Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy With Mike Drucker

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

"Dad... How come you never gave me any encouragement? Maybe I could have been something more than I am. Like a travel agent... to a great scientist. Or the inventor of a hilarious refrigerator alarm." - Homer Simpson When Homer and Marge encounter a lull in their sex life, Abe Simpson steps in with a home remedy—and soon the entire town is hooked. The father and son duo hit the road to sell their potentially dangerous snake oil, unaware they've convinced the children of Springfield they're part of a vast conspiracy involving reverse vampires. Our guest: Mike Drucker, comedy writer and author of the book, Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games Support this podcast and get over 200 full-length bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow us at @TalkSimpsonsPod on Bluesky!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. Event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that'll put the Zowsers back in your trousers. I'm one of your host, the Liquid Lethario Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. directly from the utility room.

It's Henry Gilbert. And who is our special guest on the line? It's Mike Drucker. Sex. And this week's episode is Grandpa versus Sexual Inadequacy. Well, this calls for a celebration. This episode originally on December 4th, 1994. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.

Trapped in Paradise Flops Hard at number seven. against the Santa Claus. Popular fighting game series Tekin begins in the arcades of Japan. And macho man, Randy Savage, officially makes a jump from WWF to WCW as the wrestling wars heat up.

Trapped in Paradise. What is this? I remember being on Comedy Central a ton when I was a youth. It is the Nicholas Cage, John Levitz, and Dana Carvey are trapped in like a Midwestern cold place for the holidays and they're like bank robbers. I guess

this was the case of they were trying to find something to do with Dana Carvey for the longest time after Wayne's world, and this didn't stick. Yeah. Yeah, it was many of the Carvey mistakes, unfortunately, yes. This was him being in a supporting role, too. They weren't betting the whole movie on Dana Carvey, but who's to say wasn't John Lovitz, who was pulling him down, you know? It's like, it's two bets on a mistake. And this, though, Nicholas Cage, 94, level of box office draw, this is before, you know, the one-two-punch, you face off in Conair.

And he's not an Oscar winner yet either, I don't think, in 94. So it's like, this is him also in kind of the like, wannabe Cohen's dark comedy zone, I want to say. Yeah. But you guys don't remember this being advertised all the time on Comedy Central. No, not that you mention it. I think I have seen about 20% of this movie on Comedy Central, like different patches of it while waiting for kids in the hall to start or something like that.

Yeah, it definitely sounds like the type of movie where if you showed me a clip from it, I'd be like, oh, yeah, I've seen this movie. because that's half of the movies that were airing on Comedy Central in the 90s where I'm like I have no idea what it was but if you showed me a clip I'm like oh I've seen that entire film it was this in the Witches of Eastwick

Also funnily enough we never had an occasion to talk about it because we didn't in previous ones because we missed the week it debuted in theaters Simpsons didn't air that week but at number two below the Santa Claus which is still reigns supreme

is Star Trek Generations which he debuted at one and they got moved down a week later by the Santa Claus. So yes, the big Star Trek Next Generation movie after the series ended. An exciting film. I saw it in theaters. I liked it okay as a kid. Ultimately, I saw it. I thought it was all right. I didn't see it at the time. I only saw it recently. But I think Shatner would not have let them kill Kirk if he knew he would live for another 32 years. Yes. Because he was like barely 60. Shatner brought back Kurt in a novel he wrote. So he wrote an extended universe novel where Kirk comes back. I'm sure he

wrote every word of that too. Is this pre- or post-tech war? I guess I have to be post-tech war. I think so. Might even be like mid-tech war. Sure, yes. Henry is speaking as if he knows the war of the tech. I just based it on tech war.

I remember hearing tech war jokes before Captain Kirk died. So that's what tech is, Henry. What is it? It's a drug. Oh, of course. All right. But yes, choosing. You didn't watch a three-hour tech war video that went live recently.

Well, Bob, I'm going to have to ask for a link for that. I want to see this. Well, your husband's out of tech. town now. You can watch whatever tech war videos you want. When the cat's away, the mouse will watch a tech war video. Yeah, yeah. Him choosing or get talked

into like, well, yeah, you know, the story of Kirk's over, let's kill you off, give you a glorious death. It's not like you're going to be in movies when you're like 70. Now it's like most movie stars are 70 now. Everybody old, nobody steps away. And he's 95. He's looking

great. This episode goes live in three weeks, so we can't make any predictions or anything. Right. Editor, be prepared to cut this? But yes, Leonard Nimoy died much earlier than him, but Spock outlived him by quite a lot. But then again, Vulcans do outlive humans by many years. And of course, we're all forgetting about Walter Koenig,

who will be the last surviving Star Trek member, but no one will care. Yeah. I was talking to my husband about this too. It was like, when was the last time, was Spock the last person to canonically play a TOS character in something official? Like, I mean, I even kind of, a video game, but it can't be like, you know, we all love George TK, but if he plays Sulu in a fan

fan film, that doesn't count for me. Like, so when has a TOS person played their character last? And was it Spock in the second Star Trek? I think so. And actually, I think Kainick has done some of those fan films. And I don't fault him for it. It's one step above a cameo, honestly. Has Kainek done any like guest appearances on like lower decks where they might have a cutaway? Oh, boy. I feel like that'd be a bone they'd throw him. You know what I mean? As someone who's pretty game, yeah. Yeah. You know, I The only watch the first few episodes of Lower Decks I was saving to watch with my husband after we finish our TNG rewatch. Or my TNG rewatch is TNG first watch. Oh, yeah, definitely watch it after you finish TNG.

Otherwise, half of the jokes are less fun. It's still a good show, even if you've never seen Star Trek. But if you've seen Star Trek, it's a much, much better show. I basically had to like, when we watch the first episode, I think I was like, well, that's funny because, you know, Ferengis do this. And he's like, okay, all right, I'll take that. You know the thing the Ferengi is doing? That's what they do. That's what they do. Actually, I looked at his IMDB, no lower deck's appearance. So I'm asking, why the snub? Yeah, what the heck. Well, meanwhile, Tekken launched. I didn't play Tekken until basically a year after this when it was on the PlayStation in 95.

I mean, I played a tiny bit in arcades, but I was more of a virtual fighter guy if we were picking sides of Tekken versus Virtual Fighter. I kind of stopped with the 2D fighters. I think I dabbled with TechIn 3 a little bit because it was so impressive and there were so many characters. There was a little dinosaur, but yeah, I was just impressed by the fidelity of these games, but they were a little hard to get into for me. And you know, it's a slow week in news where I have to bring up wrestling news. I don't bring up wrestling news that much,

but it's seriously, like, it was one of the main news items on, like, the TV wiki for 1994. This week, a macho man debuts in WCW, which was like, it's on the way to the NWO and the Hulk Hogan turning and, like, man, talk about people who live less than Star Trek. actors. It's professional wrestlers. They rarely hit 70. And he had some sort of new dark persona like Hollywood Hogan. But he kept Macho Man. Was there any sort of additional adjective added to his wrestling name?

Boy, I don't. The Madness. He starts calling himself the madness at some point. Like is in Macho Man the Madness Randy Savage or the Madness Randy Savage. Like I believe that comes in there. And then of course he's, well, all Spider-Man viewers know him as Bonesaw as well. That's a secondary character. of the late macho man Randy Savage. Bone saw is ready. It's so fun. If people see that first, and then they read Amazing Spider-Man 15, sorry, Amazing Fantasy 15, the first appearance of Spider-Man.

They're like, oh, wait, they didn't just make it up for the movie that his first thing he did is fight a professional wrestler for money. That is the first thing he ever did while wearing a mask, is beat a professional wrestler for money. And the wrestler's name is Crusher Hogan. Isn't that crazy? Wow. But anyhow who, that's what happened.

the week this episode aired of The Simpsons. And joining us once again is Mike Drucker, who last joined us for Smart and Smarter. Welcome back to the show, Mike. Hey, how's it going, everybody? This is old Mike Drucker. Hey, Mike, we needed our most virile guests possible for this important episode. When you're like, hey, do you guys want to do the one where Homer can't get boners anymore? I was like, uh, sure.

We often think, like, who knows a lot about fishing? Who knows a lot about bowling? Who's impotence? Sexual inadequacy. Yeah. We should point out that none of us have. ever had sex. So we really can't speak about that subject on this podcast. One day, I'm hoping like 10th anniversary special night, it might happen, but you know, it's not up to me. My brother

tells me it's awesome. An older boy told me a lot about it and I'm really excited. I've read some things online in his research for this, but otherwise. Now the daddy issues, though, I have to work with in this. And actually, the last time I saw Mike Drucker in person was in Manhattan itself. You got to hang out a little bit in the week before Thanksgiving. Hmm. Yeah. Well, you know, much like Walter Caning, I was snubbed. Were you also in New York at the time? No, no. But still, we have Zoom. We have Skype. That's true. We can, like, have a deli sandwich over Skype.

What was the name of that deli we went to? Sarges. Sarges, yeah, it was. I didn't mention this to you, but when I then went to Thanksgiving dinner with my husband's extended family that, like, a brother-in-law, when he said, oh, where'd you go? And I said, I went to Sarges. He just did, like, there's such a brother-in-law. all like smack his hands and get like, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's the one you go to. Like, he was very proud. I went to like a less touristy one, I guess. He congratulated that pick. See, I've already helped you with your relationship with your in-laws. You got a my man. You know, neither of us wanted to get up from the couch while the TV was playing the football game. So, unfortunately, no. But yes, Mike, your choice was a hit. And that was a great place. That was a very good. And also, Mike was very nice. I mean, into taping of The Tonight Show.

very nice. Thank you. Yeah. I hope you had a good time. Oh, yes. My friends also really enjoyed it. But anyway, enough of our Manhattan fun. We have covered before, Bob, but now we are older than Homer in this time now. Yes, it's true. Homer is officially aged up to 38 in this episode. Notably, we'll talk about it. But 36 before this, probably 35 or 34 when the series started. Now he's sitting at a comfortable 39. So we'll always be older than Homer. Yeah. And this episode, though, I actually do have another memory related to when this episode first stared because I could not believe it. Its timing was insane. So I'm 12 years old and this is after Thanksgiving and my grandfather, my father's father, or as I called him, Papa Daddy, that is, we were Southern. I was born in Arkansas,

so Papa Daddy comes to visit that week and is like staying in our house. I have to give up my bed for him and his wife, who is not my maternal grandmother. and I'm sleeping on the couch. And it's like, well, I don't care if Papa Daddy's here. We're watching Simpsons. And, you know, we put on Simpsons. He's like, well, all right, I guess I'll watch it with you and dad. And so it's like me, my dad and my grandfather.

And then as soon as it starts, like, fortunately my grandfather falls asleep, it doesn't have to see all the sexuality stuff. But as I'm watching it, I'm like, I'm only 12, but I even thinking like, this is weird. Like, this is about like dads and sons and grandfathers. And my dad and my grandfather in the same room. me. It's always been a weird episode memory for me. Yeah, this episode is a married with children level of filth. Yeah.

That I'm very thankful that I did not have a waking grandfather for it. He seriously did like head back. I was about to imitate it, but that's bad mic technique. Head back snoring just like Abe Simpson does watching it. I think he laughed at more than one way to get

high baby because he's like, you know what that means? And then he talks about. I just remember, I just think of him sounding like Big Daddy from the later Simpson's spinoff showcase. Not inaccurate. So he was like a gay Lord Sartain figure in your life. He didn't live to a William Shatner-esque age either. I think he got one month past 9-11. I believe he got. I remember the day I got the news he had passed away. I had played a demo at Target of a GameCube, excited that a GameCube was about to come out. Oh man, Papa Dad, he'd love this. He was so excited about Project Dolphin.

He's missing Super Monkey Ball, but I hope he's watching for Mubbson. I'm sorry, I'm still thinking about didn't last one month after 9-11 like they were connected. A third plane has hit Papa Daddy. We measure deaths of people who die in 2001 in the show. That's true.

Did they see 9-11? Jack Lemon got out right before. Perfect way to go. I did also buy, Bob was there. I own a cell from this episode as well. I bought it on the day we went to the Simpsons table read as well.

Yes. It is, I'm sure you'll put on the scene occurs, Henry, but it's at them at the mall hawking their tonic. Yeah, when I saw it there, you and Nina, I think it was Nina who said, like, you know, only get one of these if you find one that really, like, connects to you, like, a really special episode or scene. And when I saw that one, it was like the most. I was like, well, I do really remember specifically watching this one. Now, like, if they had any scene with comic book guy, I had bought it first, or similar ones like that. But it was the best that were on offer

that day for a small price of, I want to say, $700. But now it's been almost seven years, and every Simpson sell is over 1,000. Oh, I got to think. It's just like buying a house. Buying a Simpson cell is like buying a house. The best time was in the past. The worst time is any time after right now. Well, I tell myself, as I look at it on the wall, right over there, I think to myself, yeah, I know you're an investment.

And in my mind, you're worth $10,000 when I someday sell you. They're going to sell it, this priceless memory? Well, I'm just thinking in the long term, you know, everybody, the guy who owns, like, Action Comics number one, he only owns it, you know, he's renting it until somebody else ends up with it. I see. That kind of thing. So everything I see around you is an investment. Yes.

Yeah. Yes, this episode too, though, I find it funny to watch now is it feels like everything in the world sells you sex tonics all of the time. So this feels incredibly ahead of its time. Yeah, this is before Viagra, which was a 1998 product. That's when it launched. And then I believe it became generic in 2017. And it funded so many podcasts. podcast afterwards.

