Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Flaming Moe's With Tim Kalpakis

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

For an ep all about cocktails, rock music, and comedy writing, we welcome back comedy performer/writer/musician/podcaster Tim Kalpakis from the band/podcast The Sloppy Boys! As we dig into the battle between Sam Simon and Matt Groening behind the scenes, we learn that the fight over the Flaming Homer/Moe has more to it than we thought. Plus, free pickled eggs for Aerosmith in this week's Hugh Jass podcast! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talking of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast full of store-bought jewelry. I'm your host, the John Kolodner superfan, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. It's Henry Gilbert, and this podcast was passed down to my ancestors from the Tsar.

And who do we have on the line? Our special guest today. Tim Galbagas, what is up? And this week's episode is Flaming Moes. The Flaming Homer! The Flaming Homer? You mean the Flaming Moes! And your dad didn't invent it, you wuss! Moe the bartender did! Yes, everyone knows that.

This episode originally aired on November 21st, 1991. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my God. Oh boy, Bobby. Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury passes away from AIDS related complications. Aerosmith releases pandora's box a compilation album of rarities and disney's the beauty and the beast is released in theaters to immediate success so uh an exciting week and i want to be uh check out like okay did aerosmith

even like release uh something this week and they did this was timed for the release of an album so sleazy yeah but have they no shame but uh but yes uh freddie mercury passed away uh the day after he publicly announced he had aids uh and and then they announced his death the next day not not to get too dark here but it seems like november of 91 aids was a really popular topic because magic johnson comes out as being hiv positive that happens and then Beauty and the Beast releases. What happened to the guy who wrote the songs? Well, here's the story. He's dead because of AIDS. That's right. Howard Ashman

also is already dead too. I feel like unfortunately a popular topic in 1991 November. Popular topic. Yeah, it did seem to be trending. It would have been in the Twitter sidebar hashtag. Yeah, I think that Aerosmith album, I think it has like their Beatles cover that they had in that horrible movie,

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. But really, they're getting ready for Get a Grip two years later. They're still on tour for Pump, as we all know about Aerosmith and their album pump oh i love young lust yes yep the hit single young lust is featured in this episode and uh and yeah beauty and the beast i guess yeah based on when this releases you've already heard us do a whole podcast about that last month on our patreon at the what a cartoon movie feed so what more do me and bob need to say about beauty and the beast i have no other opinions no no but i was very sad about freddie mercury's death i it was right like i felt like i got into

queen right when he was dead because i was like nine and then i think the next year in 92 would have been wayne's world yeah that's spring i think yeah it was rough it was sad oh man what a bummer he wasn't around for the wayne's world resurgence they'd have been back on tour again selling me well i mean they still did sell a whole bunch of albums afterwards thanks to wayne's world we can only hope he lived to see a work print of wayne's world but but anyway yes he was watching the dailies giving lots of notes on the but yes you heard him earlier joining us today is Tim Kalpakis of the Sloppy Boys podcast. Welcome back to the show, Tim. Thank you for having me back. This is great.

I'm pumped to be here. And yes, we have him on because not only is Tim an Emmy-nominated comedy writer, a cocktail expert on the podcast The Sloppy Boys, a rock star in the band The Sloppy Boys, and also has worked in the Gracie Studios offices on Simpson stuff. There's no better expert for the Flaming Moes episode than Tim. I'm a connection to all of it. And this drink is fascinating.

I feel like it's been back. There have been articles about it recently. Like, it was in the Simpsons cookbook that came out last year, and I feel like I've been tagged in some articles and stuff. So this is a buzzy episode. I've seen some people try to make their own flaming mose and most people say like well if you do it as described by homer whether you light it on fire or not it doesn't taste good no either way but yeah i mean

tim like uh you know what what is it that draws you to cocktails like well um i mean a i like being drunk uh that's always been a passion of mine. But B, I, you know, there's lots of different like worlds of cocktails. You know, like some people get in or into the craft scene or they're like really go deep on like, you know, they're into like whiskey drinks because they know a lot about scotch or whatever. But I kind of like this sort of iconography of this stupid classic cocktails i get excited about like what someone drank in 1989 like a tequila sunrise or just like kind of the stupid emoji looking drinks and i love moe's tavern as a as a watering hole dive bar that sad guys go and drink at so i do think my entree like i've only been really super into cocktails

the last few years but like i am most like this is exactly the world of drinking i'm most interested in is like what most is like would be mixing up to make a hit drink what's your opinion on aerosmith i guess or just in general the bar the bar rock scene love the bar rock scene not a huge aerosmith fan you know they never meant a lot to me uh in my in in my youth and like there's moments where i could be like i guess i enjoy the kind of resurgence with like uh crying and stuff like that or i like janie's got a gun but but like 70s aerosmith wasn't my cup of tea so i'm always sort of like i gotta i have trouble with stephen tyler you know like i don't know there's a lot of bands with a bozo lead singer and i can look past it you know

like the who or something like that but stephen tyler it's it's hard for me to to geek out on a band when i think the guy is he's looking more and more like his simpsons caricature every year yeah yes i was wondering what he thought when he saw himself in this because they kind of have his cheekbones stick out a little bit and his teeth are kind of jagged and he has the kind of skeletal look that he has now. And he's got to be a vain rock star. I wonder if he looked at that and thought like,

hey, what are you guys doing? I'm handsome. Yeah, I think, well, now, yeah, through many procedures, I think he looks more cartoonish today than his old drawing. But when he says, like, are you ready to rock? Like, that is such a crazy, wonderfully crazy drawing of the guy. I mean, it could be that when he got plastic surgery, the picture of himself he brought in was from this episode.

And he's like, make me look like that. Yeah, Michael Jackson brought in Peter Pan. He brought in that still from the simpsons uh one uh and tim you've been fresh off of the tour of uh touring the the east coast uh at the at the time of this recording oh yeah sloppy boys did an east coast tour we had a blast and it really was every night we'd be walking to a venue and i didn't know what we're gonna get sometimes it would be a professional music venue with a stage and a sound guy and everything. Other times it's like an outdoor brewery or whatever. But my favorite was when we got to play dive bars like in the in the Mo type of way.

Like we played this play the Quarry House Tavern in in the D.C. outside of D.C. in Maryland, Silver Spring, we played like a walk down the stairs, cheers style bar that was like old and dingy and cavey and set up in the back and played there. And it was so much fun. And I was thinking about that when I was like, man, imagine Aerosmith playing in a little. Even me as a non-Aerosmith fan, seeing a band in a dive bar is just the most fun thing to do and uh you know in your time working we talked a ton in your first appearance about your time working at the Gracie during the Simpsons movie and the ride and all that stuff but I was curious have you you know it's nearby where you live have you uh sampled the flaming mo in quotes that sold at the the Universal Hollywood those quotes are pretty large yeah i i have not when uh last time i was there i was so hell-bent on getting a butter beer from harry potter land that i

neglected drinking the flaming mo do you know what they do there and i'm guessing it can't light on fire well it's got a lot of problems in many ways yeah i just i want to say the people at universal worked very hard on building so many cool yeah i just i want to say the people at universal worked very hard on building so many cool things in there i hate dogging on the one thing that they don't do right but i i gotta say it the flaming mo one is not alcoholic and two it's orange it's not purple like and it's it's not lit on fire they just put like dry ice in the bottom of it so it like has fake smoke coming out of it and i'm sure i can understand that one they're probably not allowed to mix cocktails there and sell it they probably only have a liquor license for like beer and two they probably can't

light something on fire because it'd probably be more like red tape or whatever but at the very least can it just be purple and taste like grape? Why is it orange? Yeah, just some drops of purple number 40 or whatever would do the trick. Just make it look like the thing. And I feel like they could do some fakey version of fire that would be fun too. I don't know. So online people have speculated about how it's... I mean, I was peeking real hard and I and I and I paused when Homer made it because he says like, oh, it's everything that I little bits of everything I had left over. I saw creme de menthe. I saw tequila. I saw something with a British crest. So maybe maybe scotch or gin or something like that.

But to light it on fire, you would the only thing that really lights on fire is overproof rum. And I've made a flaming Dr. Pepper, and it lit up fantastically. And then I've done a scorpion bowl where you float a little upside down lime on top with Bacardi 151, and that lights up amazing. So if you were to try to make one of these, I think you got to float some Bacardi 151 on top and light it up. I think the secret to it that why it doesn't work in the real world is that the Krusty's non-narcotic cough syrup has some secret flammable element to it. And that's how it works. That's why it keeps- She's got gasoline in there.

Well, also, I mean, Tim, in your time behind the scenes at Simpsons, had you heard about the, you know, the behind the scenes secret of this episode and how it's about a certain feud that it went on in the early days of Simpsons? No. Is there a is this an allegory for a writing credit? It's about Sam Simon and Matt Groening. I don't know. No shit. I mean, I knew I never like, you know, Sam Simon was long time, long, long gone by the time I was there. And I would no one really talked about him, but I would like ask around because I just wanted to know. And then, you know, people would just be like, yeah, he's great. But I never got to I what I know about him is, you know, from the the oral history book

and stuff like that, that it's like he put together the room and he was like really really uh important early on and then uh drifted away uh but did he is there is it like generally about him or is there like a specific episode or something this one is specifically about it yeah and it's something that was not made clear until after sam simon's passing in 2015 uh that's when people finally started going on the record about it but yeah it's uh wow i think really it wasn't matt graining's fault i mean the story is uh sam simon was upset that matt graining was getting all the credit but i think matt graining a he was smart for all those licensing deals that he signed he made sure that you see the name matt graining next to every drawing of every character so that was just very smart on his part but uh b

the story of this indie cartoonist who becomes like a hit tv show maker is way more interesting than like oh the guy who made taxi he's making another show this tv writer made another tv show that's not an interesting story so everyone ran with the mac greening makes a tv show and is like a genius idea leaving sam simon behind not recognizing his talents and what he added to the show which was a lot yeah yeah most of the season one writers like jay kogan when we interviewed him like is a lot of them have the same kind of statement about sam simon which is that like simon was key in building the room and making the writing style that the show is known for like they give him more credit than anybody else on it but two that he was kind of a prickly

pear and uh that he wasn't the the most fun he could be a lot of fun to some people but yeah him and mac raining i think kogan said they had like legitimate like shouting matches in front of people and they had to like oh be separated and so this wasn't such public knowledge it was i first heard about it a little before his death because sam simon did late in life a podcast interviewer nerd like me and bob has asked him straight up like hey is is flaming homer are you homer and and mo mack reigning and then he's like that may be true is what he said uh wow but then it was fully confirmed in mike reese's book springfield confidential he straight up says this episode was

the pitch for it was sam simons as a way of expressing how he felt getting a not enough credit for the uh what made the simpsons popular as a tv show show wow i that's amazing i and do you think is sam simon supposed to be like do you think is he like a great writer or is he a guy with good taste who hired great writers or or did he do people talk about him like he also like came up with the funniest shit uh there's definitely compliments to his writing like everybody says he's he was a really good writer and showrunner he was one of the youngest showrunners too and he assembled the writing room by just he was a fan of the army man uh fanzine or matt or like uh zine that like john swartz welder and a few other people came from and that's where he pulled them from people that

didn't do a lot of tv writing before this yeah i i feel like maybe i bragged about it last time to you guys but i got i have some hard copies of Army Man. And it is amazing to flip through them and see the names there and realize like, oh, these guys weren't even like working jobs when they did this. And that's very cool of Sam Simon to have that, like the foresight. I always just wonder. I've never heard his voice or seen video. I've seen pictures of Sam Simon and I know that he was married to Jill Talley and stuff. So he went for whatever reason he doesn't strike me as like a writer type which is not fair but he doesn't seem like a comedy nerd he almost like so he looks like he looks kind of like an alpha dude

to me i don't know what it is oh jennifer tilly though yeah that's right not jill talley yeah for tilly yeah oh i was like did she step out on tom Kenny? Yeah. Oh, that's inside office stuff that only I know from working there. No, it's funny. If you see it like the premiere night pictures of all the writers in their Simpsons jackets at the like, oh, it's premiere night and we're at a big bowling alley. Jennifer Tilly's right there with all of them in her jacket. Yeah, it's pretty nice. And she's probably made more money off the Simpsons than uh just than just about anybody i would bet

that's great and i i don't know if sam simon was just a stubborn guy or if he just worked with stubborn people but he would later go on to create a sitcom for george carlin and george carlin hated him too that's true so he could have just been like a guy who knew what he wanted and wouldn't waver from that even working with uh george Carlin or Matt Groening or anyone else, really. And Mike Reese had a funny couplet to the whole story in his book that he still paid the entire time his you know a developer credit money and all that which is a ton of money and so then he would go on to say like oh now i'm a guy who gets way too much credit for the simpsons because i haven't worked on it since season four like the start of season four that's perfect he like uh by by leaving he got justice for himself, where it's like he finally got some unearned money.

