yeah it's it's too bad for her at table reads like that she other characters all the other actors even uh other than yardley it's her yardley everybody else at the table read they get so many incidental characters like nancy plays half the children and dan and harry and hank but marge if marge is not in a scene or patty and selma at a table read she must just like sit there twiddling her thumbs just like well i'll wait for my life we not to talk

about our table read for the 800th time on this podcast uh someone's filling out a bingo card right now but when we went to it the episode was the cincinnati chili episode they did that focused on just skinner and chalmers julie cavner was there and sat through the whole thing and said nothing until the very end of it. And everybody applauded like, yay, Julie's line. Like Mark Hamill at the Force Awakens. Do you want to read the stage directions? But yes, sorry.

Oh yeah, hee-haw. So yes, we have Yahoo, hee-haw. This parody owned that show so hard it went off the air the next summer. So after 26 seasons and almost 700 episodes, Hee Haw went off the air in 93. And if you don't know what it is, it's what they're presenting here. It's like a country variety show with like sketch comedy and, you know, musical acts. And I think actually maybe younger people and Zoomers might know about it through family guy because they're running gag and now mr conway twitty where they throw to an actual live action conway twitty performance for like two minutes yeah yeah those are those are clips

of him on hee haw that's wild yeah and it's a good way to kill time in an episode yeah but uh yeah that's essentially all you need to know but uh as a kid the cartoon intro would pull me in and then it'd just be like a bunch of people i didn't know so it was a big disappointment for me personally yeah i never despite my uh being born in arkansas i actually barely watched any hee haw growing up i knew it more for jokes like this like honestly of syndicated uh comedy that would be put on late at night after saturday night live in some markets i saw much more of showtime at the apollo that's what they had in new york unsurprisingly it was always showtime after snl yeah which was good i always like watching but but it's funny that hee haw was also like it had two seasons on cbs canceled and they're like now we're going straight to syndication these country these city folks don't know how to sell us in

los angeles and and it worked for 20 whole years it worked and and yeah i think it was a rite of passage for a country singer to do a hee haw show i also when i think of hee haw i think of the wonder shows and parody horse apples yes the relentlessly cruel and dark version it was the zoom in on the end of every joke that made me laugh so much like not just seeing uh zach alphanack is talking an extra southern accent yes uh and hank azaria is having so much fun and apparently a lot of these were improvised by him i think big shirtless ron is something he came up with yeah i've uh i've got the clip of the full opening credits here they're all all of them great hold on to your pitchforks everybody it's time again for... YAH!

Starring in alphabetical order, Yodel and Zeke, Butterball Jackson, Reddiboy and Yuma, Cloris Moselle, Big Shirtless Ron, Orville and Hurley, Cappy May,

Pip Diddler, Rooney, the Yahoo! Recovering Alcoholic Jug Band, and tonight in her syndicated TV debut, Lurleen. Excuse me, are you Colonel Homer Simpson? Yes, I am. I'm from Rebel Yell Records, a division of Tokusagi Corporation. I'm interested in buying Lurleen's contract.

Forget it, pal. They don't call me homer because i'm some dumb ass army guy uh that that clip of course ends with homer being offered to have the lurleen's contract bought out and because this is the 90s it's a joke about the japanese are buying everything yes of course which now that now the jokes i guess the chinese are buying everything or you know saudi arabia is buying a lot of stuff. I was going to say, yeah. If you're talking about rich countries buying stuff, Japan, not that the Japanese can't buy things. They buy companies too, but it's not the same. But yeah, Big Shirtless Ron, I want to see more of that guy. That's what I'm saying. And yes, Hip Diddler is Buck Owens, the host.