It's the entire podcast industry. And then if it's like, oh, well, you've tried all these. And then people just have to invent a thing that's like, no, no, okay, Niagara didn't work for you. But this, like, thing, this thing that a baseball player endorses, this is the one that's really going to get it going. And your wife will thank you, too, as the same goes. Those commercials have to have, like, pretend a podcast in them because people associate a

podcaster telling you about a sex drug, more than that. like a doctor. I just trust the pills, you know, at 7-Eleven. You just get those where it's like four or five different colored pills in a little packet. And you're like, whatever these are, these will work. I used to get all my medical advice from Gilbert Godfried, but now he's dead. And this episode was, you know, another one written by the classic team of Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. And directed by, you know, I'd say the second most important animator in Simpson's history,

Wes Archer, just behind David Silverman. He was there from the beginning too. He also wrote all the rules in the rulebook. And I think it's a fun episode that in Merkin is on it, but no Mac raining. And it's just funny that like, as Josh Weinstein says in the episode, even when they make a sex episode about a middle-aged couple's, you know, a waning sex drive, it has to be about senior citizens and old people. Even then, that's all they can do is write old people comedy.

Now there's a couple deleted scenes on the DVD and I'll play them when they come up. But also, there's a first draft of the script out there dated May 19th, 1994, about six and a half months before the episode aired. And it's impressive how much isn't changed from it. There's actually a lot in common. And so I'll only mention the major changes. There's several good scenes that, had they been animated, I think we would love them as much as any other scene from this episode.

But so the episode begins after a quick Hannibarbara couch gag. we then head to the $1,000 movie, which perfect title. Like, it's, when anything advertise itself is the million dollar movie or whatever, it's not of like legal meaning. It doesn't actually mean it's worth a million dollars. Like, that's how cheap this is. It's the $1,000 movie. Yes, I remember seeing the live action Popeye movie a lot on these sorts of lazy afternoon features on broadcast TV, things like that.

Just like really dusty old 70s, 80s movies. On paper, it's like, wow, I've never heard of this movie starring Robin Williams. And, you know, I've seen some people try to do a Popeye reclamation. It is interesting production-wise. I feel about it similar to that Super Mario Brothers 1993 movie. Wow, they really produce something interesting. I am bored watching this.

It's visually, like, you're like, oh, my God, they recreated the entire look of the comic strip. And you're watching it, you're like, there's probably more you could have done with it. Yes. I mean, the shot of, like, when you're looking through Bluto's eyes and everything is red, because he's angry, but it's just, it's literally, they didn't put a color filter on it. It's everybody changed their costumes to red and the background is painted red. Like, that's amazing. Like, but yeah, it's not, there's even some good songs in there too.

It's very funny, they wanted to pay homage to the comic strip. The thing about Popeye that no one has ever consumed. Unless you were like 100 years old when the movie came out. You never read Thimble Theater. Man, but someday I want to go to Malta and see the still standing Popeye sets that are still there in Malta. Mike, I don't know if you know this. Yeah, they filmed it in Malta, and they built the city that's in the film, and they didn't tear it down. It became a tourist stop for Malta, as one of the most famous things for Malta, apparent.

All right, Malta. Good for Malta. I guess for them, otherwise, it's like, what, the Maltese Falcon, but that's not in Malta. It's somewhere else. But they're watching the film, 1971's Good Time Slim, Uncle Doobie, and the great Frisco freak out, which I think is some great titling for a stoner film made by like uncool guys. The fact that Troy McClure is the star of it lets you know that it's not a cool movie made by people who actually have done marijuana. I think the title might be a send-up of Freebie and the Bean. That sounds, yeah, you know what?

That's a good point. I was so distracted by the What's Up Doc stuff in this that I wasn't thinking of the other movies. And I'm guessing this is why you watch What's Up Doc to get the references. Oh, was that a coincidence? It was a coincidence. The listeners know, no, I have been watching. a lot of things because, oh, we're going to do this. Like, I did watch Prince of Tides because Fear of Flying is coming soon.

But then I seriously was after that, I was going to watch Yentil, but then I saw on Tobe was What's Up Doc? And I was like, well, I've heard this is like one of her best movies. By her, I of course mean Barbara Streisand. And then I watched it. And you know what? It was. It really rules.

I don't know, Mike, if it hasn't seen it now. Now, this will sound like I'm, you know, writing an essay. Oh, Barbara Streisand is a live-action Bugs Bunny. But no, the film makes her the live-action Bugs Bunny, and it is kids who grew up watching all of the classic shorts on 50s television, making a live-action version of a Warner Bros. short with all of the visual gags and punchy comedy. And, like, literally Barbara Streisand's character early in the film bites a carrot and says, What's up, Doc?

Like, she does it all. I love that. I love that. Have you guys seen hundreds of Beaver? by the way. It's amazing. Yeah. I have not yet. That's one for me.

Okay, so I've seen WhatsApp Doc. You guys have seen hundreds of people. I need to watch it. It's a mix of a Looney Tunes cartoon and also Breath of the Wild. It's like a video game movie too. There's a lot of crafting in that film. You remind me of that when you said like a live action Looney Tune movie. More people need to embrace that.

Especially like for great stunts in What's Up Doc. Like that's like they do the window or the glass pane across the street bit. Except they're doing. it live and like a car is barely missing people at like dangerous speeds on the streets of San Francisco. The connection here is the Volkswagen Beetle and San Francisco

ultimately in this parody, right? Yeah, three fourths through the film is a comedic, highly charged chasing through the streets of San Francisco, bouncing up and down on it. They drive down the crooked street. We all lived in the Bay Area.

We know the things we're talking about, but if you haven't been to San Francisco, it's fun to watch, if you've lived there or in the area, you'll recognize tons of, you know, places you've been to a million times and they're bouncing down the street or flying off of fishermen's war for all that. I've been down Lombard Street, that really crazy streets with all the hairpin turns, and I just thought, like, everyone who lives around here must hate it. Right.

Yes, yeah. I don't think I ever actually drove in a car down. Oh, obviously, I didn't drive when I lived there, but, like, was it even a passenger in a car? No, we walked alongside it just to be like, well, I've been in SF for this many years. I should see Lombard Street. It's been parodied so much. Well, it's like I only ever went to Fisherman's Wharf when, like, family was visiting. Right, yeah.

Also, fun stuff from the script of them describing the characters. Good, if you're curious, who's who in the scene, you maybe don't need to. But good time slim, that is a 30-year-old Troy McClure dressed as a 20-year-old hippie. They put Uncle Funk. His name is Uncle Funk in the script, but it's Uncle Doobie in the movie. He's a wavy-gravy type. So that's how they're described in the script. The auto-sounding gentleman in this parody.

So after this, that's when my grandfather, thankfully, fell asleep, so he didn't have to see Marge trying to put the moves on Homer. But your dad was still awake. Was he harrumphing? What was his take on this? No, I think my dad was a relative chuckler. Simpson's stuff. My dad, he was a big fan of Duckman.

We would watch Duck Man together, like, around when this happened to. So despite all my dad's many conservative beliefs and problems and all of those things, for some reason, he would make exceptions for, yellow cartoon character. I see. Well, Henry, you might not like this, but he is going to be our third chair on Talking Duckman. Oh, God. Well, if that's what it takes, if that's what it takes.

So Marge is, I like that this puts it as Marge is more in the mood than Homer, that she is, you know, in need of physical affection. Well, Homer would rather watch this movie for the third time in his life to have sex with her. It does, it does feel kind of progressive in a 90s way that the wife is interested. I mean, marry the children. I'll mention that again. We covered it last month. That was a big joke on the show. Like, imagine if your wife wanted to have sex with you and you didn't want to.

It's a crazy mirror world for you boomers watching this. And then Marge, like, and Homer, I also love that he puts it. So they're like, he's like, and I've seen you for the last 11. I mean, let's do it tomorrow. Like, he said too much truth for why he doesn't want to have sex with her. And why, like, seeing a movie, a bad movie for the third time is more interesting to him. and sex with Barge. This would also seem to imply

that they maybe have sex once every six months or snuggle, I suppose I should say, in Simpson's vernacular. Though, see, in my house, it's more, I mainly say, I'm in the middle of watching a YouTube video on the history of the hobgoblin. He's Spider-Man's archimesis of the 80s.

Arguably, he's better than in the green goblin, I would say. That just destroys any sexual energy within miles. Your entire apartment building suddenly is just like questioning themselves. Did you tell them that there was only an hour and 45 minutes left in the video because maybe if he could just wait a second.

Yeah. Have a little patience for once, Sonny. Come on. I hope Homer does when he finished watching this movie that he logs it on a letterbox as a rewatch also. He got to hit the cycle button. Homer will be like, just got the 4K looks great. Terrible movie.

Then we see Homer says we'll snuggle some other night, sweetie. Then is a month later Marge is back in her, you no, frilly outfits, he's excited. And just Homer exploding out of his clothes, just saying, oh, he ain't you a lot. He's rarely looked sexier, surely, in the show.

And we should point out this episode is written by two 26-year-olds who were not married. That's true, yes. No one who is 26 has been allowed to write a Simpsons for like 30 years. But it's funny that they were allowed to do this. And then run the show before they turn 30, and they're writing an episode about marital strife and old people. That is a very good point. The young people who write for the Simpsons.

now are 41, but unless they're related to a writer, of course. That's how you get in. Yes, yeah, people, there are 20-somethings who write for it, but they're just like the son or daughter of a previous Simpsons writer. But other than that, people, our generation, are mainly the young people on the season. So there's still hope for us, Mike. There's still hope. I'm friends with a couple Simpsons writers, and you were very right.

You were very correct. But yes, Homer exploding out of his clothes with enchiladas. It made me think enchiladas were not appetizing. put like a seed in my head like, oh, I just associate that word with Homer being like uncomfortably stuffed. It didn't feel appetizing to me. I like him now. Did March have a separate dinner? I bet, you know, this is like her just having like a salad or like the crackers she brought with her when they went to the all you can eat fish place. I'm guessing she had like a taco salad, a sensible taco salad.

Yeah, right. Being like, we're going to have sex later. I'm going to eat light. Nope. And so then later that year, it's. Seems like March finally got home around a good day. Must have taken a lot of planning, but they are both like fully nude, kissing. Like this is, on the commentary, they're surprised they got away with this at 8 p.m. Though it actually did get slightly changed.

Well, two things. One, them being naked is not in the script. So the animators are having some fun there. But secondly, as we all remember, the hardcore nudity credits to 138, this clip is in there. But they snuck in what must have been the original version before the animation retake, because if you see it in 138, Marge does not have covers over her bottom half. Like, it is fully nude Marge from a side view. But you watch it in this episode, the blanket is covering her lower half in bed with Homer.

So nobody, I do not have a confirmation on this. But my belief is like the sensors made them use an animation retake to put covers over Marge to not show her lower half. Yeah, I'm looking at this still now, and she's amazingly naked in it, what we assume is the original version of this scene. I also like it because that would mean that in 138, Bill and Josh, who were, you know, EPs on 138, were like, you know what, let's sneak in that dirtier version of Marge. They wouldn't let a show on the air that last time.

This is where Bart comes into the room, terrified of UFOs, and just, I mean, this, again, this is what I assume must be, the terrors of having children. We are all childless men here, too. on this. Just like, how can you ever relax and have sex if you're of a kid can run in with a bad dream at any moment at any second? Henry, you just generated 30 comments on our Patreon. Feel free parents to chime in though. It seems like a night. I watched another movie recently, sort of for podcast prep, but it was for the, it was the Amy Adams movie Night Bitch,

mainly because I wanted to see the Weird Al sequence in it. And it's a fun Weird Al sequence. But I thought the movie was about like her transforming into, a werewolf type person. It's really just about being a mother and like a two-year-old and it's fucking gross. Like kids are disgusting. Like it's such a gross that's the point of the movie. It's disgusting

to have a two-year-old. I imagine every parent has a sort of Babaduke scenario happening to them at every moment. Yeah. Just like poop just everywhere. It's disgusting. Same with that Margo's Got Money Trouble show that I really enjoy but it also is about like, boy, every second I watch of it

was just like, this is why abortions exist, guys? Like, I just think of this little time. Like, oh, horrible. Okay. I've pushed away all of our listeners with children. Sorry. Okay. We're now turning to our slash child free. I'm sick of all these crotch spawn. No, I'm sure there's nice things. In that Margot show, they show like, oh, this seems like a nice moment with a baby. Henry, I'm sure when you were a baby, your shit got everywhere. Yes. No, hey, look. Under fingernails in crevices. Henry was like a chocolate fountain in his crib. Oh, Jesus.

No, I am sure I bugged the shit out of my parents. I understand my father's abuse was fine because I did bother him too much. Here's a thing, Henry, tablets. Give your kid a tablet, check back in 18 years later, see what they've watched. It's a better babysitter than just a TV. Yeah. A slide of pizza under the door every couple of days. So Bart is terrified, but the parents don't give a shit.

in our first clip. Mom, dad. Don't turn out of the light! Don't turn out of the light! There's a UFO outside my window. Seriously! Oh, what? It's just an old golf umbrella stuck in a tree.

Ah! Can I sleep in there with you guys tonight? No. Can I sit on the roof with a baseball bat in case a UFO does come? Yes, yes, yes, that's fine. Good, good. I hope you kept the homie fires burning.

Homer? Hey? Homer, wake up, wake up. We need to talk about the marital difficulties we've been having lately. March, there's just too much pressure. What was my job, the kids, traffic, snarls, political strife at home and abroad? But I promise you, the second all those things go away, we'll have sex. I simply can't wait that long.

Maybe we should get some help. How about a book? Oh, okay. A tasteful book. Oh, all right. I wanted people to appreciate the sound design of Bart falling off of the roof. And then the door fell there. Then they set up Bart's love of UFOs really early in this episode, too.

Yeah, like most conspiracy theories, it starts with a bad dream that you misinterpret. Right? A spinning golf umbrella is so funny to me, too. It's even making UFO noises for no reason. Yes. It is scary the way it flies at the window like that. I'm scared too, Bart. Though I think, you know, Marge, she should have followed Homer where his arousal was.