That's nice. And also about this episode, too, it's somewhat inspired by coconut teasers. And I know you're a fan of the Sunset Strip, Tim. Oh, yes. Come on. I'm there every night. But did you ever go to the now-defunct coconut teasers? I have never even heard of coconut teasers i have never even

heard of coconut teasers it is it's actually the coconut teaser yes except no other substitutions and it closed i mean i've been to lots of other coconut teasers but i haven't been to this uh it closed in 2003 and i have a quote on this from the writer of this episode uh he says uh brock cohen by the way quote the flaming drink thing was something i'd seen in vegas and the story about moe's becoming this hot spot was somewhat based on the coconut teaser by the way teaser is spelled t-e-a-s-z-e-r-z-e-r every part of it is misspelled to go on the quote goes on which was this cheesy horrible tourist trap bar in hollywood where people had bachelorette parties and you'd always see people out front they had these crappy drinks and day glow t-shirts and it was just awful and people were constantly throwing up in front of the coconut teaser oh man that's great i mean what's amazing is that

the sunset strip still sort of does have that vibe and it's like probably it's like the last place where probably a coconut teasers would do pretty well if it reopened. That's the clientele around there would like it. No, I was I was just on Hollywood Boulevard recently and on Cinco de Mayo. And it was also quite a quite a rough scene on there. Honestly, this is also a time when a lot of chain restaurants and clubs are having their own signature drinks. The comedian Mike Nelson from Mystery Science Theater, he had a joke

he would do at comedy clubs like, oh, have you tried the Fintusler? He would just make up a fake drink name and ask the audience because he was sick of seeing these $20 cocktails on the menu where you had to order two drinks at a comedy club. And also, Bob, you have a whole bio on not just a new writer on this episode, but a new director.

That's right. So now it's time for Writer's Corner about Rob Cohen, his one and only Simpsons episode. We went on to have a extravagant Hollywood career. So thankfully, as of this day that we're recording this, in recent history, an oral history about the making of this episode went live on Mel Magazine. It's called A Hugh Jazz Oral History of Flaming Moes, which definitely helped me write this history of Rob Cohen. A lot of quotes from the commentary, but also a lot of new quotes from Rob about the production of this episode. They don't talk about the Sam Simon connection. They don't talk about the Beverly D'Angelo. Sorry, sorry. No, Catherine

O'Hara connection. Yeah, it's none of the uh the dirty business in this it's all the just nice things but i mean for rob cohen as he was just like a freelancer on it handed the script so all he can say like hey they they gave me the idea and then i wrote it i wasn't there to say hey this is about how sam simon uh feels uh fucked over by matt craning he he didn't know that at the time but uh i also want to point out there are about 67 rob cohen's out there a lot of cohen's in the entertainment industry i wonder why he's he's not related to david x uh not related to david x cohen but also he is related to another cohen that wrote for the show and we'll talk about him right uh but yes do not confuse him with the man who directed dragon heart oh different rob cohen that's good so uh i think they eat ash as i've learned

recently they really do it's what it's what dragons do uh but yeah for for a while there's so many rob cohen's i'm like did the really the same guy wrote fleming most direct dragon heart no absolutely not but how did he end up on the simpsons well during season one of the simpsons the tracy allman show shuts down uh goodbye tracy it's weird to think that the simpsons and tracy allman were on the air at the same time yeah i forgot they tried to have one season without the simpsons on it and it just didn't work it did i mean you can see why after that was over she's like i need to get some more money out of this simpsons thing i'm gonna sue for for a few million dollars on this didn't work

out though it did not and uh rob was a pa on the tracy allman show and when that shut down all the pas moved over to the simpsons and he wanted to break into tv writing so he wrote a few spec scripts for the simpsons and one of them involved a die-hard parody that took place at the power plant that's what he submitted to the show to get a job on the uh the writing team apparently they liked the script but according to rob there was some strange rule at the time that they couldn't hire internally which obviously they would break a few years later when they brought on david merkin and a ton of other fox writers to fill the gaps the season four crew left behind yeah that's very uh strange rule they had at the time which i don't

think is reflected by wga or whatever but uh i'm surprised they you know they would end up making it as a joke in in maggie makes three yes start of that that would be the one use of it yes i i think but at that point they're like this is too far a diehard parody but now they probably do it i think i mean diehard parodies now are very you see them a lot in tv like always sunny in philadelphia did it the cleveland show did one as well i know many workaholics did one early in their run in their first season but yeah so he joined the show with crusty gets busted he was a production assistant from that point onwards uh and he left the show after a certain amount of time but after the simpsons he wrote an episode of the wonder years

and an episode of something called someone like me it's a sitcom there are so many sitcoms i just have gone forgotten that had one season and that's one of them yeah unless they start somebody who went on to be famous they uh those one-off sitcoms or one or two seasons sitcoms never never even got a release on dvd i don't know if you're supposed to say it's someone like me or someone like me i don't know if that's the joke behind it but nobody knows about this but he found his first regular writing gig on the emmy award-winning ben stiller show and this is where he befriends a young dana gould and rob has been on a bunch of dana ghouls podcast episodes so if you want to hear rob cone interviews dana and he are best friends and they do so much

creative work together and we'll talk more about that later. But yes, Ben Stiller show. It's about half good. The non-parody sketches are very, very funny, mostly because of Bob Odenkirk and other writers. But the ones that are like, what is Eddie Munster doing today? Not so funny. Yeah, like Manson is Lassie or whatever. I like that one. Bob Odenkirk is playing Charles Manson.

That's good. Okay, he's good today. Yeah, I learned that one. Bob Odenkirk playing Charles Manson, that's good. Okay, he's good today, yeah. I learned a lot. I don't remember anything about Rob Cohen from it, but Odenkirk definitely talks about it in his memoir working on it. But yeah, it was like the halfway point to Mr. Show. There's SNL, and then in between that is the Ben Stiller show, and then finally in Mr. Show,

they make the sketch series they really wanted to make. Yeah, I think David Cross joins at the end of the production and he writes the pgo pooter toots sketch yes which is a mr show sketch that's such a great great sketch i love that one so yeah he makes friends with dana gould there uh he went on to write for saturday night special a fox snl wannabe that briefly replaced mad tv oh and then he wrote for mad tv so uh no snl for him but mad tv had its high points i think yeah yeah we all look down on mad tv maybe too much like remember on speaking of mr show do you know stamatopoulos on a commentary goes like look i gotta i gotta kids i gotta pay i gotta feed my kids i worked on mad tv i mean mad tv never

platformed uh donald trump yeah we can at least say that about them. Despite the very racist and homophobic sketches, they were just following the legacy of Unliving Color, right? That's true. Except with no black people. Yeah. Well, one. One, yeah.

Phil Lamar showed up. Yeah, but, oh, man. All the, what was that horrible Asian character? Miss Wan? Miss Wan, yeah. Yes, he look like a man or she looka like a man i'm sorry uh but yes he goes on to create a super adventure team for mtv with dana gould that's all on youtube we talked about that earlier uh because we did a dana gould corner that is essentially

a puppety thunderbirds parody like six or seven episodes they made for mtv uh back in the late 90s and then he would write for other shows like the big bang theory the life and times of tim marin lady dynamite and the recent 10 year old tom which i believe is a like spin-off of the life and times of tim both of those shows are very dr catsey yeah yeah those two yeah i know it has a picture on hbo max that i never click on i i would probably even like it that show but i i really enjoyed uh lady dynamite that comedy show on netflix i think the uh the marin show you know what i didn't watch that i didn't it's a show about podcasters it's

true yeah and a more earnest one about podcasters and say zach braff yeah podcast we all forgot the name of that show yes yeah i feel. I feel like it's like My Family is Great or something like that. But yes, a lot of other things I'm not naming. He did a lot of writing for television and for streaming platforms. He's the other half of Gex, too. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. He was writing Gex

quips with Dana Gould. So he's part of the, if you laughed at Gex, 50% of that laugh belongs to Rob Cohen. So in the 2000s, he branched out into directing. He started with shorts and internet videos for Funny or Die and whatnot. He moved on to TV specials, eventually directed some TV episodes. So the shows he's directed include Marin, Mystery Science Theater 3000. He directed the entire first Netflix season of Mystery Science Theater.

Oh, that's cool. Stand Against Evil, duh. Dana Gould invented cool. That's cool. Stand Against Evil. Duh, Dana Gould invented that show. He invented it and created it. Also, Lady of Dynamite. And currently, he is the director and co-creator of Dana Gould's web series Hanging with Dr. Z,

which is the Dr. Zaius talk show where it's very much like Space Ghost Coast to Coast. You can watch that online. It's amazing makeup they got on it. Wow, to even make the imdb more confusing now he is a live action director just like the other rob cohen that yeah that is true and i swear to god this is not the dana gold corner dana gold will be buried in the dr zeus costume i think i have a feeling yeah yes yeah it's it's the persona he prefers i think than being himself i i think but no i mean it was cool to see uh i gotta thank the the writer of that mail article brian van hooker who reached out and got rob cohen on uh the record

about this show this episode because i don't believe he's on the commentary for uh for flaming he is not yeah so good i mean with that kind of, I can see why he was busy when they were recording it in like 2002 or whatever. And Rob is also the older brother of Joel H. Cohen, who began writing on the show in 2001 and is still there to this very day. Because if you if you join the Simpsons from 1998 onwards, you never leave. You never leave. It's a great cushy job, as Al Jean admitted to Delroy Lindo in that very commentary. That's why there are 500 producers man and poor joel h cohen he's like everybody thinks how many meetings has he gone into where people think like oh and your brother is ethan cohen and i'm talking to one of the cohen brothers

well yeah i guess you drop the h from that cohen but still they're cohen's yeah it's true i guess yeah you say it out loud it sounds the same but you're right it's not at least it's spelled completely differently so uh here's a fun story about him that was unearthed in november of 2012 on forbes of all places uh i don't know like sometimes i'll see like video game articles shared by forbes and i'm like what even is forbes yeah that's confusing just like an empty content farm i guess you got you get clicks where you can find them i suppose of the forbes factory but this also involves ben still's show co-star Janine Garofalo. So over the weekend in 2012, Garofalo found out that she was married to Rob Cohen. Cohen, yes, Cohen, best known for producing The Big Bang Theory.

This is in 2012, by the way. Dated Garofalo for about a year before hitting Vegas one night in 1991. After a few drinks, the couple got married at a drive-thru chapel in a cab. That marriage was legal, unbeknownst to garofalo and cohen and they were married for real until they legally dissolved the marriage 20 years later wow man i had i had never heard that i because because also bob odenkirk also had a big crush on janine garofalo on the ben stiller show as well like there was she was an alt comiccomic babe in 1991. She was.

Everybody loved her. She was a real cutie pie. And also a great comic and actress, not just talking about her looks. It's true. It's true. But yeah, it's funny because on the commentary, Mike Reese just tosses that out like,

oh yeah, and I guess he married Janine Garofalo. So Mike Reese knew. He knew the secret then. I guess he knew the story. And I think maybe it was just a popular, like, isn't it funny how we got married?ine Garofalo. So Mike Reese knew. He knew the secret then. I guess he knew the story. And I think maybe it was just a popular, like, isn't it funny how he got married? It was a joke. They didn't know it was binding.

That's so funny. He was thrown out his trivia of like, obviously it wasn't binding. They got married. And it turns out, no, you actually got married. Not in quotes. And that is the history of Rob Cohen. Still out there. Still very successful.

And still working with Dana Gould. Again, he's currently directing Hanging with Dr. Z, the web series. A fun way to get into retirement age, I think, as a comedy writer. Just basically do what we're doing after becoming a multimillionaire working on the biggest sitcoms ever. Shit, we forgot that step. Yeah, well, it's not too late. It's true.

No, it is too late. It's too late for us. I mean, he wrote the script when he was like in his mid to late 20s. God damn, man. I mean, all these guys on the show now are like early 30s at the oldest for the most part,

except for like James L. Brooks and Mac Green. Right, right. The Sentence will be right back. Thursday, Moe's Tavern gets a surprise visit from Parosmith. Are you ready to rock? On The Simpsons, Thursday on Fox. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener.

At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub at electricarland.ie. Hey, it's Henry Gilbert telling you to walk this way into the break. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Tim Kalpakis of the Sloppy Boys, both the band and the podcast. We are big fans of tim work it's awesome to have him back on the show for all his insights into world of comedy

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smart has to step in man and that is why this is co-directed by alan smart because rich moore was gone for two weeks of production man so his daughter is like 31 now the one who got him but it's funny because in the commentary uh he goes uh can you can you believe she's 11 that's crazy and the commentaries are 20 years old yeah this commentary is old yeah man oh man so yeah he went back to assistant directing after this but he would follow uh rich more to the critic to direct on the first season so he is a first season critic director no that's cool it sounds like uh you know rich gave him his first co-directing credit on this one. And then much like we talked about many times with Wes Archer on King of the Hill, where like every King of the Hill director in season two is basically like an assistant director on Simpsons who then gets to go up to director level on the side series. Rich Moore was doing that five years earlier on the credit that's true some people stayed behind like suzy dieter was i think mark kirkland's uh ad yeah and she got promoted to director in like season five right right so yes he seems to be a brad bird friend as well because i assume maybe there's some cal arts in his background because his first role in animation was an assistant animator on the family dog segment

of amazing stories oh well there you go uh we have to cover that at some point i think i i guess it is simpsons related especially because it then got uh a unpopular sitcom uh because of the simpsons success very unpopular so he's also a low-level animator on things like oliver and company and the little mermaid before joining the simpsons as a sheet director for homer's night out in season one so pretty early in season one he's on board yeah it definitely seems like some of those cal art dudes who did a little time in disney in the 80s or some time in disney in the 80s and then got plucked up by the simpsons yeah and looking at his uh resume looking at his imdb he seems to prefer cartoonier stuff because after the critic he goes on to uh rocco's modern life and he's animation director for

about half of its episodes wow especially towards the back half so he's a big rocco guy it should not surprise you that he rolled right into spongebob where he was animation director there on and off for 20 years yeah it sounds like he's a pretty big wheel at the spongebob factory and i'm going to assume he didn't direct on the simpsons after this because even though there's an entire year of production left for rich more before he leaves, he is also Alan Smart. He's also an animation director on Rugrats at this time. And so he is working kind of two different roles at Klasky Chupo now, like assistant directing on The Simpsons and also being animation director on Rugrats. He also did some animation work on the very good looking Rugrats pilots.

