Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Fear of Flying with Eric Szyszka

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

"Come on, Marge; I wanna shake off the dust of this one-horse town. I wanna explore the world! I wanna watch TV in a different time zone! I wanna explore strange, exotic malls... I'm sick of eating hoagies; I want a grinder, a sub, a footlong hero! I wanna LIVE, Marge! WON'T YOU LET ME LIVE?!" - Homer Simpson When a flyboy-related mishap lands The Simpsons free plane tickets, Marge's newly revealed fear of air travel cancels their vacation plans. So Marge turns to therapy, and gets the help she needs—in the form of a somewhat timely The Prince of Tides parody. Our guest: Eric Szyszka from We Hate Movies And be sure to check out We Hate Movies LIVE this August in Las Vegas at ST:LV! Support this podcast and get over 250 full-length bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow us at @TalkSimpsonsPod on Bluesky!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon movie podcast, and tons more. Ho's this event or product. Hoi, hoi, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons where our hooks are flailing wildly. I'm one of your host, a hassle coupled with a bird in Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Keeping myself in a state of cat-like readiness, Henry Gilbert.

And who is our special guest on the line? I'm Eric Siska, and I'm going to get drunker than I ever been in my entire life. And this week's episode is Fear of Flying. Mom, are you feeling any better? Yes, but I'd rather not talk about it. Permit me to solve the mystery. Your mother has a fear of flying. Yes, and this episode originally aired on December 18, 1994.

Merry Christmas, everybody. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real. world history. Dumb and Dumber debuts at number one at the box office. Every kid wants Power Rangers and Mr. Bucket for the holidays. And we're all nonstop listening

to the recently debuted Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is you. Very good. Now, common misnomer, Mr. Bucket did not ask you to put your balls in his mouth. That it was just the Mandela effect or something? Wait, wait, so I was doing it wrong?

Is that what you're saying? Yes. You violated the... warranty, Eric, when you put your balls in his mouth, unfortunately. You have to return the product. It was so welcoming, you know? I just thought, why wouldn't I do that? But I was 12 years old, and that commercial was very funny with all the talk of balls. I'm sure we all have the same experience with Mr. Bucket. I never played the game. It has to be balls spherically for the, based on what the commercials look like, the balls have to be spit out of his mouth. So it wouldn't work

if they were like bricks or whatever to not use the word balls, but so they got to be spherical. The lyrics are the balls pop out of my mouth. You put the balls in my top. Out of my mouth, they will pop. So at no point are balls being put into his mouth. It's very important. That's just how Mr. Bucket works. If you put balls into the mouth,

you'll probably break the device that spits out the balls, right? Yeah, word of the wise. If this thing comes back on the market, we're just giving you the instructions up front. I was racking my brain for what I had gotten at the 1994 Christmas as a 12-year-old. Mr. Bucket was not one of them.

Certainly there were video games and comic books, but the one I definitely remember was by Wonderful Mom, tried to get as many of the first wave of Spider-Man the animated series toys as she could, and I think it was most of them. So she was very, very...

Henry, how many toys were there? Well, there were probably at least 12. There was like two Spider-Man and most of the villains from like Vulture and Hobgoblin and also I did, if you see that in the first wave, there was like a three different

Spider-Slayer robots that was like their big purchase, I also did get that too. So two Spider-Man? What was the difference between those guys? One was the highly posable Spider-Man we all expect from Spider-Man action figures. And I believe the second one was like one of those like gimmick action ones of like it shoot webs out of its fingers or it has suction cup hands, that type of deal. This is stuff for children. We got guys spitting balls. We got shooting webs. This is disgusting. And I assume there were no other toys that Christmas, right, Henry? Let's say no. Well, my brother certainly got some. You know what? He got Power Rangers. He was a Power Rangers getter. I will say. All I recall getting this Christmas was Donkey Kong Country. This was the Christmas of Donkey Kong Country. That's right, yes. I think I spent some time there that holiday as well.

That's when the borders were open. We probably all saw a dumb and dumber in theaters, right? This was the third of the triumvirate of Jim Carrey hits in 1994. You know what? This is the one I didn't see in theaters. I saw the mask and Ace Ventura, but I did not see dumb and dumber in theaters. I saw it later on VHS. Because it was too adult themed, perhaps. I think it was R-rated. Oh, is that right? And I could watch R-rated movies on tape, but it was harder to get into them when you were 12 at the time. Oh, it was fine for me. I went right in to everything. It's kind of crazy what my parents let me do. I mean, I went to see Pulp Fiction in the theater when I was 11. Wow. My mom did take me and my younger brother, to it and I remember liking it. I remember my mom laughed very loudly at Jeff Daniels' thunderous diarrhea in it. She thought that was... You know, I wasn't correct PG-13, but legally I could not see without a guardian. Oh, yeah. And also to mention another thing that was at the theater is because

there'll be no other chance to mention it in our timeline of stuff is another of the next week will be the debut of the beloved 1994 version of Little Women, which has Winona Ryder and Kirsten Dunst and Claire Daines and Christian Bale and it's a whole new generation of stars in that little women. Ooh, this ain't your mama's little women. Yeah, and then I just saw that for the first time, like this year, actually, and I really enjoyed it. I do want to see the 2019 version and not just because Bob Odenkirk pops in for five minutes.

That's the only thing I've heard anyone tell me about that movie, and I'm sure other things happen. What of Joe and Beth? You've already had that spoiled for you. In that version, they play around with the timeline. in interesting ways. And I say this is somebody who's only watched

like, I've watched multiple little women. I saw this. I didn't see this in theaters, but it was like a classroom watch at least twice in English class. I remember enjoying it. The weirdest thing is that in this version,

Kirsten Dunst only plays her character in the preceding timeline. And then when there's a time jump, she does not play that character. And the 2019 one, Florence Pugh, plays both versions of the character. Interesting. You know, they should do a multiverse

to that. Get all these little women's together from both versions. And yes, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is you. I mean, we were hearing it a lot back then, but it did feel like, it was always around, but to me it took a like a 10-year break and then it became like ubiquitous and everywhere. It now

is like one of the most heard Christmas songs. Yeah, it feels like it took most of the aughts off. It was played in heavy rotation throughout the late 90s. And maybe I just wasn't like listening to the radio at that point, but yeah, now they found a new way to market it. I think that's the thing. Like Mariah Carey is thawed from her block of ice every year and emerges.

When it becomes a Fortnite's coordinated launch with a Mariah Carey Skin and that can dance to the song, like, you know that it has become a Christmas standard. Really? Wow, Mariah Carey's skin. I'm writing this down. But that's everything that happened in the week that the last new episode of Simpsons aired in 1994. And joining us once again is Eric Siska from We Hate Movies. Last joined us for our episode all about Co-Dependence Day with all of the Star Wars references. Welcome back to the show.

Oh, yeah, well, thanks for having me. It's always fun to talk about a great show and be on a great show. So thank you very much. Thank you. Try to think to how this chemically connects to that one. This starts with Homer drinking. So there's drunkenness involved on some level of this.

I guess that's the only comparable things to it. Well, that's a kind of a common thing, right? An evergreen terrace of the shows. Homer will be drunk at some point. That episode had rehab. This one has therapy. Hey, that's right. Marge goes to rehab and therapy in both of those. That's true. Man. Eric mentioning, too, that you're about to go on a several, on a whole weekend of Star Trek things. You're going to Star Trek in Las Vegas. That's crazy.

It is crazy. So if folks don't know, there's a huge Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. Just so you know, it's the Nevada one. STLV, it's their 60th year doing the Star Trek convention. and they invited us to do some live podcasts because it's our 10-year anniversary of the Nexus, which is our Star Trek's side show that we do on our Patreon feed, where we talk about a TOS episode and now TAS for the animated series because we ran out of the original series and TNG, we pair them up, we talk about them, but we're going to be doing movies at the DeForest Kelly Theater within the Rio Hotel.

They renamed this Ballroom or whatever to the table. to Forrest Kelly Theater, which is very cute. Yeah. But yeah, Thursday, August 6th, we're going to be doing Star Trek Rath of Khan. Friday, August 7th, we'll be talking Star Trek Generations. And then Saturday, finishing it out, Star Trek First Contact. And that is all ticket information you can find at WHMpodcast.com slash tour. And I'd really, I need to move these.

Oh, my God. I need to move these. Please come out talking Simpsons fans. I will shake your hand and smile politely. Will you be rubbing shoulders? with Marina Seartis, Armin Shimmerman, perhaps, LeVar Burton. Perhaps. I mean, even Shatner is going to be there somewhere farting around, and I don't know if they're going to let us near the real stars or not,

but we'll see what happens. I'm excited, though. Yeah, I feel like at a lot of these cons now, there will be a sheet of plexiglass between you and the celebrity, just for both of your safety. Yes, exactly, yeah. We don't know what Gary Bucy's going to do. We don't know what you're going to do. Exactly.

I've told Bob about this many times, but one of the weirdest work trips I ever had was 10 years ago going to the 50th anniversary Star Trek Las Vegas to run a multi-day quiz for Star Trek fans and doing Star Trek trivia and as a Star Trek dilatant being booed for getting things wrong or mispronouncing Klingon names like Kayla. Boy, do they get me for that one.

Oh my God. I'm walking into a buzzsaw with this convention doing these shows. It's probably going to be mostly people who don't know our podcasts at all, doesn't know who I am, et cetera. People are going to be yelling, people will be mad. So come and see that play out. I think that'd be a lot of fun. We need one side as part of the We Hate Movies Gang War

to fight the other side. Right, yes. The seating's going to be like bride and groom at a wedding, like all the irate Star Trek fans, and then the podcast fans on the other side. I did get to meet a few nice people. I didn't get to meet any of the regular cast members of any show there,

but there were people who are also there to sign things who had like recurring roles in some shows. I actually did get to run into a couple of them and they were very nice. And also I'll never forget meeting. I didn't meet Marina Sertis, but I did meet a woman who has been cosplaying Marina Sertis since the 90s who she was like, hey, I look just as good as her now, don't I? And she had a daughter there who seems like she has been dragged to Star Trek conventions

her whole life by her very alpha mom. And I'll never forget her. So did you pay her $20 for a photo or an autograph? or anything. No, no. Hey, I'll give her, she kept it tight. She was looking great in her Deanna-Troy costume, which is not a forgiving cosplay costume for a woman in her, like, 50s or 60s, I'd say. Was it the plunging neckline version of Troy or the more classy later TNG? It's like the season four one. It's not the season seven respectable one that's actually just a regular outfit, but not as plunging a neckline, but yes. And you know what? I'm Bob's suggestion.

I have been really enjoying going with the Nexus again, because I'm I've been watching TNG this year with my husband. It's his first time watching it. And The Nexus has been a whole lot of fun to basically, we watch an episode and then listen to The Nexus. And it's been a lot of fun. Wow, that's very nice of you to say. And potentially I actually do.

My God. Well, thank you. The Nexus is also my first time watching TNG. I knew TOS very well. But I'm still like we're in season four, or towards the end of season four now, I think. And we just did like Ensign Row, for instance. And this is my first go of T. GNG ever, so.

Yeah, my wife and I also follow along with the Nexus, so that podcast miniseries keeps families together. Look at that. If it wasn't there, you guys would be all split. Splitsville, both of us. It's been fun watching it, and you as a first time or like, as well. I've been trying to not spoil things for my husband, and he occasionally asks me questions that have, like, tragic answers,

and so I just go like, well, you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens to that character. Maybe it'll be fun. Maybe Funkins will happen to that. Tasha Yard is going to be just fine. Don't you worry. He has fear of flying our episode this week. It's got a first-time writer in it, doesn't it?

Yes, and that first-time writer is David Sacks. Let's hear about him. And yes, it is time to talk about David Sacks. In case you're wondering, Eric Siska is not with us for this segment because I think he would have a lot of jokes to make about a man named David Sacks, given his general sense of humor. We've got to keep this under certain time amount here, at least. Yes.

Well, we'll consult him later and ask if he has any sense. Sacks jokes to make. So let's move on with David Sacks, of course. Now, this will not be new information if you listen to the Retronauts episode about the animated primetime cartoon game over. So I'm essentially repeating a lot of the things I said on that episode of Retronauts. And if you want, what a cartoon style episode about that failed animated sitcom, head on over to Retronauts, find it in the back feed in the archives.

You'll see it. Henry and I had a lot of fun talking about Game Over, something that nobody remembers. Yes. We did a what a cartoon style thing about the whole, like, like first episode and how it was this, you know, extremely expensive and instantly canceled and completely forgotten series that very much fit in the age of, you know, what if Futurama was a video game world? So David Sacks, I know you have many questions.

So the question number one, did he go to Harvard? The answer is yes. Question number two, did you rate for the lampoon? The answer is also yes. So you are, that's your golden ticket to get into the Simpsons in the mid-90s. You're there. Yes, yes. Though it's funny that he came on in the Merkin era because it seemed like Merkin was back and forth on Harvard guys.

He got some Harvard guys, but he also hired many non-Harvard guys who were not hired in the proceeding four years, too. It is true. The Harvard door got smaller and smaller when Merkin showed up. But he, David Snacks, David Snacks, maybe I'm a little hungry. David Sacks snuck in. There we go. So like a lot of Lampoon guys from this era, he kicked off his TV writing career with not necessarily the news. And other Simpsons writers who worked on this show

include Ian McStone Graham, Al Jean, Mike Reese, Conan O'Brien, and Greg Daniels. So this weekend update-style program, which everyone has forgotten about, much like Game Over, was a hotbed for Simpsons writers before the Simpsons. Yeah, if it's ever talked about in the last like five to ten years, it would probably be in very in-depth histories for mega stars like Conan O'Brien or super television producers like Greg Daniels. So Sacks started his sitcom writing career with the sitcom Empty Nest, and then he moved on to the one-season TGIF show Camp Wilder,

which was not about a camp and did not star Gene Wilder. We figure that out. There was a Gene Wilder sitcom very short-lived called Something Wilder, but David Sacks did not work on that program. Wow, I was such a devoted TGIF viewer, but I do not remember Camp Wilder, though. I think this is when I might have fallen. Oh, no, no, this is 1992, so I probably saw the entire run of Camp Wilder.

