Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass With Alex Navarro

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

"Smithers, we could make a fortune with these Bible pictures. And I've been looking for a way to launder the money I made selling club soda as flu vaccine." - C. Montgomery Burns Sick of the filth known as "mainstream entertainment," Ned Flanders becomes a budding director and wins over audiences with his gory, Passion of the Christ-like short films. But when an outraged Marge boycotts his financier—Mr. Burns—Ned and Homer team up to get his religious message out there on a much bigger platform: the Super Bowl halftime show. Our guest: Alex Navarro from Nextlander Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Bluesky and Instagram!

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 known for its scriptural accuracy. I'm one of your host, the American Computer Monkey, Bob Macky, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Henry Gilbert, still protesting the Jeff Albertson revelation.

And who was our special guest on the line? Bob, I didn't know you could talk. This is Alex Navarro. Once again, joining you guys. Thank you for having me. And this week's episode is Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass. What should we click on next? Boxers shot by wife?

Beauty pant and diarrhea? Here's a new one. Big ass Parizhnikov. This episode originally aired on February 6, 2005, And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Happy big game day to all who celebrated it. At the box office, Boogie Man defeated the wedding date on video game consoles NBA Street, Volume 3 is released. And yes, on this night, the Patriots defeated the Eagles 24 to 21 in Super Bowl 39.

And at the halftime show, it was Paul McCartney performing a nipple-free performance. It was the first nipple-free half-time show on record since the previous year, correct? Yes. A number of years since nipple. Paul McCartney kept it on lock. That was the sign of regression. I feel bad for Paul McCartney, who I would love to listen to him play songs, but that's like, okay, we need to not upset people this year. Let's go with Paul McCartney.

We'll have him end with Hey Jude, and everybody will love it because it's the most sing-alongable song in existence. He's not only a beetle. He's the safest beetle. Yes, that's true. He's the cuddliest beetle. Now, these movies, Henry, I believe you made them up. I'm calling Henry a liar. These movies aren't real.

Boogie Man? I remember the wedding date. I do remember that movie. It did exist. The Boogie Man feels like the fourth one of these I've had to name of like January horror film no one remembers. But yes, it stars nobody, but it is produced by Sam Raney. So that's why I think it got any kind of release. But then again, it was like another January horror success, which I feel like we're out of that era a long time ago now.

in the box office of the January horror dumping ground. I mean, they still do it. They still definitely dump movies that they don't know what to do with in January. The difference now is that nobody goes to movie theaters anymore, so those movies almost always die, as opposed to the rare instance where someone just like, hey, this actually doesn't suck. And the wedding date I only just learned about because a friend of the show,

Lewis Pitesman, he has a new podcast where he is going chronologically through the career of Amy Adams, and she had an early acting role. in that film, which is a Deborah Messing, Dermit Mulroney rom-com. And the whole thing is that, is it that he's gay and that she's like bringing him sort of like as a beer? Like, you know, like it's my date, but you're gay, so we're not going to get into a

relationship. I feel like that's what I remember the plot of that being. Or he's a sex worker. Now it's feeling like he was like she hired him to be the date and like as the cover, but then they fall in love now. Yeah. Either way, that's where it's going, I would assume. It was part of the operative. to make Debra Messing a movie star, and it didn't work. Didn't work out.

Real shame about that one. Oh, yeah. Now you can see you're making a lot of posts. Yes. Who needs to go to the movies? And Alex, you were a professional video game reviewer for many years. I still are, and way before me and Bob worked in that field. And so, did you review NBA Street Volume 3, or you must recall it, at least?

I don't, I know I reviewed at least one or two NBA streets. I think by the time Volume 3 came around, I may have passed that one off to someone else. but I definitely did a couple of those. I think NBA ballers was also a going concern not too long after this. There was a lot of weird attempts at arcade basketball around this time. You better believe I rented this one for the GameCube. I think we all remember that. Oh, Mario's in this one, right?

Yes, yeah. That rare time can EA or other people sell a game on the GameCube if they can get Mario to be in it? Much like how Link was in Soul Calibur 2, they get Mario Luigi. and I want to say Peach as the three-on-three team for only the GameCube version of NBA Street. Yeah, this is around the time that Square Nix is making a Mario basketball game for the DS. That's right, yeah, with RPG elements in it.

Like, Cactuar was like a playable character in that too, wasn't it? There's a Mugel in there, yeah. Well, the official name of this game is MBA Street V3, and I choose to believe it's a prequel to Dangan Rompah V3. That was for 23 people. Thank you. And I'm one of them. that's what is happening on this very busy night in the Super Bowl

and we're going to talk a lot more about what happened on the Super Bowl that night but that's what happened the day this famous episode of the Simpsons aired in 2005 and joining us once again is Alex Navarro from Nextlander and Alex last joined us to talk about the L album welcome back to the show Alex and also thank you for coming back after that yeah I was going to say that was torture thank you for having me on for a thing that I hated a lot less than the thing we did last time That album was a nightmare.

A season 16 episode of The Simpsons is it looks pretty good next to having to listen to the yellow album. And Homer's singing funny how time slips away. So it's interesting. I was super off the show by the time this aired. I was maybe checking in every once in a great while, but I had kind of moved off of the Simpsons. But I do remember watching this episode specifically as the lead out from the Super Bowl. And, you know, other times I have not watched, but at the time I was very, much a Patriots fan. So, and I'm just going to admit this here to everyone, I was a Tom Brady

fan at the time, so hearing he was going to be on the show, I was like, you know what, I should give this a shot, and I did end up watching it live. Well, Alex, I think you and 24 million other people had the same idea. Yeah. I didn't think it was special in that regard. Oh, also I should mention that halftime show that year was sponsored by AmeriQuest Mortgage, which for some reason dissolved in the year 2007. I'm not sure for what reason. A mortgage company dissolved. You think that would have been really solid kind of investment, you know?

That just reminds me of how the recent Super Bowl had tons of commercials for things that I also hope will last as long as AmeriQuest Mortgage did. And their advertisements. Well, I brought up the ratings. I think you said something about those up front, Henry. But this, I think for a fashion was, I believe, the second highest rated Simpsons episode of all time. Damn. Maybe still is. Yes.

Yeah, I believe it is. I had seen the number 23.4 out there, but basically 24 million viewers just on live immediate. Yeah, that was the news. I have the news report right here. A competitive game helped keep fans interested. And then Fox viewership peaked at 10 p.m. Sunday with the last quarter. And then the Simpsons drew 23.1 million viewers immediately after,

for the Venable cartoon's biggest audience in 11 years. Yeah, these are like Simpsons. in season two numbers. Nothing will be as highly rated as Bart Gets and F, the season two premiere. But yeah, this I don't like that this episode is that popular in terms of the amount of people who watch it because I do enjoy some season 16s.

This one's a little rough in my estimation. Also, to put it in perspective in that article, they said, to compare it, the high at the time and I bet it hasn't been beaten since, was the Friends episode in 1996 that followed the Super Bowl. They got 52.9 million.

Wow. And the low at the time was alias in 2003 they got 17.4, though I bet we've gotten lower than that. I think so. And just to let everyone know what The Simpsons pulls in these days, the numbers are very irregular. There's never like a through line like, oh, it's normally around 2 million. But I have noticed that some episodes do get less than a million viewers these days. But that's just the broadcast version. That's not counting the people that are probably all streaming it the next day on Disney Plus. So it's unfair. But just to show you how things have changed in 21 years. Yeah, I was going to say, like I was wondering how much even reporting they're doing on that stuff now because I imagine

outside of the adults who have just been watching this on network television for basically their entire lives and are just used to it like most people I have to assume are consuming it via streaming these days. Now that I don't watch pro wrestling as much I don't even really pay attention to the ratings for anything now. Like that was the only time I knew what TV ratings currently are because of the rating battle of pro wrestling. Brother, I could not agree more. I know way more about TV ratings and pay-per-view by rates than any human being in my position should know just because of that drive-by fandom.

The Simpsons, though, getting this spot was interesting because, like, it was announced July 14th, 2004 in a variety article called Homer's Football Follies. But Al Jean on the commentary indicates that, like, they knew in, like, March, right? I think that's what they say. Like, they knew pretty early they were being careful. Yeah, yeah, they had a lot of time to put this one together. It's a big move on, like, Simpsons in season 16 being. given that slot over a big debut of something else.