I mean, that's who they're parroting there. I also love that when they introduce her they say it's her syndicated tv debut not tv debut it which is also true it's her tv debut but they the joke is making it lesser like it lessens it by being a syndicated tv debut also when they parody the hee haw opening the mule's head fully explodes and it's just like a stump like it's it's like an itchy and scratchy i was gonna say it's very yeah all the animation is more violent in the simpsons world yeah when i watch the intro again it's like oh the donkey isn't getting drunk and it doesn't explode so

it just says hee-haw and uh yes uh we do even see her sitting on that fiberglass hay she was talking about and and yeah homer just like colonel tom parker he's not some dumb ass army guy that's not why he's called well i love that the joke is almost like i have the title of the colonel to be more like colonel tom parker it's that stolen valor rather than pretending i was in the army he's stealing the valor of a person who stole that exactly right which now has become shorthand for her music manager yeah uh and so uh homer then visits her she says like i know what could make the evening complete she locks him in the room and this is when she's finally making her move and you know i think this is just to fill out a

little more time with this cutaway to flashbacks like it feels very gene and reese the more emotionally honest thing would just be they get straight to homer reaction to the kiss of like no but yeah instead it works more like homer's like i don't know what to think about that kiss and then they keep kissing i was like wait that's weird it's the one moment that feels a little off to me in the episode yeah i guess homer has to be so lost in thought yeah he doesn't realize he's being made out with because yes we fade from the flashback of him kissing marge to him kissing lurleen and it's like what are the connect what's the connective tissue here how is this happening it it almost seems like she took advantage of knowing that he was in a flashback and staring at his face he's like well just kiss him now while he's staring

at his face yeah it's also i think it seems to imply that homer never got kissed by any woman before marge and yeah lean would be his second yeah also every time i see teen homer drawn i'm like well that's just fry like that's just the hair flip yeah though they give homer uh they always do this it's graining it's graining's hair or it was graining what graining's hair was like when he was a teenager too the the big sloppy mop which i love having that hair as well but yeah so homer he's shocked out of it by this kiss he has this huge opening but he turns lurline down in our last clip here i'm sorry lurline all i wanted to do was share your beautiful voice with other people

and i've done that now i better get out of here before I lose my family. Just so I don't wonder, you would have gone all the way with me, wouldn't you? Okay. Now before we negotiate, I have to tell you I'm desperate to unload Lurleen and I'll take any offer.

I'll give you 50 bucks. You son of a... Sold. That's our way of getting around, like, homer's not a millionaire from selling a contract yeah which though apparently that is like tom parker got elvis's contract for a steal as well at least based on the plot of the movie i watched you know this and burns for california craftwork teaches you don't say you're desperate before you enter a negotiation right yeah you are desperate to buy weird at the cell let's all remember this in our own lives with negotiations though yeah him turning back to be like but we would have had sex right like that it cuts a little

out of it it deepens it a little especially how homer goes like like yeah he it makes it clear when he first said no he wasn't sure exactly what he was saying no to and now he does know and i also think it's like the whole point is he's been so oblivious about it. It's not like the Mindy Simmons episode where it's all about the temptation. Yeah. You know, it's all about that desire the whole time. Now it's just him kicking himself right after. Well, and also the way she says, uh-huh, is just like she's saying, okay, so are we doing this?

Like, uh-huh. And he's like, oh. Well, even like the flashback and the implication that this would be like the second woman he ever kissed it cheapens the whole thing to just being like well at this point whatever emotional connection he has so lorraine feels secondary to the idea of like i could get laid yes yeah with another woman it feels almost removed from her this opportunity never presents itself right yeah it's not that he right yeah it certainly does ditch the emotional connections he's had with Darlene this entire episode.

Yeah. So we cut back home for one last joke. And they joke with Mark Kirkland on the commentary that he, the director of the episode, often would draw Marge nude in bed. Like he always loved doing that, that Marge would sleep naked. Did he also draw the Playboy issue, the most cursed most cursed image no you know um it's not bill morrison it's somebody else yeah our pal nina matsumoto was just talking about that in the uh in the discord actually naming the artist who did it but i forget yeah he's in league with satan yeah apparently look it's good line work yes yeah it's but also it's like hey we can

see you can see racier stuff in that uh directly advertised to you on too many porn sites yes maybe those have calmed down some since that that joke on detroiters of uh i think it's sicily strong it is listing just all of the characters uh having sex with each other yeah that's a really good joke look look that up on detroit the artist was juliet prate okay julius prate had a clip of him saying like yeah here's my first draft and playboy wanted it sexier so so if you want to blame the cursiveness on it put it on editorial yes yeah but uh yahoo must be a live television show because homer comes straight there while it is still on the air or maybe it's like on a six hour tape delay same day like to tape yeah yeah maybe