He was excited at the type of book he was imagining. And you know what? If you want Homer to get turned on, you know, but you give him a little leeway. Marge never gives Homer any leeway. No, sir. Like, yeah, I know. It's also, I feel like the idea of like a man being like, I want an erotic book to get horny is antiquated. Because, like, Romanticy and romance novels are such a popular genre now, but specifically, mostly with women.

It's just very funny to be like, oh, a sex book. Yes, please. And you're like, well, he's reading. That's nice. Yes. It's hard to imagine a man even holding a book with just naked photos of people. It would still be printed. In all of this to get them to a fun little sketch scene of just like,

The Simpsons go to a large book retailer. It's technically an on-ramp to, you know, an Act 1 adventure thing, except they use in better writing than some other Simpsons episodes could be accused. stuff, they first set up the poor sex life into other episodes which just start at the Simpsons arrive at a bookstore, you know? And this would be when this is good timing, just to put it in in history, like Barnes and Noble had been expanding into the 90s with some bigger and bigger stores. Books a million had been expanding in the superstore format since 1988.

And Borders had been purchased by Kmart in 1992. So giant book-specific stores were popping up all over America. We got our first Barnes & Noble in my town in 1995, I believe. So it was right around the corner. We had Books a Million first, and then a Barnes & Noble opened up near it. I'd say like 95 or 96. Yeah. Though Books a Million was the main one,

and the Books of a Million was the one that was attached to the mall that was the closest mall to where I lived in Florida, which of course was where all of the children sat around reading manga in 1999. And they still do. to go to these bookstores. The manga readership is keeping bookstores alive. Yeah. Legitimately, yeah.

Mike, what was your childhood like mega bookstore? We had a Barnes & Noble near me in Florida, and I don't remember when it opened, so it must have been pretty early 90s, but my parents would just leave me there for hours and hours at a time. I think that they realized that no one was going to steal me in a Barnes & Noble magazine section,

like writing down cheat codes for Mega Man. which was like what I did have the time was like I'd bring a notebook and I'd flip to the very back of every magazine because that's where the cheats were and I'd be like all right megaman any game with a password I'd write something down bubble bobble for some reason it was important for me to see the last level of that game yeah so I would just hang out there for like hours and hours and read comics and gaming magazines and all the would-be abductors were like this kid reads game pro yeah they were like this kid looks like he's a crier I'm not going to do this I'm looking for a redwall kid today actually as Barnes & Noble was around it must have been 96ish because I do recall reading like previews for the Ultra 64 in Super Mario RPG while in a Barnes and Noble from like the early import reviews for Mario RPG Well we have to talk about James A. Mitchner now

because this is really an Oakley and Weinstein episode because there are so many so many really, really obscure references like Peter Euberoth and James. a mitchner. And by the way, this guy was famous for his gigantic novels. Usually, they were called family sagas that would go over like a generation over a family over history. And he was best known Tales of the South Pacific, which was a 1948 novel that won the Pulitzer Prize. It was later very, very loosely adapted into the musical South Pacific. So if you enjoy that musical, that was a source material. And he's been dead for a very long time now. And I would guess the selling it by the pound

joke is a reference to how gigantic and many of his books exist too. Yeah, most of them are around 800 pages. And he was still alive when this joke happened. He died in 1997 at the age of 90. Before, in order in the script, they are actually two, I would say,

really good scenes, one of which would have actually changed the history of one character had they used it. So I'm going to just read, I'm a showrunner at a table read here. I'll just read from the script here. The family enters. Bart runs over to a table where Krusty sits anxiously trying to interest passerbyes in his sign language style book,

Krustologisms by Krusty the Clown and Sid Brindelbaum. A man approaches, Krusty. Hey, you, funny, funny book here. What's your name? Just stamp the ticket man. Byron. Krusty autographing a book. To my friend, Byron.

Best Fishes. Eh, huh? Eh. Your pal, Krusty the clown. I don't want that book. So his name would have been Byron if that scene had been in there That we wouldn't call him Just Stamp the Ticket Man We'd call him Byron

Okay Well I guess he would be making his exit from the series Within a few years So it would have been nice to get a little more lore on this guy Before He does appear in this episode But he doesn't even get a line in the episode Yeah, he gets a punch in

Also that Bart is even uninterested in crustologisms As the scene continues He trusts he then tries to give Bart the book addressed to Byron and he won't take it. Like, Bart does not want to read A-Side. This was the second deleted joke in season six I've come across, making fun of sign language. They were really hating on Seinfeld's book Sign Language, which, again, was just a bunch of transcriptions of his stand-up, which I loved as a kid because I couldn't watch Seinfeld at school,

but I could get the book and then, you know, just read it in his voice. Mike, as a stand-up comic, are you jealous that you can't just, like, publish your stand-up as your book now? Like you have to actually like say things that happen in your life and like share your life with people. Yeah, it's, it's much worse. I would much rather not have to look people in the eye and I could just like write out. But that used to be a thing in general where someone would be like, oh, you know, back on the farm day. I guess I did that with a book. Anyway, I don't know. You know what? I do miss it because I like the George Carlin one and I did not necessarily love the Jay Leno or Jerry Seinfeld ones, but there was something cool as a kid to be able to like pick up a book and it just have stand-up

in it, like Bob saying. It was kind of cool to be like, oh, I can slowly absorb this versus, like, wait for my parents to go to bed. Yeah, I did own George Carlin's brain droppings. He had like two or three of these books. But just like, essentially just great transcriptions of his stand-up. But I can understand if you're a comedy writer, you would think that's lazy. I could see like a contemporary comedy writer being like, you're just putting your stand. Yeah, I could see that criticism. I might disagree with it, but I could see the criticism. Yeah, I did enjoy these books. But now it's like, you can't do this anymore. Like, we mentioned this on the other sign language joke that Kevin Smith at one point, there was a book that came out where it was transcriptions of his podcast.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's not even transcribing like his evening wits. Like it's just like podcast chat. And Kevin Smith knows how to fleece his audience and that's pretty low. Yeah. Publishing a book of your podcast transcriptions.

You know, I did listen to the audiobook version of the Drew Carey version of that same style, except as I remember, it was like, it was real ups and downs and because he would like tell a story about, like, he would basically do his joke about. about eating a chilly dog and it's just marching straight down to your heart, like that joke, that's a fun joke. And then he would, like, I remember he would reveal, like, a very dark story about, like, childhood sexual abuse. I was like, geez, ugh.

It was a swinging pendulum of feelings in the Drew Carey book. I kind of like that. I like that. And then also in the original script, Lisa had a scene, too. She's so excited to be at the bookstore. She grabs a dusty book excitedly off the shelf written by Bill Moyers. who was in the LBJ administration and a big critic of corporate media at the time, and who just died last year.

That guy lived a long time. Then from the script, Lisa turns to see another display labeled Springfield bestsellers. Number one is Stillmore Kathy. Number two, Kathy Pigs Out. Number three is a blank videotape. Four through ten are unoccupied. A chuckling burns leaps through Stillmore Kathy.

No, Kathy, fat-free cookies won't do a bit of good if you eat the whole box. Oh man, I want the crusty scene back and I want the Burns back. That burn scene is great. I was like, those were the two funniest in the script. I was like, fuck, that's a good scene. I think they were calling back to Burns being a fan of Ziggy. So Burns is just really enthralled with the whole funny pages. Oh, man, you're right.

Yes, him being a fan of Ziggy, right? It fits. It's so fits. And you know what? They came up with a good Kathy strip. If that's not just literally a Kathy strip, it could also be that. I think that. is probably several Kathy scripts.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so we then cut to Margin Homer in the marital relations section. There's a bunch of book gags that I rarely pause to appreciate. There's some good bordello repair, Volume 1, work on sex. Good stuff. Weight loss through laborious sex, I think, is also a nice one. Laborious is a great word. This, though, you know, again, we talk about being at the bookstores.

There was like, you know, if you could find a certain like photograph section in the bookstores or whatever, you could find things that would have naked people pictures in them. Yeah. You could get away with it because it's in a bookstore and it would be educational. The best was at Barnes & Noble when those books didn't sell and they put them in the remainder section. So it wasn't even in the photo section. You could just like, like I remember saying Madonna's sex book in the remainder section. And it must have had like the wrapper off because I remember like flipping through it being like, this isn't for me.

And nor is this that exciting. You can find more titillation elsewhere. Yeah. Then seeing Vanilla ice rubbing up on Madonna for instance. I feel like you don't get the full Monty from Vanilla Ice in that, if I can remember correctly. I don't think you do. As the Mr. Skin of Talking Simpsons as I've been dubbed. Homer's never been a great lover.

Antalada. But when he discovers, a magic potion. Give two 50 don't. Why not go to the movies and take a camp of your heads? I'll stay there. Phone call you later. He'll go from Dudd to Stod. I'm dead. Don't get into life. Don't get on a brand new Simpson next.

Welcome to the break, everybody. It's Henry Gilbert. Enjoying some homemade medicine. And a big thank you to our guest this week. Mike Drucker, the very funny comedian, writer, author of the book, Good Game, No Rematch, A Life Made of Video Games. and we always love having Mike on. He's such a cool guest, especially on such a classic episode as this one. Thanks so much, Mike.

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check out everything you're missing in the collections tab at patreon dot com slash talking simpson but so yes the family is buying book for their problems in our next clip. Hey, March! This guy looks like a poo! Shh! I don't want people to see us looking at these books. Hi, guys.

What you're looking at? I'm just reading up on artillery. Yes, and I'm pursuing my interest in... This one's a good choice, and it's not too smutty. It's a book on tape by Paul Harvey. You know that nice Midwestern man on the radio who's like a pleasant version of Grandpa? Ooh, Mr. and Mrs. Erotic American.

Mom, Dad. Peter Euberoth is the old Al Gore book. Same planning, sensible tomorrow. Yeah, I hope it's as exciting as his other book, rational thinking, reasonable future. I'm getting this book on UFOs. Did you know they're real? But there's a huge comic conspiracy to cover it up. Oh, that's just a paranoid fantasy.

Which then leads to a lengthy X-Files parody section. We heard the clip of the... Because you're wondering, Peter Eubroth was just a very powerful 80s executive. He helped run the first privately funded Olympics in 1984. still alive, I believe. Ah, so, okay, I saw his, like, big book was, like, made in America, his own story about setting up the 84 Olympics. But I didn't realize it was, like, a business success of privatizing the Olympics. Oh, boy.

And I looked this up. Al Gore had two books out at this point. And to be fair, the titles were not nearly as boring as this episode implies. The titles were putting people first, how we can all change America. and then Earth and the Balance, forging a new common purpose. So they're a little bland, but I think this joke is more about him as a person. Yeah, yeah, right. Well, this guy's boring, right?

Who wants this boring guy being president someday? Who wants a boring guy that plans ahead to be president? Come on. I think we're seeing the first X-Files joke on The Simpsons, which had just started that previous season. So they got in very early. But I think this episode was probably written as the first season of the X-Files had ended. Yes, yeah.

And was a big hit. I looked it up. The table draft would have been written as the first season is wrapping up. Yes. As a surprise hit on Fox, which I'm a big X-Files liker. Bob lives in the home of X-Files. That's true. Vancouver.

And season two is going well. But I think it works, though, too, is a great X-Files joke because if you took out the X-Files style music that's like like the Mark Snow soundtrack to it, it just works as a good joke about like a misdirect and a UFO conspiracy. but adding the sound effect, like it doesn't hinge on you knowing what the X-Files is, like the Simpsons Files crossover episode that comes later. Which I would guess that when this aired,

they would have definitely been working on the critic episodes, like, do you think Al-Gine was thinking of the X-Files' Simpsons crossover at this point when this episode aired? We're going to eventually going to cover it again, but I believe the idea, like, when the X-Files was new. Okay, so yeah, yeah, that would fit then. Around the same time. And the idea that Lisa is excited for an Al Gore book,

like that too is just a great. The great thing about Lisa, they're making her like a hopeless liberal is her character kind of thing. It would train us all for the coming 2000 election, I think. See, this is the kind of boring Centredem branding that Gore failed to disprove and made him barely win an election that he then got stolen. We all know about Paul Harvey, though, right? Am I the only one who's intimately familiar with Paul Harvey outside of parodies?

I only know him because of the previous joke about him on The Simpsons that my mom had to describe to me in Homer's barbershop quartets. Yes. So, yeah, a very famous and very foxy broadcaster, American broadcaster, famous for his very pregnant pauses. There were more than a few parodies of him around this era because he was getting especially daughtering. And I was listening to him in the early aots as I was driving to and from college because he was on our public radio station or an AM station or something like that. And he was approaching his 90s. and it was kind of like Professor Farnsworth was giving you the news. Because his broadcast would start off with him saying,

stay tuned for news. So it sounded like, good news, everyone. And then, yes, he was famous for his arrest of the story segments where he would give a long, rambling biography. And then at the end, and he'd say he'd give the solution to the biography. He would not tell you the person's name throughout. And he'd say, and that man's name was Arnold Schwarzenegger. And then, you go, oh, it all makes sense now.

It was all a big game. And, yeah, Paul Harvey, I don't know if we have clips of him or anything, but he's just got a very iconic voice delivery. And he was broadcasting up through, it's like almost his 90s. This is the kind of energy that made Garrison Keeler look like a young punk in the NPRC. Yes. I should have clipped out. I did not get a Paul Harvey clip. You know what?

I'll have our editor drop one in right here for you. Hello, Americans. This is Paul Harvey. And this is Saturday. Would you allow me to read to you an open letter to the next president of the United States during today's visit? Thank you. But first page two, do you know what sold me on staying at a Hampton Inn? We travelers these days have so many choices, and most all of them better than most anywhere else in the world.