Like, that to me feels like Fox didn't have faith in whatever their current crop was enough to like, they wanted Simpsons to be the lead-in to a new show instead of a new show debuting after it. Yeah, and that new show was American Dad. Yeah, it is a bit odd that American Dad just didn't get that slot because I believe Family Guy got the Post Super Bowl slot. There was no Simpsons lead in, was there? Am I misremembering? No, actually, you're right, Bob. The funny thing is, six years earlier in 19.

1999, it was the reverse. It was that family guy got to go on first. And then Sunday, Cruddy Sunday, the Simpsons episode where they also went to the Super Bowl, that one was the 30 minutes after show. And it got 22 million viewers. Was that the Fred Willard one? Yes. Okay.

And the more things change, the more they say the same. I mean, we are at war again and American Dad is back on Fox again. Yes. Oh, man. And that new season's so good so far. I watched the first episode. I was like, man, American Dad, such a funny show. Oh, I haven't seen it yet. I'm going to be watching it before we do our American Dad episode.

You're spoiling it, Henry. I mean, whatever we'll do that. Alex, you said you recall this Super Bowl. I mean, you also stick around normally to watch the thing that's on after the Super Bowl? Almost never, in fact. You know, I think the thing that got me to watch it was my latent than Simpsons fandom and just the desire to see whether any of those athletes could handle some voice acting or not. And one or two of them kind of can. Like, they're not the worst performances I've ever heard on the show, though there are a couple that are maybe a little closer to that.

But the actual episode, I remember watching it because, again, I'd been out of Simpsons for at least a couple of years at that point, and I was like, okay, let's just see where they're at these days. And I remember just finding this episode very baffling in a lot of ways, like, not horrific. Like, it's by no means the worst episode I've ever seen, but trying to jam a Passion of the Christ parody into your Super Bowl episode and then somehow figure out how the Twain shall mean. not an easy task and I'm not sure they pulled it off. Yeah, there's a lot going on in this episode and I feel like their later take on Christian media about the left behind movies and books

that's a lot better than what's going on here because it is very strange. We'll get to it, but Marge is against Ned's violent Christian movies, but then she is just sitting there waiting for his halftime show to start. Yeah. Not feeling conflicted at all.

They kind of forget about the story that they lose about to the third act. I can see how this episode gets, you know, they come up with it as Tim Long is the writer of it, but it was an all-hands-on-deck thing because it's the big deal episode and one of the first produced in season 16,

a production season 16, even though it's airing like four months into season 16. But yeah, if they're writing it, say, in March, then, or even April, what's everybody thinking about still? They're thinking about in February 2004, you have Janet Jackson's nipple is exposed by Justin Timberlake, and everybody can't shut up about that. And then at the same time,

the Passion of the Christ debuts on like Ash Wednesday, and it's a gigantic event and a big lightning rod for controversy as well. So you jam them together. I think they recognize that both show an expression of George W. Bush-era American conservatism, but I also think they're not, since this is being done with some light involvement or approval of NFL, I think to a degree just by the fact that it's after the Super Bowl, and they say Super Bowl in it. I feel like they're not allowed to make the connective tissue directly

of this is about the Janet Jackson thing. Oh, yeah, they can't even reference it. Like, they can't talk at all about anything specific to Super Bowl halftime shows other than the fact that they are making fun of the fact that they used to be pretty stupid. And wait, do they say Super Bowl at all on this one, or are we back to the big game? When they're playing the clips of old halftime shows, they go like the Super Bowl half-time show, yeah. I know that's the rights issue, but I guess Fox had the Super Bowl that year,

so it wasn't a big deal. Now, we will get into the episode, but I will say that when I first saw this in 2005, I was probably at my grumpiest about the Simpsons and the decline of the show. And I felt that the most insulting thing about this episode is the fact that all of the guest stars have their names printed on their outfits,

and that still bothers me. Do you think I'm stupid? Okay. I'm not going to confuse Michelle Kwan for Yao Ming. So, Michelle Kwan is the one that absolutely, you can say that probably should not have happened, but these other men do, on a day-to-day basis, do wear shirts with their names on them regularly.

That is true. That is true. I felt like it was there for the benefit of the viewer. Like, well, you don't know who some of these people are. Or maybe not everyone in the room is going to be a figure skating fan, perhaps. Yeah. And I mean, at the time for 2005, these athletes, these people, I think with the exception of Michelle Kwan, who was pretty well known worldwide at that time, were still pretty young. Like Tom Brady, yes, this year is the year he wins his third Super Bowl. So everyone kind of knows what his mug looks like at this point. But, like, LeBron had been in the league for like two years.

Yao Ming had been in the league for like two years. Warren Sapp, while a fun guy is not the most immediately recognizable NFL personality, even of this era. So I see why you do that. But I agree with Bob. I don't think it's necessary. I think that if you need to label your guest stars, you should not include as many, perhaps. Perhaps, yeah. I wonder, too, if they were thinking about international audiences on this of not knowing who they were or when this air is in England, perhaps.

True. I mean, in general, what do European viewers think of episodes that are all about the Super Bowl a thing that, I mean, it does air. It airs everywhere, yeah. You can watch it, but how aware of it are they as far as the advertisements go to? I bet they're dubbed by all the best strikers from West Ham.

That's all I've got. I'm sorry. The real football. The Simpsons were also adjacent to an ad controversy from that very Super Bowl in 2005 because do you guys remember the Go Daddy ad from that year of the Super Bowl. Was that the Danica Patrick one?

No, it was their version of a wardrobe malfunction parody. Oh. An attractive young lady wearing a spaghetti strap top is being called before a congressional hearing to talk about her curvacious body

upsetting people. And then one of the straps breaks and she says, oh, I'm having a wardrobe malfunction. And the comedy is from there. Go Daddy paid for it to air twice on the Super Bowl. after it aired early, it was then going to re-air in the fourth quarter, but somebody decided it would not air its second installment, and they banned it. And instead, they played a Simpsons commercial for the episode that would play afterwards instead. Fascinating.

Yeah, this is a very weirdly puritanical age 2005. In fact, Algin, on the commentary, brings up the fact that they couldn't show like butt cracks. They'd be careful about how much nudity they were showing on the show in general. But they said like Fox was instilling a culture of fear in them. Like you better not ever show a butt crack or cleavage or anything like this because the FCC could fine us. The fines are going to be enormous. We can possibly cancel your show. Like they were really terrified of censorship and the fines that would come with it.

But when did that start? Because, I mean, again, for all the years I was watching The Simpsons during its heyday, I feel like there was at least three butts per season. Yeah, he points out the hypocrisy of Fox censoring the Simpsons on Sunday nights. but then in syndication, an episode with like Homer running around with his ass hanging out for 20 minutes can be just shown to children after school. There's an episode where the entire stinger is just Martin Prince's butt while he sings. Like it's like it's just there for a while. And also hardcore nudity. Yeah.

The entire montage of all the nudity on the Simpsons. They did a super cut. Yes. It's insane. They were getting that pressure, which is crazy too because they also not only bring back family guy at the same time, but also Greenlight a second show from Seth MacFarlane. which is going to like fight them on showing ass even more than the Simpsons would, I think. Also, I do have personal memories from this too. I think I watched the Super Bowl, but the host city was Jacksonville, Florida that year.

And I was living in the suburb of it, Orange Park, Florida. And it was an exciting time of hosting the Super Bowls. The only time I've lived, no, I guess I lived in San Francisco when they had the Super Bowl one year, too. That was the only other time. Boring. Well, to be fair, San Francisco has never had the Super Bowl. Super Bowl, either South San Francisco or Santa Clara has had the Super Bowl. Okay, that's true.

It didn't really have the Super Bowl. It's nowhere near the actual city. Yep. The Jacksonville Super Bowl, I remember it well because friends were all bragging about, and you could just make up anything, but they would say, like, oh, I saw this celebrity or this player at the Waffle House on Blending Boulevard or whatever. And one of the weirdest ones I remember is a coworker at Blockbuster Video where I worked in swore that he saw 50 cent driving by in like his armored,

limo and waved at it, which again, I swear that's not a phantom memory because that literal thing happens in the next episode of The Simpsons where 50 Cent is a guest appearance in it as well. It's just what he was doing at the time. And I guess now all of our listeners know, Blanding Boulevard is a place where all the stars come out to shine in Jacksonville. I worked two different jobs on Blanding Boulevard. It's the major street in Orange Park.