Yeah, this is. Yeah. I also saw he did some Clone High too. Yeah, yeah. He's a busy guy, this Alan Smart. I didn't realize he worked on so many things outside of the sitcom animation field. It turns out not cartoony enough for him. And according to some sources, he's now retired.

So good for him. Yeah, good for him. And that is the story of Alan Smart. But I guess let's get straight into the episode then. It starts with a tune that listeners know very well because we use it as our outro music a lot of the time. The Ion Springfield music. Like I love it so much. I love that it ends with Homer saying that's infotainment which I like to think our podcast is is some infotainment and it's just so great like all the all the hot babes in in Simpson style is also so funny to see.

And even though the early 90s logo is universal for that just kind of font and graphic design, the opening is a specific parody of both Eye on LA and Eye on Hollywood, two news magazine shows. If you go on YouTube and look up their openings, it's really more based on Eye on Hollywood to the point where they have people in a hot tub and lots of bikini girls so bikini girls yes but uh if you're around in hollywood in the late 80s you might have seen this wow i didn't know that i was a big fan of lifestyles of the rich and famous and i found some episodes of that on youtube and uh i kind of thought it was a parody of that but i love the idea that you would be watching a local affiliate, local news, and then they're trying to have their cool kind of after hours party segment.

That's great. Yeah, it's fun. All the cuts and editing are so perfectly like 80s VHS editing too. Just all the like, da, da, da, da, da, and just zoom ins on each note. It's so well done. And yeah, the laughter of them in the hot tub,

that's my favorite shot, I think. Rich Moore on the commentary, he also notes that as director, they animated way more than this, but there are a few extra scenes in this that they just cut out. And it's really great that he just totally brings up like, yep, you cut that too.

We worked real hard on it and you cut it. Like he's just taking them to task for it finally. It's funny because by today's standards um you know it's always funny to re-watch these episodes and feel the pacing and it's like a much slower show that can like live in moments for a long time but they really hammer the hammer the bikini joke and like uh you know some of the jokes overall in the show feel like soft not in a bad, but just sort of like tone things. And I was thinking an eye on Springfield like these days you would like have to have like a new hard joke for each cut. But in this version, you're kind of just enjoying seeing Kent in such a tacky scenario that it is. It's where you kind of like live in it for a while and is kind of laid back.

It's also fun to jump from the opening of a real show to the opening of a fake show. So for about three minutes, you're watching nothing but openings. And they're hitting every Springfield locale that they set up in the first two seasons, including the Isotope Stadium and the Happy Sailor Tattoo Parlor where Bart got his moth tattoo as well.

Though, you know what? We see Kent's bear back in uh dog of death and he does not have that tattoo anymore laser tattoo removal must be he went to the same place i also just love the the logo of it too like the logo of ion springfield and that is you know on our t public store you can get a talking simpsons logo that's just like that designed by the wonderful nina matsumoto it's just like that but also legally distinct yes legally distinct it says talking simpsons i'm gonna buy one right now okay hey i bet there's a sale going on right now a lot of sales over there at t public it's always a sale yeah it's honestly if you're buying it at

full price you're a fool like you're you're buying it on one of the three days of the months it's not a sale but now wait a second if it's a sale though do you guys still get the same cut i want to wait till it's not a sale and make sure you guys get your money you know what i can't uh i can't say i'll track it uh but uh then we have a quick joke about uh that that dates the episode saying it's the 25th anniversary of the tire fire that's been going from 1966 to 1991 which means we're closing in on 60 years we're at 60 more than 65 years of that tire fire crazy yes also the springfield's oldest man meets springfield's fattest man another good one and also we get to hear hank azaria pretty blatantly say like i fucked up pretty bit i fucked up bad just bleeped very hard on that that's good and then it just cuts to their tribute

on the bikini and i was just thinking about how like you know in our teen years these types of shows morphed into like the ease wild on type show you're right that was like uh the poster and come down half hour yeah it's like enough enough interviews don't you just want to see girls in on the beach in a bikini the the type of programming they got killed by the proliferation of the internet you know i feel though i don't know i don't put on late night e anymore maybe they still do wild on i'm not sure i remember watching those shows and then yeah all the commercials would have been for uh girls gone wild dvds it's so funny that it was just like they had just decided like this is our horny block of

television just late at night uh it's uh yeah uh oh and then speaking of horny even bart reacts to it with saying wow tna which apparently the censors did not like that but they they kept it in they were able to keep it in but it's sleep over time and bart is being tormented by the uh the girls upstairs this is the most popular lisa has ever been yeah it's just really weird she's never had more friends before or since yes these women would only sorry these girls would only assemble to mock her in the future i think i it's so funny that it was just it's like she's having a sleepover she has a bunch of friends and then the like the friends love her and they're all having fun

together it's like who is this lisa we don't know this girl. This popular, fun, fun girl. I was just thinking there's an episode much later where Lisa becomes a babysitter. And there's one scene where she's hanging out in her bedroom with Janie. And it's just so weird where it's like, Lisa has no friends. Yes. She's not reading babysitter club books in her bedroom with Janie. Janie wants nothing to do with this girl. No way.

And you would think that would be a fundamental thing about lisa because i was wondering like oh maybe they found their way to her being a lonely nerd but it's like no that's that's like her main thing i'm sure when they came up with lisa they're like she's smart and she has no friends you know by by season five they're pretty regularly doing stories of nobody likes lisa and they make fun of her they for her having any kind of stance maybe the more political lisa gets the more she loses friends it might be that right that happens but this is uh based on al jean's own childhood where he was usually the only boy in a house full of girls and the girls at the sleepovers would play games based around

teasing him or making fun of him so that's that's what it's born out of though i also love that when they're talking about that her husband's going to be an olympic athlete she says we'll go on to have a great acting career i got such a great no no olympic athlete yet has become a movie star not yet they're still trying sad but but the wax never lies as lisa says uh though have girls ever done this at a slumber party i i mean none of us would know but i mean we all play with open flames at slumber parties i think sure just not like with any sort of artistic game lots of different uh methods of ways of like oh you're gonna marry this person and you're gonna have uh this job

or whatever but i don't think girls were ever melting wax it's more fun to do that than the cootie catcher hand thing yeah yeah yeah yeah uh and then uh it cuts back to them they're having very specific rice crispy squares as they eat together which i like that too and that's when they're told to kiss bart and they confront bart kiss him and send him into a jinx even, which is a tougher old Bart in our first clip. I'm telling mom and dad. You're telling who? Mom and dad.

Now you can't talk till somebody says your name. Coming up next, an elephant who never forgets to brush. What is it, boy? Is anything the matter, my son? Talk to me, young man. Say your name. Why should I do that, my lad?

Because I'm Jinx, damn it! Ow! Who's that for? You spoke while you were Jinx, dammit! Ow! What was that for? You spoke while you were Jinx, so I get to punch you in the arm. Sorry, it's the law. There he is! Let's give him a makeover! Run for it, boy! We're just not giving him my support in this.

You know, we didn't do the whole Jinx thing. We did not respect the Jinx rules growing up okay i think i learned about it from this episode but no one ever tried it on me i had a couple friends who tried but it was a rare jinxing yeah and here's the secret of truth or dare i've said it before choose truth and then lie oh yeah it's an easy cheat yeah yeah no one's gonna make you do any physical weird stuff eat something weird yeah that's smart no i've never wet my bed there see the end yeah wait no i mean that was that is the truth yeah

yeah bart's running away is also framed oh yeah the way homer it's great how homer just for no reason doesn't say bart's name and then when he punches him like it's a real hard punch it seems like it hurts i know even just hearing it now like the the sound cue is like it is sun hard i wish he strangled him instead but uh this action scene is so great uh bart chasing the camera down the hallway the great uh pose and the lighting when he's like pressed against the door and you see the screws fall onto the carpet yeah really nice so great yeah apparently it's uh based on north by northwest at least the the hallway rundown thing and and also yeah it's pretty pretty intense that lisa and her friends got a screwdriver to unscrew the door

and and bart would risk death jumping out the, then face them and get a makeover. Which really looks like his fall hurts. I got to think he's at least unconscious from that, probably. So instead, they force the makeover upon Maggie, which is a very funny drawing. And then Homer just taps out. He's like, I'm out of here. There's no answer as to where is Marge. She's asleep.

Let's imagine she's there yeah you i'd hope homer didn't just abandon all the kids in the house to defend for themselves hey it was 1991 that's true people did that back then isn't it funny what a long walk this is just to get to homer being like i'm out of here i'm going to mose where this feels like you know later on they would kind of do that on purpose where like the whole act one would be almost like a fake out about a different story. And then they'd land on where they're going right before the commercial break. And you'd be like, oh, this is a thing that like Simpsons does now. And it's fun. And it's cool. In this case, it didn't feel like they were

being winky about it. It really just felt like we're, we're, we're going to take, we're going to, we need a way to get Homer to say, I'm going to mose and then they had this idea but it almost feels like it should be lisa and her friends messing with bart feels like it like they were setting up a b story that we never come back to or something like that it's so strange yeah that's true yeah and i think maybe even three years later they would start the story at mose there would be no uh lead up to him going to moe's but instead yeah we watch like two minutes of tv and then a minute of like sleepover shenanigans yeah yeah that are yeah that it's like why wouldn't it just be a sleepover shenanigans story in a different episode or something like that i don't know maybe they tried to break a story based on that and crapped out

and we're like yeah we'll just do two minutes of it here and we can just fill it in ion springfield we'll just do another if we need more time we'll just do another scene in ion springfield these things yeah just write themselves yeah but yeah so homer heads over to mo's bar nobody else is there things aren't so good at mo's in our next clip hi homer what's the matter mo uh business is. People today are healthier and drinking less. You know, if it wasn't for the junior high school next door, no one would even use the cigarette machine. Yeah, stinks are tough all over.

Increased job satisfaction and family togetherness are poison for a purveyor of mind-numbing intoxicants like myself. Can I get a beer? Oh, yeah, sure. Oh, sorry, I forgot we're out of beer. Oh, I know, I got behind out of beer. Well, I know. I got behind on my beer payments. The distributor cut me off, and I spent my last 10 grand on the love tester.

You're too late, Homer. Barney sucked it dry. Cut his gums up pretty bad. You don't really notice how good the Foley is until you're not watching the image. I just love his, like, cut his gums up pretty bad. That that's such a great line is this the first appearance of the love tester it is it is indeed yeah it's a great you know before they had the other gag of him saying that it was uh either cable or the mechanical bull and he made his choice and he stands by it but the love tester is even funnier than the mechanical bull like i, I love it. Like, who? Ten grand.

Yes. Not an arcade machine, just a thing, like, from 1938. And you can do that, actually, at Universal, right? They have one of those? Yes, at both Universal Orlando and Hollywood, inside the Moe's, right by where it would be in the show, is a love tester. And I believe you do actually have to pay for it, too. You can't just put your hands on it. It's a paid thing paid thing but damn uh it's fun i did it once it's fun it's not even like it gives you like a smash penny or anything i wish it did but it's it's one of those you know the the the most bar i know we've said before we wish it was more dank but at least i

appreciate they got the love tester right there yeah that, that's cool. And you can get a Duff there. I mean, it says on the walls, like, no, it's a Sam Adams. Yeah. Well, but you can't get it in a Moe's mug, though. That's also a big downside to it, I got to say. And Sam Adams almost seems too fancy to be a Duff. It feels like it should be like a Milwaukee's Best or something. Yeah, yeah.

I guess, you know, it's whoever paid for the branding in this park, I would guess. But all this corporate shit, right, Tim? Corporate shit. I can't get away from it. I also love that most complaints are all just like a happy society is what's ruining his bar. Everybody's too happy now. You know, going back to the Sam Adams thing, I think it's too fancy for most of the attendees of universal because you see the tourists who just drink miller light and bud light all day you see them at a bar they're like what's like bud light

and the bartender's like well we have a lager and they're like is it like bud light is it like miller light i don't know what lager means i just know that the color of the can i drink out of so yeah i think sam adams is like what is this what why does it taste like this they wouldn't know what it was this fancy fancy stuff so mo decides he's gonna try to make a cocktail but he has to blow the dust off of his laminated cocktail card which you guys you guys don't have a laminated cocktail card though you guys use the uh the the official list online yeah we i wish we had a cocktail card we we do IBAworld.com, which is a very straightforward list of cocktails. But I loved his list. I love it when he's like, gin and tonic, they mix? The idea that a bartender doesn't know about. What else on earth would tonic water even be used for?

Well, I guess later we learn the bottles that we see are just painted onto the glass. Oh, yes. They're not real yeah so homer though has he has his own liquor concoction here which yeah when we when me and bob uh before the recording we were trying to parse out okay how does how does this work as an analogy homer it really should be that like if homer is supposed to be sam simon he should be given the drinks by mo and then homer mixes them together in a new way to make them worth something but instead right it's more like he makes it up which is like well but that's graining did create the characters like all the characters were his creation so right it's like the surface and like he had the he drew them and owned the like drawings

but didn't have the sensibility really. Yeah. Yeah. So if the flaming mows, the Simpsons, the metaphor doesn't truly work with if at least not until it's like him not getting enough credit, I guess. But yes, Homer tells the tale of a sad night with Patty and Selma showing all of their slide shows and a hairy yellow drumstick leads him to an invention.