Man, it just turned into like a gray zone in between the Balkis and Urkels that I was enjoying so much at the time. Yes, I'm sure I watched all 19 aired episodes of Camp Wilder, and I'm sure David Sacks wrote for a few of those that actually aired. And moving on in his career, so going on to The Simpsons, he worked on the Simpsons during its funniest years, seasons five and six, though he's only credited with one episode and it's this one. And I have to wonder if he's one of those guys who didn't get along with David Merkin or, did necessarily like the Simpsons writing conditions and bounced after these two seasons because there's a handful of folks that just worked in the Mercaneers and then never came back. Yes, yeah, there's a number of guys like that, and it was some of the Harvard guys who didn't like it.

Maybe he also is one of the unnamed writers who also grumbled around this same time about having to write a crossover with the critic and that causing a lot of trouble. Sounds similar to the other guys who did complain. So even though he only wrote this episode, I'm sure he contributed a lot of great jokes to everything in season 5 and 6. And I'm trying to find out more about him. And I remember on the Homer the Heretic commentary, they were questioning, do we have any religious people on the staff? And I believe David Sacks is described as a very devout Jewish writer. So we at least know that about him.

He's a very religious Jewish man. That's right. That's right. That was one of the only ones like Gene could think of, of the any religious writers on it. Then they start talking about how there actually are like a number of Christian animators who did not like working on Simpsons at times. I believe Steve Tompkins was probably a Christian, like a practicing Christian, but it was hard to find religious folks on the Simpsons, at least in the 90s. So after the Simpsons, he goes to Murphy Brown for a season, then goes to Third Rock from the Sun, where he hangs around for most of the show's run and he wrote 14 episodes. So he's really more of a Third Rock from the Sun guy than he ever was a Simpsons guy.

That's a respectable sitcom. I'd like to go back and watch more of that. because I did have fun with the few episodes I watched back in the 90s. It's interesting, yes, that he goes from The Simpsons then to its long time. The sitcom, it was jealous of for several years of beating it in the Emmys all those times. And then to a very high concept sitcom of Third Rock, which then you get animated plus high concept and you get game over. I'm sure he wrote a lot of very hilarious episode titles with the word dick in them. That was kind of the joke of that show.

It was a real cheat code on that show, yes, all of the dick. stuff. I remember liking it too, though. And John Lithgow was soaking up all of the Emmys on that show, as I remember. Yes, yes. At least nominations. I forget how much he won, but he was always nominated for his role of Dick. So so far, David Sachs's career is looking pretty good. So we have all of those great sitcoms behind him. Also, in the early odds, he's an executive producer on the second TV series. That is the one with Patrick Warburton as a tick. Griffin Newman not involved. He's also. like 11 at the time, so he's not going to be playing Arthur. And after that, that's when he creates Game Over, a sitcom that we covered on Retronauts.

If you want to know what it is, it's essentially, I guess it's kind of like Reckett Ralph 12 years in advance and also very bad and kind of like a Futurama knockoff at the same time. It's very, very terrible. And it only lasted for like six episodes. I forget how many aired, but it's one of those animated sitcoms of the era that nobody remembers. It's like the Sammy of its time.

But at least with this. series all of the episodes aired. Tripping the Rift was so much better than it. It makes it look quite great by comparison. Also, that's funny, yes, that he worked on the Tick, which spinning out of it was game over. Meanwhile, also spinning out of it much better, the Venture Brothers. Yes, yes. That's how Patrick Warburton ended up working on the Venture Brothers is because Jackson Public and Ben Edlin, of course, Ben Edlin, the Tick is his character. And then Ben Edlin is with the Venture Brothers in the very beginning before he jumps off of that show. Yeah, it was how Chris McCullough, a comic artist on his own, got into a WGA writing staff, was on the tick via Ben Edlin.

And then right afterwards, he's able to start pitching his venture brother's idea to Adult Swim and where he must take the non-WGA name Jackson Public. That's the origin. And that's how we know him to this very day, Jackson Public. So after Game Over, he hangs out at Malcolm in the middle for a while, another great sitcom. And he also co-created the Lewis Black Show, Root O'Reux. of all evil, which is based around his famous, very funny rant. Lewis Black is sort of like the funnier, more leftist Dennis Miller in my estimation. Yes, yeah.

That was part of the long cycle of trying to find a show that can go after the daily show until Stephen Colbert showed us all how it was done. And I really don't want to do an IMDB recital. So at this point, I'll just let you know what he's done lately. So in recent years, along with vulgar cartoonist Johnny Ryan, he developed the cartoon Pig Banana Goat Cricot for Nickelodeon. And then he went on to co-create the TBS Prime Time Animated Show Final Space, which actually got three seasons.

So this is kind of complicated because it's a TBS show that jumps to Adult Swim in the second season and then is purged from HBO Max's Adult Swim's website and YouTube in 2023 for tax purposes. And I remember this being one of the first times I remember this happening. Yeah. And people making a big deal about it because there are a lot of Final Space fans out there. I've never seen it. I hear it's really good, but I believe this also happened to the show Close Enough, which I watched all of, yes. That's also, like, largely unavailable today, correct?

Yes, yeah. Bill Oakley was a friggin, like, head writer on for one of the seasons of its two production seasons. It's, no, close enough is a great show that it's really sucks, that it's the regular show, but grown up from the creator of regular show and written very similarly, and he's the lead actor in it, too. It was a really good and queer show that I enjoy, where Jason Manzukas basically plays Jason Manzukas in it. And so I feel the pain of the Final Space fans as well, a show I didn't really watch, though I was just reminded of it, because in May, oh, well,

you found this too then, right? I had no clue about this. Very timely. This month as we're recording this, they just released the graphic novel finale for Final Space. So they kick-started this with permission from, I believe, Warner Brothers. But yeah, you didn't get the finale animated, but there is a graphic novel

version of that for all you Final Space fans out there. I know there are many of you. Yeah, it's good. It's nice they got some sort of completeness, though I don't know if they'll ever get the physical copy they want. Also, when that got purged for tax purposes, I hate to think that that is a better time for Warner than right now with Warner Brothers, unfortunately. What is happening to them now? I can never figure out what's happening with Warner Brothers. They're always circling some new toilets. What Paramount is about to is will buy them unless the government can stop it.

Okay. They don't want to stop it. I thought Netflix already bought Warner Brothers. but there's been so many of these, and I know it's so complicated. Well, short version is Netflix and Warner Brothers agreed to it, and then Paramount visited their friends in Saudi Arabia, and then happened to show up with a bunch more money and said, we will pay you more than Netflix does,

and Netflix would not raise their bid to match Paramount. And so Viacom get the Ellison's Viacom, they get to own it, which means from a cartoon standpoint, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon will, be the same company, so that sounds like half as many cartoons to me will be ordered. Well, to make a long story short, we live in hell, and it's not David Sacks's fault. No, no, no, it's not. But yes, this has been the story of David Sacks.

They don't say it on the commentary, but I do wonder, they'd say that the pitch seemingly came from Sacks, but I wonder, this feels like a James L. Brooks suggestion of, like, interiority of Marge and March and go to a therapist, and what will come? up kind of thing. Like it feels like it kind of Brooks push. I think the pitch was Marge in therapy and finding out how she gets there is most of the fun because the therapy stuff is like the last six minutes essentially. Right. They can spend the first act just with Homer instead. And I also like hearing grading joke about how like again, there is no Bible for the series. So any background on characters just gets made up episode to episode, including Marge's father, which he never really has an answer for. Oh my God. No Bible. Don't tell that to Flanders. So the title of this episode is based on the 1973 novel Fear of Flying by Erica Jong,

and it's an important building block of second wave feminism because it introduced the revolutionary idea. Did you guys know that women like to have sex? It's true. And we heard this groundbreaking news over 50 years ago. I never met one myself, so I would not know about this. I still think this is a myth and fake news. Yeah, it's a funny to call it. Fear of Flying is about her.

you know, just opening up to have sex more, you know, non-committal sex that also isn't about, like, getting married or even to like hurt a spouse or a loved one or anything. It's just like, sex is fun and I'm having it. Try some stuff out. Why not? I saw on the wiki page, it coined the phrase, zipless fuck as a way to say non-committal sex. Well, I think that phrase was uncoined around 1979. And so what was that again? Zipless what?

Zipless fuck. Okay, I'll be working that into the lexicon. And also to prep for this one, I decided two months ago that, you know what, I'm going to watch the Prince of Tides. And I also watched Fearless, which was mainly just because I listened to the blank checked cast. And they covered Fearless. So I was like, I want to finally watch it. Yeah, the last six minutes of this episode are a Prince of Tides parody very loosely. The music is a parody of the James Newton Howard score.

Dr. Zweig is the doctor from Prince of Tides, Lowenstein. Yes. Very good. Eric, have you ever seen either of those movies? You know, actually, crazy enough, I have not. I did look up Fearless Today. I mean, I've seen Hero and Alive. And what's crazy about, you know, this era, like 92 is Hero, Fearless, 93, Alive, 93.

I mean, we loved plane crashes. Yeah, they did identify the, like, you know, there have been a lot of very high-budget plane crash. movies in the last couple years to draft off of here. I guess was it, oh no, no, TWA Flight 800 was coming up. So those movies were like a preview for that. The plane crash and fearless is pretty crazy. Like it is that, you know what, I watched her right before going on a flight and didn't affect me at all.

I had just a fine flight, wasn't thinking about things at all. Hey, you know who's in that movie to bring it back to Star Trek the next generation? John Delancey, Q himself. Oh, wow. Nice. Is it a cue style role? Is he the mastermind behind the plane crashes? You could tell yourself he is one of the people on the plane

and you could create your own fan fiction that it's actually him posing his cue and it's one of his tests when he's flying the plane. Just like you did on Breaking Bad and took down that other plane. Yes. I'm stealing this from another person I saw on Twitter who said his Breaking Bad character was his revenge against planes after fearless. The episode begins with a chalkboard.

board gag tied into that hot toy of the holidays of a bard is saying as apologizing for trying to morph another child in class. And then this is also an important moment in the history of saving time because Merkin episodes never had the full almost two minute opening other than this episode. Yeah, this one uses the circus couch gag and I believe Springfield with a dollar sign is the last time that was rolled out. Yeah. So this is the full 90-second version of the opening and then with the longest couch gag they had at the time on it, which was used quite a lot in the Algin era. But I think this is because there is almost two minutes of deleted scenes for this episode.

So it's a rare one where they did not have more than they needed for the TV. There was stuff that was too hot for TV. Is that the idea? Too weird, I think. Too weird, yeah. I've got a few of them here. And some are funny, some are a little week. but all are less good than what was in the episode.

They made the right calls. But we begin at Mo's Tavern with a great series of jokes about, like, how it can feel to see other people do pranks. And then when you try to join in on it, everybody was like, hey, that's not how the pranks go. Like, it make you on the outside instead. I love seeing Mo be mauled by a cobra. Yes. This is really going to date this episode and when we recorded it. But this is coming hot on the heels of RFK.

Jr.'s famous snake handling video. I don't know why this was released to the public. Maybe he's trying to make him seem more personable, but he was wrangling two snakes on his property and just picking them up and they're just biting the hell out of him as he's trying to remove them. It's supposed to endear him with the evangelical right.

I mean, that's what Jesus is to them. People love when you handle snakes and talk about teenagers come. They run to the voting booth. That's all anyone cares about. There are two issue voters right there. We need to up those come levels. We do. I've noticed. they've been a little down, you know.

I guess that's too why he's against circumcision as well, which he came out recently, too. Oh, wait, because it causes autism or something? Was that right? I think that was his reasoning, yes. It's just nuts, man. It's just crazy. All right. You know what, Mo being previously established as a snake handler, maybe that's why this

cobra doesn't kill him because he's just, he's grown a tolerance to snake venom by this point. He just needs a little coffee to get over the venom. And then after the snake in our first clip here, Barney offers up something nice to mow. Hey, Ma, you want to smell my flour? Do I? Oh, whoa, I'm burning up here. Oh, advantage of my alcohol-soaked clothes. Oh, it's funny, and it makes you think.

Oh, I need some coffee before I black out. Homer, pass me the sugar. This is going to be great. Oh, jeez. Oh, there's sugar all over the bar now. That's not funny, Homer. Yeah, we were just messing around. And you had to go too far!

How many people want, Homer, banned from this place for life? Yeah! Oh, come on, everybody. This bar is like a tavern to me. Sorry, Homer. You should have thought of that before you gave me the old sugar me do. I'm taking your caricature down from Mount Lushmore.

And I'm pulling your favorite song out of the jukebox. It's raining, man? Yeah, not no more, it ain't. Which lands on Smithers, who is appreciative to get the Weather Girl's 1982 hit into his face. I'd assume you already owned it, but you know, it's always nice to have two copies. You know, if it's the jukebox version, maybe it's a singles version, so he probably has the album, but not the single. You've got to collect all those. I want to know what the B-Sight is on that.

And that song, co-written by Paul Schaefer, a fun bit of trivia. Oh, really? I didn't know that. That's amazing. And Mount Lushmore is so great. I love it so much. And me and Bob have been to the in real life Moe's Tavern that's at Universal Studios. And they have Mount Lushmore there. It's pretty great.