one of those but uh yeah see i love that she just like in a silly movie or in a biopic she says i'm gonna sing a song i wrote just this moment like i just wrote this song that sums up everything uh and it's uh titles a parody of Stand By Your Man by Tammy Wynette, which I mainly know for the Jan Hooks parody of it. Stand by your man, stand by, from SNL. Oh, okay. The joke was Tammy Wynette sings all these classic songs, but it's just her replacing all the lyrics with stand by your man,

including symphony orchestra. But okay, here's the last song here as homer and marge make up and i'll drop it right in i caught my wife in bed with my best friend you bitter yep bit him too and now once again literally homer is there any room in that bed for a dad-burned fool? Always has been. Now I'd like to play a song I wrote just this minute. It's called Stand By Your Manager. His name is Homer.

He's quite a man I tried to kiss him But Homer ran Sure wish I could say That I was his I hope that Marge knows Just how lucky she is I do

Marge needs to learn through the lyrics that Homer, she attempted to kiss him and then Homer ran. That's how she forgives him. Unlike Apu, she's not lying through song. That's true. Yeah. She needs Lurleen to basically settle her doubts rather than Homer doing anything. Yeah.

She's past believing him. I also, you know, I know they play it for comedy, but I like Homer's undressing. I am positive on that. The way he looks down at his gut i'm like like but but obviously the joke is you're supposed to be like look at this you fat asshole they made him look extra big i don't know if it's just the fact that he's disrobing but uh there's some very large uh larger than charge homers he's got a variable gut depending on yeah the shot depending on how funny this the the shape could be and i love they don't go with one last joke they're like no let's have a sweet ending of marge going like i hope

that marge knows how lucky she is i do and they kiss and he throws his hat and it covers the camera for the ending like it's it's a really great and i think when they try to do sweet endings like that now they feel maudlin rather than earnest, you know? Yeah. Not now. I'm saying in a general sense as the show progresses often. Yeah, I think the sweetness might linger too long here. It's brief enough where it doesn't.

It's just a little grace note. And it's supported with a great song, too. That, too, yeah. yeah that too yeah but yeah i guess uh in final thoughts on this i think it is a nice love story uh with with beautiful animation and great songs and beverly d'angelo is so great i think the as far as homer actually being tempted the last temptation episode i think of that as a funnier episode than this one but and and as you said griffin it gets more to actually like homer's libido and his actual like sexual interest in someone. But this is a sweet story that I think Groening brought a lot of sweetness to it as well. Yeah, great new character, great songs.

And as I said, when you gave me the options of episodes to pick, I said, I like my Simpsons sad. I like this moment where it could be both, you know, in any kind of equal measure. Marge really suffers in this one. Yeah. I guess my very brief final thoughts are a very solid episode. And I also think that these songs are often forgotten about

when we talk about what are great Simpsons songs because they're not necessarily that funny. Yeah. But I think they are very essential to the plot and also composition-wise, they are just so sound. And I like hearing them,

but they're not the most hilarious songs out of context, which is why I think they're often forgotten about. Yeah. And yes, as you said, Bob, Beverly D'Angelo did return in Papa Don't Leech, which is mainly known for an opening

that freaked out fans because it parodied Sopranos in Homer suffocating Abe to death in a dream. Yeah. It is very upsetting to see. But it also is just one of those it is nice to just think that lurleen ended up vaguely okay and when they bring her back and they sort of try to cut against that it was always these isolated sort of one-off jokes right yeah which

is like okay fine i can sort of ignore this it doesn't really feel like it's real. And then to do a follow-up episode so long later that is like her life got so much worse. She's in really dire straits. And as they try to help her, you find out about additional trauma earlier in her life. So it's like things are bad now. And also things were even worse pre-Homer than you realize. It just feels like it's a bummer episode

to kick her that much and the act three is derailed because it then turns to into a dixie chicks episode yes yeah i forgot she's not believing the focus it seems yeah it's the most part it's very distracting i think we got the sense from talking to the writer of the episode that the dixie chicks came in in a rewrite right that was reed har? Reed Harrison, one of our oldest interviews. Yes. God, that was like five years ago. And you know what?