One night, Marge's beastly sisters were showing slides from their latest vacation and this is patty trying to plug her leg razor into one of those ungodly czechoslovakian outlets as you can see we never did get the hang of it as i stared up at that hairy yellow drumstick, I knew I needed a drink. Patty, Selma, would you excuse me for a moment? If you're going for a beer, this is the last one. Don't! I decided to mix the little bits that were left in every liquor bottle.

In my haste, I had grabbed a bottle of the kids' cough syrup. It passed the first test i didn't go blind they say everyone can float in the dead sea but selma sank right to the bottom huh i don't know the scientific explanation but fire made it good you know there are apps now my wife has one i forget what it's called but if you just punch in what you have it'll tell you what you can make oh that's a fun app oh yeah i've heard about that yeah that's cool like yeah i obviously obviously the the unspoken thing here is that codeine laced cough syrup is used for illicit substances in real life to for people to get high on.

Like, for example, in obviously I've never tried this or heard this from any, but lean, which uses codeine scissor. Yes, scissor, all that stuff. I only know about robo tripping. Oh, I think it's a different active ingredient i think so yes right because with that you know with robo tripping you drink an entire bottle right yes right right uh which we do but it's funny that they they they they play it in this episode more about the taste like oh that's delicious but it yeah you would think that it it being a opiate drink that they would be like, oh, this tastes kind of funny, but it makes me feel good. But no, they said it tastes good.

I don't know why, but I think purple is the perfect color. It makes it look so delicious and refreshing. This made me want to drink so bad watching this episode. Oh, that looks so good. Yes. Yeah. I like a big mug of liquor, too, that it's not like on the rocks it's like a beer mug full of liquor that's true yeah what what is the abv on that giant mug of cocktail

it's like you're drinking 12 shots or something sometimes people have it in a highball glass but a lot of the times it's just in the full bow mug yeah which has to be like great well like a quadruple or something of it then i'd guess but now tim you're you're of course the inventor of the kelpie cordial uh have oh yes have you ever tried uh lighting that on fire maybe putting a little you know stuff on top and lighten it up i feel like a fool for not lighting it on fire but the kelpie cordial is uh spiced rum and cherry coke you know so, so like a Captain Morgan and cherry Coke. And it does have the flavor of what I had always imagined a flaming Mo to taste like, because it's it's a you know, there's a cherry Coke is not on unlike cough syrup. You know, there is sort of a little Robitussin esque vibe to it.

And and and, you know, we put enough rum, it is strong. I got to light that up. Damn. It's something to try. The flaming Tim. We encourage all of our listeners to go and play with fire. Yeah. Did you guys notice also in this clip you just played how funny the use of getting Bart,

getting an Icaramba from bart is really funny because even though it's only season three it still feels like almost like a little bit of fan service to just it's a funny moment for him to say it but it's kind of like he did the line and in a funny context looking at his aunt's hairy legs or whatever whatever it's like there was pressure on them to use catchphrases more often like we gotta sell these t-shirts yeah the sales are flagging just like saying it while he's skateboarding just to be cool so he like said it in a funnier context this time and uh you know that dead sea it led me to read up some depressing news about

the dead sea the dead sea is dying guys it's getting killed by climate change no it's the dead sea is shrinking it's uh it's getting smaller every year the the countries next to it they they are working together to refill it with water every year to make sure it stays full but yeah it's the uh it's all thanks to climate change is also surrounded by sinkholes so there used to be like touristy stuff like so patty and selma went to by the dead sea there's fewer space for it because there's thousands of sinkholes as as climate change destroys the entire dead sea area it's uh damn sad killing the dead sea so if you you know if you want to float in the dead sea

prioritize that trip soon you might might not be able to float there too long from now what's the thing with the dead sea it's like a high salt content very high and lots of other minerals too and it's but yes it's so salty that anybody can float in it though uh and also though it says do not like don't splash around in it and do not put your head below the water like there's a whole lot of warnings about getting in the dead sea as well but uh and of course unspoken in the name here which i'm really glad that matt graining prevented them from doing a joke about this is flaming homer and flaming mo are both like gay jokes like a flaming homo or a flaming mo meaning

homo that's the gag but that both of these guys would name their thing something that sounds uh effeminate that would get them mocked instead it becomes very popular i always forget yeah flaming mo is a gay joke and i guess macarading shot down a joke in which a gay couple would enter flaming mo's and get disappointed to see it was not a gay bar yes but he's like it's funnier if we don't acknowledge it i think so oh yeah me too i forget i forget the uh the dirty uh you know origins of that episode title i didn't even i didn't even think about it but yeah especially for that year it would have been like teehee yes yeah and you know what by the 19th season they actually just do an episode where mo's bar becomes a gay bar yeah so it is called flaming mo non-possessive just flaming mo you know what i forgot like this is the first

mo episode and it's a bar makeover episode i think every every mo episode is one one of these except for a few and we've done three of them so far there's uh bart sells his soul becomes the uh family feedback and then homer the mo becomes m you're right yes on W. Yeah. I in my memory, I had mixed this together with Moe's family feed bag. And I always kind of reference the flaming Moe when talking, trying to reference Moe's family feed bag. Because on on my podcast, we've been talking about how there's this genre of bar called fern bars. and like mo's family feed bag kind of is one of those where it's like brass rails and um stained glass lamps and kind of a tgi friday's vibe but when tgi friday's was like a cool singles bar type thing and i always kind of thought like oh of course it would the flaming mo would be a drink at a place like that but but i guess but most family feed bag there's it's not

like a boozy thing it's more about like baskets of what does he serve at the family feedback uh deep fried everything yeah deep fried everything spaghetti and mobiles the uh and of course a million dollar birthday fries it's easy to confuse the two because in in both that episode in this one whenever mo gets his bar gets a makeover and in that other one some somehow the bar's interior grows by like five times oh yes yeah that's true yeah there's all this room showing it yeah there's tons of room for like booths and in like a stage and an audience oh yes yeah yeah i wasn't thinking that stage that's plugged in there it has to be

like triple the size for that but i guess that stage remains because that is where you know the red hot chili peppers will perform and and homer's barbershop quartets you know there's always space for performance there yeah it's so funny to think of like all the other episodes when they're hanging out at moe's that there's a big empty stage right there just right off screen yeah it's a giant stage right there uh so yes homer teaches mo how to make it uh and before lighting it on fire he says it's not without its charm and then mo says the classic line that i think is more remembered from the softball episode uh there's a party in my mouth and everyone's invited which uh it's it's from i mean it's like just commercial jingle talk but i don't think it's based on a specific one.

I don't believe. Well, just that's like a, people say that a lot. I didn't really realize that that was a Simpsons thing, but that is such a, I feel like that's a line people say a lot and don't know they're quoting the Simpsons. I think so. I think it's like the Simpsons trying to make their own kind of silly jingle. Like, you know, I'm sure there's something that said, oh, there's a part, it's like a party in your mouth and then they right top it with the silly thing of like and everyone's invited and so then it just becomes the thing yeah every whenever i tried to search for it it's just the quote from this episode no no other place mentions it online but you know in covid stricken

america i think we could all use a flaming hom to loosen up our flam. As happens to the unhappy customer here who wants his nickel back. Which, um... But yes, this is when Mo moves quickly in our next clip. It's not without its charm. Try lighting it on fire. Whoa!

Homer! It's like there's a party in my mouth and everyone's invited. Hey, your love tester's busted. I want my nickel back. Hey, buddy, have one on the house. Hey, this drink is delicious. And my phlegm feels loser. What do you call it? Well, it's called a

flaming mo it's called a flaming mo that's right a flaming mo my name is mo and i invented it that's why it's called a flaming mo what what are you looking at homer it's a flaming mo i'm mo i azari is so great in this episode like he's so funny there's so much that feels like improvised by like that much like oh what homer what are you looking at it's with flaming mo what's mom i still like this old high-pitched mo i mean i think it's just a natural result of hank azaria getting older that mo just becomes more gruff yeah yeah i agree yeah i mean uh tim did did you ever meet hank azaria in in your time there i i never talked to him but i got to sit in on some records and watch him and it's amazing and then i always feel like uh it's it's funny how you're talking about like this higher voice

and him being kind of like more like almost like upbeat and stammery a lot of times i noticed when i'd sit in the record they are like it feels like they're playing it really big and overacting and i think that that's an animation thing like a vo thing that you you kind of like are really hammy on the mic because you're gonna lose a little bit of that when when it goes to animation and uh so yeah i i wonder if if that is also like that that as he as he got older and more like bored with the job just like settled into the old voice but like when i watch when i watch it i definitely saw them like flailing their arms around stuff like that and it was really cool to see at a table read them switch back and forth between voices like during a record they could just do one character and then do a different but at a table read they like do a bunch of characters like right back and forth there's a

moment in this episode where dan is talking to dan i forget who the other character was but that's always like the most fun thing ever at a table read when someone reads with them themselves and you see them switch voices oh yeah dan dan's great at that yeah they i mean they all are but so yes uh we come back from the commercial break and mo's bar is busier than ever it's slowly building up i have to say i think it's dangerous to light a blender on fire there's that plastic rim around the top and i think that's you know portion it out one by one then light each of those on fire it's less show rim around the top and i think that's you know portion it out one by one then light each of those on fire it's less showy that way yeah i guess so man but you're gonna get melted plastic in your drink that's worth it and that sneeze guard joke is one of

the grossest moments in the show to me like i just like i love the wow after after the sneeze yeah he's so impressed it's like a ren and stimpy moment so the show doesn't play that card very much just like you just to see a big green pile of snot on the screen you know what every time i see a sneeze guard i think of i think like wow really does work and uh in in personal news for me uh my own mose clothes i don't know if either of you have ever had a mose in your life but i had one for 10 years. It was my local hangout spot. If you knew me, I took you there.

I did a lot of work there, a lot of podcast prep, a lot of writing there. And this is just a sign of how my neighborhood is being gentrified because the bar was called Lane Splitter. It was a great pizza pub. It has been replaced by a cafe named Babette, which could be good. I have not been there yet, but whenever walk by I'm like oh I got all bougie in there it makes me sad yeah but I lost my mo's and that's why I have to leave the country that's why you're moving I'm moving to Canada I just they took my mo's away that's cool to have them I have like a couple of bars that I've been a regular at but it's always like late night with

friends but I've never had just like a daytime place that i roll into by myself and getting work done or some or that sounds very fun it was great but you could just walk in or i could just walk in they would give me my drink and my pizza order without even asking because i just ordered the same thing every time it ruled man but tim you do have a well i guess it's not a bar, but you have experience working in a restaurant, in your family's restaurant, right? Yes, I was a cook at my dad's pizzeria, Winchell's Pizza in Shokan, New York, which is now gone. And speaking of gentrification, so my family owned two pizzerias. One was Woodstock Pizza in Woodstock, and the other was Winchell's Pizza in Shokan.

Essentially kind of the same thing, but two locations, but they had different names. And when I went back recently, my parents retired out of the area and my family has like no ties to those places anymore. So I wanted to see Winchell's Pizza and Woodstock Pizza and they were both. Winchell's Pizza is now Veggie Oasis and Woodstock Pizza is now Vegan Garden.

Wow. And you know, Woodstock is more prone to uh veggie and vegan because it's like a hippie zone but it was funny that it's they were both like businesses that i would have like made up to joke about what they my pizzerias would become that would that would be a simpsons gag a sign gag just one would morph into the other yeah exactly homer's wondering what has uh made it so successful and i love mo's like it's probably a combination of things and just told like well i hate this joy but i love that drink yeah you know bob when me and you worked at an old office i feel like his success was coming and we we felt it was from us we heard a bit of like it's probably a combination of things who can who can credit what being successful it's usually just random random chance but yes this is when uh it the

cheers parody begins here which uh i you know i haven't watched cheers in a full episode cheers in a while but i did just watch our our previous guest jose did a great video on on cheers as uh just as a series history and as as like sitcom history too it was really well done i suggest anybody watch jose's video on cheers and i really love the high concept premise of the scene where as soon as she enters the scene they immediately snap into the witty cheers banter yeah like mo is never this clever or acts like this much of a womanizer but he becomes Sam Malone for the sake of playing off of this bartender named Colette. But that's never said in the show.

They never say her name. That's right. When I saw her name in a wiki, I was like, oh, I guess that must be in the script that her name is Colette. You're right. They never say her name. I mean, you just think she's Diane because she is just Diane Chambers. The cheers element is funny. Doesn't it feel a little bit.

They must have just been very excited to do this Cheers parody. And then, you know, the song made me laugh and stuff. But Flaming Moes, like we were saying, it had more of a Coconut Teasers vibe. And the idea that like a Flaming Moes is like Cheers. Cheers is more like the normal Moes, where it's like a low-key place, and Flaming Moes feels more like a hippy-yuppie bar. Yeah. But they just wanted to tip their hat to Cheers.