But Hampton Inn is something different. This bit of if they hadn't already done a joke about him, and that boy's name, that nobody liked was Roy Cohn. Like, if they didn't do that joke, I wouldn't have known Paul Harvey wasn't just a guy they made up for this episode. I was listening to him, like I said, in the early odds,

and I think he was famous for this because Family Guy also did a joke about this. He would start reading ad copy, and you would think it was still part of the news program. He's like, I recently received a letter. It says, Dear Paul, I recently had a series of headaches, and they wouldn't go away. And then I took this, and you realized, like, oh, this is an ad.

He's reading ad copy. You know what? us podcasters should pay more attention to that to find better ways to get our ad copy. No, I want our shows violently interrupted so people will go to the Patreon and give us money for the ad-free version. Yes, it's all a big scam, everyone. You figured it out.

Speaking of other radio figures in here, it is funny. They have all this stuff of Bart getting into UFO conspiracies, but there's no Art Bell stuff in this. And I mean, they were maybe selling it, saving it more for Homer the Great coming up in a couple episodes. But Bart should also

be listening to a guy's calling in about being abducted by UFOs on late night radio. It was, I mean, too, as a kid, just the idea of like, there was something Bill Oakley says it on the commentary. Like he thinks every, a lot of especially young boys go through their like UFO phase. But there was something about like, you know what, I'm going to buy this one book that they sell at this store that's going to finally tell me the secrets about a giant conspiracy. And I'll finally know everything about what's going on with like JFK or the Rand Quartz. corporation or all those things. I mean, there are a number of these books, but Time Life had a very famous series of books called Mysteries of the Universe or Mysteries of the Unexplained or something like that.

So many families I knew just had all of these books. They were very appealing. Their commercials, like, scared me as a kid. They'd be like, Bigfoot, what is it? And they would be advertised on Nickelodeon, I think. That's how I ended up seeing them. And they would scare the crap out of me. Yes.

Mysteries of the Unknown. It was a book series published from 87 to 92. And, yeah, very, very popular. I feel like you can still find, you find it at like used. bookstores all the time and then like thrift shops. Like it's one of those kind of books that like when your grandma dies, people donate. It's definitely in estate sales these days. Smelling a lot like cigarette smoke probably. So we think that the government is scared that somebody bought a UFO book, but actually it's to let Al Gore know that one person bought his book. Finally bought a

copy of your book. Maybe it's I've been watching too much Twin Peaks in the last couple of years. But when I see the Air Force guy come in, I think of him as Major Garland Briggs coming in as the guy who has the secrets of all the UFOs information. There's not an important Air Force guy in X-Files, you know, like it's just the FBI and CIA folks in that. Mike, I actually is going to ask you, like, corny uses of comedy songs. Yeah, has overly used pop songs. Like, celebration is way high up there. Yeah. Yeah.

Even here, it's already corny enough to be used as like only a lameo like Al Gore, with the listen to it. Yeah, and the fact that it's on vinyl and he just like lifts the little thing and just puts it on. Like, he was ready. He was ready for that book Celia, that record set up. It's corny, but I think like we're saying, this use here circles back around to fun just because it's because it's so corny to use that. Yeah, the show doesn't think it's fun to play the song celebration. They think it's lame if you do it. It wouldn't work completely for me unless he said, I will. Yeah. He is replying to the song. That's also great. Yeah, you know, Mike, I wonder too is like when you license songs for comedy, there have to be, when you're like Casey in the Sunshine Band, like you, even if you know you're being made fun of, you're like, well, the check spans either way, I would think if I'm Casey in the Sunshine Band.

It also depends on who owns the music in general, like, because when I was at like Tonight Show, it was much easier to use stuff in the Universal Library, regardless of artist. So there's a lot of right stuff too where they're like, we don't want to give you the rights or, yeah, we'll give it to you for super cheap. So that is actually in the consideration too, which is why sometimes I'm so impressed by early Simpsons episodes that have crazy needle drops like 16 tons where you're just like, how did you even like in 1990 find the rights for that? I just watched Mean Streets for the first time. Like one of the first major Martin Scorsese films, his earliest successes. And like it has so many needle drops in it that make me think they must have, I know Warner, it's a Warner release so that probably helped. But still, this was made on an indieish budget and they keep playing like Rolling Stone songs or Be My Baby. And I'm like, these had to have not.

Did they just charge way less to license songs in movies back in the early 70s? I think so, actually. Yeah. And I think also a lot of the songs were only maybe like 10 years old at that point. So they weren't like, oh, it's the classic Rolling Stone song that everybody wants to hear in your movie. But yeah, it was a recent hit. I also think home video had yet to be as big as it was, let alone streaming. and so when you were licensing a song, you were licensing it for a movie that would run for a few months

and then maybe on TV once in a while. Meanwhile, I remember it made big news when Mad Men over, I think a decade ago now, when they licensed a real Beatles song like fully and completely to be in an episode, they said it was like it cost more than some episodes of Mad Men to produce, to get one Beatles song to appear in Mad Men in perpetuity forever, I would guess, too, to license it on multiple platforms. So yes, after we head away from Washington, back to Marge and Homer, as they're starting to take in the information from Paul Harvey.

I love that he makes you think of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower in a bathtub as one of his sexy stories. You know what? Yes, an extra large, two lovers in a bathtub. It can be cramped. It is not sexy fun in my experience. What the heck? Never had sex before. Were you just trying to get clean? Oh, yes, yes. That's what I mean. Only on a vacation in a specifically made extra large bathtub. Do you really have any room to work is all I'm saying.

Yeah. Room to work the soap and the rag to get yourself clean. A clean one. Stay north of the equator. Well, also, yeah, it's like nobody wants to be the one to sit on the side with the nozzle behind you either way too. Though then they have to call their kids for help. It's such great animation too. I love that.

So then after failing to share a bath, then they're going to go, they get suggested to go to motor lodges, as Paul Harvey says. We get another very specific parody here of, it's the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California, which I've still never been to. I think people only go to it for kitsch value even. And like there's cheaper motels with fun or rooms you could probably go to. You said you've never been to it. I would not want, it feels like it would be disgusting. Yeah. But wouldn't you want to be in a room where Frank Sinatra probably busted a nut?

No. No. No. I mean, unless I could see exactly where. Yeah. Yeah, this thing opened in 1958 and it's still open today. I don't even want to know the state. Like, I'm sure the sheets are clean and everything.

But do you really want to be in a room where all of that has taken place over the past 70 years? All the grannies and grampies humping? No, no. The sheets are clean, but the carpets definitely are not. When I went to their website and looked at some rooms, I will say, too, they're not as fun as how the Simpsons draw them or come up with them, too. They do have a caveman room there, but it's not as, my imagination was much grander than what the pictures of the caveman room is. I will say it's like the joke in the episode, which is you got to book way in advance. Like, you have very limited number of room options right now if you're not trying to book more than six months out at the Madonna Inn.

Jeez. Yeah. I mean, it could be fun for like kitsch value, but then I think once you show up, you'll see the people that have to work there and you would just feel too much pity to enjoy yourself. Like, oh, you poor bastards. I'd rather go to like a kitchy Airbnb that's, you know, trying to like recreate the X-Men Mansion or something as I've seen advertised. That's cool. I've also heard of ones that like, oh, this is like a hobbit hole. We built one of these as an Airbnb. You can rent out. I've heard those are disgusting too in their own way and don't look like your pictures. but I don't know.

How hobbits live. Yes. I guess hobbits aren't really known. Like, Hobbits do have sex, but I don't think of them as a particularly sexual group of people. No,

I don't think they are. With Sam Wise's a little daughter. Yes. Something happened there. Obviously, boy, here, I'm failing here. I can't remember the name of Sam Wise's wife. Though obviously, like,

I'm not shipping Sam Wise and his heterosexual wife. I'm thinking, I'm shipping Sam Wise and Frodo. Why have that? I remember the wife that ruined everything. Let's just say Debbie. Yeah, Debbie the Hobbit.

Debbie Hobbit. Yes. Second breakfast. So, well, hey, maybe we'll learn more about all those hobbits in the upcoming search for Gallum film. And we'll learn more info about Hobbits in their lives. Now, I've never been to the Madonna Inn, but when we were in Japan, I believe last time or the time before, my wife and I stayed in the Peanuts Hotel in the Joe Cool Room. I'll tell you folks, not very sexy, despite Joe Cool's reputation. How is that room decorated?

Is it just like a statue of Joe Cool? There's a lot of Joe Cool stuff all over the place. That makes sense. Yeah. A few trips to go to Japan, we stayed in a room that was like meant to evoke being on like a cruise ship. And so it was a nautical themed-ish room. But it feeling like a cruise ship meant it was a very cramped room that I didn't like pretending to be in a cramped cruise ship room.

It was not very fun. When I've been to Japan, I've just stayed in hotel room-themed hotel rooms. We did that on the other half of the trip, but to stay near Tokyo Disneyland, I think it was themed because they're like, oh, you're a man child, you want to stay in a themed room, or you have children who want to stay in a themed room. One of those two things is true if you're going to Tokyo Disneyland. And they were right, they were right, they got us. I can't, I can't lie.

So as Homer and Marge are looking over rooms, they find out, as they're called, and Ethel, a reference to I Love Lucy characters. They then find out there's only one room left. Now, Bill and Josh, here's talk about cutting a joke for a good thing. They said they had debated having it be an S&M room would be the one they'd end up in. Oh, geez. Yeah. I think the boring comedy of just the utility room is great.

It's one of my favorite jokes. It's much funnier than just like, oh, I'm uncomfortable in being around like straps and leather and all these. things. And Merkin pretty much says as much on the commentary. He's like, that wouldn't have survived the rewrite anyway. So, yeah. You guys were right to not have it. I think of this joke whenever I'm in or near a utility room. So it works.

I love to do that Homer's fantasy is so limited. He's like, and you're the janitor's wife who has to live with him in the utility room. But I like right after that when they hit the bed, you could see on Homer's face that he also knows this is bad. Yes. We've probably been there

a couple things to have just like, well, I committed to this, but I know it sucks too, but can I say that it sucks? Yeah, exactly. I mean, that Homer could have at least said like, oh, like some sort of like sexy fantasy that he's like, you know, he could have thought of something more fun than just being in a different dead marriage. Like that's what you mentioned to. I have to assume this wet dryback getting a lot of use. Oh, man, unfortunately, I have become too aware of wet drive acts. I'll tell you that. I have a busted boiler in my, or twice, twice now the boiler in the podcast room. The closet here has hot water heater in it.

And it is leaked twice. And I have had to spend two non-consecutive weeks of Jeff's having a wet dry vac running 24 hours a day for a whole week. Is it like a dehumidifier? Is it a vac? I should say it's in steps. Wet dry back first. And then the thing to heat it up and dry it out comes after. And the boiler is in there because your computer is steam powered.

People don't know this. It saves a lot of money. Sometimes. It's worth it most of the time. I'm not that different from Peggy on King of the Hill working next to a boiler as well with a Mac as well, I suppose. So yes, Homer, Marge, they got nothing left. They give up on this to and drive.

They toss the tape out of the car and run back over it many times in an impossible way that a car never could. A wonderful joke. And so as they come home, we see. see that Abe has been doing the babysitting form off screen. This is where the intergenerational trauma story of it finally enters into the plot, as Abe tries to figure out what's going on. Welcome home, son.

I broke two lamps and lost all your mail. What's wrong with your wife? Never mind. You wouldn't understand. Flu? No. Protein deficiency? No.

New mono-altro-microscopic silicovolcano volcanic volcanic volcanic coniosis. No. Unsatisfying sex life? Yes. But please, don't you say that word. What? Zach! Talk about sex. You're home safe.

Done my duty. See you the next time we need your signature. Oh, you never want to spend any time with me. But I can help you with your loving problem. I got a home remnant that'll put the dowsers back in your trousers. Legend has it. My great grandpappy stumbled upon this recipe when he was trying to invent a cheap substitute for holy water. Great line.

And also a very important line I noticed. story-wise. It's just one little line in this episode. It's Abe grumbling to Homer, you never want to spend any time with me. We don't need that line, but I think it's there to, at least as like proof that Abe is aware, like, you only need me for signatures, and I wish we could spend more time together. You dump me

in this home, and I'm so alone. You're right. It doesn't have like a joke purpose. It's just him showing the sad vulnerability he has of being all alone. At a time when you could assume Homer's mother is dead. He's a widower, not a man who

chased away his wife. Grandpa, you can feel a little more for Grandpa here as he's like just dumped. And also as he, I mean, it is wonderfully rude of Homer that he left as grandpa was just talking in another room. He just abandoned him. Grandpa's lucky he parked out front. I assume the engine was still running. Yes, definitely. That long word he said is, I'm not going to try saying it.

It is a real word invented to be a long word. pneumomono choliosis, that thing. Yeah, the actual term is silicosis, but then someone decided to invent one of the longest words, or possibly the longest word in the English dictionary. It was somebody from the National Puzzlers League in 1935. So again, Bill Oakley, Josh Weinstein, they know these things.

It's a wonderful ancient fact that they would know and that it was, I'm sure some crossword puzzle nerd has made up longer names since that. I mean, we would always hear anti-disestablishmentarianism That's the hard word. And they would often rely on a lot of old almanacs when they needed old-timey stuff. So I'm guessing this came out of one of those old almanacs, this word. Webster online says,

caused by the inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust. That's what the disease is. I love Abe saying sex. Sex. Also the line, what's wrong with your wife? The way he says it is so almost aggressive. It feels like Dan Castellaneda ages Abe up by like 20 years in this episode. This has to be one of the best Abe's.