One other Jacksonville story I remember was to show you the power of the NFL, at least at the time in Jacksonville because the Baptists had a lot of power in the local government. You know, there were like bars couldn't stay open late. The only gay bar in town was constantly being like raided or at least had pressure from cops of like, you better check every ID, all that kind of stuff. Tons of stuff on drinking. But for Super Bowl weekend, they let open container laws just lapse for the whole weekend because they're like the money from the NFL is too big. We have to let go of our moral cause here. New Orleans rules apply. Yes. It became just like Vegas too, yeah. The last thing about this being the post-show episode, it's funny that

again, Al Jean is overseeing this, and he was one of the writers or executive producers on the Lisa the Greek episode where Troy McClure is used to make fun of this idea with Handle with Care for the original odd couple. But I guess it eventually worked for Family Guy and American Dad, despite the ups and downs those shows have suffered and getting canceled and kicked to different networks and stuff. They're still around, and I don't think they would be if they weren't put in front of the eyes of that many viewers at once with their debut. Now, I'm not a regular American Dad Watcher. I never have been, but, and feel free to correct me on this. But my understanding is that that show has gotten markedly better since the early years of it and is, in fact,

probably one of the better long-running animated series that is still going. Yeah, people really underestimated. I totally understand why, given Family Guy's reputation, but I feel like after a slightly shaky season one, the show, like, figures out what it is and goes pretty crazy, and it is consistently good from that point onward. It doesn't take that long for it to, find itself, at least in my opinion. But there's a lot of seasons I'm going to have to go dig through now, because that first season was the one I watched, and I was like, this is all right, but it just didn't do anything for me. I'd say you've got 300 good episodes to watch.

You can start in season four, and I think you're doing pretty good. All right. I'll get to work. I just rewatch the pilot for no reason. I wouldn't watch that for any reason, but I watched it again. I thought, well, this is funny. What the hell was my problem? I think at that point, if I remember correctly, it was just the McFarlane thing was like starting

to get a little oversaturated. And I think it's like other shows were getting abused. Futurama was canceled. The rest of development was getting mistreated. So you viewed whatever would come on in its place as the enemy. Right. To put in perspective where things are right now for post-Super Bowl stuff, this year after the Super Bowl, it kind of went two ways,

which was on broadcast TV, they just were like, oh, and here's the Winter Olympics. Because it was happening at the same time as the Super Bowl. So they just like, they played alpine skiing and figure skating, big events for the Winter Olympics. But if you were watching on Peacock as I was to tune, into the Super Bowl. They were like dropping right after the Super Bowl.

Kiki Palmer starring in the remake of the Burbs as a streaming series. Which I didn't watch it so I can't speak to its quality but I will give them credit that. American Dad voice actor Wendy Shaw is in it so though not playing her same character from the original

film The Burbs, but still they've got some legacy sequel power there with Wendy Shaw's involvement in The Burbs the TV show. Also if you wanted to see what the ratings were but not have to look it up. Just pull out your Simpsons DVD sets because there'll be a little pop-up as the credits begin. And if you hit Enter, you can see the press release.

Fox put out congratulating the Simpsons on over 23 million viewers. But let's get in the episode itself here. After a quick totem pole family pose in front of couch, which it's a funny drawing. I like how simple that is. I feel like they'd never landed on that one back in the early years. And it took them 16 years to not involve any props, I guess, with this one. This is where the family arrives for a day at the park, where they're going somewhere cheap. But this feels like L.A. writers complaining about having to see the unhoused at like Griffith Park or other places.

I don't know. This feels like it's complaining not about public spending or lack thereof. That it's just, I have to see homeless people when I go to the parks. That's how it reads to me. I don't know about you guys. Yeah, I can see it. I also think that it feels like just the laziest way they can get you into this auction thing, which is where they're going to get the story going. And this actually has one of my least favorite things in all of this era of Simpsons,

or at least the episodes I've seen, which is taking a one-note joke character, like the crazy cat lady, and then trying to spin it off into some unexpected direction, but not for any good reason or for very long. Like, just doing it long enough to, like, throw you for a loop, but then never really wrapping around to a punchline of note.

I give Tress credit for thinking up, What is her normal voice? She found something to do there. We know she's struggling with profound mental illness and she needs like a social worker to keep track of her. Unfortunately, the system cannot support that. And like the whole joke is just, oh, by the way, it wears off because she's not actually taking pills.

She's just taking sugar pills or whatever. And then she just starts throwing cats again immediately. I would think the government wouldn't even supply her with free Reese's pieces to act as a placebo. Yes. I totally forgot what this carnival or this auction was for, but it's all to get the camera, which kicks off Ned's plot. Yes, right. It does, I'll give them credit that it all runs together of like, wow, actually Ned gets this and Homer does that and then they come back together and that leads to both of their stories to come together at the end. But I like that they set up that this could work exactly the same if March just said, we should do a charity carnival. And then time cut, charity carnival begins. But instead, for the same amount of time, she just realizes there already is one and they beat you too.

it's great that Marge gets her B-plot stolen. I do like that joke. Darn that Junior League. Now, this charity carnival is distinct from the school's charity carnival that was the Lisa Beauty Queen. It's a totally different charity carnival, even though also it's him and Ned. See, him and Ned compete in a raffle for that one. This is a bidding and it's an auction for it. Although the Duff Blint makes an appearance in both episodes. Oh, man. Wow. You're right. And Skinner appears to be wearing his B. Sharp's outfit. They have a bid here of Homer making a bad first bid of bidding all of his money and then instantly tearing up, tearing up his money, which was funny. Funniest joke in the episode, actually, honestly, is where that circuit goes with him eventually just tearing up as cash when he fails the bid. And this is like the last time you could have a can, well, not the last time, but camcorder jokes are getting old.

Soon it'll be the smartphone era. Yeah, that's an old school big boxy camcorder. At first I wasn't excited about a Homer and a toilet stall joke, but you know what? the fact that he actually did win a teddy bear in it for some reason, it won me over. I appreciate it. Then we go to the frog flipping game, which those are a pain in the butt. I think I've only tried those like once or twice in my life. I think I've just never attempted it.

It looked like of all the rigged carnival games, when it involves water, that just adds an element of slipperiness that I feel makes it even more unfair. Also, you don't want carny water splashing back on you accidentally. That's no good. These frog flipping games are pretty much the type of games you have to play to try to win something at Universal Studios for the Simpsons theme park stuff, which they have such good prizes there

of rare things you can only get there. But you have to play like a shoot the water to make the horses run things. Yes, I have a giant plush skinner right behind me that you cannot buy. You have to find someone who's won one from Universal in a very rigged carnival game. Do you want a Homer Simpson isotopes hat

for the baseball team? Well, you better be good at throwing in milk bottles. Oh. But Bart actually does a great job And he wins a giant squid with sunglasses Though it needs dreadlocks to be complete, I think Yes I really feel like this episode finds Homer

Jumping around and dancing and vamping very funny But it immediately is tiring to me Yes Especially considering it's the set up for It's the labored setup for what will be the thing Going forward in the episode But it lingers on it so long And the bit with Moe and the fries

And all of that is just like It's more of that like We're just throwing random things out here and hoping they're funny. Yeah, the Mo asking, do you have fries with that shake and Homer giving him fries? That was, like, incredibly corny. Yes, like, not even, like, particularly funny. No, and say, but, like, we've seen funnier Homer dances, say, and dance in Homer. And also, like, Dan Kesslinetta is using every wacky noise in the books he's got, but he's done better at this, too.

Like, it just feels it's animated fine, but I don't know. I've seen better for that, too. It just doesn't, it's not fun enough to make you go, like, oh, I totally understand why the most famous people, people in the world would get him to teach them how to do dances in the end zone. Yeah. Yeah. And you brought up Dancing Homer. I was thinking of that too, Henry, because this episode does not, like, steal from it or whatever.

But Dancing Homer exists as a precedent to let you know Homer enjoys when people have fun and are fans of his wild dancing, especially for the sake of sports teams. So the fact that he is let down by this later is very strange to me. The fact that he's disappointed, like, oh, the world loves my dancing. I hate this. Yeah, actually, that's a very good point. that Homer's dancing here is shameless, but for the plot to work in a minute or two, he's going to have to have shame about it

and be ashamed of it and embarrassed. But Homer starts it off by basically embarrassing his son, which Bart gives an earnest i. carumba then. They were doing a lot of that in season 16. Like, he just started saying, I carumba again. But yes, this is where Ned starts filming his very lengthy performance

and whipping his shirt off. This is where a scene I hate happens. I caramba. I'm number one. I beat my son. Victory is mine. So kiss my behind. Boom, jacalaka, like a...

In your face. Boo, chah, cacao, bah. My son flips frogs like a girl, yeah. A poo. Who's your daddy? Bapu-d-d-a-d-d-d-ow-d-d-d-d-d-oh. Hey, Homer, the fries come with that shake. Sure do.