Yeah, I mean, some cultural context here is that Cheers was the number one sitcom at the time, and then as soon as it went away seinfeld rose to become uh the number one sitcom but yeah cheers was a monolith that was very well respected sam simon i believe wrote on it yeah he wrote on it so yeah when it's james l brooks and gracie adjacent because les charles and uh his brother the other charles charles brothers they were part of mtm with brooks like they worked with Brooks and Mary Tyler Moore productions and then they split off to produce Cheers outside of Mary Tyler Moore and of course Brooks left to start up Gracie as well and work in film and so Sam Simon also like I believe Taxi

was a Gracie no Taxi was MTM but that was like the last Brooks thing in MTM. But then Simon left Taxi when that got canceled to work at Cheers in the Diane seasons of it. So it's Brooks adjacent to Cheers is. And several Cheers writers like Kent Levine wrote on early Simpsons episodes too. And it's also funny like watching that Cheers history video reminded me of like, as a kid at this time, I did start watching some Cheers. But I got into Cheers in like the last two seasons when it was way cartoonier and more kid friendly. When I'd go back and watch the Sam and Diane episodes with all the Will They Won't They stuff and more sex jokes. Like I didn't like them as much as a kid.

Like now when I've watched them, I'm like, like oh yeah this is just very smart clever sitcom writing and they can't just cut away to something crazy which is what i i prefer in sitcoms it just is funny turn of phrase and good acting i watch i i have to revisit cheers i remember seeing a little bit when i was a kid and then i know there's like yeah people are obsessed with it but i i the only one i've revisited was like they have a famous episode where it like uh almost becomes a gay bar i think uh and maybe i don't know if the flaming mo episode was sort of working at that but i went i watched that one and it was weirdly paced it was it was like kind of zany and yeah i never think of it as being a show like The Simpsons where it's like this like smarty pants joke writers with like a kind of a sketch sensibility. So I got to go back and watch because I think I would like some of those zanier later episodes you're talking about.

Yeah, I think, you know, once Diane leaves, it stops. They go a lot like Rebecca is much more of a manic character. Yes. Yeah. Fraser really lets loose. And then they just like, you know, this episode, they go on Jeopardy. We're just going to have Cliff Clavin go on Jeopardy. It's a big stunt episode. Why don't we meet Colette as Mo hires her?

Do you think my drink had something to do with it? Who can say? It's probably a combination of things. Another picture of those amazing flaming Mo's. Boy, I hate this joint, but I love that drink. Oh. Barkeep, I hate this joint, but I love that drink. Oh. Barkeep, I couldn't help noticing your sign. The one that says bartenders do it till you barf?

No, above that store-bot drollery. Oh, great. Why don't we fill out an application? I'll need your name, measurements, and turn-ons. You really expect me to tell you my measurements? You could, but I find this way is much more accurate and fun oh what do you offer in the way of salary minimum wage and tips of course there are fringe benefits such as an unforgettable weekend at club mo i'd prefer to take my vacation someplace hot i like your moxie

kid you're hired you shan't regret this. Me thinks I shan't. And there is some controversy behind this character because the actress is Joanne Harris. She's a voice actress and a traditional actress. She's on one more episode. She did some other voices on the show, mainly little kids. But she's obviously doing a Shelley Long impression. So she did the temp track. And they brought in Catherine O'hara the famous actress the comedic actress she did her own thing

and they ended up liking the temp track more because my i've not heard what katherine o'hara did but it sounds like they just wanted a shelly long impression and she did her own interpretation of the character so she was hired to do the voice and she did the voice, but they didn't use that track. They use the temp track from the voice actress. Wow. Yeah, it's I think, you know, I maybe in its first airing, Catherine O'Hara was credited on it. But it's not because I had read that online. Like, oh, she's even still in the credits on the DVD version.

She's not credited on it. And there's a lot of people credited on this episode because the big famous guest stars. But think it was better to like i mean katherine o'hara is funny she's so great like i wouldn't recast her you know but i mean if you just want it to just be a shelly long parody then joanne harris her voice does does perfectly well is that like if they just want it to be that right katherine o'hara probably would have done more of a thing with it i mean i would love to hear it but she's like yeah would would probably have like turned it into a sketch character you know all this shelly long talk i should you know tip of a hat to our our mutual friends drew mackie and glenn lakin of the gayest episode ever podcast yes they they did a whole

podcast miniseries celebrating the career of shelly long and you know how hollywood kind of misused her talent or i think she got there's this episode has jokes about it too it's just i i feel bad that like shelly long just wanted to do what she wanted to do and people yeah just gave her shit every like you're quitting cheers after five years of it how dare you and now if you're online reading news articles you'll see like a little window at the bottom you won't believe what shelly long looks like today. And it's a picture of an old lady. It's like, yeah, she got old.

She's like 70. She allowed herself to age. She didn't change her face. Wow, four decades pass. What did she do? Like, did she have some movies come out? And what'd she get up to after Cheers? Well, yeah, they weren't particularly successful. There was like Troop Beverly Hills and Money Pit.

I think that was the big bomb. Oh, yes. I forgot that was her. She's good in that, though. And that's one of those ones that I didn't know was a bomb because in my household, we rented that VHS tape and watched that movie and thought like, oh, man, this movie is so funny. So I would have never known that that wasn't a giant hit and she did a great job in the uh the brady bunch movies and a kind of a thankless role but a very funny role oh yeah yeah she does great she does great as the mother brady and that yeah it's no it's uh i i hope we've

learned to be nicer to shelly long and she even did you know what a lot of people wouldn't have come back to the show for the last episode after how crappily she was treated. But she came back for the last episode of Cheers, even when Cheers themselves did jokes about her leaving the series early. And even then, she came back for it. Also, isn't Crazy Cheers 11 years? Like, that is for a live-action sitcom. That's a very long time. Wild.

Oh, you know what, Tim? I have another question about your career there. I'm not sure if you worked on so there's a comedy bang bang tv episode uh it's the one with joseph gordon levitt as the guest it's like a long parody of sam and diane style writing of just people just saying cruel things to each other then they start kissing at the end of it that i thought was really really funny but i i'm not sure if you worked on that one i did i i i worked on it i didn't like write that runner but you know some of that could have come from maybe when i when i watched that cheers episode

maybe it was in the room and it was in preparation for those uh little jibs and jabs and stuff like that because it was so like just not a style that we did whatsoever i i love that scene like when it's going so fast scott is just trying to say his next line and she's he says like two words and then his love interest just interrupts with another like incredibly cruel one-liner about him he's like shut up but uh well anyway i just just wanted to compliment compliment your work some more. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I love the idea.

Anytime like any love plot, like Scott so clearly, you know, we set him up as like, he's like a Mr. Rogers or like a Pee Wee Herman. So then it's funny how many plots. We had a lot of stories where first we set it up that he had a wife, Mavis, who was like a giant lump in his bed sleeping and we never saw her. But then when like like it's just such an easy way to get into a story of like oh there's a romance with this character and but it's so funny because i felt like from the beginning scott was such a de-sexed uh man it's

it's funny to have him try to have chemistry with anyone but yes then we get another uh reference there's many references to harvey wallbanger here which is the name of the drink. And as I've learned from from your podcast, Tim, that cocktail creation is mainly the story of like one or two guys stealing the was that was like an ad man, like a Don Draper working for Galeano. I mean, it's amazing they had that take off because, you know, I've worked in branded video and stuff. And I've definitely heard brands on there. Like you do like a client call before you write a sketch for a brand and you'll hear them talking about their dumb product that nobody buys. And they're like, we see ourselves as this and this and this. And it's pretty amazing that in the 70s that an ad man working for an Italian liqueur that no one drinks, that is kind of tastes a little bit like black licorice. That's indescript, like indistinct from many other Amaro type drinks that taste like black licorice or whatever.

But that they were like yeah put it on top of a screwdriver and and then it worked they they cooked up a story about a surfer who got drunk on them and banged in the walls and like people liked it and people did it that's unbelievable it's amazing yeah i mean i like going to tiki bars and i feel like when you're at a tiki bar every drink has a paragraph next to it letting you know like the first man who drank it or where it comes from uh things like that it's just like i don't need a story just tell me what's in it i just want a flavorful drink yeah no man bob took me to uh bob and his wife to took us out to a great tiki bar and his uh to celebrate his wedding that was uh man i can just taste taste those blue and purple drinks right now.

When in Vancouver, go to the Shameful Tiki Room. It's a good time. Shameful? It's called Shameful. I love it. Oh, I got to check it out. I'm a tiki freak, but I've never been to Vancouver. It may be the only tiki bar in Vancouver, but it's quite a trip.

And it's also, I guess it is kind of a Harvey Wallbanger joke too because the representative of Tipsy McStagger is Harv Bannister, meaning, I guess, the opposite of it, because instead of banging a wall, he has a banister holding him up. Right? Clever. I get it. I love this Harry Shearer character with, like, no patience for Moe. Yes. He's like, yes, fine, I will.

Yes. But Moe turns it down. He can't be bought. You know, in future episodes, Moe would put blood and sweat in drinks. He's that disgusting. But Moe's bar isn't that gross yet. You know, I guess Homer here is Sam Simon, how Sam Simon fell to 1990 when everybody is just throwing money at Matt Groening over and over again.

And Sam Simon's like, but it's to be my money. And to be fair, Sam Simon was getting plenty of money. Yeah, I think he's doing good. I think he's doing pretty well. And you know what he did with that money? He bought Greenpeace a bunch of boats. And he gave it to dogs. He gave it to dogs, yeah.

Wow. No, he did a ton of charity. He was a good guy in that vegan causes too and feeding the homeless around L.A. Damn, that's great. Yeah. And the rest, it went to the poker table because he loved playing poker. That's how Jennifer Tilly became the pro poker player she is today because they both played it a ton.

Uh-huh. My name's Harv Bannister. I work for Tipsy McStagger's Good Time Drinking and Eating Emporium. Oh, yeah? Hey, what's Mr. McStagger really like? Actually, there is no Tipsy McStagger. He's just a composite time drinking and eating Emporium. Oh, yeah? Hey, what's Mr. McStagger really like? Actually, there is no tipsy McStagger. He's just a composite of other successful logos. Well, you tell him from me that he makes one great mozzarella stick.

Yes, fine, I will. Anyway, I've got a proposition for you. Keep talking. We feel your Flaming Mo is perfect for our restaurant chain. We want to buy the recipe. No dice. The Flaming Mo is not for sale. Do you know how much of my blood and sweater in this drink uh figure of speech sorry harv i'll be back

god for you mo only an idiot would give away a million dollar idea like that oh then we cut to show and tell time first we're seeing which is true archer martin or ajp martin did invent the gas chromatograph which is a machine used to analyze the chemical compounds of items such that will be used by professor frank later in the episode so it's all correct there checkoff's gas chromatograph it is yes in this episode uh and you know what this episode is a real watershed for mrs krabappel isn't it oh geez yeah she's a drunk she's she's loose in the terms of the show it's funny in this in this scene here you're getting the last of her from season one where she's like super supportive of martin and saying like oh martin you're the only good student in here

you're gonna wreck the grading curve for everybody else but later yes we get to see the real edna that we'll know her for later horny and drunk and also a little sad yeah i mean i think these jokes are coming from a 1991 all male writer room mindset uh so they are very judgmental but i'm like no she rules just like how patty and selma rule for being who they are she rules for being uh you know very sex positive let's say love it they seem to have a few jokes in here that are like could you imagine a woman in her 40s wants to have sex like but they draw her too sexy like it's not yeah i feel like characters have reactions like ew why are you hitting on me? But it's like, no, she looks good.

Right, they did. I like that they drew her. They didn't make a joke of making her look bad. They drew her sexy and then reacted to her not sexy. It's like as if everyone just knows the context. They're like, but she's a teacher. Yes, yeah. But yeah, so Bart, for the first time ever, has pride or at the very least less shame in his father and wants to show off his dad's invention,

which he almost reveals the secret to the flaming moat right here. But I love that Nelson, when he corrects him, he says, Moe the bartender, because they have not decided that Moe's last name is yet. So he's just Moe the bartender. I love how Edna is like of course mo invented it everyone knows that yep it's so so popular that children know what this drink is and like who made it bart brought alcohol to the school and was going to give it to all the other kids but

edna confiscates it and they're gonna he'll have what's left from the teachers in the teacher's room later and then starts a fun little montage of mo's getting built up that flaming mo sign if you go to the orlando universal you can see a recreation of it in neon it's not not at the hollywood universal but it is at the orlando one which is too bad they have it's also at the orlando one they have the neon version of the frying dutchman sign of the guy eating the all-you-can-eat fish and it being pulled back out, but not at Hollywood, sadly. Damn. And this outside of it, that's when it really,

when I looked at pictures of Hollywood teaser, when I looked at pictures of coconut teasers, that's when I saw like, oh. Henry, it's the coconut teaser. The coconut teaser. There's only one. How dare you? The coconut teaser.

There's a lot of fans of that bar. It looks, its front does look like how they designed the outside of Flaming Mouths. I'm lying. There are no fans. Like, the only link to it is a Facebook group that's like, remember this? And it has like 500 people on that page. Are there good pictures of it?