Maybe it is the best Abe performance in an episode Dan Castellaneta has ever done in this one. It's so like he's needy. He's also like he actually gets to show off his abilities here. He's victorious. And like he gets to have a big argument with his son. Like this is like Abe Simpson, if this was a live action show, this is the stuff like that if Abe Simpson was just one actor, they would love to get this opportunity for an episode for all the acting choices in this. And this is where he makes his tonic in the sink. And here's another good line.

I do like the line that's in the episode, but here is an alt-line they had in the script. Legend has it. My great grandpappy brought this recipe back from Honduras, which is where he fled to after his failed attempt to assassinate Daniel Boone. that's good i like the idea of holy water being so expensive you need someone to supply you with a generic version of it and you needing a generic version of it for some reason uh a cheap alternative to holy water another animation thing i love is like homer when homer drinks the entire bottle like just a little wiggle in his head as his sex drive is activated

is incredible too. The mild form of poisoning is taking effect. Yes. Yes. So Homer rushes home, grabs Bart and Lisa, and gets them to take Maggie out of there and tells the kids to go see a movie.

I wonder, do parents ever tell their kids to go see a movie for any other reason back then? Just get out of here, go see a movie. Leave us alone. Though Homer's got long-term plans because he's telling them to stay the night at Patty and Selma's too. So he's got at least 12 hours of plans. Yeah, it's going to be a whole day.

Laborious sex. Laborious sex. Homer did lose some weight from this. You got to think. And then we have one of the best, Bill and Josh are right to be proud that they came up with a new visual euphemism in stock footage for the act of sex in hot dogs on a conveyor belt, which is in the script too. So they were thinking of it a long time.

But of course It plays off of one of the most famous scenes in movies That I've only seen on TV. Bob, you've gotten to enjoy it with a whole full audience. Yeah, North by Northwest ends with a train slamming into a tunnel To imply that the two characters are about to have sex And the audience roars with laughter. And it's so abrupt, you have to imagine in 1958

Or whenever that movie came out, people understood what was going on. I just pulled up the clip of it last night on YouTube. I forget just how fast it. is every time. Like a lot of Hitchcock movies when they end, they end like Vertigo has a similar like, bam, it's over the end. Like, and the clip is 30 seconds on YouTube. And I'm like, no, it can't be this short. It must be clipped wrong. And the ending is like, Carrie Grant is reaching on his hand to try to save the love interest. And once he finally grabs her hand, when he pulls her up, it then match cuts to him pulling her onto the bed of the train car they're on. But he also says, you know,

he calls her congratulations Mrs. whatever his character's name is to let you know that they're married so the censors can't be mad if they have sex A lot happened in that match cut It's incredible Movies knew how to end back then Whenever I watched an old movie I love how it just slams into a brick wall

At the end like the villain dies Bam the end What else do you need to know? Go home Credits are two screens We're good Yes yes One copyright and then that's it This was a vista film

But Bart and Lisa went to the stock footage festival, which I could definitely see comic book guy and Herman being fans of the stock footage festival. It looks like comic book guy's on a date, doesn't it? It does. It does. Now there's a comedy version of this because we have our friends of the found footage festival and also everything is terrible. A lot of people now take their stock footage on the road. Yes. They're good times.

Even if you have a weak stomach like me, they're still a good time. Just close your eyes when it's the videos of guys teaching you how to take better, bowel movements. Open them and you can learn something. The bike, it's not every video. No. It's just occasionally there's that video in there. Other times, it's Rowdy, Roddy Piper telling kids how to exercise.

Which we need, which I need. It's why I've been exercising more lately. I just think of how Routy Routy Piper would be disappointed in me if I didn't. It's true. So we come back for the commercial break. It's the morning after Marge. Marge is in love again.

And Vuez Homer is Paul Anker. and Rex Harrison rolled into one. And it's this line that got Paulineke on the show in a few years because he was very tickled by it. I believe he wrote into them to say, oh, thank you for the shout-out. It was a nice compliment. Oh, that's wonderful. Yes, that's right.

That's why he sings Just Don't Look in the future episode. One of the best Trihast of Our segments ever, which we talked with Bill Oakley himself in person in Portland, Oregon. And Bill on the commentary, it's like, yeah, we basically turn margin to our moms. Like, what she is into is what a boomer parent was into, not Bill and Josh are Gen X, like older Gen X. Yeah, they're older Gen. They're like mid-late 60s. And Homer also is shaving, and we get the return of the joke that Homer's beard line instantly pops back.

As was set up in some enchanted evening, the sort of first episode or the 13th episode of The Simpsons, however you count these things. And you know what? There's two schools of thought on that. But this is, though, where Marge decides, you know what, this should be a side hustle. Marge is thinking like a current day person. Like, why I have a fun side thing that's, you don't make a business. You got to make everything a business. It's great that they gave this idea to March. Yeah, you're right.

It's her being supportive, isn't it? Now she's being sexually fulfilled, so you know what? She's like, you can make a lot of money with this. While she probably also knows there correctly guesses, that there are a lot of dead bedrooms in the Springfield at this moment. You do wonder at what point from him going into the bedroom with her to the bathroom that she came up with selling it.

Maybe in round four. She's like, you know what? Oh, man. That's potent. I mean, the effects of that, other people just take a swig of it. So maybe, too, it's that Homer took too much, really. Yeah.

That's the problem. I also just love, I think about this line a lot. You want me spend more time with Dad? What about my New Year's resolution? It's such a good joke. It's like you're saying, I thought you wanted me to lose weight. We also see that Homer's pants have been.

and living in Ned and Maud's tree all nights and are disgusting him so much. They're treating it like the dead body of like an animal, like it's a dead cat. You're ready with that garbage bag. Be ready with that garbage bag. It's so funny to me. And this is then where we see Homer is making it all in a bathtub with Abe.

And I know I'm going to get rich with this scheme and quick. Another great line. I could have looked up, oh, what is the design of the bottle label meant to evoke? But fortunately, the original script saves me the trouble that it describes it as Smith Brothers style engravings of Grandpa and Homer. And the Smith brothers were the inventors of the first cough drop brand in America in like the mid-1800. Oh, yeah, yeah. I can see it in my head.

It's like two very bearded guys facing each other. Yeah. Yep. And you know what? Wes Archer and his team did a great job with it. That was when I pointed at my cell when we interviewed Wes Archer. And folks, listen to that great interview back in our backcountry. catalog. But when I said like, hey, I have a sell for one of your episodes. He saw it and was like, oh yeah, the label he's holding is the label I designed for Abe and Grandpa or Aben and Homer's tonic. So again, another like laugh out loud scene. I see it every time. Just a sign that says homemade medicine, $1. I forget the only charge $1 for this. You're losing money on the bottles, it feels like.

Yes, you're right. God. I mean, I know things are. cheaper back then, but still a glass bottle for each one, yes. As they'll make a joke in a later Bill and Josh episode, Prell left behind the old glass bottle for money purposes for the same region. So this is where it just stamped the ticket man appears and punches Homer if we're doubting his virility. And Abe has to take over in our next clip. Boom, Mama! This is finally really happening.

After years of disappointment with get-rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rid with this scheme and quick. Sir, uh, hello, sir. Yes, you look like a man who needs help satisfying his wife. So... Oh! I guess people have some sort of moral objection to our sex drug. Let me sell it, you idiot.

Step right up, folks, and witness the magnificent medicinal miracle of Simpson and sons' patented revitalizing tonic. Put some order and your larder with our energizing moist. Starizing, tantalizing, romanticizing, surprising, her-pricing, revitalizing tonic! I doubt very highly that one elixirc could boast so many fantastic properties. What say we am scray out of here and have a wild wing ding at the cyclotron, doctor? Anything you say, professor. I always forget about that noise she makes at the, uh,

Oh man, that's also the sound Hank Azaria's drinking sounds as Frank are also great Good, good, good, good. I hadn't seen the original Nutty Professor and the remake hadn't come out yet. So the buddy love voice and joke here totally flew over my head as a kid in 94. And the script identifies her as

Dr. Parenthetical Mrs. Frank. Oh. She's lost the time. Frank, I think, is pretty much always shown to be a bachelor in most episodes. Outside of that one line where he goes, my wife is going to kill me. Yeah, that's right. When he lost his son. Yes.

Listeners, if you want to pause on, well, the time code on Disney Plus is nine minutes, 22 seconds. That is the cell I have of Abe in the middle of his big speech, which like, fuck, man, Castlenet is so good there. Like he is, he is playing Abe, like, finding his mojo again. It's like, oh, like, you've never seen Abe this vital again. But also, it's like killing him to do it. Oh, he's playing it so well. He really has to charge up to get these very long sentences out. And then at the end, he's, like, clutching his heart.

Yes. And you know what? It works. Everybody loves it. Like, people understand. He didn't sound like a ranting madman. They all like, oh, I understand what this does. I'll buy this from you.

also yes like you look like a man who has trouble satisfying his wife I mean that is the undercurrent of any ad for blue chew or whatever out there well I noticed I guess these ads aren't as prevalent as it used to be but I would see a lot of them on like social media and it was always well not always but the one prevalent kind of ad was it was the woman's perspective like my boyfriend got hymns and I am having the time of my life yeah yeah yeah you know I don't see him as much I don't watch the only thing I was watching on regular TV was wrestling and I'm on a wrestling break. That was when I saw the ads for new genics, I think they were called.

And those, the way they put them of like, women barely got to talk in them. They would basically say, and your wife will thank you too. And the wife like nods silently. Like that was what they got to say. Henry, do you ever see any like gay targeted ads for these kind of drugs? To me, they're always like straight targeted. But it could be because what I'm looking at online does not indicate I need gay help. You know, the ads, I was thinking about listeners later today going to record a different podcast about the gay episode of this month.

But I was thinking about that with that, like, gay-centric ads that I see, sometimes I will get it on, you know, like if I watch, say, Peacock with, which I have the ad version of that, I will get ads for prep or prep style drugs, which if you don't know prep, it is, you know, an HIV preventative drug. And it is mainly like it is couples and gay men or it's either a gay man dating other men or two men in a couple who then like are having a friend over for dinner. Like those are the coded message. Oh, like Citable Lecter. They're murderers. Now I'm creating a terrible stereotype. Let's prep the guest. I think of those as like the gay ads I see on TV.

Now, if you walk around any gay neighborhood in the Castro district for instance in San Francisco, You'll definitely see gay specific ads for like alcohol. I meant like specifically Viagra. Like you need Viagra for your gay relationship. It's always like so hetero targeted. Yes, I will say I don't see. I have not seen ones that say like, hey, gay guys, you would think if you're selling a Viagra style drug,

if you pointed at a gay audience, you're doubling the number of boners you're selling two there. You know, like I would think, but perhaps in the gay community it is like, They're like, I already know about this if I need it, or I'm not as insecure in my sexuality to not ask for. Could be that. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask is if it has something to do with praying on like that straight insecurity about not being able to please your wife. Because it feels like that is such an old trope that I wonder if like that's why it's easier to prey on heterosexual companies couples with this.

It's just to be like, oh, looks like you can't please the little lady, can you? Well, because when I've met, you know, older gay couples or older gay guys, like I do feel like they have just a better understanding of like, oh, well, you know, I have different needs now in the bedroom. They don't need to be marketed to as they're going to ask their doctor sooner and there's not as much like shame probably. They don't need it because they're watching Hobgoblin videos together. Yes. It's so chaste. I don't need him as listeners. I don't need the Hobgoblin videos get me primed.

for the pump already. We cut to Kirk and Luan. Bill and Josh were like the Kirk and Luan masters, I think. Yes. We don't even know Luan's name yet, but we're learning more and more about their marriage here. Yes. Pushing the twin beds together,

like, I mean a non-religious couple that sleeps in separate twin beds as a couple married for at least 11 years. There's problems there. There's problems there. But I love how Sneakley is like, push the twin beds together like that's his version of like

I rented a porno or like I got a cock ring his version of that is push the twin beds together that must be so uncomfortable during sex like just like if you feel the two beds start to shift away from each other oh yes it's a dangerous crevice you need to decide which side of the bed you're on any given time

also that Billhouse sees nothing wrong with this that is just the animation of him bobbing his head up and down. Every single night. It's like hypnotic watching the way his head bounces up in the right? Yes. He's not even

doing anything or listening to it. He sits enjoying being inside of a tent. Yeah. Every single night. I got to think they must have run out of the tonic and that's when the marriage is on its last legs.

That's what happens. So there is two more good jokes that were in the script too. A couple others around. Springfield characters. So these come before and after the Hibbert scene. Original script has the love joys are enjoying the tonic and about to turn off the lights when the phone rings and Lovejoy answers the phone. He's like, hello? Yes, Ned, I have heard about the tonic. If you'll consult your Bible, you'll find numerous

references to Aphrodisiacs. I see. Why don't you mix it in with some seven up then? Sprite is fine too. Yes. Yes, good. Right, Ned. Night Ned. Yeah, Bill and Josh, big fans of Ned being a nuisance when it comes to Lovejoy. And then by the time he's got off the phone, Helen has already fallen asleep. And so then Reverend Lovejoy starts working on a Rubik's Cube with his extra energy.

It says, Dan, Flanders. Good job. That's a good joke. And then the other scene is that I wonder if they even animated it because the follow-up scene would fit like the scene is supposed to run into the next scene of Barden Millhouse. You'll note in the scene Bart and Millhouse are standing in front of like a TV window display, which is supposed to set up that they're watching something on TV to take you into the next scene. But so in the original script, Krusty is on his show, but he gets the tonic delivered and says like, I got to

leave early kids, but don't worry. I got something for you to watch. And he puts on a 1970s PSA that is about not leaving your dog in a hot car man all this stuff is great yeah maybe they animated it maybe it got pretty far but I want to see all this Bill and Josh funny guys they should be put in charge of the Simpsons

so and yes then this is where we get the little scene with Hibbert's with the Hibbert's Bernice Hibbert rarely looking sexier than in this episode and now I have been watching those current episodes written by friends of Mike even and that Bernice Hibbert has really gotten an upgrade in number of lines in the last few seasons.