Mm. Hmm. He makes me look cool and cool I am not. May I upload your footage onto my website? Well, sir, I don't believe we've ever met. My name is Jeff Albertson, but everyone calls me comic book guy. Well, I'll just call you friend. Here's your tape, friend.

Yeah, hey, Macquaraining hates that too, Henry. He was hitting the thumbs down. I'm with him. I was going to say, they've done this joke before, and I'm never a fan, although it is funny in the moment, but then the, character is stuck with that forever, so it stops being funny. But like, now the squeaky voice teen is named Jeremy. The sarcastic clerk we see a bunch is actually named Raphael.

They will often just give these characters whose names are descriptors of who they are, just boring regular names as a joke. But then the name sticks. So when you're looking up sarcastic voice clerk, it's like, well, of course you mean Raphael, correct? Side show Bob called him that once. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, they weren't thinking of wikis here. Though Al Jean did say, it's now from like a taken down tweet. I couldn't find it anyway. And then Al Jean said, like, no, this was about annoying nerds who didn't want him to have a boring name. And you know what? It worked, Al Jean. You did annoy me. I am the nerd.

You annoyed. Yes, the joke is like, nobody ever asked me. My name's Jeff Albertson, a boring name. And Matt Graney, though, his specific anger is because he always had a different name in mind for comic book. I think they never could get him to do, which he always wanted to be Lewis Lane. Lots of people to call him by that because it sounds like Lois. and I wish they had gone with that because at least that's in the spirit of Matt Graining kind of comedy as opposed to just like the joke is it's nothing.

I would have preferred Mac Graney be happy. I'd also just prefer comic book. I just not have a name. That'd be good too. Yeah. You mentioned they've done this elsewhere with other characters. I feel like if this was the only character you did this with, it might linger in a better way in my mind.

But I saw this episode watching it again. And I'm like, oh, right, they did do that joke. They did give him a name. And then I realized I had prompted. forgotten about about five minutes after this episode aired. Like, I had totally forgotten they even did this. I think that reminds me, too, of a thing that keeps happening in the Simpsons where they've killed Mrs. Glick twice in the show.

And they forgot it. So when they do like, oh, man, we just did this thing with this crazy character. It's like, well, if you don't remember it from it happening 10 years ago, but in season 21, like, then was it that impactful? Or are you going to just kill her again? Like, could comic book guy in season 39 be given a new name because they just forgot? God his name is Jeff Albertson. That's possible.

I do think the listeners tell me if I'm wrong, and if you guys remember one, let me know. But I think it's true that Ned and Comic Book Guy before this have never talked to one another. They've been in crowd shots before, obviously. But I think they've never spoken to each other. That seems right to me. Now, Common Book Guy is asking for the video to upload to his website. Now, we're in February of 2005. And I did want to note that the first YouTube video was uploaded in April of 2005.

and I believe the site was available for everyone to use and upload their own things to by, I think, December or September of 2005. So we are at a pivotal point in history. Comic-Buy probably I would have to go like to FARC or to E-BOM's world to upload this. Internet video was a thing, but we did not have YouTube yet. Well, and on top of that, it was a specialized thing, right? Like it was this kind of website that he is promoting here is the kind of thing that did exist, the place, the hub for dumb videos that before the concept of virality sort of was

out there and could be shared everywhere. And that was basically a really cheap and easy way for some, you know, nerd who had a lot of time on his hands to basically make a little bit of ad money if there was such a thing back then. Yeah, Jeff's website, Dorks Gone Wild, totally is an e-bombs world or something awful must have hosted videos like these back then, too, right? Or was it more of just, was it just a comedy website? Oh, Henry, you insulted something awful.

Okay, there's something awful forums. You could find people sharing them on there, right? Okay. Something awful. original comedy. I'm sorry, I'm talking to one of the best writers. I'm leaving this podcast. I apologize.

My friends would frequent eBombs world. I'd only go on these sites when a friend would be like, dude, check it out, like that kind of thing. And of course. Style project for anyone, perhaps? The edgiest friends would take us to there until eventually I would have to say, no moss. No moss.

By the way, nobody is squatting on dorks gone wild.com. I looked it up. There's nothing there. So perhaps that IP, sorry, that URL is available. I was also thinking of that streaming reality, when they show the kids in the opening clip there of the bullies, they have to download the video and play it in quick time. It is not a streaming video when they want to watch Homer's video.

No real media for a comic book guy. Also in the computer lab, we see that kids looking at porn. They're also playing basically a Newgrounds video game of shooting Girl Scouts, which that's a PG game on Newgrounds back in 2005. Now all those New Ground guys have either gone insane or they make a lot of video games these days, and they're very popular. Or they make popular animated series on Adult Swim. Or they did.

At a time. I mean, even titles like Boxer Shot by Wife, it's like, I think of the Mr. show joke of like Train Hits Dumbass being the name of one of those. I had a friend growing up who back before you could very easily transfer files around, we all had a group of shared FTP servers that were on our computer, where we just, you know, if you want to dump stuff that would share among the friend group, that's how you would do it. And this one particular friend was very good at finding the best videos of people getting owned by large vehicles or animals or other terrible things that were circulating around the internet. Not a lot of like faces of death stuff, but, you know, the stuff that was like a tier or two below that.

So I had ready access to the worst videos or the second worst videos the internet had to offer, but only in a private capacity. It seems like for all the talks about how things change or not over time, like it feels like now you're not passing around at the office, like videos of people like being run over or like horrible things like that. I don't know. No, those just show up on your regular social media feeds. That's true. You know, right now Reddit really likes to show me gym injuries.

And I keep saying, like, stop showing me these. I don't want to see like, here's why you need a spotter. And I don't want to see somebody like break their arm. Please stop showing. Facebook is very confused. it's like, well, we know you have a bird. I bet you would love videos of birds being injured and killed. Wouldn't that be great?

Here's a bunch of them. Oh, man. Well, and now mix into that as well, like the slop generation, like you're might even just getting like the slopification of that shit. So you're not even seeing a real person's injury anymore. And what's the fun in that? They then are going to send this spas around the world to quote the characters. And they're doing it via email.

That's how they had to do it then. I mean, it's our job to nitpick. every element of this show as critics. And I will say this montage is missing music. It's very, very odd. I felt like there should be a sting for every different country that floats by to kind of approximate the kind of music that emerges from that country. But it just plays out in silence and the laughter noises each country makes.

It just feels very odd to me. It feels like there's a pop song. They tried to license it didn't happen. And then they just didn't get around to doing it. That could be right, too. They've got two very famous jock jams in later in the episode. So maybe they spent all the money on that. could be. And on an Olivia Newton-John song, which is not cheap either. So it goes around the world. It's

the story of he's going viral, which was the plot of most comedies, I feel like, in the 2010s was X goes viral again, stories. And the outset of that, this is before like virality on the internet was really a thing. It was more just like every once in a while you had like a Numa Numa kid or something that would crop up and then, you know, sort of recede back into the background. And everything stuck around longer, though, was the thing. That was the real thing. That was the real thing. That poor Star Wars kid, I'm like the fat guy on the jury with Homer. It could have been me, but that easily could have been me, and I am lucky it was not. I'm just thinking of how the Last Jedi ends with what feels like a Star Wars Kid reference,

and it really took me out of the movie. That's what took you out of the movie? A lot of it did, the whole casino plot. But yeah, just it ends with a kid, like twirling around like a broomstick. Like, I could be a Jedi too. I'm thinking, you can't just do this. It's in all of our heads. Man, thinking back on that, I was also taken out, not just on the planet,

but learning that like, I think it was Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of the Gleaflops that's on that planet. And his name is, I believe it is slow and low, a Beastie Boys reference, I believe. This is why it should just be

British character actors playing all of your Gleap Glop's in the background to take the we hate movies term, Gleaf Clop there. But it shouldn't just be every celebrity friend of a director doing it. It shouldn't be Daniel Craig or Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Justin Thoreau or whatever.

Hey, speaking of complaining about things, I also think they totally lose Homer just goes outside with his trash can after that montage And it goes like, I'm sick of the internet laughing at me I was like I think there needs to be like a scene of him at work Learning that everybody's laughing at him online Like there's no moment of discovery for him Yeah, we lost some connective tissue there

There's two deleted scenes on this And neither of them have to do with that None of them are Mr. Burns walking into his console And being like, you're the monkey I saw on the internet No No but they had to have time for a Donkey Kong parody, which like, this is a real gamer episode of The Simpsons, this one.