There's not enough. There's not enough. Just like a few, and they're not very good. I mean, it was open for 16 years. Yeah, I think more people would have love for it we get to see crusty pretty much playing i guess frank sinatra punching out uh photographers though he's dressed like pretty much anybody who went to studio 54 in the 70s that's that's what i think it has we also learned that veterans day is also flaming moe's day so celebrate it every veterans day folks

it can be two things. We see the headline that he's the wizard of Walnut street. Now Walnut street is never mentioned again in the show as a location in the Simpsons, but the Simpsons games, including tapped out do mark that the tavern is on Walnut street. Several of the games do. And also Moe's house is marked as on Walnut street as as well so at least the video games have kept up with the walnut street naming so yeah i gotta think that these all these covers with mo on it that probably is how sam simon felt in 1990 seeing mac raiding on like rolling stone posing with barks posing with bark probably probably uh easy for him to pull that out there again on the commentary they never mention it because sam simon's not sam simon's not there and he's never on any commentary and

mac raining is there so they don't mention it i wonder at the very start mac raining says and let's just get right to it right guys which makes me think they they talked about it before yeah so yes after after that fun success montage we head to uh back to the dinner table lisa says she wants a virgin mo which i guess would just be cough syrup right like yeah pick a glass of cough syrup yeah be a large mug of syrup and uh and homer is losing it he's saying that rotten mo is getting rich off a recipe i gave him and bart walks in it's basically like one of those hard rock cafe teas which i always wanted those as a recipe i gave him and bart walks in it's basically like one of those hard rock cafe teas which i always wanted those as a kid i never had one i had i had other location

based teas of like this place my family went on vacation called the donut hole which i really liked it had big puffy letters on it and you know 90s puffy letters what was the uh the gimmick of that location uh just it had flamingos and donuts that was the thing yeah yeah florida gulf coast uh establishment hard rock cafe now i i was just in las vegas didn't even go to the hard rock cafe when i could have damn man i just uh i just google i was looking at the location of coconut teasers the coconut teaser sorry thank you thank you and and i know this corner and it's funny it's uh this will be my new fun fact because it's right across the street from the parking lot that is paved paradise and put up a parking lot from the

the joni mitchell song oh so it's it's like this is like it's right near chateau marmont but i'm looking at the building there now and it still looks like it has the same uh the same roof so so coconut teaser wasn't even demolished it just was turned into something else yeah i tried looking it up on google maps for the research for this episode it was just a like a white building i don't know if it was uh if there's something in it now but if you look at the old coconut teaser it has the exact same architecture so the building is still there you're right it looks like at at least at the time the the google map truck drove by it looks like a a fancy restaurant called xix and we can see it behind the sign behind the shr map truck drove by it looks like a a fancy restaurant called xix

we can see it behind the sign behind the shrub but who knows stuff in that area changes so often i wouldn't even count on that still be there you know your next time you you head up to for a big fancy meeting at the chateau marmont just uh take a look yeah see if you can see i wish i could take my meetings at the coconut teaser damn you can still see where the puddles of puke used to be. So Homer decides he's not going to take any more of this. He goes to Moe's. This is Homer is not allowed in. He tries to cut in the line and he's told he's not on a list.

And Captain, he's like, I didn't even tell you my name. That's a fun exchange. Then it's time for our big old guest stars that have a whole lot of story behind them here first off though this was revealed in in robert cohen uh by by robert cohen in that mel magazine oral history i'd never heard it before he says that in the original script they wanted bruce springsteen that's right and i think his his deal was uh when he was writing the script he said bruce springsteen is not the right like temperature for mose it's campier yeah yeah and i guess aerosmith never went away but they were having a resurgence and we talked about it it would be a big resurgence they would dominate the 90s after like 93 oh yeah they have a little bit more

sleaziness to them that kind of uh fits the mose vibe like i'm a huge springsteen fan and i feel like if i saw him there i'd just be like oh that's very cool I wouldn't think like oh it's like a bar band although I mean he was a bar band guy they tried to get him on the show a lot because former showrunner Mike Scully he's a huge Springsteen fan I think he's from the same area and they've asked a lot but he's always turned them down he doesn't really do that type of stuff he makes an appearance in uh high fidelity and it blew my mind because he doesn't really do stuff he will

start a podcast with a former president oh sure he will not appear on the simpsons if there's a president involved he'll do it that's serious work that's they they got instead arrow smith which uh let's let's hear their clip first here. Ladies and gentlemen, some new buddies of mine stopped by tonight. Maybe we can get them to come up here. How about a warm, flaming most welcome for Aerosmith? We're just hanging out. Come on, guys. Free pickled eggs.

Hello, St. Louis. That's Springfield, Steven. Yeah All right. Hello, St. Louis. That's Springfield, Stephen. Yeah, right. Are you ready to rock? Yeah. I said, are you ready to rock? Yeah. Get it.

Aerosmith and a manager, John Kolodner. If you're wondering who is this bearded man well John Kalladner said if they're on the show I'm on the show so he's very present in their scenes he gets a special thanks credit at the end that's him yes yeah it's uh so in the special thanks at the end it's Geffen Records John Kalladner and Collins management and that was uh Tim Collins who was like if you go to Tim Collins' wiki page, it is very much written by Tim Collins. And it says, what a great man.

He saved Aerosmith and all this stuff. And then it was like, oh, and despite them working so well together, in 1996, Aerosmith fired him. But everything's great. You know what? Clearly Tim Collins didn't have the juice to get in The Simpsons. Only John Kolodner. And apparently, according to Mike Reese, who was a co-showrunner at the time, you know what clearly tim collins didn't have the juice to get in the simpsons only john collodner and apparently according to mike reese who was a co-showrunner at the time

aerosmith had just gone through like recovery and rehab and because of that they were just extremely nice extremely confessional and they didn't want mo to offer them free beer because they were all like you know sober now but it is funny to think that and then see their establishing shot is them all drinking Flaming Moes. Maybe they're Virgin Moes. Who knows? But yeah, that's why the pickled eggs joke is not free beer, which is a funnier joke. Free pickled eggs is a funnier joke.

A way funnier joke. Them being excited about pickled eggs is great. Tim, if you had your pick for drink tickets or free pickled eggs while performing, which would it be? Oh, I'm going pickled eggs. You don't seem to. I long for the day. As like big dumb fat guy who eats gross food, I would love it if I were at bars these days

and they still had like, you know, sometimes there'd be like pork knuckles and stuff like that at a dive bar. And I just love, I love any bar that just gives you some food. Like you don't see a lot of party mix or pretzels at bars anymore. But when you get a little wooden bowl of peanuts or something i'm so charmed by it it's crazy yeah you know this john

collardner guy yes he he used his power to get put on the simpsons but uh at least according to his wiki page he did do a lot he's not just like a nobody like he was like apparently he got to such a position as like the top producer at geffen records in the 80s and 90s that he was just credited as john collodner not john not produced by john collodner it just would just say john collodner just in the list of names he's credited for finding for reigniting aerosmiths popularity for finding white zombie xtc white snake and r for a lot of stuff and apparently he's also credited for helping put together the soundtracks for top gun and footloose in the 80s so he's damn he's done a lot and simpsons is hardly his only cameo look up the music videos for i can't drive

55 to live and die in la pink and dude looks like lady. And you'll see the unmistakable long, heavy bearded frame of John Kaladner appear in all of those. So that's, look, he's a cameo master. Damn. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there.

You see, our new net zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. But yes, also, if you'd like to see how they recorded this two minutes uh there's a two minute special that was put on their big ones best of accompanying video in 1994 that shows them recording this with you can see azaria

gene and reese all recording with with them because they flew to boston right yes they were having their 10-year Harvard reunion. Well, they just say college, Bob. It was Harvard. They were in Boston for their college reunion. You know, it was disabled college. And they took Hank with them. That's where they recorded all this.

Yeah. It's funny. Watch the only version of the video I saw on YouTube currently has Japanese subtitles on it, which tells me it was like a Japanese Laserdisc that somebody uploaded. But you can see Gene and Reese, like, like you know gene is actually wearing an itchy and scratchy t-shirt during the uh producing and directing it's really fun so i love it when people wear their own uh merch i saw one time saw matt damon wearing a in doing a junket and wearing an old uh goodwill hunting hat and i was like oh this is the coolest thing ever you get free stuff you gotta wear it and uh and mike reese he said it on the commentary says it again in his book the

bassist of the band the one who says come up on stage mo tom hamilton mike reese says had amazing comic timing and do a huge range of funny voices he says this guy should just be a voice actor so longtime bassist of aerosmith tom Hamilton, apparently secretly a great voice actor. But yes. And also, Tim, on your touring, have you been in places and forgetting the city or do you always remember the city? You know, what's so funny is that that is like it's such a trope about forgetting the city, but it was the other, we toured with this other band, Dear Blanca, who are like these like South Carolina indie rock guys. And we weren't particularly deep into the tour. And he made that mistake. We were on maybe our fifth show. We were in D.C., that kind of underground place I was just talking about.

And he said, it's great to be in Boston. And then he said it again, like be in boston and then he said it again like later in the night and it was just like because i feel like the dc bar had a boston vibe or it was like underground and like like cheers but i couldn't believe it actually happened so then i had to give myself a pep talk of like oh yeah don't make that mistake really think about it it's hard to get the audience back when you do it you know yeah no they don't like that and it is funny how how far a local reference goes like i love doing it just because i like i'm like very into and especially being at a bar i like knowing who's hanging out there and what the scene is and like what if they are from a nearby college

or or or what i like doing a little bit of local research but then also anytime you call it anything from the town the crowd is like so grateful that you mentioned something no i i got one over by uh i i saw stand up recently who started their set by saying like well you know what berkeley it's a different city than san francisco it's not just uh it's not just a suburb that with uh with the things too highly of itself no it's its own city and we're like aha that's good you got it and then straight into the the preset material but that right wins you over it does yeah you're like this person is i i for me it's always just like what i had for for lunch that day i'll be like hey i went to that beloved

spot and had that hot dog y'all like so yes the uh walk this way starts up we see a slightly off model but i'm sure it's princess cashmere dancing on the bar top with auto in front of uh in front of ned and ma boy yeah yeah they're having some fun tonight yeah that's how popular moses they got on the list yeah hey that's impressive on their part to get in there you know i guess ned uh normally he doesn't go in mose or he'd recognize him from his uh reading to the sick children the shot of the drunken crusty hanging off of his dates and just like rocking back and forth that's a great shot too yeah uh we cut to the bathroom homer's breaking in through the bathroom window when he

smashes on the floor he sees that barney has now become a hollywood phony too he's hanging out with armando and rafi i wonder too if this is a joke about you know and everybody goes once they get rich off of their big simpsons bucks they they turn they turn into a hollywood phony i wonder they all develop ponytails yes ponytails i was wondering because uh the look of barney here reminded me like he looks like sober barney he's like kind of cleaned up but it's funny to treat it as like a bad thing that's like oh no this is like yuppie barney that's true he's still a drunk i guess he's just dressing up to be there and armando and rafi got him in maybe maybe just to not leave the bar he had that's what drove him to befriend armando and rafi to get him in because they're that connected and i love the cut to mo singing along with walk this way like he's

so terrible at it he's just screaming like walk this way oh it's great and i love there's a great little animation thing where steven tyler's like got his arm around mo and kind of pats him on the shoulder as he's singing it like yeah yeah you got it mo yeah then again here's where edna hits on homer and he's freaked out i think this is when it's established that mrs krabappel is uh separated yeah yeah her husband left town and this is before we had the word cougar so it was a different time yeah yeah homer's just grossed out by it but i mean you know tim i know you're a happily married man but you just toured with a bunch of single guys were they on the lookout for any indicates in each town they were on the lookout for all for all the single school teachers for sure absolutely but uh but yes uh homer homer separates himself from edna and when he confronts mo this is when he says if there was any justice

my face would be on a bunch of crappy merchandise this is like the fourth joke this season about the simpsons being overly merchandised at this point. And I love it every time. It's great every time. It's amazing how fast that they were embarrassed about that. That by season three, like, oh boy, we got to make fun of ourselves because we're making so much money. You know, I think they were all, this also is in Mike Reese's book. Aljean mentioned that they were both worried that they were going to end up like Alf. Because they'd worked on Alf in seasons three and four and alf also was you know this adult

sitcom that got huge with kids and after it you know burned bright for a couple seasons everybody was sick of alf and alf was gone by season four they were worried the same thing was going to happen to them with merchandising they worked on alf during the decline yes yeah as every actor hated being on alf every single day working around puppet holes the micry said that alf was the nicest place he ever worked because every he said that all the writers before had quit because it was so shitty to work there so now the new writers were told you go home at five every day we don't want you writers to be pissed off that we're keeping you late so everybody go home at five oh that's amazing. As Homer is complaining,

and this is when Colette learns about the plan or the secret of the Flaming Mo, we get a great crank phone call. Telephone. Flaming Mo's. Yes, I'm looking for a friend of mine. Last name Jazz, first name Hugh. Hold on, I'll check.

Hugh Jazz. Oh, somebody check the men's room for a Hugh Jazz. I'm Hugh Jazz. Telephone. Hello. This is Hugh Jazz. Hi. Who's this?

Bart Simpson. What can I do for you, Bart? Look, I'll level with you, mister. This is a crank call that sort of backfired, and I'd like to bail out right now. All right. Better luck next time. What a nice young man. I guess if you're named

hugh jazz you either become bitter about it or you become the nicest man in the world yeah and he chose the second path what a nice young man that's so funny he enjoyed the phone call they uh they you know they wrap up the crank calls the next season uh when bark calls and says it's jimbo jones but i feel like that should have been the end of it it's like you know what no more crank calls it doesn't work anymore but too hard to write yeah nobody likes them apparently rob cohen wrote the script said there were there were a lot more of these in the script and he's got an entire page of them somewhere in his notes like just an entire page of crank calls he wrote for the simpsons yeah yeah just as with mo it was graining smart idea to merchandise

the simpsons as much as they did like he did you had to give him that you know sam simon wasn't the merchandising genius that the back raining was though also when you see uh mo drowning in money in the next scene i mean certainly mac raining and all of them were making a bunch of money but fox was making the most money yeah it's like you know that's if anybody's shoes should be jealous of i guess rupert murdoch i suppose but this next clip is another just like great the interplay between dan and hank in this is is so good and apparently it's uh all ad-libbed yeah so hank azaria came up with yeah you couldn't use it so credit him for that homer i'm sorry you mad at me but this isn't personal this is business business eh well let me tell you something you it. So credit him for that. You know, we have a Patreon account, and that's how we make our living.