That's amazing. I think it's all of them on there, including Homer. He has been re-put on it, I feel like it is like expanded a little. The added caricatures that are not in this episode, perhaps. But, I mean, you basically have a year left to go see this. Yes, Eric. The bulldozers are ready. Really? What's happening there? They're taking down Simpsons Town? Well, since Disney bought it, the clock has been ticking, and deal runs out at the end of this decade.

And so it could last as long as 2029, but other people are saying the rumor mill is saying it won't be there by the end of 2027 even. Wow. You know, I've never been to an amusement park besides like one roller coaster place when I was a small child. But no, never been. It would be nice to go. wants to finance that for me, that'd be wonderful. We hate movies could play Universal Studios. Yeah. I think Universal Studios would have something to say about that. You could take over the Waterworld Stunt Show.

I would love that. That would be amazing. What a movie. Well, Eric, do you guys hate movies? And here you can ride the movies at Universal Studios. I also love how obvious Barney's flower is drawn perfectly. Like, Mark Kirkland's team did such a great job on this. It's drawn to look like a stupid.

you know, plastic flour that the Joker might have. It is seemingly actually a real flower and it's just to burn his clothes. He's even doing the old move where he's like thumbing it from behind. Yes, yes. Right. You think water is going to spray out, but no, just getting Moe

to lean in to set him on fire. Now that's a fun prank. That prank only worked when people were constantly smelling butaneers. I think it ended in like 1947. The squirting flower. It's just like how you can't do hot food. to people anymore because of the way shoes are constructed, right?

Yeah, no one's hammering the souls into shoes anymore. Homer is tossed out and he's lost his place. And this is where we have our first deleted scene where, just to explain the visual before, since you're only going to hear it, when Homer is sitting on the curb, a little cat walks by him. I guess it's just you and me, buddy. A couple of strays Nobody wants

Look at this adorable Kiddy Oh Look he spilled sugar all over the bar Oh that's the cutest thing I ever store I do I do like the cat Spill the sugar and they love it

That's a good joke I understand why they cut this But I feel like it would have been a nice addition Though More fun than watching the circus couch gag again probably Though it is funny to hear Homer say end the scene with like, jokes on them, I'm still alive.

I love that. This is where we cut to home and Homer is so depressed. He's got nowhere to drink and he doesn't want to be at home. That's the important thing to know that he's rather drinking at home, what's the point? Well, Homer, you could pretend that the couch is a bar

and guilty as charged for that. I've done that too much. That's what keeps people together, like you said. You drink at home and you watch Star Trek together. That's how it. The Nexus And drinking on the couch. Yes, I've done both. This chrysitunity is stuck with me forever.

I love this of just calling something a chisotunity. It is seemingly, I think this is taken from a JFK speech that is memorable to boomers, but I had to look up. Yeah. It was a misconception about the Chinese language that was popularized during a JFK speech during his presidential run. So it's not true, but it sure is clever, isn't it? So I guess people ran with it. I guess it's good to know that many presidents have. gotten there by spouting lies on the campaign trail.

That's why we killed him. That was a chrysitunity for LBJ. He was killed by a Chinese linguist, folks. Maybe it was him and the Chinese linguist with someone from Berlin getting him for the word Berliner as well, which he also does. The quote from John F. Kennedy was, when written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and one represents opportunity.

The danger signs are all around us. And then he continued to say, but it also represents opportunity, danger and opportunity. That was the tone of it. And I read that from the official JFK presidential library website. So it must be true. In 2026, it's odd to hear a presidential candidate praising the Chinese. Yes, yeah, that's true. Sort of like, we must destroy them and their language.

Apparently in the Chinese alphabet, word waiji, for crisis does have one character in it that is the same as G Hui, which is in the word for opportunity. And also in Japanese, it uses similar letters for the word Kiki, which also is used for crisis and opportunity is Kiki. So Japanese also, you know, kind of sort of true about opportunity and crisis being the same. Well, it's all Greek to me. This does count as your duolingo for today, everybody, so you can just mark it as finished.

Yes. Bring this to your professor, and this is your extra credit. There is one, as Homer leaves after getting his wallet back from Bart. There's another deleted scene. The scene ends with Homer just leaving. But had it continued, Lisa would say this to Marge. Take it, Mom. You're a rock. Lisa, I have my shortcomings. Sometimes I forget to dust the bananas. And once I got the wrong kind of yogurt, so I hit it behind a magazine at the checkout can.

That's fun. Dusting down. We were building a little more of a Marge runway in this deleted scene towards the main plot. Actually, her saying Dusting the Bananas does set up the kind of anxiety-related things she does that will only expand as her fear of flying is revealed. Eric, do you have any regular watering holes? Not to docks you, but Justin, would you be sad? Where can we find Eric Siska, let's say, on a Friday night? Oh, Friday night in bed.

passed out by eight from the couch bar. I recently tried to make a watering hole a thing. I'm like, you know what, if I do this sinful act, it should be out in public. And I should have to make someone, you know, so I don't have too many. You know,

I'm not going to order a crazy amount because I don't want to seem like a crazy person like I might at home. So I've been trying to drink less at home. So I've been going out, testing out stuff. And it doesn't always work out. feel. I feel, I don't know. I don't know. I feel like I've got some aura that people don't like IRL. You just haven't found the right fit for you yet for your Mount Lushmore. You'll, you will.

It's true. Yes. I mean, I should get back out there more. You're right, Henry. I think maybe this weekend I'll pound the pavement and hit up as many bars as I can to see what is the right fit. Yeah, we're all at a great age to become a regular. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's the only time I'm going to talk to anyone that's not on a podcast, to be honest with you. I mean, all my friends are digital. A regular, a lost soul, a hopeless drunk. Actually, this week I just had a little bit of a preview of being a senior as well, which is I mislabeled a delivery and I needed to find where it's being dropped off at the post office and track it down.

And I now have been there a couple times now. And I actually, like, am irregular enough at the post office to know this guy at it. And we've got like kind of a rapport now. And he's a very nice guy who works there who's, I trust. And I've given him like, I've come back with like candy to be like, hey, do you want to have some candy? You're real nice to me. Like, so I'm a regular at the post office now. That's amazing.

Do you go like stamps, leave the package? I need the whole thing. Henry, part of the senior lifestyle is giving young people candy. So you're already there. Oh, shit. You're right. Is it hard candy? In this case, it was, it was marked down marshmallow peeps that I've got.

Okay. So you're giving this post. worker expired candy. Hey, it still tastes good. It's just because Jessica's Valentine's Day is over doesn't mean that three days later it's not still good candy. I like you marked down as the nice code word for bad. I like that. Well, he's a postal worker. It's probably his only meal of the day. Give him a break, I guess. It's fine. Respect to our postal service workers out there. They got it hard. Absolutely. After I

had been having to talk to AI clients in every other place that I was trying to track down this package. To actually talk to a human who treated me like a person, it felt more life-affirming than a million novels. Homer hangs out with a cast of cheers. Looks like a friendly plate. Give me another beer, you brain-dad.

On a brand-new Simpson Sunday. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the break. It's Henry Gilbert, hoping you're picking many a bean with your grandma while listening to this. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Eric Sizga from the We Hate Movies podcast. We always love having on the We Hate Movies guys.

And hey, we're going to be on their podcast this month too. Check out us chatting about minions with them on We Hate Movies. And seriously, if you're going to be in Las Vegas in August for Star Trek's big convention, they're also going to be there that We Hate Movies guys doing several live shows. It's going to be great. Check them out. They're such funny dudes. Thanks again, Eric, for coming on.

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you need to sign up at the premium level at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons to get our monthly mega podcast, basically three extra podcasts. That is the What a Cartoon Movie Podcast. Each month we cover an animated feature film as in depth as a Simpsons episode, which often can mean four, five, or even six hours.

And man, oh man, this month, do we go deep into Rec It Ralph? The 2012 film that actually has a ton of connections to The Simpsons, not just the director, Rich Moore, but tons more that we get into in that very dense film, full of a bunch of cool trivia that we explore. And that's just the most recent one. It's our summer of the Disney 2010s. We started with 2011's Winnie the Pooh. And next month, you're going to hear us talk about.

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Great little moments. Then we head to a certain bar in Boston, I guess, that Homer is able to visit. We get some TV history in our next clip. This looks like a nice, friendly place. Sammy, you're too old to go on a date with two twins. On the same night, you're supposed to marry Diane without Rebecca and Owen. Okay, Carl, I'll make you bet. If this affects my marriage...

Major League come back, I'll sell the bar. Woody, give me a beer. I think you've had enough, Mr. Peterson. My chiropractor says I can't carry you home anymore. Just give me another beer, you brain-dad, hick. I'll kill you. I'll kill all of you. Whoa, settle down, Nami.

Gotta save those pipes for karaoke. I love you guys. I guess this was a pretty big deal, because Cheers had just gone off the air, I don't know, 18 months before this. Yeah, and it was one of the highest rated, like, finale's ever. I mean, it's no mash, but it did pretty good. And that The Simpsons, you know, has connections to Cheers. Several Cheers writers wrote for this.

They are all, like, friendly. That's probably what helped get them. I wonder, they mentioned how they worked hard to get everybody, but things couldn't line up with Kelsey Grammer. But, like, where did this start? Who said, hey, if we're going to do a scene of Homer Goes to Cheers, why don't we see if we can get everybody to actually do it? I mean, it's impressive.

Everybody else other than Kelsey Grammer, Shelley Long, or Kirsty Alley. Now, was Kelsey Gramer already do it? He's probably already doing Sideshow Bob on the show, right? Oh, yeah. He had just, we're like maybe five years into that, I think, by this point, right? Is there like a chance maybe he didn't, like, my voice is already part of the Simpsons?

Why do, would that be confusing to the audience, potentially? Maybe not. I mean, he does a little bit of a voice, obviously, for Bob, but. I wonder, though, too. He was obviously starring in Frazier at the time, the spinoff, and maybe he had too much respect for the continuity of like, hey, wait, Frazier wouldn't be at Cheers anymore. He lives in Seattle now.

Oh, probably, yeah. He's probably a real stickler for the rules, that guy. Obviously, Cheers is a very good sitcom. Nobody talks about it now, but the one time I see it mentioned online is a meme that goes around that shows you how old all the characters are at the inception of Cheers, where most of them are in their late 20s or early 30s.

I think George Went was maybe 32. Chelsea Grammer is in his 20s when he is playing Frazier for the first time. That's crazy. My God. I guess I look okay for my age. I see that one. And then I also see like whatever age Jason Alexander was in season one of Seinfeld. But I think it is the George Went one that hits the hardest, I think, perhaps. Whoever I said was he just passed away last year.

Everybody had only the nicest things to say about him always. And so I feel a little mean saying like, boy, I don't want to look as bad as George Went. He turned looking bad into a career And we love him for it Yeah, if only I could get paid for it, my God And he gets the funniest lines in this Like that's what I love about this is Everybody else is just making jokes about

The recurring plot lines and cheers But Norm is broken Like he isn't doing a bit about himself He's actually now too drunk And just a violent, depressed alcoholic I love the line Brain Dead Hick That's great But apparently he's picked up karaoke since the show has been canceled, so he's got something to do.

They've installed a karaoke machine at Cheers, I guess. I also love that Sam is brushing his hair while discussing his two types of Sam Malone storylines, dating or resuming his baseball career. Or selling the bar, I guess that was the three. I guess we were talking about sober people selling you beer, famously Sam Malone, sober. That's right. There were a few episodes where it's like he was tempted to, or he did fall off. the wagon like in one season finale, right? And then he burns down the bar. Wasn't that? Oh, that's why you don't get high on your own supply. I read about that.

Hey, and you know what? In TNG2, it was filming right next to Cheers. If somebody did a guest appearance on Star Trek next generation, they probably were on Cheers. And if not Cheers, then Seinfeld. They were likely on both. Yeah, I think Quark was in an episode of Cheers, right? Oh, yeah. And you know what? It went both ways. Kelsey Grammer was at least on one TNG episode. That was how they advertised it. Listeners got to hear the vintage ad. The way they advertised this episode was Homer meets the cheers people. Nothing about Marge at all.

Just watch this and you'll see Cheers. So also, too, I didn't know that George Wentz widow is Second City alum Bernadette Burkett. And she's an actress herself who was in David Merkin's Heart Stoppers film. Also, did you guys know before he had passed away that he was Jason Sedakis' uncle? Oh, yes, I did know that. Of course, because everyone is somebody, you know, every single person is related to something. A small correction, Henry, the David Merkin film is called Heartbreakers. You called it Heart Stoppers, which is, I think, is a horror movie.

That's right. It's terrifying. Write down Heart Stoppers. That's not me, guys. I think you're thinking of clockstoppers. And why are you thinking of clock stoppers? Well, because it's Jonathan Frakes. Oh, okay, we're bringing it back.

We're bringing it back. TNG has clearly broken my brain. It made me worse at podcasting now. I should slow it down. Now we can tell Eric, Eric, why don't you guys do clock stoppers on your show? Come on. I know. Well, you know, there's maybe, I mean, maybe that'd be something.

There's certain movies that are like, is there enough interest to even do on We Hate Movies? Like, for instance, I don't know if you guys seen this Kelsey Grammar movie from 1992 called Galaxies Are Colliding. It is naval gazing trash. I always kind of wanted to do it, but I don't think it would really make for a good episode. But clockstoppers, maybe heart stoppers. I've got to look that one up, too. Or I just made up a movie that's not real. Sounds like it's from the twisted mind of Clive Barker.

So after that, then Homer heads to a very dangerous bar, because I had to clip this great clip out and the one that follows it to in Homer's journeys. A minute. There's something bothering me about this place. I know. This lesbian bar doesn't have a fire exit. Enjoy your death trap, ladies.

What was her problem? Greetings, good man. Might I trouble you for a drink? I'll get out of here, Homer. Homer? Who is Homer? My name is Guy Incognito. Oh my God. This man is my exact double.