That's true, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, and this is fine. It feels like this should have happened 10 years ago or something. It just feels like 2005 is a little late for this, but it's okay. Didn't it? Like, I feel like they, I mean, one, they've definitely done Mario and Donkey Kong stuff before, but I feel like there's that one where Donkey Kong, there's the signing. I forget which episode that is, but it's the one where nobody comes to see Donkey Kong signing, and then he throws a barrel at the guy who's like,

nobody wants Donkey Kong anymore. And like that's basically this joke. This is just the longer version of it. That could be Springfield files. Yeah. It has been like almost a decade since that joke. There's more Mario in this. And as we said then, as Bob pointed out too, that joke was wrong because in 1996,

well, Donkey Kong himself maybe wasn't that hot in 1996, but the Donkey Kong franchise of games were quite hot. His nation was hot. I think maybe the writers were not playing Donkey Kong country around that time. Those lucky bastards. Though also, this is funny that they did this joke in 2005 when soon enough on the internet talk about videos going viral, soon people will be all talking about the Donkey Kong high score going into the year 2007.

That's right. Yeah, yeah. We're just on the cusp of the King of Kong. When only freaks like us knew the name Billy Mitchell. Yeah, it's one I wish I still didn't know. And yet. He belongs to the world now. But yes, Homer kills Mario.

on screen. They even have the sound effects and not the full music, but they do have the death jingle. You would think they got permission for that, right? Or they didn't care. Yeah. Either's believable. It's also funny on the commentary they are talking about to date it. They had just been nominated for the short, the longest daycare had been nominated for an Oscar that day. This D.K. parody shows up. They talk about how like, oh, Reckett Ralph ripped us off, is they say, because it had also just been nominated that day. Those Simpsons, they're never going to taste. Oscar goal. That's the closest they're going to get. Maybe the new movie will do it.

No, I feel like you can't count on even Pixar winning the thing anymore. Like after Flo won last year, like, and who knows what won this year? Listeners, you're listening in the future. I don't know. It probably was K-pop Demon Hunters. Probably. I'm going to say Wild Card, Little Amelie won the Oscar. Bob is rooting

for that in his Oscar pick. I haven't seen that yet. I still haven't seen Flo. I'm behind on last year. Oh, Flo was good. Flo's good. The most 2005 indie game coded movie I've maybe ever seen. You have the criterion? I do have the criterion.

Henry, you've got to go with the flow. Didn't you see the marketing campaign? The real spectacle begins. You haven't seen a halftime show until you've seen it, Simpson-style. We want you to produce this year's Super Bowl halftime show. It's the Simpsons and May 16th season halftime show. Even we don't know what Homer's planning, so we can only show it after the big game. Imagine it.

Are you there, bring? I wish I was a screensaver. The Simpsons halftime show! In one week after the Super Bowl on Box. Welcome to the break, everybody. It's Henry Gilbert here, ready to read you some scripture. But first, a big thank you to our guest this week, Alex Navarro, from the Nextlander podcast and website.

We're a big fans of Alex, and he's been on our show for many years now. It was awesome to have him back here to explain football to us as we needed the help. And be sure to follow Alex on social, media on Nextlander. See all the cool stuff that Nextlander does on their official YouTube pages and they have a ton of bonuses on their Patreon too. Thanks again, Alex. And if you enjoy our podcast, you should know that it's only possible because of supporters of patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. They get two bonus episodes a month and they get to hear the regular episodes a week early and with no ads like this one. That's a whole bunch you get for five bucks a month.

Each month you can hear us talk about Futurama and King of the Hill just as in depth as we do an episode of The Simpsons. Sign up right now and you can hear all the previous ones we've done too in our giant back catalog of over 200 podcasts, all the Futurama, all the King of the Hill. We've done every episode of The Critic and every episode of Mission Hill and many of our favorite episodes of Batman, the animated series too. Sign up today to see the gigantic back catalog of bonus features

with new stuff every month and support us at patreon.com. slash talking simpsons. But if you want something nice enough for an NFL team owner, then you need to sign up at the premium level of patreon.com slash talking simpsons. Our $10 a month subscribers there, support us, get all of those ad-free bonuses, I mentioned. And then they basically get three extra podcasts,

in addition to that, us covering animated feature films on the What a Cartoon Movie Podcast. We've covered so many awesome movies on there just last month you'd hear us talk about James and the Giant Peach, the stop motion live action hybrid from the 90s. And this month we're going back to our April tradition of a live action cartoon. We're covering Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Secret of the U's, for its 35th anniversary,

following up us covering the first Turtles movie from 1990 before. And that's just the most recent one out of years and years, hundreds of hours of what a cartoon movies covering Pixar, Jibli, Disney, Warner, Independent stuff, Akira, Cool World, so many things. Sign up today to hear the entire back catalog right now at patreon.com slash talking Simpson. So yes, Homer is upset that everybody is mocking him until a famous person arrives in our next clip. The internet wasn't created for mockery. Was supposed to help researchers at different universities share data sets.

It was. Hello. I'm Dion Overs Street. The running back for the San Antonio Cal Skulls? Five-time Russian Eater, two-time MVP, and star of a Disney Channel movie. I played the gentle giant Stay Off Drugsia. I know why you're here. You want to see me humiliate myself with my stupid dance.

Well, fine. Unca Chalunkalunkalonga. Wrong! Step, step, side, step. I want to buy the rights to that dance for $1,000. Woo-hoo! But why? My workman-like touchdowns never make the high.

highlight real. But if I add your shameless shenanigans, I'll be on ESPN every night. You want to do my dance after you score? You dance straight, and I'll buy any other dances you got two. Woo-hoo! A junka, a comca, a lumanganagga. That is

Marge reacting to Homer destroying the boat painting, which he has a bunch of backups in the closet. That is a good joke in this episode. I like that. There are many. She's painted a bunch of them. As was established, Marge painted that herself. It was not a gift. Yes. So this is a parody of Dion Sanders, a football player I know about because he hosted Saturday Night Live. Not a great

episode, but he did it. When this aired, he had just finished his final football season. I'm just wondering, like, why him? I'm not sure, like, what commentary they're making with him. Maybe they hated his 1994 album Prime Time, which is probably better than the Yellow Album. So, Dion Sanders, I think I'm with you. I think this probably is a parody of him. He is one of the most flamboyant football players, I would say, of the last several decades, like just a person who was like, and super outsized personality and very in the media, even apart from his music career and whatnot, and is still doing that. He is now the coach of the Colorado State or one of the Colorado universities, their football program, and he still can't stop calling attention to himself all the time

and making a big show of himself all the time, because that's just who he is. He's prime time. He's always going to be that. I remember correctly from playing the NFL Blitz games that he made it famous to have like the big steps for like running. I don't remember if he's the one who invented the high step, but he's the one I remember popularizing it. He's the first football player. I remember watching do that. On the commentary, they also mentioned, like, at the time, Terrell Owens was making a lot of news about being fined over his celebratory in-zone dances, I think. Him and Randy Moss at the time were probably the two most out there football personalities of this era in terms of both just, like, you know, getting up to shenanigans and also just being really good

at their positions. So yeah, like it was a couple of years after this, I think, when Randy Moss did the straight up mooning the audience celebration dance, but that was one that I remember was a big lightning bolt for like, okay, do we have to start banning celebrations entirely? Do we have to like make this the no fun league, et cetera? Randy Moss was the one who really kind of went out there with it, but I still think in very entertaining ways. But Terrell Owens was absolutely doing that as well. So somebody actually showed their ass as Homer tells Dion to do in this episode. That would have gone over very poorly. So Rainy Moss didn't even pull his pants down.

He just, like, did the motion, kind of squatted down, and then pretended like he was pulling his pants down to the audience. And that was enough to draw everyone's ire, because, again, we live in an insane puritanical society, especially during the Bush W years. He made us all think about what his ass looked like, which is worse than seeing it. You know, he's an athlete.

I'm sure his ass is fine. I think with, thanks to video games, that's how I learned the term no fun league as a reference to that the NFL, as that's what NFL really means because they don't like people celebrating too much. I learned it because I did play a good amount of the NFL Blitz games on the N64th Friends. And I remember learning like, well, that series is over because the NFL doesn't like how you can power bomb characters in the end zone. It's kind of amazing they ever let that series go the way it did, especially, well, I mean, you can't do it now. Like, the modern NFL would just never allow it, though they did have that Blitz revival.

one point, though they couldn't do it with the NFL license, remember, because they had basically decided that was no longer okay, but we can get Lawrence Taylor. That's just as good. Oh, wow. That game where a testicle can explode in that game, can't it? Yeah, it has x-ray fatalities in it, basically. They basically turned it into Mortal Kombat. Yeah, pretty much. I had looked this up on Wikipedia. It said that in-zone celebrations, like, by 2006, the NFL, like, amended the rules for an automatic 15-yard penalty, you know, doing like who left his feet or uses a prop like a towel or the goal post or post base or specifically the football for an end zone celebration.