And sometimes people leave the Patreon angrily because we said something or did something. And I'm always tempted to reply, yeah, you can use it. When they say, you, I'm taking my $5 and I'm leaving. Enough of this politics stuff. Yes. But I never do that. Man, I love that visual joke of the cash register drawer popping out and blocking Homer's face. It's so funny.

No, that's great. It's all laid out so great. Rich Moore and Alan Smart, the two directors on this, did the animation in this episode popping out and blocking homer's face is so funny no that's great it's all laid out so great rich moore and alan smart the the two directors on this did the animation in this episode just is great great great i mean it's too the the feeling of like telling somebody threatening them with their money when they're very six with your money when they're very successful is just so meaningless he's just he's like well you'll ask yourself a customer and it mo can't possibly hear him over at all then we come back with another it also does feel like a time filling thing but it's great time

filling oh a full-on cheers opening parody it's an amazing parody i think when i saw this as a kid like as a nine-year-old uh when this act opened i was like oh i didn't know you could do this i didn't know this was a kind of joke it's so perfect uh the song written by jeff martin i like how dark it is i was just when i was walking over here, I was thinking of the lyrics. And the sentiment of the song is don't kill yourself because you can still drink. Yes. That's what the song is about. Like, please don't kill yourself.

You can still numb your brain and emotions with alcohol. It's still always be here for you when you want in your life. Yeah. And then happiness is just a flaming moment. Meaning when you drink it you'll be happy because you'll be drunk it's amazing how harsh that is like uh yeah when you want to end your life it's like that is just like brutal and i love it being played as like for laughs yeah jeff martin did a great well because the cheer song itself of where everybody knows your name

like it also is about the darkness that a bar helps you deal with in your life but this ratchets it up to like you know suicidal proportions yeah and it's sung by kip lennon the uh the who their regular their regular sound alike singer who most famously sang all the michael jackson parts and uh in that episode but and And future director of the Simpsons episodes, Nancy Cruz, she drew all the woodcuts, which all look great. The blood coming out of those two guys. It still shocks me every time I see the blood. When the weight of the world has got you down

and you want to end your life. Bills to pay, a dead-end job, and problems with a wife. But don't throw in the towel, cause there's a place right down the block. Where you can drink your misery away. At Flaming Roads. That's all I know When the curve in the mud Can warm you like a hug And happiness is just a flaming mo' away Happiness is just a flaming moment How's the world treating you Mr. Gumbel?

But yeah did you know that the bar in Boston that they base Cheers on they just call it Cheers now Oh really? I hear the interior is nothing like Cheers Yeah yeah just just the outside you can walk down it but it's uh and if you want to see a bunch of drunk people watch the

watch the the live leno interview with all the cheers folks after the finale because they are they are lit up the cheers oh really yeah that's great it's great too because leno starts it by legitimately saying you know we had a bunch of sketches and stuff planned, but, you know, the guy's been having a lot of fun here, so we're just going to wing it. Whacked out on wowie sauce. Yes. And then it's followed up with a great bit of anti-comedy. They set up the Norm gag,

and instead of Barney saying a funny one-liner that Norm always says after Norm, Barney just belches and gives them nothing. He's not a comedic character, and he doesn't have a funny one-liner. He always says after norm barney just belches and gives them nothing he's not a comedic character and he doesn't have a funny one-liner he's just a belching drug for a while i thought this was woody harrelson but he does not appear uh until fear of flying when every cheers character is there doing their own voice except for frazier that's right yes when homer goes into cheers and sees how dark it is that's great i love that they got everybody there and it's just playing out every episode of cheers like how except norm saying i'll kill you i'll kill all of you uh save those pipes

with karaoke normie uh that's a good man what a good one mo is then offered a whole million dollars which you know what if they're offering you a million ask for two because they're offering a million they got two so then we cut they're offering a million, they got two. So then we cut to Frank in his second speaking appearance in the show. I love that he's using the secret ingredient as love. Who's been screwing with this thing? But then Harvey really should figure it out when Mo gets delivered all that cough syrup. I think that should, it's kind of his fault for not catching it mo mo was a nom i guess i guess he got hooked on the stuff

so then homer tries a new bar which i love this hideous new bar it's a great new bar with a guy instantly points a gun at him which is literally what mo starts doing to homer by season 12 in season 12 homer mo points a shotgun at homer all the time it doesn't take long for mo's to become this like violent and filthy yes yeah this that's why you can't do jokes like this about a worse bar than mo's in future ones because they make mo's so horrible they can't they can't do it but i love this one the design on the one-eyed guy with his with his tattoo and say like here you go your majesty and the gesture as he the very royal gesture so good oh that was the the dan voice i was trying to

think of homer talking to that guy is is both dan that's great yes yeah it's great it's it's great and just how he spits on the glass to clean it like oh disgusting so homer has to give up and he heads he heads home just like probably sam simon at home watching mac reigning do interviews and talking about how he came up with everything in the simpsons it it should be noted too sam simon didn't just like you know pull together writing staff and help make up the characters but sam simon is also a cartoonist and designed some of the season one characters like mr burns mr burns is the biggest one like he designed mr burns uh and also bleeding gums murphy those are two of his biggies so it's also

the think of that when you're also thinking about simon is kind of jealous that he's like he also is a cartoonist who's being overlooked in this yeah he sees mo uh saying that he got it from the his family in the czar so i guess he's connected to adastasia i suppose but then homer he gets some legal advice and this is a great little scene because one it establishes a bit of legal law that is important for the plot of the episode that you need to know a drink can't be copywritten and two it lets you shove in a scene of lionel hutz which is always welcome in the show next on iron springfieldfield, a toast to Moe, the Wizard of Walnut Street. The flaming Moe dates back to my forefathers, who were bartenders to the Tsar.

So, Mr. Hutz, does my husband have a case? I'm sorry, Mrs. Simpson, but you can't copyright a drink. Oh. Oh, this all goes back to the Frank Wahlbanger case of 78. How about that? I looked something up. These books behind me don't just make the office look good. They're filled with useful legal tidbits just like that. Oh, no, non-influencing recipe-stealing pug nose.

Well, Homer, maybe you can take some consolation in the fact that something you created is making so many people happy. Oh, look at me. I'm making people happy. I'm the magical man from Happyland in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane. Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic. Well, duh. That dance around the room that Homer's doing there is so funny.

Like, I love it when this, like, Homer Simpson, this oaf can be really nimble when you need him to yeah it's like a chris farley style man yeah and it's interesting because i mean the animation is great but they also have to have a mirror in the room so you can see marge just like watching him so he's also his actions are reflected in the mirror so they have to draw him twice which is makes it like more than twice as hard to do yeah i it's all they uh even though he's uh it's his one big thing in it but it was david silverman who did that and it was just you know in uh the previous episode blood feud where homer is saying you know like and uh gingerbread house people funny little frogs funny little hats and that little act out this is him topping it like as as soon as silverman heard dan's sarcastic act out he's like oh this is just so funny like the

way he puts his hand my favorite is him putting the hands over his head to say gum drop house like just he goes back and forth uh so i also do love that huts has to say like i know normally i'm a comedic character who only gives bad legal advice but i'm actually reading this from a law book and this is real legal law he's real proud of himself how about that how do you like that yeah we then cut to uh mo's apartment uh gross yes yeah they said they hated this they don't like to see mo in bed with a woman it's disgusting yeah yeah i you just feel bad for her and uh yeah apparently they cut down more of this. Like, Groening says he doesn't like seeing Mo successful in romance either. I think a point with this here is that if you're not as attractive as Ted Danson, then you doing the Sam Malone type stuff is gross.

Like, you're just a disgusting man. Ugly people, stop having sex. We're saying it here if you're not as beautiful if you're not as beautiful and tall as ted dan we don't we don't want to see that uh it is it crosses a line too where it's like when she gets hired he's kind of you know like there's a like a me too ish line of like him being gross when he's hiring her you can kind of laugh it off because she shuts him down and then he's like hey you're hired you got moxie but then it's like cut to them sleeping together you're like oh no it worked that's yeah yeah and this is the first time i think i really understood the joke

because um he's asking what's wrong or whatever they're in bed together and she says i was just thinking of homer simpson and he goes that's all right i was thinking of sybil danning so he thinks during sex she was picturing him as homer and he's like well i was pretending you were someone else as well so it's okay so that that's the first time i understood like oh that's what that's what he meant not that he was just thinking about a woman after sex he was thinking about that woman while he was having sex with her and it's so funny because normally that would the circumstances for pretending you're having sex with someone else is like a partner you've been with for a long time or your spouse or something but i love the idea that his he's having sex with this beautiful woman and thinking of somebody else in his mom's house or where his

mom lives too yeah like yeah it's again it's like why would a woman have when he says all these lines i'm just like why would you have sex with Moe? It's just, he's a disgusting guy. They're going through a sped up version of Sam and Diane across these like act and a half that collects in the season episode. And by the way, Sybil Danning in movies like Chained Heat, Malibu Express, Howling 2 and Reform School Girls. So that shows you Moe's kind of B movie taste, I guess. Yeah. ah so that that shows you uh mo's kind of b-movie taste i guess yeah uh apparently another line they threw out there was i was just thinking about mexican food which apparently disgusted people too much like uh she convinces mo to uh to give half the money to homer sell sell the drink after

all which uh you know what that's a nice thing. He's like, sleep with a girl once, it costs you 500,000 bananas. Which, funny, funny line. Then we have an amazing, like, very long, very, very long Moe nightmare here that I have clipped out. It's just funny, all the ways that they say Moe in this. Homer has a full psychotic breakdown. Yes, yes. Now that's what I call a happy hour. Oh, Morris, something troubles me.

Don't worry, baby. My mother won't be home for another 20 minutes. No, I was just thinking about Homer Simpson. That's okay. I was just thinking about Sybil Danning. I meant I think you should sell your drink and give half the money to Homer. But, honey. He's your friend, Morris, And you took advantage of him. All right, all right.

I'll split the million with Homer. Cheap as Mary and Joseph. I sleep with a chick once. It cost me half a million bananas. Mow. Mow. Mow. Bart, are you going to mow the lawn today?

Okay, but you promised me mow money. I mow, I mow. Mow. Mow. Mow. I mo. Mo, mo, mo. When Bart's done, can we mo to the movies? There's a moat in there. Of course, I'll work and mo play. Makes mo a mo-mo. Mo-mo-mo-mo?

Mo-mo-mo-mo. Mo-mo-mo-mo-mo. Mo-mo-mo-mo. Mo. Mo. Mo. Homer's staggering as he says mo and gets up like that's so good yeah and then man all the animation of like the mo faces on everybody like so well animated it's it's

freakish like hi oma hi oma hi oma all the all the hours that are over that are mo's face and his just giant screen you know with that mo money uh dialogue i think bart was just watching in living color he was just referencing that television show there's a tie-in to their show that comes right after him he loved the homeboy shopping network sketch um the animation on uh homer's mouth is so great just the because the way that dan is saying mo is so specific and funny and then it really does look like homer's it's clipped in that same way it's like mo mo and it's hard to it was hard for me to watch this and not be walking around saying mo mo just a big mo yeah i you mentioning the stuff that comes after it the uh the great twitter account this day this uh day in simpsons history or daily app daily simpsons

they occasionally do unannounced twitch streams that are like just playing the full uh half hour of fox programming that happened that night and the funniest thing is i totally forgot about was when they had martin on after simpsons would end and then before the episode of martin truly began uh usually garrett morris or someone else from the show would be like hey guys martin's about to start and you won't believe what's gonna happen he kind of gives a quick rundown of the episode i was like what a weird thing that happened before martin episode listen i don't want any surprises you just tell me everything's gonna happen in this episode of martin martin's mom's being taken advantage of by a preacher and it's played by tommy davidson

you're not gonna believe it guys actually no it was david allen grier he was a preacher then oh great yes yeah but uh we cut back to moe's aerosmith is going crazy on stage they're singing young lust the uh the song that closes out the episode this is when there's the fun clip to joey asking asking edno back for his drumsticks i just love her. Come and get him. Yeah. And I think history has shown that his drumsticks were stolen again because he recently took a leave of absence from the band. Oh, no.

Yes. He's not touring with these other 70-year-old men in Vegas this year. Oh, poor Joey. Because he's like, I'm very old and I want to spend time with my family. There was no, like, drama. He's just like, yeah, I'm not going to do that tour this year. I i think it was like one of the first times uh he has done that wow man you know the old drummer too he's having to move i would think probably that's the hardest one to do in the old age at all the jobs in in the band it's crazy how much more like a drummer is working so hard

uh all the time they must yeah but they must be dropping like flies in these old boomer bands. That's crazy. Well, yeah, Tim, you do. You do, in the Sloppy Boys, you guys have a whole thing of trading the instruments. Like, are you, what is your favorite instrument, though? Guitar by a mile. The other guys enjoy the trading more than I do. I am just so much more comfortable on guitar, and the other ones feel wrong to me. But I drum for maybe two songs in a Sloppy Boys show, and it gets me, I'm just so much more comfortable on guitar and the other ones feel wrong to me. But I drum for maybe two songs in a Slab Boy show and it gets me.