That dog has a puffy tail. You're puff. Two amazing jokes back-to-back that completely mislead you. and I wish I could watch them again for the first time. Yes, I mean, the guy incognita, what a fun turn there. Oh, my God. By the way, Heart Stopper, I just looked up. There's a 1989 film, Henry.

This sounds amazing. It's written and directed by John A. Rousseau. He was a writer on Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead. So Heartstopper, 1989. Listen to this plot summary here. A physician who was hanged during the American Revolution for being a vampire is resurrected. He confesses his story. crime to a priest but then starts to kill again.

His modern descendant turns out to be a serial killer who also wants to be a vampire. It sounds like a great movie. I'm looking at it now 90 minutes, adding to watch list immediately. Tom Savini in it, that means it's got some good splatters and stuff. One of the Zappa children. Oh my goodness. Oh, wow. Is it Ahmed or Dweasel?

No, it's moon unit. Moon unit. Wow. Here I was thinking it was a guy. I should have realized. Now, I mean, boy, you are already a colonial van. vampire resurrected. That's already got me. Yeah. Sounds great. I assume guy incognito never came back because he was beaten to death by Moe. He doesn't move anymore. Yeah. They broke his neck.

Well, the jokes on him because he's dead. Yes. It's just so great guy incognito with a natural mustache that looks like a glued on mustache. Like, God, it fucking rules. I love that joke so much. Well, this aired in 1994. I don't think there's ever been more gay people. people on TV than in this one scene. Yeah. The she-she lounge first. Hey, great pun. You might not get it first.

I didn't as a kid, but, you know, a she-she as a way to describe something as being a fancy lounge or bourgeois. But it's she-she, the pronoun. And you know what? I need to get pronouns out of these titles. That's, that's wrong. I'm against it. No, no.

I mean, this is a line to keep up my pocket for when there's something wrong with the place that we're at. Like anything could be wrong, but I will say this blank doesn't have a fire exit. I love Homer's enjoy your death trap ladies. He loves being at this lesbian bar otherwise and has no other judgments or thoughts on it. He might have found his

watering hole. And the whole like, what's her problem is just so funny? It could have been a regressive joke about saying that a lesbian, that the premise would be, lesbians are so unattractive that they could think Homer is a woman. But I think they're being respectful of gender

there and assuming that Homer is a woman. And I think that is very good. and progressism of the show. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, also, too, I think the designs of the lesbians are good for 90s lesbian designs, and they're not like too intentionally like manish or what have you. Like they just look like cool, hip lesbians you would want to hang out with.

Absolutely. And this is where Homer is nearly out of places, and they have stopped doing as much of the Homer's brain talking jokes, but now his liver gets to talk. I just love it's like, yay. And just the statement of how my liver hurts is such a great little line. I wish I could pinpoint that. You know, I'm getting older.

You get those aches and pains. And obviously I imbibe here and there. And I'm like, I wish I knew. I don't know. You could pinpoint it, yes. Yes. You don't want your organs talking to you. No.

The skin and the muscles and bones, that's all fine. Yes. And I definitely don't want any heart-stopping, heart-stopping to happen either. Now, I guess at one point in history, there was a stereotype that pilots were drunks. I think that stereotype was attached to a lot of professional occupations like journalists or writers. Like so many people were labeled as drunks. Now, the vibe I get from commercial air pilots is they're all ex-military because whenever I fly now, it's always like, all right, everybody, applaud for the soldier on the plane. They had a very common occurrence on all of my flights.

And you ever pose as the soldier, too? Yes, to get free airfare. Party City can hook you up with any kind of military costume you want. of course I'll clap for you. Yeah, I agree, Bob. They come off as military types. Plus, if you've seen

the second season of the rehearsal, the great comedy reality show on HBO Max by Nate Fielder. It, Nate Fielder, it's all about pilots and especially about

co-pilot versus pilot dynamics that have caused air travel tragedies and he's trying to unlock it. It has, I believe it, is real. He makes a good point of like some, the lead

pilot is usually like a military guy who doesn't listen to other people and is bossing people around and your co-pilot is kind of in like the cuck or subposition who just is like a somebody training commercial piloting so if that person says, hey, I think there might be a problem

with this thing. The head pilot goes, no, it's fine. And then they crash. He finds little black box recordings to back up this thesis of fielders. in the show. So in real life, Alan would not be pushing back as much against Homer. No, he would demure and be like, well, okay, I guess so. There is some very interesting stuff in there that I've seen also that pilots, to speak to the alcoholism, pilots are usually encouraged to not talk about any depression issues they may have or go to a therapist because they could literally lose their jobs if they are seen as potentially suicidal as a pilot.

Yes, that is a great season of television, very recommended, very funny. But they still all sound like that Hank Azaria impression, the classic airline pilot voice. That's been stand-up comedy for, I think, like, 40 years. I mean, that's how you have to talk. Otherwise, they wouldn't know who's on the radio, you know? They'd be like, get off the line. We're trying to talk to a pilot. What, the alcoholic pilot thing, that's the whole plot line of that Robert Zemeckis movie Flight, right?

That Denzel Washington's very heavy drinker pilot lands the plane because he's drunk. See? It's one of a few movies about drunk pilots. So Homer has his excuse of why he doesn't have his outfit. It's funny too. It's like the idea of a cop bar, except it's a pilots bar. When he's given the loner, there is a good dark joke here where Homer is in the deleted scene. Homer is, we find out who supplied Homer with his uniform.

Well, you talk to talk. Well, you can borrow bills. gets back. You can just keep that. Bill jumped off the roof of the building thinking he was a bird. But you know, you heard him say, oh, when he landed, so he's not dead. And he was also naked. Yes, that's also it, yes.

Then Homer can't even get one drink in when he is called into it. And this turns into like another great Merkin style joke about sitcom cliches. That he is impressed into being a pilot to the windy city where conditions are a little Windy and Homer just admits it. He's like, no, I'm not. He's like, you crack me up. And seemingly he pushed him for like 20 minutes and didn't believe him every single time. And I keep telling you, you flyboys crack me up. I love this exchange too because it's like, you know, hey, you're not just impersonating a pilot to drink here, are you? And yes, yes, I am. But I wish, now that could be a watering hole for me because I like to play dress up like the next guy. I would

Like if there was a bar that they would give me a uniform to put on, you know, it would be very fun for me. Though you'd have to go, what, nearest airport to you, what, the Newark one? Like, is that a remote area you'd have to drive out to? Yeah, so the Newark one's about an hour and 15 from me. But there's actually, I live near Stewart Airport, which is in Newburgh, it's kind of more of a military airport in a lot of ways that do do some domestic flights to like Florida and stuff like that. But like if, you know, the president's going to West Point, which is also near me here, that that's the landing strip he'll use. But hey, maybe I should look around there. I think there's some strip clubs nearby that.

Maybe I should be a regular there. That's smarter. Be a professional. You can pretend to be a professional there too. Yeah. They could lend me a G-string. So this is where we meet co-pilot Allen who instantly sees through Homer. And Homer nearly kills a bunch of people immediately.

in it. Then we cut to Homer being talked to by the owner of Quasi Clown Airlines, which in my opinion, that seems like late ADR. And I think he said a real company name. And then they were told not to have a real company name set. That's my bet. But it is funny for it to go what, Crazy Clown Airlines is going to be a laughing stock. Yeah, that's a good one. That one went away a long time. I mean, I would bet there's half as many airlines as there were 30 years ago in this air. And they all just keep coming together. Like, Alaska and in a the freak states, those airlines just combined, and now it's just Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines. They need a combined name. It can't just be that. Freak air.

Freak air, yeah. Those are my local airlines, too. I've been flying a lot more Alaska than I used to since they, like, control the Seattle airport. Don't tell them this, but yeah, I'm not a big fan of Alaskan Airlines. I've flown it a few times. I mean, at least the ones I've had, there's no entertainment, and I need to be entertained at all times, like a baby. Do they have entertainment in the seat in front of you there, Henry? No, no, they don't. They do not. Personal device. What you do is you get on their free Wi-Fi that can only go to their website,

and then you can watch a handful of things that are on your own, like, phone. You can watch via their thing to get them via ad revenue. You can just pretend you're on the toilet. That's usually what I do on a flight. The guy next to me hates it, though. So Homer has reaped to the benefits All of this, all of this set up to How do you get the Simpsons on an airplane?

That's what's so great. This Homer's tour of bars was just to get the Simpsons on an airplane. Yeah, I think the only other time they were on an airplane so far was Mr. Lisa goes to Washington, and that's because Lisa won a contest. And yes, Marge was on that plane. She had no jokes, but she was sitting next to Homer smiling politely. Wow, was she sedated maybe?

I think they doped her up real good. Yeah. In the Itchy and Scratchy Land episode, Marge goes on a helicopter pretty fine. She's pretty good in that helicopter ride to the island. Maybe it really is very specific. It's an airplane that has stewards on it. That's what freaks her out. Yeah, I mean, there would not be a steward on the helicopter, unless it was very large.

That's just ridiculous. Though, statistically speaking, you're in much more danger on a helicopter than an airplane. Oh, yeah. I would never set foot in one, you know? Even if they offered you one that goes straight, to Madison Square Garden you'd be, it turns out. I mean, what do you know, you're either going to get Vic Murrowed or

Kobe Bryant, take your pick. So this is where Homer is excited for it and everyone else is too, except for March. News, everybody. Because I endangered lives, we can fly anywhere we want. Alaska. Hawaii.

I don't know, Homer. We're right in the middle of the busy housekeeping season. But Mars, you deserve a vacation. and it's a chance for you to clean up after us in a whole other state. I don't want to be a wet blanket, but getting on a plane like that seems like a hassle coupled with a burden. Come on, Marge, I want to shake off the dust of this one-horse town. I want to explore the world.

I want to watch TV in a different time zone. I want to visit strange, exotic malls. I'm sick of eating hoagies. I want a grinder, a sub, a footlong hero. I want to live, Marge. Won't you let me live? Won't you please? So is this confirmation, Springfield, Pennsylvania, South Jersey type of thing, Hogis?

Oh, I guess, yeah, if they're calling Huggies, that is Hogie Town, isn't it? I think so. I do like Homer's very small visions of what going on a vacation is. And Eric, soon, you will be watching things in the Las Vegas time zones. Yes, it's very exciting for me. TV and other time zones is a luxury experience. Yeah, the few times I got to travel as a kid, those were. the exciting experience is, wow, a different mall.

And, oh, I'm in Pacific time. Everything's three hours in advance. Wait, hearties or Carls Juniors here? I remember having that as well. Yes. The California Pizza Kitchen. I've died and gone to heaven. First time I went to La La Land, Los Angeles.

Oh, my God. I couldn't believe my eyes. What's this? Jack in the box? Carl's Jr.? I haven't seen these before. And of course, I tried them and they were bad. Did you get peer pressured into having

in and out when you went to California? Oh, of course you do. Of course you do. And it's also, it's not worth the effort, I would say. It's fine enough. It's fine enough. It's just, it's your standard thing. They do pressure margin to it. I think this is an accurate portrayal of somebody who is dealing with, you know, anxiety that you try to, and I say this is somebody who's dealing with my own anxieties, medicated for it. You come up with every possible excuse that's not saying why you're actually scared. Just like, oh, no, we. got to clean this. Don't we have to do this thing? Like, to try to get out of it. Yeah, it's fairly realistic for a 1994 sitcom, especially compared to the last Marge mental breakdown episode, Homer

alone, where it was just a very cartoonish mental snap she had in her car. And this does feel like more observed, more related to the character in her quirks. Yeah, actually, doesn't she like let out the literal growl of a lion when she cracks then? Yes. Yeah. We cut to them on the plane. Homer has already gotten his peanuts way before they're offered. And speaking to, hey, here's some airline content here. But have you guys seen the like in this inshittification era we live in that like it's getting scaled back more on flights about when they're giving you even the free food and beverage services on planes now? Yeah, I think so.

I try. No, I, you know, I try to fly first when I can, which is not all the time. But man, it's a real difference. As an older man, you know, as a wider man. It's definitely a better experience than economy or coach, if you will. But yeah, no, in coach, you're like a cradled dog, you know, like a rat in a cage back there. This was just announced on May 19th that Delta will stop doing their food and beverage service. And by that, I mean a cup of Diet Coke and one of those little biscotti things.

If the flight is under 350 miles, they're not doing it anymore. They won't even give you that. I just pay for the stuff now because I know the free things you get are garbage. So I just get a little bottle of line and like whatever like cheese plate crap that they packaged five months ago. Yeah, you see, another problem is this is going to open a whole new world up for you. Next time you're on a plane, there's going to be people bringing in like just full on meals from the terminal where it's going to be like you're going to be smelling like fish and shit right next to you. That's another thing. I get you're busy, you're on the go.

I would wish people, if you get there a little early, eat before. Don't bring McDonald's or whatever onto the flight. Yeah, you're just like you're living in a fast food cloud at that point. The stench? Oh, my God. You can just shovel it in your mob before getting on the plane. You don't have to walk it onto the plane with you. I mean, think about all the time you're walking down that ramp and they let you just stand there like an idiot.

That's where anxiety comes in handy because you get. get to the airport four hours in advance. You can just do whatever you want. That's literally what I do. Yeah, I have a few meals before I get on the plane. I do get there very early and that's just a, you know, I think that's just a 9-11 thing, you know. You guys are on my age too.

You know, we lived through that war on terror. So you always got there early because they would like wand your buttocks. They would check your shoes. Take those shoes off. Yeah, we are not airport maxing like all of the zoomers out there. No, God bless them. I wish I could. I wish I could just, I don't know, be carefree in my heart and confident in my actions, but that's never going to be me.