Yes, and a new voice actor. Yes, that probably helps with getting her more lines. I think they realized she is probably the most famous, like, or the most appearing, frequently appearing black woman in Springfield, I think, pretty similar it is, by default, default. She ends up being now in, like, the Marge group of friends, also because they now write more scenes where March spends time with any other woman in the show. Yeah.

40 years ago, she started as a parody of Claire Huxdable. Yep. Yeah. Also, I love Hibberts. Still, he drinks. And then his little chuckle as it takes effect, like, that is a pretty great Hibbert chuckle. It's great to have just a little scene to let you know. There's nothing magical about this.

It's working because everyone is just being, their brains are being poisoned. So after all that, yes, we cut to the kids and they are confused about what's going on. What's going on? Around the grown-ups. Who cares? With no adults around, I run this city. Carry on. Listen to this.

Unexplanable behavior. Individuals acting in a secretive fashion are often involved with UFOs or other paranormal phenomena, e.g. telephone explosions. Geez. If it's in a book, it's got to be true. Scary, no? And this guy's head of the spaceology department at the Correspondence College of Tampa. They're

You cook my dinner for me? My parents aren't around And I'm not allowed to turn on the stove They almost tease That there could be a different story of like Nelson takes over the town But he doesn't know what to do With his new power

Yeah Just like I'm sorry No go ahead Mike I just like the idea of like Finally him getting like the ultimate victory of being in control of everything And then being like Now the feeling's gone

Carry on This big. about just pointing it like, well, this guy wrote this book and the wonderful crazy guy design of the man who wrote the book. It's just so good. The spaceology department at the Correspondence College of Tampa. So the kids are, Bart is perfectly ready to start having a conspiracy theory. Like Bart could have had his UFO conspiracy theory story in any episode, but to connect it to everybody in town is having sex. Every adult in town is having sex and the kids don't know what's having.

happening. It's a great plotting there. So now we see that they've sold it to everybody in town. It's time to take their salesmanship on the road. The list of funny city names, Mount Seldom, that one flew over my head until later

in life. I think that was the one. The other two, oh, Flacid, I get that. Mount seldom. I did not flew over my head. And this is where Homer is damned. Like now this is where the I hate my father's stuff comes into the episode more so. Homer realizes he's going to be trapped in a car with its wheezing windbag all day.

And they drive to Spittle County, which is from Colonel Homer. Bill and Josh were fans of the show, so they're working in old references, which were only three years old at this point. That's perfect. Yes. And that was a long drive for Homer in that episode. So there's two audio deleted scenes I have to play here. This is the first one, which is a slightly longer scene of Homer about to drive with Abe.

After Homer is complaining to Marge, the VIII. visual you would see here is Homer grabs two bottles of the tonic and takes the corks out of them, which leads Marge to make an assumption that is incorrect. I'm going to be stuck in a car all weekend with that wheezy windbag. Why are you so angry at your father? I'm not angry at my father. You can't be angry at your own father. Now I'm going to be away with Grandpa for a long time. So before I go, there's something I want to do.

Oh, honey. Please, I'm not a machine. I need these corks for earplugs. Okay, son, we're off. Of course, in my day, we didn't need a fancy ball and bat to have fun. That's why God made dirt clogs. Well said, dad. Well said dad. Well said dad. He has the two corks in his ears while he's repeating. I think it's a better joke, but it takes a lot longer to set up than what they eventually land on here with him complaining by different generations.

The Bill and Josh's problem is that they write too much good material to fit into a broadcast-length episode of TV. They're too good at their jobs. I wish they kept that in there just of like Homer is even in denial. It adds another aspect to it that Homer's in denial that he hates his father because he thinks it is wrong to even hate your own father. He's like, you can't hate your own father. I like that as an extra layer to the trauma situation, generational trauma story being told here. though that i mean and this is still something they've explored to this day like in al jean's final episode it's about it's a bard and homer episode about oh yeah my dad messed me up and now i'm messing

you up because of how my dad messed me up like i mean there's always more of that to mine as a comedy writer surely yeah definitely definitely there's always money in that mine this is where it turns into like a con man job which is always it maybe it is a level of intentionality in it, but it makes it funnier to me that Abe doesn't need to con everybody with this. It works, right? It actually works. It's almost like it's in his blood

to con it out. Right, yes. This situation of them being run out of town and Homer being a shill, it's like, as Abe calls him, they don't need this. Was he say you're a disgrace to medicine show business? Yes, yes, yeah. The guy going to like, Oh, I'm not good booth.

The Edwin voice guy? Yes. Yes. That might be my favorite joke in the entire episode just because I've had bad experiences with Afrodisiacs. And then you imagine that. You just imagine what that man must be like sexually. I wonder if they had this voice in mind for him for that line.

I wonder. Yeah. I don't think in the script it said Ed Wynn voice. I don't think. Though what it does say in the script is it directly calls out Foggy Mountain Breakdown as the song as they get chased out of town. And they got it. They got it. Straight from Bonnie and Clyde, which I still haven't seen.

I've not seen that. It's an important film in American history, at least of being like a violent sex film that shocked Hollywood at the time. They go to rural America and get chased out of town in a similar situation, and they play that song. I know that. But also the guy's instant question, like, then how come his face is on the bottle?

Just like, they got nothing. They didn't think this through. Also, in the original script, they have a joke that, and Josh actually repurpose for future things because they stop by the house of an unnamed hillbilly. It is not Cletus. Though if it had been animated, maybe they would have just made it Cletus. But they say like, oh, do you want to, they go to his door and say, do you want this tonic? And a long stream of named children walk out to the door.

And then he's like, eh, you know what, I'll take some, even though it implies he does not need help. That is then repurposed in the March pretzel episode. Yeah. So from the sales bit, we go back to the world of conspiracies. Okay, it's now painfully clear. The adults are definitely paving the way for an invasion by the saucer people. You fool. Can't you see it's a massive government conspiracy?

Or have they gotten to you too? Oh! Hey! You guys jump me to such ridiculous conclusions. Haven't you ever heard of Occam's razor? The simplest explanation is probably the correct one. So what's the simplest explanation? I don't know.

Maybe they're all reverse vampires and they have to get home before dark. I love trying to pick out what all the kids are saying. I hear Milhouse saying, I'm dead. Does one of them say, like, I don't want to be a vampire? I think so. That has added in my lexicon. I guess it did 32 years ago, but I love the idea of reverse vampires. the sun. I mean this argument here too.

Like, this is so, we've seen it play out so much in real life over the decades, but just like the Bart is like, it's painfully clear that it's the aliens. And then somebody else's like, no, my, you're a fool. My conspiracy theory is more right than your. We covered this episode originally right before Q&ON. So we've been through like eight to nine years of this kind of thought manifesting in real politics. I think like when you hear things that are part of the Q&N,

When you read stories about Q&N or listen to a great podcast about new Q&O conspiracies, I feel like lots of them do start as somebody sarcastically suggests a reverse vampires and then it becomes the real part of the conspiracy theory, right? Yeah. Lisa is clearly being sarcastic. And in the next scene about the conspiracies, they will, like, credit it like with the reverse vampires. I do like that it becomes a theory of everything, conspiracy theory. I know we'll get there, but it's just I love that they're like, you know what, it's all true.

Yes. Every conspiracy theory is true. As long as we can all be crazy together. Yeah. No, I mean, and also just the mill house, like this is the thing that happens with so many of the conspiracy theories too is like you end up the Barton Millhouses of online conspiracy forums start out as friends and then eventually they come to Haiti. other and it becomes branching ideologies of the conspiracy group. Yeah. And David Merkin loves that music cue. He loves the fight music cue. If it's not exactly the one from original Star Trek, it's a parodic aversion of it for sure, right? Yeah. Yeah, it feels to me,

like there's a Star Trek cue, but this one feels more to me like Elmer Bernstein, like West Side Story kind of vibes. Oh, yeah, yeah. They're going at it too with this. At least it intervened, somebody could have actually been really hurt there. So then, we cut to Homer and Abe as they're driving around. They see a dilapidated farmhouse, which I would have never thought of what it was referencing. With the commentary, let me know of this. Here's the thing. I don't know if David Merck was being sarcastic, but the timeline matches up.

This could have possibly been inspired by the little-known movie Flesh and Bone. It's a movie with Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid. Perhaps this is where they had little Jack Quaid on the set of this movie. Who knows? But a lot of this movie involves the return to a farmhouse where bad, memories occurred and exploring these tragic moments of childhood at this dilapidated farmhouse. So this movie released in November of 93, episode written, summer of 94. Potentially, the colonel could have come from this like dark thriller with a tragic ending.

I only have heard of it for research purposes in this. I did look up, yes, Jack, Quaid was one and a half when it came out. So Meg Ryan must have like recently given birth, unless she's pregnant in the film. I actually didn't look up footage. I would assume it would have been right after. the star of the boys and lower decks Jack Quaid was born. I call him Little Novakane. He's one of the good ones of the Nepo Babies.

I've only seen him on Red Letter Media because I don't really care about the movies he's making, but he seems okay. Yeah, he seems like. It seems like a fun guy on Red Leder Media, which shows that, like, I mean, we can get Jack Quaid one of these days, so I don't want to speak ill to me either. Clearly he will do a podcast type of thing. I legitimately think he is one of the better parts of the Boys TV show, which is a good show that I've decided to stick to, the ending. The worst thing that happened to the boys

for me is that they tried to be a satire in the Trump era and it literally can never keep up with reality. It's the curse of the boys. The fault of nobody who's an actor at that show. I think it's the curse of America. Yeah, pretty much. Speaking to some

guest who's written a lot of satire himself like, how do you keep up? It's impossible to keep up. It's impossible to keep up. It's also like, you know, even in 2016 or 17, people are like, you must be so excited about this. And it's like, no, not in any way whatsoever. because when there's one topic of news,

that's the main focal point of everything, it just becomes so boring. And so it's hard. Yeah, no, it's hard. I feel for the boys writers, because it's hard to be like, you know, I get it with Veep when they were like,

you know, it's just too much. We can't keep up with Washington. We're doing Washington, but it's not even as ridiculous. It's another thing when you're like, we can't even exaggerate superheroes to be as stupid as things are. That's like tough

because you would think superheroes would work perfectly for this metaphor, but things are so bad that even they aren't enough. In the first episode of the final season. They're doing a parody of like a Trump White House press conference, you know, in the press conference room. I was like, no, this just can't. These jokes are not as ridiculous as Cash Patel denying he's an alcoholic at it can't. And, you know, production times, they're writing it like over a

year ago. They can't predict it. They can't keep up. It's really too bad for them. I feel bad for that billion dollar franchise on Amazon Prime Video. It sucks for them, those poor guys. Yeah. We headed into this dilapidated farmhouse. Homer wants to see the hot dog tree he planted. This is where, you know, we learned the timeline of things like the bank foreclosed in 63, 31 years before the air date. And in the flashback, Homer is like six or seven. I'm not trying to make a reference here, I should say, seven or six.

Thank you. At the time, this was new lore. And I guess they kind of stuck to it because they returned to this farmhouse in the Tamaco episode, even though it does burn down. at the end of this one. Hey, yeah. I'm sure I complained about that on the tobacco episode. There's about 20 minutes of grumbling on that episode.

Hey, wait a minute. Later in like the Mother Simpson episode, you can assume like, okay, this is them in the small apartment. They're forced to move into after the bank foreclosed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, now as an adult, I can see it from Abe, like, Homer's guilt there as he's just silent of knowing that he kind of ruined the family. it's like, you know what, they both did hurt each other here.

Like Homer did unknowingly as a dumb kid destroy the farmer. Yeah, there's a little moment where Homer realizes it was his fault. I like that. Yeah. No dialogue. There's a look crosses his face where he clearly was the one remembering that flashback. Then as they head into the house, I also like as a visual metaphor for their shared histories crushing them, like the falling apart home smashes into both of them. As Homer is laughing at Abe, he gets.

crushed more than Abe. Yes. I think a bicycle falls on Abe's head and then a bathtub falls on Homer when he starts laughing. And then comes a very important moment for the Fallout franchise. I'll say that for sure. Yes, because the TV is the Radiation King and named as such because it leaves, basically, it burns your silhouette into the wall like an atomic bomb would. Yeah. When those were dropped.

And this would be the name of televisions in the Fallout universe. I believe starting with the first game. The very first game, yes. I went to the Fallout Wiki and then got this quote. And I then read its source, so it's substantiated. But the first appearance in the fallout intro was a deliberate inclusion by programmer Leonard Boyarski hidden there to make fellow co-worker Tim McCain laugh. It was simply a Simpsons reference to make another Simpsons dork laugh. Like, Fallout is full of moments like that when it was like a smaller franchise, not a gigantic billion-dollar franchise.

guys. But it's nuts. You watch another Prime TV show, the Fallout show, every TV is the Radiation King. And I almost want to say, like, how is Disney not suing them? Like, this is a brand from The Simpsons and a TV show. Maybe from Amazon side of thing, they're thinking

like, well, you didn't challenge it when it was in the video game, so I guess. That's probably, yeah, yeah, there's been like almost 30 years of precedent set where you didn't care that we violated this copyright. So obviously, you're not losing money. There's no concern here. And I also wonder if you do like a conversation with lawyers and we're like, we're not going to get enough out of this for this to be a worthwhile

endeavor for us. You know, Microsoft owns Fallout now. They got Deep Pockets. True, true. I mean, Disney won't even spend time publishing DVDs or Blu-rays. I'm not going to spend time like, how do we shut down this Radiation King nonsense? You know what? Fallout could be entirely different if they had thought of a different name in the script.