Yep. So that has evolved over time. Like I think these days they're a little bit more permissive about like regular celebrations. Like if you're just doing a little dance or you're doing like a choreograph thing with like your offensive line or whatever. Like that's fine. But they're still very anti-pro to the point where I think they've been finding people who climb into these Salvation Army, like, tub that they sometimes have during around Christmas games. Sometimes people were doing that.

I think that people are getting fine for that. There's always some line that someone crosses. Like, these days, the big thing is taunting more so than celebrations. Like, any kind of, like, verbal taunt or now the thing is, if you literally stand over an opponent for, like, a half second too long, you will get a 15-yard penalty. Jeez. Wow. You don't even get a fun dance with that.

That's just, like, standing still. No, it basically boils down to any time some segment of the player population or the ownership, whichever it is, like decides that the masculinity of their players is being threatened by something someone is doing on the field, that's when they pitch a shit fit about it. He also does make a reference to being seen on ESPN, which is funny because in 2024, Simpsons was part of vertical integration with ESPN with their Simpsons Fun Day football, where a game was live recreated of the Simpsons. with Simpsons characters on ESPN Plus and also on Disney Plus.

I watched it live. It was an interesting thing. I'll say that. I'm just realizing, yes, that's right, because ABC and Fox are under the same banner now, so they can do that really easily, whereas back then there was still the regular network split, so the idea of the Simpsons being on ESPN would have been novel.

And they can actually make fun of ESPN or goof on Sports Center as a blater in the episode, as opposed to just saying, aren't we great friends with our friends at Sports Center? Uh-huh. Oh, and there's a funny story about OCD on the commentary. Oh? I guess, I'm not sure who on the animation staff this was,

but the dance Homer does at the end, outside of like spinning around on his head, was a dance one of the animation staff did as a kid when they had a very bad OCD. That was the little dance they would do to calm themselves down, I believe. Ha! Yes, layout artist Cristiana Lang was who they said for that. So she was able to bring the spirit of her OCDs,

OCD, nervous tick into the show. And she's still with the show. She mostly works in layup, but even was an assistant director for a few episodes starting in season 18 and additional assistant sequence director on the Simpsons movie. So still out of Christy Anna Lang. I hope she's doing well. And thanks for sharing that with the world. Or I would have liked hearing her director say that about her.

We hope you gave consensus to that story. I'm going to assume. So we come back for the commercial break and Homer is showing his ass to Dean which he appreciates and writes down. And then Lisa walks in to see her father's ass shown right in her face, which strange. Nothing she hasn't seen before, I'm sure. Yeah, yes. That's true.

This is where we learned that Homer's is teaching obnoxiousness and poor sportsmanship, which is just part of his pyramid of success, which I wouldn't know as a reference if it wasn't for the commentary. Yes. Reference to John R. Wooden's pyramid of success. He is a motivational speaker, and the pyramid has about 30 bricks in it. So we're not going to name what each individual part of that pyramid is. You can look it up for yourself.

And he was one of the winningest coaches of all time in the NCAA championships, too. But this is where I didn't play that clip because there's our first elated scene there. And it mostly would have it when we go over to Ned's. So this encompasses both of them. So I'll just explain how it aired first. We go over to Ned's place. Ned's kids, Rod and Todd, they're watching TV, and they see a commercial for a boner pill called jam it in. Now, what got

cut were even dirtier jokes and I say dirty and has two meanings here because they parody a certain young ladies song in what they're watching on TV. I was born a slut. I will die a slut.

Now everyone watch my boodylicious strut. Cleavage. Back cleavage. Lower front cleavage. I cast ye out of my living room. Ah, that's better. something bland for the flan man. Grandpa, will you take me fishing?

Sorry, Jimmy. Your grandma and I are going to have old people sex. Thank you, Jamitin. Warning, if erection persists more than four hours, consult your doctor, and say thanks for the wood. Daddy? Can I have a... The only erection around here is her entry in the Boys Club Toothpick Tower Competition. That last joke saved it. So I love the story on the commentary.

They had a fight with censors on this one. The original name for the pill was Bonestra. And I guess they point out that the censor is only reading the script. They're not hearing it. So Jam it in, if you're reading it on the page, it's not sound as dirty as Bonestra. I think Jam it in is a filthy joke. Agreed. And it's probably one of the best jokes in this episode.

It has stuck with me these past 21 years. Jam it in might be the filthiest thing they've ever got in the show. It's an instruction of what to do with your erection. You are correct, though. The deleted stuff is definitely filthier. I actually don't necessarily think they made the wrong choice, not including that in the episode. Are they parodying Extina?

Yes, you can see it in the video. If everybody remembers, the Christina Aguilera video for Dirty. Oh, yeah. It is about her announcing that she's grown up, folks, and she's about to get dirty. That's a song. Dirty has two hours, by the way. Yeah, it's that dirty.

What Rod and Todd are watching is a parody of that music video, like the character who is singing has that same outfit in everything. Yeah, they also cut out the use of the word slut twice as well. So you can see for them to parody the filth that's on TV, it had to get cut. They couldn't show the filth that they wanted a parody. It was too filthy. I think the problem for me is not so much the filth as the joke is just not that great. Like, I think you can do an X-Tina joke that is probably along the same lines that maybe just has like one-tier level higher cleverness than this.

Just her saying I'm a slut over and over again is that you're basically doing. just begging for people to not even remember the joke, let alone make it in the episode. And, you know, I've heard a lot of four-hour erection, consult your doctor jokes, but I like that and say thank you for jam it. And hearing Rod and or Todd say, can I have a four-hour erection? It's just a line you don't get to hear them say very often. But this is what finally, you know, sets off Ned that he is going to start making his own Christian entertainment, which is where the passion of the Christ stuff comes in.

But what we really learn is that Ned is an incredible home filmmaker. Like, he is up there with, like, Sam Ramey on Evil Dead with his production values. So these special effects, this editing? It's amazing. He's doing great work, this Ned. The Leftorium is giving him a big budget, I'd say. I'm surprised there wasn't another deleted scene, Henry, because conspicuously, there is the script for Citizen Kane on their bookshelf when Ned is talking about using the video camera. And I'm thinking, whenever there's a prop that's not used in a scene, I think we would normally explain this.

through a deleted scene that we have the clip up, but in this case, I guess we don't. Wow, you're right, yeah. That is not a, he just reaches it off the shelf and I guess it's just a visual joke to catch. You're right. No, I mean, no one even interacts with it. It's just on the bookshelf behind him with all the books.

Surprisingly, they sometimes don't share the deleted scenes. They just don't think you're funny, too. So maybe it's sitting there, but yeah, it's not even, the second deleted scene is a hidden one. You can only see on the DVD, like, menus, but it's not that either. No. They head out.

They're in their backyard filming. This is where they get hit with the first of like a child's questions about the Bible, which your mouth is hoping for us open for these kind of questions. Is this the same episode with the Wise Ases Guide to the Bible? I think Ron and Todd were reading that too. I think Bark got in their ears, and that's why they have these questions. So then we cut to Homer. He's having a good time as he is on the field with the San Antonio of Cow Sculls.

There's a fun bit on the commentary where they do talk about fake sports teams and what gets made up for your fake NFLs and things and how my favorite thing they mention is any given Sunday a film I watched a few times

because it's like aired on HBO a bunch so I was just pop into it it's an insane, ridiculous movie which is crazy for Oliver Stone I know right normally very relaxed they mentioned on the commentary that it both is fake teams

but then they do play in the Super Bowl in it and it also is kind of the NFL but also not the NFL in the movie So it's really weird, and I actually thought about this as you were bringing this up, because it's one of the better examples I think I have of them trying to thread a needle there in something like that because so all the teams in that movie are fake. But at one point there is a conversation, it's the Miami team is the one that's like the main focus of that movie. And at one point, the mayor of Miami is like, you're not doing the same business the dolphins are doing. And that's like, it's like this like weird sort of like reality crashing into the movie for like five seconds and then everyone immediately forgetting about it. Because they actually, you're actually. never get to the Super Bowl. They talk about the Pantheon Cup in that movie. And I think what it is is that they are pretending it's like a rival NFL. Like there is a second football league in America that has its own cup and its own teams and whatever, but it exists in parallel to the NFL. It's like how there's a Don King and Aleutius Suite in Springfield. Exactly. Yes. As well as

Lego Land and Blockoland. This is where Homer is telling him to beat up a leprechaun mascot, which he doesn't want to do because Dion knows that there's a single mother inside. Yeah. The costume. But he gets guilted into it by Timmy Thomas, who I did not know was a goalie for the Bruins at the time until they said it on the commentary, who apparently at the time they were making fun of him for being a right-wing crank because he refused to visit the White House and meet Obama. So this is the Bruins goalie, right? Yes. Yeah.