Where are your crustiest pajama bottoms to the plane? No. God damn. That's the thing. It's like you're getting to bed with these people and they're eating in bed and the crumbs are everywhere and they're half naked. It's disgusting. I wish I could just get like, give me like a, I was going to say, a garbage bag to put over my head, but not. quite like a nice one like a mesh

I don't want to see or smell anyone a nice silk bag exactly that gives me sexual powers of course you know this also this joke hit home for me of Marge worrying about the lint trap starting a fire like in 1994

my mom was also actually worried about that like that was a sign of her own anxiety issues so she would like be worried if she didn't clean out the lint trap that someone might have broken into the house and started to do laundry and then started a fire. If the laundry, if the dryer was going, but it's like, oh, wait, we have to go somewhere.

She would just turn it off and she'd be like, we're turning it back on when we get back. Like it's just the risk was too much for her. Right. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, and then, you know, older people, you get that. My grandmother was convinced if there was a thunderstorm outside and you had the TV on, you're going to be like lightning bolts going to go through the TV and hit you. Okay. So we had to turn off the TV.

Now I love playing with danger I'll turn the dryer on and leave the house. Good idea. I'll turn all the burners on on my stove. Open the oven door. Yeah. Can I get the 450? Nice warm house when you get back.

Exactly. I put the stop down in all the tubs and run the water. I'm drawing a bath for when I get home. Oh, man, a nice warm bath when you get home. Yeah. That sounds great. So we get a couple quick jokes of like a rare one where Maggie is actually acting like a baby and just crying.

And then we also see that Abe is on the flight and I can barely see, though that's just to set up a payoff later after the commercial break. Then we get joke about oversold flights, which the last time I got any offer like that was Alaska Airlines offered me a $95 credit if I flew home a day earlier. Whoopty do. No, thank you. I once really cashed in on that.

I think I got like a $200 or $300 Amazon gift card by flying home a few hours. later. Man, that is nice. That's more reasonable. A lot of times it's like, hey, you just went through the fucking airport all day. You want to do this again tomorrow instead? And Alaska Airlines, too, like, this is just all these airline complaints I've been saving up.

It's just that they have this new thing where they warn you like, they say it almost every time. This flight is fully booked and it's not going to be enough overhead space for everybody. Could somebody please check your baggage and we need 11 people to do it? and they just keep guilting you. They go like, well, we still need five more people, you know, we're going to get on the plane sooner. But they don't offer you anything other than just guilt. They just guilt you.

You know, my recommendation for that, and this is what I've been doing now, because that's stressful, right? You're walking down the line in the liminal space that is that hall that takes you to the plane, and they're sizing you up. They want to take your stuff away from you. I just check my bag now.

I have a very small bag with me, so I'm not part of the equation. No one's hunting. wore me. Yes, thank you, Eric. That's the key. Just spend the money to check your bags. You opt out of that madness entirely.

And then you're not even dealing with, like, having to get your bag out of the overhead compartment of people are squeezing around you or colliding into you with their bags or looking pissed off. Man, when you land, isn't that the worst? And then it's just like, okay, this guy's got to stand and put his ass in your face for the next 35 minutes, even though we're still taxing because he's got to hold on to his bag now. So we're saying, Henry, check your bag. I say, oh, no bags on the flight.

at all. Put them all down there. This is to speak to other anxieties. I have my CPAP machine. I am not ashamed to say I use the SHAP. But I have my travel one with me. I have anxiety about being separated from, I have never had bags lost, but I just go like, man, if this

gets lost and I lose my CPAP, I'm screwed. That's why I am still a carry-on guy. I don't want to get separated from it. But you're not using it on the flight, right? You're not like strapping in on the flight. I just did for the first time the last time I flew to New York because it was I hadn't done like a red eye flight in the longest time of like 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.

And so, yeah, I plugged it in, put on the mask. I didn't care. I had stopped being worried about looking weird wearing it. And I slept on a plane for the first time in like 15 years. Oh, yeah. I can never sleep on a flight. Red eyes are the worst thing in the world for me because also even if you think you're going to sleep on the flight. For me, you know, it's of course going to be other people and maybe a child.

or something. One of those annoyances. So these childs, they get to get pampered. Bart and Lisa run to the front and get to be in the first class, not literally pampered, of course, as Bart is concerned. So, Henry, is this Southwest policy run to the front of the

plane to get your first class seat? Well, Southwest has no first class, so that's... Yeah. But this feels like they're kind of vibe. It's just like, sit wherever you want. We will start tasing you if you get out of line. They're all low class suits. I feel bad. I was fine with Southwest in its old stuff, but it is, it can be anxiety written. But Bob was not a fan of

our Southwest flights of the open cattle call. I believe they started doing assigned seats now. So things are changing in these friendly skies. I'm more of a united guy just because Newark has like 10,000 United flights. I think that was why we did Southwest so much because Oakland Airport is a big hub for, for Southwest. So it was just, it usually was like the best ones for our flights to, usually just Los Angeles. That was where we flew a few times. But so this is where Marge, though, can't take anything anymore. She's great anxiety animation, the way she is tearing the napkin in a circle. Like, it's really well observed. This is where Marge can take no more. My crew prepared for takeoff.

I think I'll go get a picture of the plane taking off. Marge, what's wrong? Are you hungry? Sleepy? Gassie? Gassie? Is it gas? It's gas, isn't it? Homer, I've never told you this before, but I'm not a good flyer. Ah, ah! Ah! I have to get off the plane. Let me off the plane. I'm asking you nicely to open the doors! Take it easy, Marge. How about if we dope you up real good? Let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, let me off, off, let me off, off. It's okay, March. We don't need to go on a trip. We'll just wait for the killer bees.

to come to us. By the way, I like that Bart was drinking a milk and a martini glass up in first class. Yes. And Lisa has a full fireplace that she can unfurral. A fireplace in the seat in front of you. I hate to be in that seat.

It's bad enough when people lean back, but you're going to put a fire on my ass, too? This bit here, actually, I'll play. They had one other joke they deleted from this that Homer trying to help. Let's hear that. I'm going to help. I'm going to hurt.

help you. Hey everyone, I'm March. Look at me. I'm so scared. Oh, stop it, Homer. I'm sorry, Marge. I thought mocking you would calm you down. I really did. Maybe they thought Homer. He's already very unsypathetic in this episode, perhaps a little too far there. Probably. Even if he means well. I do like, he's like, he really did think mocking her would make it better. It's a good, stupid Homer. And what we were all terrified of Killer Bees back in the 90s, right? Was that guy? He was coming to get us. More recently, there were murder hornets. Is that right? Right.

That was getting all the headlines. I feel like I remember reading about that of like, oh, it's April 2020. And now it's murder hornets too with COVID. Yes. And now we have Ebola or something. It's always something scary out there. I say just ignore it. Live your life.

And if it happens to you, goodbye. I looked it up. Just three months after this was a Fox TV movie. And I wasn't a big Fox TV movie watcher. But something about Killer Bees was pulling me in. It aired March 7th, Deadly Invasion. The Killer Bee Nightmare was a film about what if Killer Bees came to your town? As kids, we just assumed every bee we saw was a killer bee and it was frightening.

It made Bees worse. And then remember, what was that My Girl or whatever movie? Were they, McCulley Colkin or someone who is destroyed by bees? I mean, these have been scary for a long time for us, elder millennials. also a great scene of you see the plane taking off with the music cue like alf colossus's great music cue that makes you think oh actually they calm march down and they did fly off after all and this is a simpsons go somewhere episode and then pan over to reveal no the simpsons did not go and this is not that kind of episode great ending i'm glad marge eventually got over this because they have to fly to australia soon and that is a 20-hour flight yes maybe they've realized in air order they're like oh wait we definitely need to make sure this one airs before the Australia episode. And I think they do

doper up real good for that flight. They'd have to. Oh, my God. Like, I've done, I've heard from the West Coast, that's like 20 hours or something. And I'll do 11 or 12 hours to go to Japan for a wonderful Japan vacation, but boy, 20 hours. I've done

22 hours from Detroit to Beijing. And that was two. This was in the year 2000. So it was many, many years ago. And before, personal devices. I mean, you know, CD Walkman or Discman or something, but the in-flight movie, man, Kevin Costner, message in a bottle, which was, yes, played twice in full on a pull-down projector. You cannot escape it. Full-on noise. Wow. Something, it was quite something. Twenty-two hours before a smartphone or even like, are your Game Boy?

batteries would die on a flight that long too. It couldn't even do that. Geez. Good thing books don't die which was terrible. I wish my book died on that flight. We come back from the commercial break and that's where we get the opening line of the family exploring

how Marge has problems. Bart is sad that now we can't say at least my mom is normal. But Lisa has the correct opinion as usual, which is one that wants to get her professional help with her mental health issues. Which Homer, of course, doesn't want for several reasons, mainly that it's a perfect joke that like any...

Actually, that comes up later, sorry, yes. This is where we just learned that Homer is scared of sock puppets, which never comes up again. No, it doesn't. But, yeah, Homer is rightfully worried that because he will be the second problem addressed in therapy, and that we hear that at the end of this episode. Cabner, Julie Kavner is always great, but isn't often given a ton of things to do as Marge. Not always, but her uncomfortable delivery of... sure as sugar, like is so good.

I just love the brave face she's putting on it to not want to talk about a thing that she's scared of is so good. Like her breakdown is good acting. She does a very good job. It's starting with wanting to marry Snowball 2 and Santa's little helper because they've been living in sin. She's being very productive with her anxiety. She's arranging dog and cat weddings.

She's doing a lot of baking. She's retiling the roof. Which is great. Marge, it's 3 a.m. you be baking? Yes. I mean, it's working out pretty good for Homer in this, that he's getting like nonstop food,

which I do think that also feels realistic of like that a person, Marge, one of her few outlets, is homemaking and cooking and all that. So the outlet for her anxiety and nervous energy being constantly cooking things, it's realistic. And we get a little bit of moaning Lisa in this episode

because when you go back to the season one episode, we see a flashback with, Marge's mom giving her terrible advice. Like always smile, never show everyone, you're sad, like put on a happy face for everyone. And she's kind of echoing that in this scene. Oh, yes. Let's hear some of Marge's ramblings here. Looking all night?

Judge, jury, and execution are all rolled into one you are. See, Dad, I told you mom would have problems. No, no, honey, it's all right. Really, I'm fine. I'm all right. Well, they always said, don't complain. Be good. Behave, behave, be nice, smile, be polite, don't wake way.

You heard your mother's ramblings. She's fine, so behave. You heard your mother's rambling. She's fine, so behave. Like, yeah, the mutterings are just, yes, Marge. And animated perfectly, too. Like, you can see Marge has been up all night. Her eyes are sagging.

It's been a rough night for Marge. And this is then Homer, yes, that sees her working all night too. And they cut a little joke here of Marge vacuuming at three in the more. morning too, but I'll play it. You can see they cut it because it doesn't add too much to the string of jokes of her working. Marge, what are you doing?

Vacuuming. But it's not on. I didn't want to wake anyone. Good thinking. That's all right. That's good. She's cleaning too much and also being very considerate. This is where we then cut to Marge at home in her state of cat-like readiness. I love, oh, the way she, like, tinsed up. God, oh, such a great drawing.

Though this is where Homer rejects the idea of therapy, breaks up families, turns wives against husbands, children against fathers, neighbors against me. Assumes it costs upwards of $10 per hour. Yes. I have insurance that he's covering a therapist, and the copay is about 10 times what Homer thinks therapy is, just for that. Ouch. But hey, it's all worth it, folks. I'm so balanced and normal now on podcast, right? Yes.

And I would say if you're late at least, if you're late at it, folks, it's worth it. And I would say, if you're listening to this, get help. Okay, you know you need it. We know the people this podcast finds. Yes. Well, and back then, listeners who needed help couldn't listen to a podcast for their friends. They had to call radio psychics like Homer does here. Very unpopular program.

He just tells you you're going to die. Not just die. You will die a terrible, terrible death. Oh, sorry, that was our last caller. For you, though, you will die a terrible, terrible death. It's great. The format for this show is incredible because a man tells you you're going to die horribly and then you get to make a song request. It's pretty cool.

I love Homer runs in the observation that like Homer doesn't just run in for the joke to request it's radio man. But he has the radio like next to his ear because he was listening in. Like that's such a great extra detail. I love that. Now we head to the video store. I love a video store joke. Miss video stores, of course. So they do think all three of us have boutique, still existing video store.

within. For me, it's Scarecrow Video in Seattle. It's still operational, I think, 501 charity is how it does it, but still around, still doing great. Yeah, I have Video Cat in Vancouver. Eric, what's going on with your local video stores? Yeah, I don't know. I think they're pretty much all gone here. I think one opened up inside the community theater in Hudson, New York, that's upstate. And then downstate, Brooklyn, I believe there's a new one in Brooklyn, I think. Yeah, it's kind of sad because what a pleasurable experience that was. Just it's so much better than scrolling on the TV of what's on streaming.

When you had to make that decision, you actually had to get off the pot. Because now I'll just scroll and look at all the options instead of actually watching something. But I sound a thousand years old right now. By the way, my childhood video store is now a high-end sushi restaurant. Hmm. That crazy? Better than it being like a FedEx outlet or something. Checking establishment.

Off-track betting. I miss being a video store clerk. When I went to the movie. Madness Shop in Portland, Oregon, another great still existing video store. Again, acting like a soon-to-be senior, I talked to the zoomers who work there, the cash register. I just look at them and think like, you guys don't know how lucky you are to still have a job like this. You're getting to live the dream that was closed off to me in 2009. Did you give them a Wothers original when you left to make, pave things over after you shook your cane? This ramblings of an old man. I did show them

The film they were playing on the TV was double jeopardy, and I got to be like, I got to see that in theaters when it came out. Oh, yeah. So did I. Jeez. What a movie. Let's get you to bed, grandpa. So, yes, they rent a live hero and fearless, all of which have very big violent plane crashes in it.