Don't listen to that because there's a bad feedback hub on it. It was very early in our recording time. We were still learning. But Griffin, he has to get out of here. Griffin Newman, thanks for being on the show. My pleasure. Please let us know where to find you.

You've got a lot of stuff going on. Obviously, Blank Check, a fantastic podcast. But what else is going on in the world of Griffin? Blank Check's the main thing i always try to plug uh george lucas talk show is all available on youtube i'm in town for that right now sf sketch fest which is why uh i was able to be in person yes thank you but we do uh we did some live traveling shows we haven't done the live stream pure live stream show in a little while but our archives of all our past live streams are on youtube which is too many hours of stuff and then he has a voiceover actor disenchanted

on disney plus right alongside billy eilish's simpson short uh i play a talking chipmunk and when i started watching that movie and heard your voice was like wow he he's the narrator it's pretty i mean you know if you want to talk talk about how far the entertainment industry has fallen in the last 15 years, the first Enchanted movie is narrated by Julie Andrews, and the second Enchanted movie is narrated by Griffin Newman. But yeah, I think it's a really fun movie. I love playing that character. Oh, you're great.

And I love your orco on Masters of the Universe. Thank you. Coming back, I think the new season will come out sometime this year Masters of the Universe Revolution it's the new subtitle for it it's a really really fun season I think I'm going back in to record some more stuff for that which makes me think

animation is close to being done because it's usually then when they bring you back that's awesome everybody goes through quite an arc in there even silly old orco yeah yeah and i think if you're a motu fan they they're pulling some characters off the bench in this new season that i was kind of astonished by there are some real deep cuts and cool cuts and cool casting for those deep cuts now yeah the half the fun of watching the show is just hearing a voice and going like wait who's that yeah like oh that's that is uh the late kevin conroy i wish my one pull wasn't

oh i know sad sarah michelle galar yeah yeah she's in it right you know they're like two or three ones in this season i think they're gonna lose their minds when they hear that person is playing that part oh boy i can't wait yeah no uh but we we really appreciate griffin we're so happy to have you in person our first in-person guest in so long uh it's so great to break the curse thank you yes thank you griffin thank you once again to griffin newman for coming all the way to berkeley and being on the show please check out what he's doing a blank check george lucas talk show everything griffin is a very very busy man ask for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these episodes one week at a time and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons.

Sign up there at the $5 level. You'll get just that, but also access to everything behind that paywall. That includes all of our miniseries episodes covering things like Futurama, King of the Hill, Batman, the animated series, The Critic, and Mission Hill. And that $5 level also gets you access to regular new episodes of both talking futurama and talking the hill every month there's a lot happening there so many things you haven't heard if you're not a patron happening at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and there's a ten dollar level too when you sign up for that you get access to all the five dollar stuff naturally but you can also access one extremely long podcast once a month only for patrons of that level or

higher when what is that henry bob is talking about the what a cartoon movie podcast where we talk about an animated feature film just as in depth as we do an episode of the simpsons which often means we talk for over four or five even six hours about an animated movie last month we did the batman superman world's finest movie first meeting of them in the dc animated universe uh you know the bruce tim stuff we had a ton of fun with that in march we haven't yet decided what we're going to be doing we're recording this one really early but the month before that we covered disney's dumbo and we went really deep into the creation of that disney classic there's a giant back catalog of over 50 episodes four years worth of what a cartoon movie podcast in addition to all the five dollar

things bob mentioned we cover everything from akira to a goofy movie spider-man into the spider-verse to beavis and butthead to the universe it's an eclectic group of movies there including if you are a fan of this movie just like griffin newman is you will want to hear our crown jewel of the what a cartoon movie franchise our six and a half hour long who framed roger rabbit discussion please check it all out for yourself at patreon.com slash talking simpsons as for me i've been one of your hosts bob mackie you can follow me on twitter as bob servo my other podcast by the way is retro knots that's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts.

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