The TV brand is Vidiola. That's the name of it, which feels more like a Bill and Josh name than the radiation. King is more of a Merkin style name, I think. But I love Radiation King as a brand. It's just watching the Fall Out. I knew it was a thing in original Fallout, but seeing it in the Fallout TV show is like, for plot points of like, in the very first episode,

I think Walton Goggins like turns on a Radiation King TV. I'm just like, wow, that's crazy. It's just in this TV show. But this is where Homer has another bad memory, which everything's bad if you remember it, as we all know. There she is. radiation king. You'd park yourself right there and watch for hours on end. If I may, Helen, I'd like to respond to that question with yet another flip remark.

Wow, look at me, uh, Mom. I am President Kennedy. Oh, Abe, maybe our homework could grow up to be president someday. You'll president? This is the greatest country in the world. We've got a whole system set up to keep people like you from ever because. Become president. Quit your day dreaming, melonhead. Quit your day, dreaming, melon head. Dad, why come you never gave me any encouragement? Maybe I could have been something more than I am.

Like a travel agent, to a great scientist. Or the inventor of a hilarious refrigerator alarm. Who are you to complain? You lock me up in a home and give me the same damn shower safety seat every Christmas. Uh, first off that like, well, Helen, that's him referring to Helen Thomas. who was still in the White House press room up until 2012. Right. Yes.

And you can see Abe in the flashback as rolling up newspaper. I guess he initially hit Homer with it as we come out of the flashback, but they decided that was too mean. Yeah. There's not a deleted animation for it. So maybe it was in the animatic. They realized like, you know what? The actual physical abuse, which then they laugh of like Homer Strangles Bart all

of the time. Why do we think that was too mean with a rolled up newspaper? But yes, telling like, I mean, him saying to his face like we got a whole system set up to keep people like you've never becoming president just like shitting all over Homer's dream immediately and then that he's still repeating

quit your daydreaming melonhead like that's where it breaks Homer in modern day also they're not ready to commit yet to a design of Mother Simpson you know it's not till next season although I will say that we do see her entire figure in

Oh brother we're out though right right in the scene where she gives birth the Homer so her design is kind of just there, but I think Bill and Josh know, like, or the show knows, we want to do more of this character. So she does actually look a bit like she does in that season two flashback reveal, but here

they're like, let's like not directly depict her until the big reveal we could be planning later next year. I think in both those scenes too, and in the O'Brother, where out there one, the Hurt Powell episode, and this. Maggie Roswell is the mother, Mrs. Simpson as well in them, right? I think

I think this is Pamela Hayden, actually. Okay, okay. At least in this clip. You're right. Yeah, I think you're right. But the chief, this is a good dynamic to have like, his mom believes in him and Abe make sure to let him know, I don't believe in you at all. And in fact, like, you were the last person who should be president. So, of course, now it's funny to, you know, whole system set up to keep people like you from being president. We don't have as much trust in the systems now. The Homer can't because he's not rich. That's really the only thing So yes, we then head over.

There's also something funny about hearing Dan Castleanetta doing a JFK who is distinct from Mayor Quimby. Yes, it's like he's doing JFK, then he also does Quimby, and then he can do young Homer doing a JFK impression. It's very impressive. That's why he's the king, man. That's why he's making the big bucks. Oh, yeah. So then the argument continues into the car. Homer is arguing about his mid-sized dreams.

I like, too. Homer doesn't say I could have been president. He just thinks he could have been a travel agent to a great scientist. This is where things reach a fever pitch. Your whole life, you never said one nice thing to me. That's because you're a screw-up. You're the screw-up. You little.

All right. All right, that's it. We're going home. I'm sick of you with your stupid tonic. If I hadn't taken that stupid tonic, 38 years ago, you'd have never been born and I'd have been happy. You were an accident. Get out.

I'm sorry I said that. Out. I'm going to get out of the car, and I hope you'll find it in your heart not to drive a whip. Well, I'll be all right as long as I can remember my army training. Dang. Oh, the time cut. He just stood in the road for like four hours. Dang.

Yes, Homer officially 38. And then he'll be aged up to 39 in season 10, and he will remain 39. The bit there that if he hadn't taken the tonic, Homer wouldn't exist. Like a nice way to pull it back to the tonic, too, that he wouldn't have been turned on enough to. I mean, he didn't have any other kids with Mona Simpson. At this time in the show, you maybe could assume it's because she, She passed away. Or also, he just regretted having the son he gave up for adoption.

And he's like, you know what? This one, it's all I got the energy for after the one I gave up. And then this kid, Homer. Also, though, too, like, I like, Abe has something to say there of like, you abandoned me. Like, you're already getting your revenge. I mean, the same damn shower safety seat every Christmas. I'm in a home. Like, you can't do worse to me.

Also, he strangles Homer, which I would think he doesn't have the energy to really do much damage. I'm not sure if he's ever strangled Homer. I'm sure maybe at some point in the last six years, but it's there to, let you know, like, this is how the trauma is passed down. Yeah. Yes. From father to son. Do you think it was in the very first Simpson short with Abe in it? Does he strangle Homer at the end of it? Like, because he strangles Bart and then he says, why, you little and then he strangles him back? I do not recall. Man, I'm starting. I'll look this up later. That's making me think maybe he strangles him in the very first one. But his Abe is a shorts character, which also

Wes Archer worked on those two. So maybe that's why he's doing so good with a grandpa episode like this. There's a tiny little deleted scene in the DVD for this where just in the middle of Homer being strangled by Abe, like right before he strangled, Homer in his fight with Abe, like, accidentally hits the airbag and the airbag pops in his face and he has to shove it back down. But I think it didn't, it's a funny moment, but I don't think it animated correctly. And so we come back from the commercial break and Abe has bought a big bouquet to apologize. Homer slimes the door in his face. and then he tries shoving the flowers through the mail slot. That doesn't work either. I agree with Homer's thinking there, too.

No, just for the rest of his life. But we see here how Homer is, I mean, this is some great writing here too. Like, Homer in this clip reveals he is actually maybe even shittier than Abe is as a father. Homie, are you really going to ignore Grandpa for the rest of your life? Of course, not Marge. Just for the rest of his life. He said I was an accident. He didn't want to have me.

You didn't want to have Bart. I know, but you're never supposed to tell the child. You tell Bart all the time. You told him this morning. But when I do it, it's cute. So finally, we're all in agreement about what's going on with the adults. Newhouse. Okay, here's what we've got.

The Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people. Thank you. Under the supervision of the reverse vampires... Are forcing our parents to go to bed early in a fiendish plot. to eliminate the meal of dinner. We're through the looking glass here, people. Kid.

Oh, God, the hand motion on Millhouse as he says it, that is stuck with me. It's not quite as dramatic in JFK, maybe because Kevin Costner's a bad actor. Actually, yes, I have the clip here of Kevin Costner and in JFK explaining the depth of the conspiracy they're going through here

and using the line reference. There's a lot of smoke there. But there's something fine. We're talking about our government here. No, we're talking about a crime, Bill, pure and simple. Y'all got to start thinking on a different level like the CIA does. Now, we're through the looking glass here, people. White is black and black is white.

Just maybe Oswald was exactly what he said he was. Patsy. Yeah, I really had no opinion on Koster until I listened to the Blank Check series about his films. And then I walked away thinking, Man, this guy is so tedious. And why did he get all these breaks? He's not very good. He's just kind of handsome in a rugged way.

What I learned from the Blank Check series is that he does either act or act and direct in more than three films about how married women want to have his baby and have sex with him to have his child. And Henry, you should hate him because dances with wolves beat the good fellows. Oh, yes. No, I mean, I do hate him for that, for sure. If Martin Scorsese did not later win his Oscar finally, if he still didn't have an Oscar, I'd be more mad. Let me drop some of Mike Costner hate. And, of course, Kevin Costner is in the doghouse now

that he has a movie that may never be released because of a lot of allegations on the filming of that film as well. Oh, I thought it was a money thing, but I didn't hear about this. Well, I mean, it's money, too, on it, but there's definitely, Google it folks, but there were allegations of impropriety. It's a rich tapestry. Yes. The Horizon films, right?

Yes, in part two of Horizon. Through the Looking Glass there like that, I mean, JFK, talking again about the comedy economy, like JFK came out in 91. In 94, they are still making references to it that, like, work as a reference. Like, a three-year-old film reference now feels like it can't work in a comedy the same. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, it's not exactly the same, but I can, like, if I made like an Avengers end game reference in a script, Now people would be like, when did this come out? Like, you really, it's a weird time for comedy because it still takes a lot of time to produce it. But people really want their references to be very current. And so you'll see, especially in cartoons, a lot of ADRing of references up until the very end of shit. I mean, that'd be like making a Barbenheimer reference now.

Right, exactly. Yeah. Well, see, how can the scary movie guys still prove it with their upcoming scary movie film? Are they able to just watch a trailer for a movie while during production and write a sketch about it? Can it work? I hope so. Because it works so well in the old days.

They were so funny. I say if they're bringing Chris Elliott and David Crossback, I'm there. You know, I haven't looked at the cast listing for it yet. I know the Wayanses are back. They used to open a few old comedy people to reassure the comedy nerds out there. It's going to be okay. I remember hearing like Chris Elliott said he did it because he apparently, he said as a rule

he never says no to an offer apparently if you offer Chris Ellie at least back then that was the excuse I heard himself but meanwhile I've heard David Cross his cover for it or like the chipmunks movies is like David Cross makes cool things that never make him any money allow him to own a house

by appearing in a chipmunks movie which I'll allow it as an arbiter of what is or isn't good morals of a comedian I'll allow it yes this podcast is about the Simpsons and deciding what David Cross gets to do with his life. I'm also at a point with celebrities where it's like, if you're just

making money off something innocuous, that's fine. Like, I'm not mad at you anymore. There's far more things to be mad at celebrities about than that. David Cross broke the Brickwall Brotherhood by naming names about the Saudi Arabia shows. Yeah. Like the Riyadh Comedy Festival. So obviously, I reject him in the

Comedy Brotherhood. But he's not invited to the mothership anymore, that's for sure. But yeah, I mean, like, you can tell that actually, when David Cross was calling it out, like, that actually hurt the performers at the comedy festival more than like nobody's on a podcast. Yeah. Actually, David Cross shouldn't bother.

Why is he going into the Bill Maher podcast? But it was funny to see him like, yeah, he was on club random. And it was worth it to see him stifle a laugh at Bill Maher saying he deserves an Emmy. But here's the thing I found out later he did win an Emmy. So he's bitching about a thing he even already has? Yeah. Not for politically incorrect, but for something else. He has an Emmy.

one of his hilarious stand-up specials about killing brown people. I think he was an executive producer of the show Vice, and that is how he was able to get an Emmy. Man. But he has one. Yeah, he still has one. So he wants one specifically for real time, or a stand-up special. I think he was, speaking of him being legitimately hurt,

there was a great, it was in the Globes last year, I think it was, where it was naming, it was roasting each of the nominees in the stand-up category. and I think she said about Bill Maher, like, Bill, you've given us so much. We could use a little less. They cut to his face, and he looked legitimately mad. Like, believe it or not, Bill Martin seemed to have a good sense of humor. I've heard that. 80-year-old pot smoker.

What's not the like? The Rand Corporation, by the way, they're still around as a think tank. There's other evil think tanks that are getting all the headlines now, but the money must still be coming into the Rand Corporation because they still have a real website, and they're still writing editorials like, Japan should help sink China's invasion fleet. And Trump's Iran war is a dilemma, not a debacle.

Hmm. Oh, Rand. I wondered where their money is coming from now. One of their articles makes me think they're just getting big AI checks. That's who their new supporters are because another headline is, the weapons of mass destruction, AI security gap. Clearly, it sounds like you've got to invest in AI to defend against the evil AI out there. So that's the government meetings to start cutting checks to that too.

But that's, so the RAND Corporation's still around doing their great work, the great work of the Rang Corporation. Oh, also from the script, Milhouse names WAMO and Madonna also is part of his The WAMO Toy Corporation, I'm guessing. Yes. It's very funny. So here's the other deleted scene, and it's in the script. And this one I think they cut for good reason because this is the end of the conspiracy.

It seems once Millhouse says we're through the looking glass here, people, that's the last time any of the conspiracy story is in here. But it had a different ending to this scene. After Millhouse says it, Ralph walks into the treehouse for this clip. It is a joke that plays against Ralph's personality, but I don't want him. knowing about sex. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's troubling to see Ralph like scream,

they were having sex and being upset by it. He also shouldn't know what it is, I don't think. I do like the idea that if a group of conspiracy theorists are presented with the obvious actual answer, they instantly jump to the mole people or another new answer, keep the conspiracy going. That's a good joke. But I would have been upset at Ralph realizing,

or even saying he saw the Wiggum's, have sex. I don't like that visualizing that. Yeah. It's also like just hearing his voice say it, you're like, ah, I don't know if I want like a little kid voice saying it. Yeah, Nancy Cartwright did it too good. It makes you too

uncomfortable. Yeah, seriously. So that's the end of the conspiracy bit and we head back to Homer. Again, like, when I do it, it's cute. That is such a great line to encapsulate shitty parenting or narcissistic parent behavior. Like, I just

but when I do it, it's cute. He thinks it's funny to tell Bart every day. He told him this morning he was an accident. Though Homer has learned his lesson now, he is going to be there for his kids. Once he's not distracted by a candy bar. Put it away, boy. He says, a father should always make his kids feel wanted.

So he drags them up off their chairs, leave the room, but he leaves Maggie in her baby seat. So he also forgets Maggie as well. In the original script, first they put on a puppet show together, which Bart is not a fan of, but then he adds a Terminator to their reenactment of Sleeping Beauty. So that's not a bad scene.