And also, hey, here's another funny fact. Two of those three movies are also the names of Jet Lee film. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Jeez. He's great. I love Jet Lee. Jet Lee.

needs to make a film called Alive and then he can have the trifecta on that. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that the original Alive is a pretty good movie but they made a much more faithful version of the story in 2003, the Netflix film, Society of the Snow. A lot of people were really talking that up when it was released a few years ago.

I did not know they remade that. The Society of Snow. I haven't seen Alive either. I only know it for the countless jokes about like Fearless and Hero get referenced occasionally but like Alive, the idea of you know, the cannibalism to survive in playing crash stuff.

Like it's inspired a million sketches and comedy pieces that we've seen our whole lives. It's cannibalism is funny, you know? Like if the Donner Party were, you know, had to figure out where they're going to put their overhead storage and shit. Like, it's fun. I've never seen Alive, but I don't think there is a titular line. Although I love them wrapping the movie up with no thanks of the plane. Many of us are still alive. And they all say alive in unison.

Hero and Alive I saw as when I was a kid, I really kind of barely remember them. But, you know, my parents were like, you better watch this. I mean, it is also like kids on a field trip. Well, teens on a field trip too, I think, right? It's a rugby team or something? I think they're professional rugby players. Yeah, they're not students. And I think the issue with Alive is it's all white actors.

And they do something different with Society of the Snow. So Ethan Hawk is in Alive, correct? That's right, yes. There are students of cooking. They became culinary experts. Also, like a season or two ago on The Simpsons, they also just did a parody episode of Alive. Like Homer and his bowling team, the pin pals are in a plane crash and might eat each other.

So they actually just parodied a lot. 30 years later, parodied alive on the show. Running out of things to do, I see. Yes. But you know what? Al Jean made sure in that episode, have a reference to Amazing Spider-Man 33, so I have to give it a plus a thumbs up just based on that. This is when we get that really amazing drawing of Marge. She's not sitting on the couch,

but she's frozen in a sitting position a few feet in front of the couch. That would be an amazing cell to own. Yes, God. Marge is just locked in perfect, like, squatted pose, like not moving, the shadow behind her. Like, God, it is a great, great drawing. And Homer, only when the camera changes for you, the viewer. Does Homer notice that Marge is seated that way? He goes like, oh, right, yeah. He couldn't tell before when Lisa was

trying to point out that she's not fine. That is what tips him over the edge. They headed to the psychiatrist because there may not be bugs on you. This is where another very funny exchange between Lisa and Homer. Plus, we see they're not the only familiar characters going to the psychiatrist

today. All right, Lisa, you've got your way. Your mom's going to a psychiatrist. She's going to tell March to leave me. It'll break up the family, and you'll have to live with your grandmother and pick beans. Dad, I like picking beans with Grandma. Well, keep it up, then. Okay, I will.

Good. You do that. Fine. You'll be picking many of beans. Hope I do. I don't believe it, Principal Skinner! Well, well, well, I never thought I'd win this easy. This has nothing to do with you, Simpson. I have many.

many issues with my beloved smother. Mother. Bart, leave that man alone with his pain and sit down. Okay. Hope I do. I love that. Hope I do.

We don't get enough of the classic crazy noises anymore. Yes, the crazy noises are so good. No one is like doing the thing where you rub your index finger up and down up against your lips. Right, yeah. Like Bugs Bunny would do many a time.

That has to come back. You can't hold up a side. that says screw and ball on it to point at somebody. That's cancel culture now. You can't do it anymore. I still do the twirling the index finger next to your head to indicate someone is crazy. Yeah, no, that's a class. That's a good one.

Yeah. I love that one. Also, Lisa, you know what? She is excited to finally move in with Grandma to pick beans, which that would be a weird thing to do with what actually we know about, like, Grandma Bouvier. She doesn't seem like the bean picking type. Yeah.

Bean picking is like a classic grandma activity, though. Right, yes, of course. You tend to the garden. or whatever. I love the Skinner gag of him trying to hide with the magazine in its principles world and he's on the cover. With a very flat face, he didn't smile for his cover photo either. And yes, his beloved smother, a great line, a great line about a Freudian slip. This is where, not counting the cheers folks, the biggest guest star of the episode comes in here.

It's somebody that David Merkin had always wanted to work with because we talked about it in a previous episode, the Lady Bouvier's lover, David Mirkin, and most comic writers of his generation love The Graduate, but especially for Merkin, it inspired him to want to direct films, not just write comedy or be a stand-up. The Graduate was extremely important to a lot of Boomer comedians, and I've watched it recently again.

It is interesting. I could see how it was definitely a watershed moment for young white men who want to feel ways about things. Yeah, they want to be granny shaggers, you know? They want to get the piece. so old. Who is only 10 years older than Dustin Hoffman in that movie, I think. Yeah, Dustin Hoffman, he is like Ferris Bueller's friend.

He's a 29-year-old graduate. Yeah, 10 years, that used to be a crazy age gap back then. Now it's like, you know, nothing. You know, I had Rushmore copying the graduate, so that got to be my graduate. I didn't need the graduate. I kind of prefer Rushmore, to be honest. I mean, I guess I need to rewatch the graduate, but I kind of didn't really resonate with me. I guess I should step up.

up my attraction to older women. It mainly just tells you what your parents' generation wanted to do in the bedroom, mainly. Right. And going to plastics, of course. Plastics, that's the future. Like I was right. Why do we hear our big guest star as Marge and Homer meet Dr. Zweig? All right, how much do you charge?

If money's a problem, I charge on a sliding scale. I can go as low as $30 an hour. Keep sliding. $30 will be fine. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. First, what are your qualifications? Well... Oh, no.

I'm not here to take a reading test. I want to see some credentials. I'm sorry, doctor. He's just afraid to blame all my problems on him. I'm not here to blame anyone. March therapy can be an intense process. Uh-huh. We're going to delve deeply into your subconscious

and we're not going to stop until we've exposed the root of your fear. of flying. Don't worry. This is a private sanctuary where whatever transpires will be just between us.

What? Oh, that's just Murray, the window washer. He comes every day at 12 o'clock. But it's a few seconds before 12 o'clock. Oh, boy. I love how tortured the setup of that joke is just to make it happen.

If this window washer is to appear, it has to be exactly at noon. That's his thing. And that he wouldn't even look down at what he was doing. He would just go down and crush whoever was there because at 12 o'clock he appears and that's his job. And also that Zweig wouldn't recognize Homer the guy she just talked to as being, and it's not Murray in the window too. I've been rewatching Madman and Betty goes to therapy and Don just calls the therapist and learns everything she's been saying. It's crazy. I mean,

that's how the world was. And thankfully, this doctor here, and Mancrawls, is got a little moral code unlike the old days. Well, I guess Don Draper got to hear that bro code because it was a fellow man who was the therapist, right? Yes, yes. There was no hip, but we just had the bro code. Yes, yes. In the 60s.

Now, this is the Prince of Tides content, the 1991 film based on a book from the 80s. I believe, Henry, you watched this, but the premise of the movie is Nick Nolte is in therapy and he is remembering this tragic home invasion that happened to his family that resulted in a lot of bad things. And then through having a relationship with this therapist, what I believe is a romantic relationship eventually, he is able to get through this trauma.

Yes. It's a somewhat autobiographical book about, it's an interesting book. And from what I've read about how it was adapted by star and director Barbara Streisand, that some of this stuff of the therapist gets cut out to make room for no joke. A ridiculous, though I love it, storyline of the therapist. Lowenstein's son is trained to be a football player by Nick Nolte. Her son is like a senior in high school, and her husband, his father wants him to train to be a violinist. And she's like, but I want him to learn how to play football. And the reason why it's 30 minutes of the friggin movie and completely distracts from the actual story is because the son is played by her real life son, Jason Gould. That's why. I see. Whoa.

I assume they also wanted to reach out to the dads in the audience and say there's some football content in this. Don't worry about it. Yeah, they throw around the pigskin. Just stay tuned. Nominated for seven Oscars, by the way. That's crazy. It's a fun little movie. It is certainly from the era of Midlife Crisis films about extramarital affairs that were all the rage with our parents' generation in the 90s. They love cheating on each other our parents, didn't they? But this is so funny of how they jumped through so many plot hoops to, Do one justify that it's okay that both of them are cheating on their spouses? They're actually the less guilty party compared to their spouse who they are cheating on in both cases.

And this is the craziest tightrope they walk in the movie that I couldn't believe. Because I knew that the poster is them in a nude embrace. So you know they're going to have sex in the movie. Yeah. She operates as his therapist in all but name. They have multiple lines at the start of like, hey, I'm your sister's therapist. I'm not your therapist. but if you wanted to tell me stuff, we can just talk. So she operates like a therapist,

but she's not officially his therapist, so she is not breaking any rules or morals seemingly by having sex with him. It's not therapy, it's a hang sesh. Yeah. If you just hang out with a therapist, you could have sex with him. And no money is exchanged between them either. Also, the stereotypical gay neighbor character in the movie is played by George Carlin, which I did not know was in that movie.

That was also surprised. But also it's one of those like feeling older type things of just, man, all movies look like shit now way of thinking that seeing this film beautifully shot in like New York City and the beaches of North Carolina, I'm like, God, this movie is gorgeous. Why don't movies look like this anymore is the thought I'm constantly having watching. I mean, yeah, they used to actually take cameras outside instead of just doing on a lot there. They also, you know, movies, kids don't know this. Kids wouldn't know this. but not every movie was filmed in Atlanta back in the day. I had the same thought when I watched UHF and 4K.

Yes. This low-budget studio comedy. It looks amazing. Yeah. Also, it's distracting in the film that Nick Noltey's character and his family, their last name is Wingo. So his name is Tom Wingo. That's the character's name.

Tom Wingo, how you doing? Yes. That was like World Sexiest Man era of Nulte, right? Oh, yes, yeah. Not Mugshot Nolte, the guy we've known for like 25 years now. Right, yes. He was a hunk. He was a hunk, yes.

Hey, you would cheat on your husband to get with this guy? Absolutely. Also, Bob, if you were to watch it now, you would notice that the villain, the male villain of Dolph Lundgren's Punisher is in this movie, too, in a major role as well.

Okay. Similar role? Same role as the Punisher. He's still the same character. Both characters are strange foreigners who care a lot about their child, but are villainous. Okay.

But for this episode, they're essentially borrowing the psychiatrist, patient relationship, except for it's not romantic here. And Vogue is a lot like Lowenstein, and it's all about remembering tragedies from the past and talking about them. And the music is very similar, too. Yes.

In the movie and in the book, after his sister attempts suicide, that Tom goes over like, why Loenstein asks, like, why would your sister do this? And he's like, well, our childhoods weren't very good. Oh, I cannot talk like that. I'm going to be coughing the rest of the episode.

Childhoods weren't very good. Yes, that's why I need to get into your snatch. I would appreciate that. And yes, he is continually remembering things from childhood until he uncovers a buried childhood memory, which is not as funny as an airline steward. So Sam Bancroft, she was great. She's a funny, very funny, a great Oscar, Tony Emmy-winning actress.

And also, I think dudes like David Merkin look up to her. because she was a gorgeous, incredibly talented woman who married a funny man, Mel Brooks. And that's why Mel Brooks is on the series later in the season. He showed up with her, and Merkitt said that he was like in his ear directing her when she doing her performance. And yes, they're like, well, Mel, if you're already here,

why don't you be a passenger in a limousine for Homer in a few episodes? And he did it. And now he has outlived her by 21 years. It's a sad thing on the DVD commentary. Like, did you get that too, Bob, of like the Merkin check-in afterwards? Yeah. Yeah, she passed away right before these DVDs came out, so there's a little memorial after the episode. She had an amazing career worth, you know, graduate is a great place to start or the miracle worker.

Maybe you watch the miracle work in school like others of us, but she is also in heartbreakers. Oh, there it is. Heartbreakers. Yes. Yeah. So come back from commercial break, and this is just a quick one, but this, I love dance performance here of his impact. On the emphasis on these words is so funny. Ever since you started therapy, all you can do is talk about yourself.

Well, what about me, Marge? I just left my first session, and I haven't even opened my mouth yet. You see? You see? I just left my first session, and I haven't opened my mouth yet. God, the posing, every pose on it is a different one, too. Like, I just love it. So funny.

Homer is very right to be suspicious of what's happening in therapy. I mean, if your husband, if your spouse does that to you after your first meeting with a therapist, then yes, I am not talking about my fear of flying anymore with a therapist. I am talking about, can you believe my husband did this? Have we gone to the scene where she writes that husband and underlines it? Oh, yes, that was so good. Like she instantly, she instantly knows what the problem is, yes. Yeah, and he's like talking like Tom Cruise over here. Oh, yes.

Boy, man, it's funny. I've seen it pointed out he doesn't talk about his children. at all anymore. Like they don't, they don't exist to him anymore. Well, no, of course. Yeah. Is there a Siri in there? Surrey. That's right. Surrey, that's right. Surrey. Surreal. She was the first Tom Cruise kid and podcast. Had you guys heard this recently? I've heard this on like multiple podcasts recently about how

that like Adam Sandler helped Katie Holmes leave him. What? No, I didn't hear this. That would be a very fun like little adventure movie of them escaping the compound. It was apparently her being in, I believe it's Jack and Jill. She's the wife in one of those Sandler films. That isolated her from Tom Cruise long enough to get her kids and belongings away and then file for divorce, apparently. So Adam Sandler helped get her out of Scientology. Wow.

I heard Rob Schneider was also very supportive. He said, you can do it. And I heard that, you know, Adam Sandler dressed as Jill to distract Tom for a while. Oh boy, he never jumped more and I can. couch than when he saw Jill. The plot with Al Pacino in that movie is just, they recreated what happened in real life with Tom Cruise. That gave me inspiration. Tom Cruise is lucky that he keeps trying to kill himself on camera.