No, I remember that guy being a real crank. Well, in 2018, it was revealed he's struggling with massive brain damage from concussions. So it's, but you know what? I mean, which player isn't, honestly? Yeah, that's sports. I mean, that's basically anything that isn't figure skating. That's sports. And they still have ACL injuries to deal with, at least.

Well, I'm trying to find the jokes I like in this episode that I'm not a big fan of. And I do like, this is Timmy Thomas. He has Timmy Thomas disease. Yes, I do like any time they can make a, make a wish joke without having to reference real diseases. Yes. I also like that I'm pretty sure the entire reason they gave this character, this last name, is because coming out of Timmy Thomas saying, Ova Sweet is just the most

like overbearing cute thing in the world. So that's just why you give him that name, right? And Tress voices him and Tress McNeil can always make such. She is so good at cute widow voice that then has hacking cough. Yep, sick kids and orphans and Muppets and what have you. This is where we get our first. Here's that music you were hoping for in the previous montage, Bob, as we get going to make you sweat.

Very overused song. We talk about this a lot. Is this uncreative or is it a joke about being uncreative with a song that's used in a ton of montages? I lean toward if you're going to do a jock jams joke, you have to do the most obvious jock jams. I think that there's no point to subtlety if you are making fun of jock jams. That's not why anyone knows what those are. They are just, it's lifting music and pump you up music. And so you just go for the most obvious examples.

We see several of his tricks, including the beaver trick, which would probably get him in the most. trouble because messing with the goal post is one of like the biggest no-noes in the NFL. Yeah, they don't want that. I mean, I get it, especially if you just got a touchdown and you're probably about to go for a point conversion and if you fuck up the field goal like that, literally interrupts the game. Well, see, if it's the modern NFL, everyone's just going to go for two now anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter. Is that where the strategy is at these days?

It's weird, like, not to get on like a long thing about the current NFL, like, but the basic thing these days is that a lot of the coaches are just bigger gamblers than the old ones were. So guys go for two more often, especially at the end of a game if they don't think they can handle a tie in overtime. There's a lot of going for it on fourth down now that like 10 years ago was not as much of a thing. I think they're all degenerate gamblers now. Well, thanks to Polly Market, I'm sure there's a category just for the two-point conversion. Oh, yeah. For every touchdown.

I don't remember if I did the sports betting episode. with you guys or if that's just one that I've talked about a lot but man that episode predicted some things I think you did and I think it's also gotten so much worse since we cover that topic yeah no the fucking you know like fancy jack's lock of the week

or whatever is now just on the broadcast like on actual national broadcasts yeah honestly now it feels like just gambling on sports being on TV like that is the quaint thing you can gamble on the lives of people and who are being bombed at this very moment

all the time. Or in a lighter topic, I just heard the one recently of the White House Press Secretary who ended at such a specific time that it seemed to be done to counter a polymarket of like, if she'd gone over by one minute, more people would have won something.

And like she ended a minute earlier than she normally does, causing polymarket to go. I mean, again, all we are is gambling. What's that line from the wire? Like, all we do is put our hand in each other's pockets now. That's all the America is now. Yep. Just like four scams and a trench coat. That's the whole country now.

So after all of the celebrations, we then get to our first actual famous person in the episode, which is interesting because they do question even on the commentary, like, why is Dion not a famous person? Why isn't this a famous person asking for help? I assumed it was because they needed more lines for this character, and they just did not have a celebrity around long enough to do more with that character. Oh, that's true. Or if they needed to get ADR, like they, they put. Probably can't get LeBron James back in. Probably not. Yeah, that's true.

I mean, what was real Dion Sanders doing? Do we know? I guess he was still playing for the Baltimore Ravens. That's basically it. I think he may have retired by this time, but it was pretty recent. Speaking of The King, why do we hear an early in his career acting role from him? Okay. Yeah, hello.

Homer, this is LeBron James. The fans love my dunks, but they hate my dancing. I think I can fit you in. Let's see. Lenny, can I move you from Wednesday at noon to Sunday at 6? Oh, you know, that's when I play with neighborhood dogs. All right, all right, I'll work it out. You guys are what it's all about.

Yeah, LeBron James. This is his second acting role. I will not count his appearance on WWE. That's not acting. And he was first on an episode of My Wife and Kids. This is his second appearance on TV. And I remember at the time, this is how Outer the Zekeyes die was. I kind of knew who LeBron James was.

I didn't know what a big deal he was. And in, I will say, around 2008, 2009, I was dating some. living in Northeast Ohio. She was a waitress at a restaurant in Akron. And she came home one day saying, oh, my God, LeBron James came in. And she kept talking about it. And she got very mad at me because I didn't know what the big deal was. I was like, he plays basketball?

He's the most famous basketball player. Yeah, by 2009, I think there was actually no more excuse by then, I think. Yes, yes. She was right to be mad at me. I was like, excuse me, I'm working on my master's degree. Probably him being in the audience for a W. WWE Raw episode was the first time I learned of him. I remember, I'm not a basketball watcher either.

I remember it was made as a big event that just like, I think it was. Nike basically like knighted him immediately like before he even played of like, this is the next Michael Jordan, this guy, we're picking him. There was like a whole thing he did after, you know, after he'd been in the league for a few years where he literally did it a whole TV special to announce what team he was going to go to, you know, after the Cleveland Cavaliers. Like he was like a phenom for a long time and I mean, he's still playing now, which is. wild to think about. But like at this time, when this episode aired, like everyone knew he was a big deal, and he

did come into the league as a big deal, but I also feel like this episode kind of did him dirty a little bit, because one, his lines are bad, and two, they really don't capture his likeness particularly well in this. Yeah, I had to be reminded that he once, well, actually, I never knew he had

a mustache. Like, when I imagine even young, LeBron James in my mind, I think of him with a beard, and he's had a beard for a very long time. But, Yes, I also don't think, if you compare how he's drawn as a cartoon in, say, Space Jam, a new legacy, he looks much more like LeBron James when he's drawn there, I'd say. It's kind of like when they got Billy Corgan on The Simpsons before he shaved his head. So now he's just on The Simpsons Forever as a guy with a lot of hair up there.

It feels weird. LeBron James and Billy Corrigan, they can compare quite a lot. I know. But, yes, you're right to be mad at me for not knowing really who LeBron James was in 2008. It was on me. The facts I know about LeBron James is he hates video. video games. He's mean to his children. His son went to the E3

gaming developers convention. I know that. That's what he plays with now is Brani, isn't it? I believe so. I have not been following this season super closely. I know he's still on the Lakers, and I think Brani is also there. I have no idea what state they are in, though. I think maybe not great. This young LeBron, they also have to just give him the

coloring of his calves outfit. It's not outfit. No logos. His cab suit. This also is where they kind of clown on King James on the commentary a little bit there. Because Tim Long says, when he met LeBron James, he came into the studio and says he watches the Simpson Super Bowl special

after every Super Bowl since he was a kid, which Tim Long says is a provable lie because they'd only had one post show before that, post-Super Bowl show before. But they said, well, LeBron thought it was true. That's what it was meaningful about. Yeah, I believe it. I believe that he believes it.

Also, I do like LeBron James being paired with Lenny for comedy is all right. Yeah, I like that. And I also like that this is a thing where you, get another interiority moment with Lenny. We find out a little bit of what Lenny's outside life is like. And all of these guys are kind of born around 1980, and I feel like only Tom Brady still playing, this is how dumb I am. Is he still playing?

No, and we'll talk about what he's doing now when we get to him. Thank you. I think I have some idea, but he is still playing. But people like Michelle Kwan and Yao Ming, they've been retired for a while. I mean, that shows you just how young James was when they did this, that he is still an active player at a high level to this very day. Even after, I would have retired after the shame of Space Jam and New Legacy, but he's sticking around.