I'm exhausted. I got to get out of there. I don't know how people do it. It's crazy because it's already hot on stage. You're under lights and it's like a hot room and you sweat anyway. But then to be full on doing a workout that's harder than any workout I would do in my life. It's crazy. Now, I heard your recent story about sitting down at a drum set and realizing you had gotten too drunk on free shots from the audience.

Yes. Yeah. It really hit me. I also, I had a funny experience on the tour playing drums where it was the first time my mind really wandered. Like we hadn't been playing too many shows. It was mid-tour and I was thinking about that I wanted to get some buffalo wings after the show. I caught my, I think in guitar, I'm a little more engaged, but on drums, I'm just like, I keep it so simple because I can't do drum fills. So I'm just like drumming and being like,

what am I going to eat after the show? Jesus Christ. Well, I, you know, I'm'm sure it happens i'm sure that happens to aerosmith all the time oh yeah they eat a lot of buffalo wings after the show uh i mean honestly they all look like they don't eat anything i know i guess they have a residency in vegas yeah you know i was just in vegas i i was seeing them around there i though the eagles were closer to my place i i didn't see that either. I was tempted to see David Copperfield because our pals on Podcast the Ride have said it's a great, ironic thing to see.

But when I saw the two tickets to it, the cheapest two tickets were going to be $200 together, I was like, I just can't spend that much on irony. I'm in that position all the time. I wanted to go to this thing to laugh at it and then it's like the idea that you use 200 to come home and be like yeah i feel smarter than the other people you know because of inflation it's hard to buy things ironically anymore it's so sad it's a real shame uh inflation is killing the ironic uh entertain the ironic tourism market uh but yes so as the band is performing mo has decided to sell out to harvey and i love that uh that harvey admits that normally they just run them out of business and destroy their competition and he's he feels kind of bad having to pay him money for once but but

this is when homer makes a shocking appearance hey where, where's Joey? Mrs. Krabappel, I really need my drumsticks. Come and get them. Oh, you're gonna be a rich man, Mo. I gotta tell you, the way we usually work in these situations is to steal the recipe and run the inventor out of business.

I love age. What the? Ha ha ha ha ha! You fools! Ah, I love that. What the... Fools. You poor, pathetic, misguided creatures choking down your flaming moes, all the time wondering, how does he do it? Well, I'm going to tell you. The secret ingredient is...

Oh, my! No! Cough syrup. Nothing but plain, ordinary, over-the-counter children's cough syrup. Cute. Thank you, Mr. Nutball. Gotta go, Moe. Tough luck. Holy cow! You just fell on Aerosmith!

I love that Homer crushed the brittle bones of all of Aerosmith there. And all the way their instruments just fly up when Homer lands on them, too. That's great. But yes, Homer becomes the Phantom of the Opera briefly there. And Mo, his ceilings rise 20 feet so this scene can happen. Yeah. They're up in the rafters. I love the little hand motion on Homer moving when he says cough syrup. Like, cough syrup. cough syrup and yes if you

see in bardy's reaction shot of being shocked john kaladner's there again he's front and center he's the he's got to make money off these guys they're not getting any younger i'm shocked he didn't get a line honestly every band member gets a line that's why i think that's why they wrote that joke for joey and edna because they're like well the drummer and the second bassist hasn't said anything yet so i guess or no i guess the tom's bassist the other guy who says hey where's joey that must be the backup guitar guy because joe perry's lead guitar then joey's a drummer rhythm rhythm guitar backup guitar backup it's if the main guitar man gets sick you can say backup it's fine uh but but yes here homer you know maybe this also if you take it as being sam simon and mac reigning maybe this is sam simon realizing that if he were to air his dirty laundry it could ruin the whole golden goose

and make the show unpopular and so neither of them will make any money and it would have been smarter to just keep it a secret as they did at the time and not let people know that the the secret uh the cough syrup of this is that it was not all smiles and sunshine at the gracie offices back then it's funny like that the homer ruins it by making it by outing the ingredient and making a big thing of it but is like yeah it feels like the lesson is like if he would have just waited like homer only needed to wait like minutes long longer yes yeah um so it's kind of funny that the takeaway is like if you're in a situation like this just do nothing yes yeah homer homer would have been better off not doing anything he'd be five hundred thousand dollars richer which i gotta think uh mo at least made some money from all this, all the business he did for several weeks here at least.

I guess enough money to convert his bar back into the normal size. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And buy a lot more love testers. All that money went into sign removal. You know, that's where they get you. But yeah, so by the next week, there's Flamin' Mo's everywhere. So I have a question for you, Tim, too, because you've gone to places that have been like the inventor of drink places.

Like I believe you guys, for Sloppy Boys, went to where they invented the Blue Hawaiian. Yeah, yeah. Does that, do you think it helps the business of those places where they can advertise, we invented a drink, even if you can get that drink anywhere? I do think it's better to be i feel like you become more of a like a national destination if you let your drink be like be everywhere so that it's famous and then you advertise yourself as the originator as opposed to like if it's only in this one place it's like it's hard for it to get as as well known but i think you know one that's

sort of like that is the um moscow mule which is not from russia and But I think, you know, one that's sort of like that is the Moscow Mule, which is not from Russia. It was just like, you know, cooked up. The Cock and Bull on the Sunset Strip, not far from the Coconut Teaser, is sort of like known as, I mean, it was also a product promotion, but the Moscow Mule was like,

you know, they used the brand Cock and Bull ginger beer. And I think it helped them. The fact that it's a drink that caught on everywhere, but that you could go have it at this place. It's like it's just easier for people to be personally invested in the drink as opposed to just heard the buzz and need to go taste it. Yeah. So I'm saying that I think, you know, Mo should still be getting some kitsch value out of being the official inventor of the Flaming Moe. If it remains a popular drink for decades to come, now in a new episode, people should just be visiting Moe's all the time of like,

Hey, I saw on TripAdvisor, this is a place that invented the Flaming Moe. I came to have it in their original place. Well, now it seems like every place on the street is selling the flaming mo so people are distracted there's um on balboa island um in orange county there's those um that the banana stands that's kind of referenced in um arrested development and they have there's frozen bananas all around there and you can get them a lot a lot of places and balboa bars and stuff like that so it is kind of a flaming mo situation but there's two these two places right next to each other and they both one says it's the originator they made the original and then the other one says it's the oldest banana frozen banana so i think maybe because the other one had changed locations or something so it's like the management had made

it first but not that that exact shop did so they're both trying to play that game of we were first well they do the same joke that a lot of sitcoms have done uh based on the famous original rays pizza chain where right uh no one can determine like what is the actual authentic rays you're supposed to go to because they they switch the names around because you can't you know be sued if you just have like some rearrangement of famous original and rays or just original rays or famous rays so you see like famous original mo's and original mo's on the street you know though now the next time i go to new york city where i'm going to is that pizza shop that was in spider-man 2 that's the one i'm going to now that i know that it's a real pizza place and you can go inside it and they have a sign that says you know us from spider-man 2 on the wall. I'm going to that place.

But yes, in our final clip here, everything's wrapped up again, which sadly in real life, I don't think Sam Simon and Matt Groening ever made up as Homer and Mo do here. Hey, Homer, come in here. Hi, Mo. Where's that waitress of yours? Oh, she left to pursue a movie career. Frankly, I think she was better off here. Mo, sorry I lost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Oh, hey, hey. Maybe some things are too good to be kept a secret. I guess so. Compliments to the house. One flaming homer. Oh, thanks, Mo. You're the greatest friend a guy could ever have. Hey, do you think Aerosmith will be in tonight?

I doubt it. Oh, how sweet. They wrap up so fast. The way these guys forgive each other. It's like Homer gets one free drink. He's like, you're the best friend a guy could ever have. Yes, yeah. You know, I guess Homer, when he apologizes,

he knows then that mo tried to give him five hundred thousand dollars so in that way he's he's forgiven him too i guess i think homer might have forgotten and he just happy about the free drink yeah yeah i'm just a rampant alcoholic you're giving me free alcohol you're my best friend now you're as long as this drink is uh is in my mouth it's you're the best friend i could ever have but yeah and then again just one little extra little knock on shelly long telling her like i think she was better off here see then a year later in the finale of cheers that's why i knew it was a big deal that shelly long came back even though it was like i was 10 and was not

i think i was born when cheers debuted maybe or. Or I was like right after, born right after Cheers debuted. I think it was like an 82 show. It was a mid-season 82 show, I think. Yeah, so six months after. I mean, one last thing about the Shelley Long thing. I think in a way the people on the show were right to be a little upset because they had a really popular show. And suddenly one of the main people, the two leads, one of them is leaving. They didn't know the show would go on for like six more years or seven more years.

So I can understand them being upset and holding a grudge. But then they had so much more success. You forget that they could ever be worried about Cheers ending when Shelley Long left. Yeah. Again, my suggestion to Mo, just still sell yourself as the original Flaming Mo's place. You'll get some business just from tourists. Just let you know, not the tourism comes much to Springfield, I guess, but give it a shot. You could be on eye on Springfield.

But yeah, as a tribute to cocktails, rock band, and also the intricacies of Hollywood writer rooms, I think this is a great episode of The Simpsons, a true classic. Great parodies, one of the first Moe stories. And it looks great. And also, go to Universal, order a Flaming Moes, and scream, this is a lie to everyone around you. Just let them know. And just keep screaming purple, purple until you're dragged away. That's what I recommend you do.

Just cause a scene at Universal until they change it. This was a blast it's funny it's like simpler than i remember because again i i was waiting for it to turn into the family feedback as well and all kinds of moves to happen so i was surprised it just like what a what a simple uh arc this is but um very charming i love love Mo. I love, you know, like the idea of making the whole story of an episode about this sleazebag dive bar owner and then having it be kind of sweet at the end and it's about their friendship that, like, it's not

just schmaltzy sitcoms. I mean, it is and it's like sweet that they stay friends but it's got a little bit of the Simpsons snark to it that it's like Homer's best friendship with the bartender who enables his alcoholism basically and uh and i do i keeps it from being like too straightforward like jim brooks schmaltz it has a little bit of like oh he's best friends with his shithead bartender i think the last one we covered with tim uh what was it i know had a very schmaltzy ending

oh yeah that was uh um thanksgiving yes yes yes uh yes the whole family like praying together yeah the way he ever says like hey we're pretty good parents like no you're no your son went missing all thanksgiving i don't think so but thanks again Tim for joining us on the show please let us know where to find you online and where we can find the sloppy boys yes I'm at Tim Kelpakis on Twitter and Instagram and then yes sloppy boys podcast is a cocktail

pod available everywhere on any podcast app and then on our patreon we do the sloppy boys below where we talk about all kinds of crazy shit as well that's awesome no i i i'm a patron we're patrons we we love it the uh even the even at the uh we're not pay pigs but we're you know the the the questions for lennon level is a great level too oh big money hustler thank you for doing that we yeah we have two pay pigs right now so we have

two people paying one hundred dollars a month to get no more perks than you get at the $10 level. And we're very grateful to have them. They're very nice, those pay pigs. Well, they're getting off on it, so they're happy. Yeah, that's the rewarding of itself. But thank you so much, Tim. Thanks again, Tim. This was a blast.

Such a fun episode. Great revisiting it. So thanks again to Tim Kalpakis for being on the show. Please check out the Sloppy Boys. We love what they do. But as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these episodes one week at a time and ad-free, please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Sign up at the $5 level.

You get just that but also access to everything behind that paywall. That includes over 100 miniseries episodes and regular access to both talking futurama and talking of the hill our monthly patreon exclusive podcast about futurama and king of the hill that is only behind the five dollar paywall only at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and there is a ten dollar level as well when you sign up for that you get access to all the five dollar stuff of course but also access to one extremely extremely extremely long, often six-hour-long podcast once a month, only for patrons of that level or higher. And what is that, Henry?

Bob is talking about the What? A cartoon movie podcast where we go super in-depth into an animated feature film just like we do an episode of The Simpsons. Recent ones have included Beauty and the Beast, which we mentioned right at the start of this episode. Ones before that include The Little Mermaid, six hours of talk about Toy Story 3,

six and a half hours of talk about Who Framed Roger Rabbit, almost four years of exclusive What a Cartoon Movie podcast in addition to all the stuff you get at the $5 level. I'd say over 260 hours at this point, us covering everything from Akira to a goofy movie and everything in between. Go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to check out everything you're missing out on so as for me i've been one of your hosts bob mackie you can find me on twitter as bob servo and my other podcast is retro knots it's a classic gaming podcast all about old video games you can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retro not sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month.

And Henry, how about you? You can find me on Twitter at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. Stay up to date with my life there. And if you want to stay up to date with what's happening in the Talking Simpsons world, follow at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter. At TalkSimpsonsPod will keep you up to date when new episodes go live on the free feed on the Patreon. When there's news from our world and other stuff going on, follow at TalkSimpsonsPod. And of course, if you want an easy to follow back catalog of all our previous free episodes,

head over to TalkingSimpsonsPodcast.com. Thanks again for listening, folks. We'll see you again next week for season 13's The Bart Wants What It Wants. And we'll see you then. ¶¶ Tonight, we salute the silver anniversary of the great Springfield Tireyard Fire. 25 years and still burning strong. We watch Springfield's oldest man beat Springfield's fattest man.

He's not so fat. And we visit with heavyweight champion Dredrick Tatum, who reminisces about growing up in Springfield's fattest man. He's not so fat. And we visit with heavyweight champion Dredrick Tatum, who reminisces about growing up in Springfield. That town is a dump. If you ever see me back there, you know I really f*** up bed. But first, part seven of our eye-opening look at the bikini.