Otherwise, we would have left him in the dust long ago. Yeah, probably. But hey, he's really good at trying to kill himself on camera, so I'll keep buying a ticket. You know, in that in a retoo film, is he going to still be trying to kill himself or will he just be acting in it? He'll be digging a lot of holes based on what I see in that trailer. Right. And that could, you know, you could lay down and die in one. So tickets sold. What is that movie called Digger?

Yes, I think so. I think Digger. Sorry, is it Digger? Yeah, it is. I think so. Okay. My wife and I went to see Top Gun and 40X, the Maverick film. And there was a trailer for that movie, but before the trailer, it was essentially like a two-minute super cut of every Tom Cruise appearance.

And it was like he died. It was like a memorial. But then it immediately goes to, and now coming up next, after all of this legacy, we have Digger. Okay. I mean, we'll see. It seems like he is. back on his Oscar wanting era now. He's trying to say like, hey, I'm old now. Like, I look old in movies now. I'm not a forever young guy anymore. Look at these wrinkles. I age like you,

humans. And, you know, hot take when actors or celebrities are crazy or weird or eccentric, like, these are not people I want to hang out with. Their antics are for my amusement and nothing more. We then cut to the first time of Marge being asked to remember the first time something bad happened to her She remembers her first day of school. Patty and Selma are torturing her with lies. This happened to me as a kid. You know, people know they can trick you of like, oh, yeah. Actually, they're going to give you a shot on your first day at school, and it really hurts.

I was like, oh, that did happen to me. They gave you a shot? No, I was told that. I was like, is there anything they do to new students here? And of course, if you ask that of another student, of course they're going to make up something to scare you. So what, whiskey, tequila? What are we talking? Like a tetanish shot, I think.

I was told, yes. How about the big toilet that everyone has to use? That I was not warned about. You know, my school, middle school and high school combined, one of the boys' rooms, right, the stall had no door. You just had to use it with no door. This was a rural high school, you understand? I'm from the dirt country.

And yes, I've taken a shit in a school with no door on the stall, and that's an experience. God, that door is your shield. I get antsy when the crack in the door is too big. Oh, yeah. I don't like that either because, you know, inadvertently, someone's going to see. They're going to see what, and just the, oh, my God,

the indignity of you just, even if they just see you sitting there, they just see your leg, even if they're not seeing the whole wipe display. You go to other places that are not America, and like, the doors go to the floor. Like, guess what? You don't need to, like, look down to see if it's occupied. If the door doesn't open, then it's, you know it's occupied. Like, that's good enough. God damn, we blew up all of Europe and they rebuilt it better.

Then Marge gets even worse news when she gets on the bus. You know they don't write their own songs. They do so. They don't even play their own instruments. No! No! That's not even Michael Nesma's real hat. Kids can be so cruel.

But it's true. They didn't write their own songs or play their own instruments. The monkeys weren't about music, Mard. They were about rebukes. rebellion about political and social upheaval. Did you talk about me in therapy today? I don't think so. Tell me the truth.

Don't tell her I raised my voice. Don't. Happy family. Homer's terrified of anything coming back to the therapist is great. I love that. I like that Marge eventually came around to agree with that little girl. Right. Yes.

But then she, thanks to his wife, she refound her passion for the monkeys again. And they're about rebellion in social evil. We're down to one surviving monkey. It's Mickey Dolans. That's it. That's all we got. He's a top monkey. I think he wrote Daydream Believer.

I swear he actually did write songs. Maybe not Dayduring Believer. Maybe it was last train to Cluxville. But I swear, Mickey Dolans actually did write one monkey song. And let's cover our bases, fellas. He's alive as of this recording. So when he dies tomorrow, you can't throw it on us. 81 years fun.

Oh, believe me, when I even said the name Mel Brooks on this episode, He wasn't even going to say, like, and of course he's still alive. He's still doing great. That's why they're releasing space balls too next year. They're giving him something to shoot for. Yes. Once it's released, he will just be like, my work is done. No, I hope he lives to be 180.

He'll live forever. I think that movie can survive a best and worst case scenario. Best case scenario, we see it and we're thinking, God, Mel Brooks is alive at 100. We love him so much. Let's see this movie. If he dies, oh, we have to see this movie. It's like attending the Mel Brooks funeral. Right, yeah.

I'm surrounded by assholes at this general. General Scroop forever. I'm doing the Wakanda place. That first movie's great. I love baseball. Very cautious optimism for the new one. Me too. Rick Moranis came back for it.

It's got to be worth something there. And I like seeing Daphne's Zaniga back in the spotlight. I mean, Eric, you guys cover Melrose Place on your other Patreon side show, one of many. Yes. And whenever I see her, I think Princess Vesp, I don't care what she's getting up to. I don't care whose baby is getting. stolen by who. I just think of her and Prince Valium and the entire

kingdom she lives in. Yes. One of my first crush is not Gary Fisher. Get out of here. Spaceballs girl. Same here. Same here. Yeah. And also Bill Pullman is getting his son and working that too. He's actually a good actor, Bill Pullman's son.

Yeah, Lewis Pullman, I think. But yeah, there you go. Everyone is somebody. Yeah. Everyone. Wasn't it crazy, though? There's Nepo babies in most things. But the movie Thunderbolts, which I did like. It was good. I won the better Marvel ones lately. It surprised me. It was definitely one of the better ones, for sure.

It's got friggin' two nepoes in it. It's got Lewis Pullman and Kurt Russell's kid. Wyatt Russell. Yes, yes, yes. I'm just happy when a movie isn't all Australians. Yes, or British. It's shocking when that happens. I watched a horror movie, a recent one.

I was shocked to find only one cast member was from Australia. They're all Americans. I don't know how that happened. Something you've wrong with that. That was a troubled production. Probably all the Aussies dropped out at the last second. It still was filmed in Bulgaria, so don't worry about that. Of course. Did you guys watch much of the monkeys

as kids? It did get played on Nickelodeon when we were kids. So I had seen a bit of it. No, I'm under 60 years old. Henry, turn down your oldie station. It's bleeding into the mic. I was addicted to the oldie state. My husband, boy, this is a lot of stories about sounding old. My husband,

when we watch, say, fallout. And I know half of the songs in it. He's like, how do you know these songs? I'm like, well, I listen to all these stations or they're in a lot of other old movies. I just know the songs. And then you pop some ribbon candy into your mouth. Now I can't even have hard candy anymore too much. It's too rough on the teeth. Don't do it. Oh, yeah. The dentures won't hold up to these. You've said it before, Henry, suck to completion. That's the best way to handle hard candy. It's also very funny to hear a six-year-old have like record store hipster reasons for not liking the monkeys. That's also very funny too. So yes, this is also

where, oh, I should mention, they redesigned the character during production of Zweig because it was a temp track of one of their regulars who, you know, is a woman in her like 30s. And when they cast Anne Bancroft, they added an extra streak of white to the hair and the glasses to make her more fit to the late 60s age of the actress. Yeah, yeah. I feel like they had a younger character in mind, but and Bankroft was cast and they adjusted the character design to match it. There's one more deleted scene in the episode as Marge is remembering things, but it's so visual, you know, I won't play it because it really doesn't make any sense, but Marge is remembering her wedding night,

and then Homer, for no reason, comes into the room with a tree branch stuck in his mouth. The therapist thinks, oh, well, this has to be, you know, a weird memory you just created. Like, that didn't really happen. and then Homer walks in with a tree branch stuck in his mouth again and says like, won't you remember the good times, honey? It's a very weird joke, and he's not biting to the tree branch the way you think he would.

The tree branch is not like a dog would bite into a stick. It's like coming out of his mouth, like a big pipe. It's like if you sawed it off, the sawed off end, the flat circular end, that's in his mouth, and the like branches and leaves are sticking out of the other end. It's very strange. Yeah.

So then this is where Marge, relates things back to a sci-fi program. I should say with my own therapist, I have related episodes of data on Star Trek to her and said, I felt like that with this. Like, actually, this I think is funny. I'll say, I told her about the scene where data gives away his Sherlock Holmes pipe to Jordy when he thinks he's leaving the ship in measure of a man.

And I actually like started tearing up while explaining it to my therapist. Fighting back tears right now, actually. And then the therapist said that, you know, you're doing great progress. You're acting human. You're going to get there. Yes. We're going to get you a cat.

I do think we're going to help you make a daughter. My therapist could save a lot of time if I just got her to watch the entire evening on Genesis Evangelion. And I could just say to her like, so it's like that episode. And then she'd be like, oh, okay, I don't need to talk through much. Your data, your Shinji, your Jordi of the Ford. A little bit of Wesley in there? Sure, yes. I don't want to admit how much I'm Wesley.

but yes, a little bit of that. It's true. Gynen. It's like 60% Gynon. Well, the therapist won't let me start calling her Geyn, even though I've said this. I was like, can I just call you Gynan? It can be like I'm talking to Gynne here. She won't do it. Don't wear that uniform here anymore, please, sir. So, Henry, if you are data, does that make me Gordie LaForge, the loser whose best friend is a robot? No, no. Sometimes I identify more with Jordy than that, well, hey, at our best times...

I often wear an air filter over my eyes for fun. okay. Well, yes, I don't think you're much luckier in love than Jordie LaForge is for sure. I don't think of you that. But the best parts of the friendship of data and Jordy, I think, of our working relationship, yeah. Man, now I'm just thinking about when Jordy was concoct, like making a girl to do naughty stuff with on the holodeck, oh boy. A creep. Yeah, he... I like to file a request. Can I be wharf? Okay. Okay. All right, you're warm. You're warm. Okay. I'll start the confused for it. It really, I don't compare it too often.

But yes. Well, actually, in the Nexus drawing, in the art for it, Eric, aren't you Wharf in that? Is that right? Yeah, the Nexus, yeah. And the art for the Nexus, I am Wharf. That's right. And then we've got some special art for the Las Vegas appearance, and I'm someone else in that. What was that?

Who was I in there? I'm Spock in that one, which is a harsh look on me. Which means Eric will die and be brought back to life in Vegas. So that's why you should buy these tickets. That's right. I guarantee you will see my death and rebirth in Las Vegas. The Simpsons instead references a different 60s sci-fi series in Marge's memory. Warning.

Warning. Dr. Smith refuses to do his astro chores. Why are you cluttering clink of gods? My dear lady, as you well know, my back is a disaster area. Do the pain. Do the pain of it all. Danger. Danger.

Danger. My hooks are flailing wildly. Daddy, wait, please don't leave. Take me with you. Are you aware you just said, please don't leave to your daddy? No, I didn't. Yes, you did.

And you also infringed on any number of copyrights. Now, let's talk about your father. Sure, okay. I'll talk about Father, Father Christmas. That's what they call Santa Claus in England. They drive on the wrong side of the road there. Now, that's crazy. People are always saying how small England is, but you couldn't fit it all in here, not by a long shot.

You know what? I'm cured. Marge, get back here and tell me about your father. What did he do for a living? Okay. Okay, but you're going to make a big deal out of this. He was a pilot. A pilot? This is a big deal.

You see? Yeah, Lost in Space. Did you guys ever watch this show? I watched a lot of old TV shows. That's actually one I did watch. I wasn't watching The Monkeys, but I'd watch, you know, Dr. Smith, what a character. What a cut-up. He always made me laugh.

I pretty rarely, if it came on, maybe I'd watch it, but also if it was a black and white episode, I didn't give it a chance as much either. I would usually maybe watch the color ones more, but it was very rare. I did see the 1998 movie in theaters. I did see that. Yes, I saw that as well. My God. That movie seemed so youthful at the time, but you look back.

back on and you're like yikes. This is mainly an excuse for Dan Castellan to do a Jonathan Harris impersonation and I'm sure I knew this but married to a woman, Jonathan Harris. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. I mean, I like that it says something about Marge's psyche that

could be dug into of like, why did you imagine Homer as Dr. Smith and not as the father on the show John Robinson? What is it about Homer that makes it more Dr. Smith than John Robinson for instance? I also think that Dr. Smith is just more of an iconic character from that show. It's more

instantly recognizable. Oh yeah. Nobody thinks of John Robinson in any of the parodies, let alone Judy or Penny. It seems like all people remember is robot, Dr. Smith, Bill Moomy, and maybe the mom from Lassie. Maybe. Yeah. June

Lockhart. Yeah. I'm mostly upset the robot doesn't have a name. Is that bullshit? It's just the robot. And sometimes people will mistakenly call him the robot when that's not him. That's not him. Different guys. the 98 movie that like perhaps Matt LeBlanc's most popular movie and it was a failure. Yes. It's crazy seeing him in an action type of role and like William Hurt and Gary Oldman and stuff.

Wild movie. We covered it on WeA movies a thousand years ago. I didn't know there was a 2018 reboot of the television show Lost in Space. Oh, was it on Netflix or something? I'm not sure where it aired. Oh, yes, it was Netflix. Yeah. I remember this coming out and then like anything in Netflix, it gets buried and you never hear about. it again. It's canceled a month after it comes out. And the only thing I remember about it, now that you mentioned it, Bob, was like, people said that the robot in that version had a good butt. I remember people saying that. Oh, hell yeah. Well, it went on for three seasons, but they're all

like eight episodes long. And at that point, who cares? That's not a season. Yeah, that's go to hell. Yardley Smith, very good at playing the robot. Astro Chores is such a funny line. It really just shows you how Lost in Space was, I did a very domestic sitcom with not a lot of fantastical elements, right? Right, yes. Bill Moomy had to, like, meet carrot people on some wacky planet, too, or very

silly stories on it. But that one in theaters, it felt like it was the start of something in 98. They were planning for the future with these, like, at least three movies, it seemed like, with the star star-studied cast they had in it. Oh, yeah, and Dr. Smith, but turning into some type of bug alien thing.