And also, they have many more scenes. They have three more scenes of Abe and Barney going on the road. Wow. I guess famously, when they were learning how to write a sitcom episode, Bill and Josh, they would say our scripts are always like 90 pages long. Yes.

They can sum it up here pretty well of just like, But I assure you, his belching is due to an unrelated alcohol problem. But yes, that Abe, in the scenes, I'll briefly encapsulate that Abe gets Barney to drive because Abe is a worse driver than an alcoholic somehow. And then they're staying in a hotel room together, sharing a hotel room. And Abe says to Barney, like, you drink more than a pub full of Irish authors. You got to cut back, and Barney throws him out of the hotel room. And Abe is in his underwear when thrown out of the hotel room.

And the manager of the hotel asked like, hey, what's going on here? And Abe's like, well, I was sharing a room with this young man I'm doing business with, and then he throws me out of my underwear. So we lost all that, too. But, I mean, there's just no time. This is such a packed episode. Yeah. And there's a little moment here where you think Abe misses Homer,

but he just misses his ability to drive a car. Yes. Yeah. I think that's really the Merkin school of, like, Well, let's not get too touchy-feely. Abe just misses being able to use Homer to drive a car. Homer, meanwhile, is trying to teach Bart how to ride a bike. In the original script, after he offers Bart to write a bike,

Bart briefly sits on the girl's bike. Nelson basically teleports into the scene and ha-haas Bart. Then Homer tries to, like, force Nelson to apologize. Then Nelson walks off screen and gives Bart a huge wedge. And Homer's like, well, did he apologize? And Bart goes, yes. Yes, thank you. But then we see that Homer is just overdoing it a lot in this scene.

Number one, I know how to ride a bike. Number two, I already own a bike. And number three, that is a girl's bike. You're no girl. You're a boy. A good boy. You can be president. Squat's that.

You will be president. I think Lisa needs another push on her new tire swing. No. Dad, I want to get down. This tire is filthy, and the steel belts are poking me. No! No! No offense, Homer, but your half-assed under-parenting was a lot more fun than your half-assed over-parenting.

But I'm using my whole ass. Dad, it's just that too much of your love can really be... Scary. Hmm. Someday you'll thank me for all this scary love. But now I've got to go somewhere and do some sick. Serious thinking. I'm sure he meant to say serious drinking.

That's what I assumed. And because Wes Archer directed this episode, we get probably one of the last twister mouths, if not the last twister mouth. I'm sure we've been down this road before, but this is a very late twister mouth on Bart when he says, no offense. He really snuck it in there.

Like, he put him in like the very, the second ever, I believe it's the second ever short. Bart has the twister mouth. And you see it a ton in the early years. and I believe they sat on commentaries that Matt Graney told him you get like one an episode and then they smoothed it down to you get one a season and I think this is the final twister mouth

I pulled up a video compilation of them on YouTube and this is the last one in chronological order in it I do believe like Wes Archer finally he got away with it and this one happens so quickly and in a big wide shot I think maybe that's how he got away with it but you'll never see another Wes Archer Twister Mouth allowed on the show again after this, I think.

It's a real loss. MacRaining is wrong. It's fun. It's fun to see his head move in opposite directions. It's fun. You know, you stamp out all these little eccentricities in the show. You end up with a more boring animated show. Like, you gotta allow a twister mouth every now and then.

I love, but I was using my whole ass like this, the idea of like, you're bad when you're trying and you're bad when you don't care. Like, just please stop. get out of my life now father that's all i need jess mid homer's like i was using my whole ass like he really trying i'm really trying to do this he's given him 24 whole hours of trying there's no line about it but he's also doing poorly by maggie too like he is eating over her face as he's having her and i guess what it's a biorn or something yeah yeah which again i worry that's another thing i think about like man if i had a kid how would i not

just like, ice bill crumbs all the time anywhere. How would that not be in my baby's face all the time? But just how the baby will graze throughout the day if you forget to feed it? Yeah. And again, Bart just saying like, this is a preview of Bart and Lisa's future as adults of Homer. Just saying like, I'm sure he meant serious drinking. That's why I assume. Like they can just both make jokes about like, our father's an alcoholic, right?

Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. So this is where we're in the speeding up to the ending here as Homer heads back to where it all went wrong and this always reads to me as Homer grasping at straws here as he's trying to find one happy memory among all of the bad stuff in our second to last clip

Here's where it all started to go wrong Am I supposed to be a good dad when I never had one myself Oh dad wasn't even around on Christmas morning when I actually got to meet Santa Claus, some father. In a minute. Dad! Oh, this photo is a blessing.

It eases my pain. Ah! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! This tonics caused me nothing but trouble. You've done all that damage you're going to do.

Ah! I always think Homer is much stupider to than he is. So I forget that he does actually recognize Abe was playing Santa in that photo. Yes. Actually, he, until that very moment, he did think he really met Santa, but he can at least now

recognize his own father in a photograph of being Santa. Yes. At 38 years old, Homer is ready to see his own father in the photo. And that they both burned down the house similarly too, at the same time. The bit too of Abe throwing away, the tonic is the end of the tonic story. There was

one other bit to the tonic in this script for Act 3 where Marge secretly tries to slip some into Homer's like cereal bowl. And so he'll drink it. And Homer's like, Marge, come on. I'm not a machine. And she's like, all right. See, she gives up on it then. So, assumedly, like, that's why nobody ever takes tonic again.

And people in Springfield struggle with erections. Sure. Because Abe stops selling it and nobody could replicate it. Once they get the erections, they don't really struggle with them. Oh, yes, yes. They can't figure out the recipe, just like Tipsy McStagger couldn't figure out. The Flaming Homer. Same deal.

So, yes, both of them are running through a burning house together and the way the two of them running into each other. Like, again, such a great, I saw it. It sold for like $2,000. I wasn't going to buy it. But I saw a sell of them smashing into each other for listed as well. I was like, man, that's a pretty good sell too. I didn't put in a bid on it or anything. But again, I think specifically Wes Archer has been selling a lot of.

his cells because he also sold the one that I never would have paid $5,000 for unless I was a very rich man, but of comic book guy holding up the cell of Scratchy's arm from the episode where Bart gets the cell. I would have. Oh, wow. It was a dream cell, but it sold for over $5,000, which it deserved to because it is a perfect cell to own. But they smash into each other and they come to an understanding. I view this as both of them just kind of settled. for like, ah, like they can't fix the past,

nor will they either wants to really improve. Dad, done! I'm a screw-up. I burned down our house. No, I'm a screw-up. I burned down our house.

You know what? What? We're both screw-ups. It doesn't matter. What matters is you were right when you told me I never said anything nice about you. So,

are you going to say something? something nice now? Well, I hadn't thought that far ahead. Okay, here it goes. I'm not sorry I had you, son. I was always proud that you weren't a short man.

Oh, dad. What do you say? We roll out of grass, son. I'm with you, dad. Now, in the original script, that whole praise and compliment stuff, that is not there. They just end with like,

we're both screw-ups and then do the roll around the grass thing. It's basically the same, but choosing to have a, so are you going to say something nice about me? That feels more like the Merkin style of faking out a touching sitcom ending what is actually like unfulfilling.

Yeah. Yeah. The apology is fulfilling, but then he cannot actually think of anything to praise Homer about except for an element of his being that is not his fault or his responsibility. She's like, you somehow weren't short, and I always like that about you.

That's like that. It's not even you're tall. It's just you're not a short man. Yes. He's not praising him for what he is, but what he's not. That's good, too. It's so great. Like, that's the only nice thing Abe can think of, you know,

I'm still waiting to be told that I'm proud for being, like, over six feet tall. Like, you know, I'm just hovering in between six and six one. I feel like I've earned that praise, too, but I'm still waiting on it. Still waiting on it. Mostly I get like, well, I guess people like that. That's the closest to praise, and I've heard. It's not bad. But yes, even on the commentary, Merkin and Bill and Josh are talking about the ending of just like, well, yeah, everything sucks, but try to be okay with it, kind of murking a school of things.

And also, it's a big fiery ending, like burning down the childhood home that technically survives and it's not burned down the next time we see it. But now, Bob, by mentioning that, I've now angered up my old blood about that. It's a good thematic ending of like, okay, you know what? we will forget the past and we'll burn it down to it never happened. They're like we're leaving it behind. Not never happened. And them rolling in the grass to save their lives, though that looks like very dry grass there. I feel like that

would spread. Yes. It could have started a brush fire. Yes. It could have burned down the whole state or at least like the county. Spittle County could be gone. Is this? But yeah, it's really, this episode and it's dad's feelings for me. Really, it's really hard for me not to associate them with it, not just because of subject matter, but my specific memories of seeing it,

but it feels different each time I watch it as I now have surpassed Homer's age. And I can see, too, it's like, well, Homer, like, you learn nothing to and you're already passing on terrible things to your own kids. And you can hope that maybe Lisa, at least, is a better parent in the future. I also think of Henry's Papa Daddy when I watch it.

It's very strange. I don't know why. But, yes, another great example of why Bill and Josh's episodes rule, why they were given the show, since seven and eight. It's like a nice mix of like a body Fox style sitcom and then a look at generational trauma all in the same episode. Even on the commentary they say this episode is about too many things. But I like just how stuffed it is.

And we saw with all the deleted scenes and the things that were cut from the script that they had so many more ideas. They couldn't work into this. So my head is off to you, sirs. Mike, any final thoughts? I mean, I always love like a father-son story. What I like about this one, though, is sort of what we're saying is that it doesn't fix everything. Like, it's not like, oh, you did love me and you did spend all. these years caring for me. So we're good now. It's sort of like, all right, we're kind of

slightly closer, but we're still fucked. And I appreciate that. That feels a little more real than what you usually get. Not every dad does dress up as Santa Claus for Christmas. So you know what, that one tiny, it gives you a straw to grasp at to then build a fake memory of your childhoods around that you can live in. You know, this episode actually reminds me a lot of the movie Nebraska, which is an amazing movie. So if you feel like this episode, watch Nebraska by Alexander Payne. And that whole movie's in black and white, unlike just the flashbacks in this episode. If you were like, I wish the whole thing was in black and white and I wish Will Forte was

here in a dramatic role. Well, there you have it. It's called Nebraska. I'm not yet a pain completionist. I think that's one of the ones I'm missing. I wish you could trade my hours of watching the descendants for Nebraska now. But I'll catch up on Nebraska. And that's my list of catching up.

Well, Mike, thanks for joining us once again. Let us know where we can find you online and more about what you're up to lately because I know you have a newish book currently in stores. That's right. I have a newish book currently in stores. It's called Good Game No Rematch. It is a comedy book about video games and how I've humiliated myself with them. So please check that out. Also, when is this airing? This is like late May. Okay, so I will be in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival doing my live show Shit Arcade, which Henry and Bob have actually done. But I will be, so if you are in the UK and you want to see really bad video games played live by comedians, I will be there almost all of August. Awesome. Nice. Oh, man, you're going to be like living in Edinburgh. of for like a month yeah that's wild man that's great that feels like it's like a government funded thing to just have like a cool comedy festival there or something their government because i right now i'm gonna i'm losing some money on this okay sure it is sponsored by the haggis industry yeah i look forward to what they will feel about bad video games yeah yeah fingers crossed but no no it's it's always

awesome to have you on mike you're man we've had you on so many times now it's you've got to be in the five timers Club at least by now. I think so probably, especially over the years. Your jacket is in the mail. Anything. Send me anything. I need presents. But thank you so much. Yes. Thank you for having me. Thanks again to Mike Drucker for being on the show. But ask for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get these podcasts ad-free ad-free and also access a huge amount of content on the Patreon. Go to patreon.com.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up there for five bucks a month when you do. You'll unlock ad-free podcast. You'll get them a week in advance. And you'll also access, like I said earlier, a vast back catalog of full-length bonus podcast covering shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the Animated Series, and The Critic.

And at that $5 level, you also get a new episode of both Talking of the Hill and Talking Futurama every month. It's a great deal. Nearly, I think at this point, a nine years worth of content at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, and there is a $10 level two. Henry, what's going on there? Bob is referring to our What a Cartoon Movie Podcast, which is basically an extra free podcasts you get in a month where we cover as in depth an episode of The Simpsons.

We dive into an animated feature film. This month is fun because we are starting up our summer of the Disney in 2010s. We are starting with Winnie the Pooh from 2011, a very interesting film that is the final 2D animated feature from Disney feature animation. The Month before that, we cover TMNT to The Secret of the Us. We have over 10 years of what a cartoon movies for you to go through of us covering tons of Disney, Pixar, Ghibli, live action, cartoon. overseas features, so many cool things there, and it's all ad-free, just like the $5 things Bob mentioned, too.

So head over to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons today and see everything in the back catalog you're missing out on. And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Blue Sky, Letterbox, and many other places as Bob Servo. And my other podcast, by the way, is Retronaut. That is a classic gaming podcast all about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and sign up there for two bonus episodes every month. And Henry, how about you?

You can find me on Blue Sky and Instagram as Talking Henry. I am always posting up a storm there of fun stuff. And if you're following me and Bob on the social media, you should also be following the official account of this podcast at Talk Simpsons Pod. It keeps you up to date whenever we've got new podcasts on the Patreon, the free feed, or any other cool stuff we're doing at Talk SimpsonsPod. And never forget that all of our previously released free podcast can be found at Talking Simpsons.com.

Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for the latest episode of our community podcast. Talk to the audience and we'll see you then. Get two $50. Why not go to the movies and take a camp to your heads house? Stay there. Phone call you later. No, no, no.

Whoa. Homie, what's... Marge, I'll explain to you afterward. What do you think mom and dad are doing right now? Uh-huh.