And it's like a split timeline, thing and Jared Harris, Richard Harris's son is in it, but he's dubbed over. I learned recently. It's very strange. It's also like they flash forward to, well, the child in it grown up in it. And Bill Moomy wanted to play that role, but they wouldn't let him do it. They wouldn't give him an appearance in the movie. He was trying to make a multiverse movie.

Now every movie has to be a multiverse movie contractually. He tried to do it. They wouldn't let him. Then it turns into Marge realizing this is something that, do with her father. And yes, I also, my own therapy, I do think of like, if I say something that would be obvious to a therapist, I then do think of her saying like, this is a big deal. Like, just the obviousness of it. Marge is finally pushed to do it. She tells the story of going with her pilot father to the airplane.

Goodbye, Margie. Be a good girl now. Why does daddy have to leave? Because he's a pilot. He flies all over the world. I want to see Daddy fly. Margie, he'll come back. Daddy? Daddy, where are you? So, who wants pre-flight cookie? Fig Dutons? Hydrocks. Daddy? My father was a stewardess? Marge, there's nothing to be ashamed of here. Today, male flight attendants or stewards are common. They are? Yes. Thanks to trailblazers like your father, you might say he was a pioneer. Yeah.

You might even say he was an American hero. Let's not go nuts. The music, very Prince of Tide Z when she's talking to Marjoric, right? Henry. Very much so, yes. Yeah. This is very heavy topics in the movie, but similar timing that Tom Wingo's character has up his defenses the entire film and he's like, man, don't cry. It doesn't happen.

He's very sarcastic and joking about things to not talk. about his real emotions and he unearths a childhood memory that leads him to finally break down and cry and Lowenstein comforts him and lets him know and the version of that in this movie is Marge saying my father was a stewardess. Yes. And we're learning some deep, Clancy Bouvier lore here because he was introduced in season two as the way we was in a flashback, strongly implied to have been deceased since the beginning of the series. And then in season 18, they confirmed that he did pass away from lung cancer. And I was looking more into this, and there is a very slight joke in the way we was

about his pending death, because after Homer shows up to pick up Marge, he says, that kid took ears off my life. So the joke is, though that's why he's not around anymore. Just seeing Homer brought about his premature death before the series started. That's a great line. I

remember, too, like, his ghost talking to Homer is like a big plot point of the 750th episode, too, right, when Homer flies through the windshield glass. Yeah, they touch upon him like a few more times. And there's an episode about Patty and Sommel like quitting

smoking and it does touch upon the father's death of lung cancer. I was also digging around in some Old Simpsons Illustrated, which was the official magazine in the early 90s. And that usually goes with the more of the Matt Graning canon that sometimes Matt Graining would say, well, this

character is this. And the writers on the show would either do it or not. And in that, they do have a joke of Lisa says that her grandfather father died on a roller coaster accident, which I believe was what Matt Greeneing originally conceived of his cause of death. Yeah, I believe so. I do like this animation here of him holding up the apron to shield himself from her view. Figg Newton's and Hydrocks being offered on a friggin platter, that's air travel, folks. This was the Mad Men Age. You could just get up and walk around,

twirl around your gun. Yeah. That's right. You mentioned that, Bob, that's like a major plot point in the classic William Shatner Twilight Zone are just like, well, yes, and there's your gun that he walked onto the plane with? Yeah, the three tells that's happening in a different era. Somebody is armed. There's a smoking section on the plane and everyone is wearing suits to fly. Marge is comforted

by this information. And then there's another great little montage of Zweig says that we found the root of your fear of flying. And Marge starts to remember other things to... Yes. And I feel like these are all the causes. I feel like the

Dad stuff completely unrelated. The trauma comes from being gunned down in a cornfield. Oh, I love that North by Northwest parody. It's so fun. I clipped it out because there's a noise Kavner makes here that is so funny. Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. This is what a cornfield looks like, honey? I think those things could also have contributed to my fear of flying?

Yes, yes, it's all a rich tapestry. Oh, thank you, doctor. You've changed my life. You know, Mard, we've really just begun to scratch the surface. There's still the far more serious problem of your husband. That's okay. You don't have to make her into some kind of superwoman. She can get on the plane. That's plenty. Thank you, doctor.

Whenever the wind whistles through the leaves, I'll think Lowenstein. Lowenstein. My name is Zweig. Lowenstein. I kept in that music there at the end because you will also hear in the original Prince of Tides clip. I found it here. These are the final lines of the movies. And it also, the music swings.

weeps up as he says it to, to explain a line that confused the shit out of me as a little kid. It made no sense to me. At the end of every day, I drive through the city of Charleston. And as I cross the bridge that'll take me home, I feel the words building inside me. I can't stop them or tell you why I say him. But as I reach at the top of the bridge, these words come to me in a whisper. I say them as prayer That's regret

As praise I say No one's team No one's team Yeah going back to I believe it was Selma's choice Marge often confuses her life with Prince of Tides Yes

That movie meant a lot to her didn't it Oh that was Prince of Tides You know it's a tribute They're not making easy jokes about Barbara Streis in here These are respectful jokes about enjoying Barbara Streis and films. It's true. I should check out her memoir. I just heard somebody talking about how good her memoir is and that code,

a code to it is that if she talks about a male co-star that she was good friends with, it means she had sex with him. Of course. Me and Ryan O'Neill were very friendly, she says. You'll have to listen to the audiobook. You can hear her very old eye creaking shut to wink at you. Yes. Again, if I'm buying a memoir of a star in their 80s, I want to hear them talk about who they had sex with.

Yes, dish. I just got making it so out of the library. I want to hear what Patrick Stewart was getting up to and into. I mean, was that funny? Carrie Fisher's last book, like her last memoir, that she just revealed like, oh, yeah, me and Harrison Ford were doing it all the time on the set of Star Wars. Like, that's the stuff I want to hear. Exactly. I get more specific.

I want to know positions. And she did that even riskier because she was doing it about an alive co-star who could sue her if you wanted to if they weren't great friends still. The exit on Lowenstein and the sweeping up music, that's all Prince of Tides if that always confused you. There's the explanation there for it. And again, in the film, he's whispering it because he's remembering a person he had a love affair with too who unlocked him. I think when I was a kid I interpreted this joke as Marge assuming her name was different and just wanting to stick with that because it fit this narrative she invented. Yeah, that works too. That does work. And of course, Homer cut short any more treatment.

He just wanted her to get on an airplane, not make your Superwoman. One last clip here as everything seems fine, but in a Simpsons world, nothing is allowed to be resolved happily. Don't worry about a thing, honey. I'm going to help you through this. Those are all normal noises. Nuggets compartment closing. Cross checking.

Just sit back and relax. That's just the engine powering up That's just the engine struggling That's just a carp swimming around your ankles Alf Clausen found a way to make the Simpsons theme Sound like Prince of Tides as it takes us to the credits Brilliant man I miss him so much It's just great that Marge finally gets over

And then the plane actually does crash But in a way that kills nobody seemingly It's a nice crash, yeah The splats in the wall water. You can finally learn all that water landing techniques that have been pounded into our heads with every flight. They could at least use it as a flotation device there.

Honestly, maybe it's even more helpful to people now as seemingly air traffic accidents happen on a weekly basis in America these days based on the news. The firing of a million as I should say our proud wonderful president's streamlining of air traffic safety. Though it's just getting it done. Yeah. And they pass the savings on to us, guys.

That's why everything's so cheap now. But I wonder if this was, they were considering, like, oh, if we wanted to keep it as a detail, the Marge is still scared of flying, then we'll have the plane crash. But obviously, they dropped it for all future ones. It's one of these things that is a very sitcom deal of a person has a mental health issue for one episode only, and it is gone by the end of it. Let us never speak of it again. Well, therapy works. That's the lesson. I do love, yes, yes, it's all of its chappistry.

Very dismissive. A great line to you like that. after the preceding episode is Homer deals with his father issues, then Marge briefly in this episode deals with her own father issues. It's daddy issues back to back here in two classic season six episodes. And then what's the next one? Oh, the next one is Homer the Great. I mean, his father is part of it, but it's more about conspiracies, yeah.

And back to Patrick Stewart. Hey, oh, shit! Well, now, man, I should have saved Eric. We should have had you on for that one. Now we'll have to have a different we eight movie guy for all that. Star Trek time. Delete this episode. Okay, yeah. I'm deleting my file right now. You know, sometimes the Marge episodes that get handed to newer writers like David Sacks can be seen as a burden, or they are trying to find something to do with Marge.

But Marge is great. Every murmur is hilarious. And it also helps that the first act of this episode is one of the funniest acts they ever did, full of hilarious shit over and over again. Yeah, some timeless jokes in here. I think it's a good March story with a fairly realistic depiction. of having anxiety issues. And we also get some Bouvier lore, which is what I'm here for. So thumbs up. Yeah. The new rating for Talking Simpsons.

No one's done it. Thumbs up and thumbs down. Eric, any final thoughts? Yeah, I mean, it's a thumbs up for me as well. I mean, you know, season six, there's so many layers of jokes throughout that always make me laugh. Obviously, as an alcoholic American, I appreciate all the Homer gags with the bars and stuff like that.

I had a lot of fun revisiting this one. And thanks for, having me on for it. Yeah, Eric, thanks for coming back. Let us know more about We Hate Movies and tell us again about your upcoming appearance in Las Vegas. Yeah, so We Hate Movies is just a podcast where we take a movie, good better, otherwise, and kick it around a bit.

You know, we started more as a bad movie podcast. It's evolved to kind of be everything and everything media here. Like we were saying, we do all those side shows on various things, one of them being Star Trek. So come on out to Las Vegas, Nevada. Remember, Nevada is the one you want to. go to for STLV, the big Star Trek convention. You do not need convention passes. These are separately ticketed events. And it's going to be, you know, like I said, I'm walking into a buzzsaw here. Star Trek fans are going to get very mad at me at my cheeky impressions of their heroes and

talking about very blue comedy. I'm sure common is going to come up a thousand times at these shows. So, and what better place than Sin City? So please come out Thursday, August 6th. for Rath of Khan, Friday, August 7th, Star Trek Generations, and Saturday, August 8th, for first contact. You can find information at www.w.w.w.w.w.w.w.H.m.m. Podcast.com slash tour. Seriously, come on out. You know, Vegas, I know it's going to be August, and that sucks, but you'll be in air conditioning at the Rio. There's sin of all kind, you know. You can play the slots. You could play the sluts. You could get drunk. You could do it. and come to the show.

Come imbib and have some fun while we riff on Star Trek. Yeah, we'll put a link in the show notes for that. Oh, thank you so much, guys. And if a person in the audience asks you to smell their flower, don't do it, Eric. It's a trick. It's a trick. It's going to be hard for me to resist.

Oh, also, you know what, when you're in Las Vegas, the last time I was there, I saw a lot of ads for Star Wars burlesk. So maybe you guys could make some time for that. Isn't that what you want to see, a strip show with your bros when you're in Las Vegas. Look at this. Look at this folks. Come on out to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Understand Nevada. And you could see strip Star Wars and you can see us do a live podcast on Star Trek films. I promise you'll have a good time. Well, thank you so much, Eric. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate it. And it's always nice to stop by. And, you know, your listeners should know, maybe we've mentioned it already, that you guys are going to be on our show very soon talking the minions. So, subscribe to We Hate movies and it'll pop up in a week or so. That's right. This is a great back-to-back one.

In just a week from this hitting our free feed, you'll be hearing us talking about the minions. Our second time talking about minions related content on we hate. We are becoming minion experts at this point in our careers. You're the animation guys to us. We really appreciate it. We did Garfield in the past, too. We did The Simpsons movie. We've done so many great things.

Looking forward to it. Thank you so much, Eric. Thank you. Thank you once again to Eric Siska for being on the show. Please check out We Hate Movies. We love everything they do. But as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get all of our podcasts ad-free

and also access a vast, vast quantity of full-length bonus podcasts. Go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up at that $5 level. And when you do, you can access, like I said, all the podcasts you love completely ad-free. And then you can also access over 200 full-length miniseries episodes covering shows like King of the Hill, Futurama, Mission Hill, The Critic, and Batman, the animated series. And you also get at that level a new episode of both Talking of the Hill and Talking Futurama every month.

That is a ton of podcast for just five bucks. And it helps support the show. Just go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And there is a $10 level there too. Henry, what's going on there? Bob is talking about our What a Cartoon Movie Podcast, which is really like you getting three extra podcasts each month, in addition to our ad-free bonuses that you get at $5 for $10 a month. You hear us talk about an animated feature film for sometimes four or five or even six hours long.

And we're in our big summer theme now as we're doing 2010's Disney films. We last month covered Winnie the Pooh of 2011, a really good movie. That was the final 2D film by Walt Disney feature animation. And this month we are covering Rekid Ralph, a film about technically video games but also candy. And it has a ton of Simpsons people who, worked on it, not just director Rich Moore. So it has a ton of very interesting connections to The Simpsons that is worth

talking about. So please listen to that and the years and years, hundreds of hours of what a cartoon movies we have covered. So many films from Disney, Pixar, Warner Brothers, Sony, anime from Japan like Studio Ghibli or Akira. It's all in the back catalog. So

please sign up today to hear all the stuff you're missing out on at the ad-free bonuses levels at Patreon.com Talking Simpsons. And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Blue Sky and Letterbox says Bob Servo and my other podcast is Retronauts.

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I can't see my sister, and we'll see you then. Look on the bright side, Dad. Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity? Yes, Christatunity. You're right. I've been wasting my life away in that dump for years. That's it. I'm going to find a new bar to drink in,

and I'm going to get drunker than I've ever been in my entire life. But where's my wallet? Right here, Dad. Thank you. I see. Good evening, sir. Would you please leave without a fuss right now? Okay.