I don't know what he's sticking around for, to be honest with you. Not to go off on a tangent here, but it's just one of those things where it's like he really could have left any time in the last few years and probably walked out in a pretty good blaze of glory, but now he's just kind of biting his time, maybe hoping his son gets good? Yeah, I assume it was for the $100 million contract to play with his son. That's what I'm assuming. I don't think he needs the money. But though, I mean, why, how can you play next to your dad who's better than you at basketball on his team as he bosses you around?

That's got to be mortifying, right? Yeah. So after LeBron, we then go to the He Without Siniplex, as Ned calls it. I do, again, finding the jokes I like. I think it's very funny that Lovejoy is confused and then annoyed when he realizes it's a bad joke. Yes, yes. He's like, oh, right. And Ned is going to show off the passion of Canaan Abel, just to make it really clear what they are directly parodying here.

It could be lost to time. If you watch it now, you just think it is a generally conservative Christian film, of which there are many that have come out in the last years. But this is about, you know, the damning of a Harvard professor. Yeah. I feel like we are getting passion too at some point, right? I think that was announced. That has been loosely talked about, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But I believe the Mel is doing it without Jim Caviesel, I want to say. Weird. Well, he's too old to be Jesus. I wonder why. I do think Jim Caviesel has gone too insane for Mel Gibson, which that is like, how is that possible? Boggles the mind. Bob, you still have not seen, nor should you, the Passion of the Christ, right, Bob? No, no.

I refuse to see it. Also, I'm looking this up now, folks. This is official, the resurrection of the Christ, part one coming March 27. Be there. Okay, wait. So all the stations of the cross and his death are in the passion. Two parts of his resurrection, that's like eight pages of the Bible when he's back. The first movie, we're just staring at a cave with a rock roll in front of it.

That's it. Three hours. The passion, I saw it in theaters again. I mentioned it a million times. I will just mention, I haven't seen it a second time, though I pulled up clips of it from YouTube. And I was like, oh, God. Just to be sure of like, I remember. this bit here of like the weird face

or like there's like bugs in the mouth joke in here or reference I was like oh yeah those are the visions that like Jesus of course is tempted by Satan while during the at least the Catholic version of that fairy tale but so that's when in the passion

of the Christ they have the scariest you know weird like dreamlike imagery of course that isn't just like a man bleeding to death as he's ripped apart I think the parody here as much as I have issues with some parts of this episode and the way it connects its story. I think the actual parody here is pretty good. Like the camera work they're playing around with, like the hyper

violence of it, because I mean, that's really the thing about the passion, right, compared to all other Christian media, is that it's just weirdly intensely violent, maybe for no reason. And the newspaper headlines of Massachusetts approves gay marriage and, you know, the stem cell stuff is like, it's blunt, but it's also, it's just a good gag, I think. It's a good way to see a lot of violence done to Rod and Todd, too. I was pausing while I was taking notes, and I thought, well, out of context, this is horrifying. These little boys stabbing each other.

The mark of cane, as it's presented in it, too. It's surprising when they get away, but that is, Lisa will just say it out loud, but that's the point of it of, like, this is accurate to the Bible, so it's horrifying visuals. Like, that's how they got away with it. Yeah, I'm really just curious how the

Flanders got access to these piles of dead animals. Yes. But I don't want to investigate that. Yeah, it's cleavis. Oh, yeah. Also, they confirm on the commentary that the reason Ned has a huge fig leaf is that he has a large dick, which we all know. We know from previous jokes. But just in case you're curious, it's confirmed by the commentary. See, the one thing they're missing in this passion parody that contemporary parody of it at the time or satirizing of it South Park had, which is that every Jewish character in the Passion of the Christ looks a certain way and acts a certain way in not a nice way in it.

I think that Ned, obviously, we don't want Ned to be anti-Semitic in how he has the, you know, the temple Pharisees portrayed, but that's missing a core part of Mel Kippson's vision for the Passion of the Christ. And you wouldn't want to mess that up. I just pulled up a clip of like, okay, the trial at the temple from the passion. I was like, I was remembering it not even as bad as I thought he portrayed Jewish people in that film. Although in one of the episodes we covered recently when Ned dates a movie star, He has a nightmare about Rod and Todd growing up to become Jewish lawyers or something like that. That's right. They convert to Judaism when they move to Hollywood.

That's right. Yeah, it's the, that was very good. In the South Park parody, I remember at least how every Jew is drawn in the passion as they see it when they watch it. But yes, the hyperviolence of it, everybody loves it except for Marge. Weird. In our next clip. Ned, your film was a masterpiece. It turned me from an atheist to a haraithist.

Sir, you have revealed to me a world of faith beyond the world of science. I would pay to see it again and again and again and again, but not six times. I also would pay to see it again. Me too. Here's some guy's wallet. I am that guy. Smithers, we could make a fortune with these Bible pictures, and I've been looking for a way to launder the money I mean.

selling club soda is flu vaccine. Everyone seems so happy, but I'm surprised that Ned. He left out all the good times Cain and Abel had when they were growing up. He's just being true to the Bible, which is pretty violent. And sexy. King David's still someone else's wife. Mary Magdalene was a hooker. Ward, how do you know these things?

That's all in this book. I think we all had our own mental versions of the wise-ass guy to the Bible. Oh, yeah, for sure. Marge gets to be like she is the person who is a Christian See that's the thing they can't have an atheist upset by this It needs to be Marge as a Christian who doesn't like it But again like I said earlier They forget her story you assume from here it's going to be like

Well Marge will find a respectable way to present Christianity to an audience Or the message will be here is the message Christianity should really send And that's kind of not what Ned does with this halftime show No It really disregards what Marge has to do with anything March found a much more respectable financier with the NFL. Yes, yeah. I also think it's interesting that they are using these very clearly Protestant Christians in the show

to do this extremely brutal Catholic version of, you know, the passion story and what. Like, it's a little bit of an ill-fitting parody for me because I just feel like Ned also would find a lot of this stuff very distasteful and sort of like not the way he would do it. But at a certain point, you have a limited number of extremely religious characters to pull from. so you just kind of have to roll with it. That's a good point. As I mentioned earlier about Jacksonville at its very Baptist area, like that's the Christianity in my town.

Catholics at first were the ones going to it at the movie theater I worked at where it was showing, but then eventually it seemed like every denomination of church was renting out as many seats as possible. And I was just thinking like, but this isn't your version of it. Like this is an extremely Catholic version of the passion. So this would go against your.

version of these things, but clearly they were just, you know, they're following the popularity and all that. It's how it seemed to be. Credit to that gigantic piece of shit, Jack Chick back then, he hated it. He was like, why are we watching this like people bullshit? Like, this is the lies. Don't listen to them. Did he do a chick tract about it? I think he did. There was a chick tract I remember where man seemingly lives like a nice life or he's nice to everybody. Then he goes to hell and the punchline is, you were Catholic. That's why you're here. That might be the funniest thing he ever wrote. If people don't know Jack Chick is, he's one of your favorite memes, I think.

What's it quiet? They didn't want to hear his truth. Yeah, that's the one. Also, you know, Ned does not induce enough guilt. That was also like everybody who would come out of the passion, you would feel shell-shocked and then just like, God, I'm the worst. Like, Jesus did all this for me. I'm terrible. It doesn't induce enough guilt either, enough, like classic Catholic guilt.

Yeah, there's nothing in this that makes me want to go be Catholic about it. Hmm. After all of this, it is funny to make people think of the Passion of the Christ, and then immediately like, now it's time for our biggest celebrities in sports right here. The closest thing we have to a Christ figure in modern American society. The athlete. I do think it's at least slightly subversive that they have this post-Super Bowl slot and they're using it to take down the Passion of the Christ,

which is a very popular movie with a mainstream football watching audience. It's kind of neat. Yeah, it is gutsy and edgy to get that box. on the NFL. But then we'll get to it. Weirdly enough, Ned gets a win, kind of. Yes, I do think the show wants you to feel bad for Ned, too, at the end of this act.

But here, why do we hear all the other famous, well, almost all the other famous person. One, as we see over the credits, a joke with another guy gets cut, and they want to save his appearance for later. But this is most of the rest of the voices here. Welcome to the Homer Simpson Showboating Academy. Today we're working on poor sportsmanship.

First, I want you to hurl a ball at the nearest authority figure. Nicely done. Oh my god, it's my hero, Michelle Kwan! You remind me of a young Dorothy Hamel. I didn't know you could talk! Lisa, could you pass the sound? And it's James with the steel! Just help me clear the table.

Sorry, I really don't know you're saying what you're saying wait a second i've read that you speak excellent english shut up kid i got a good thing going here so there we go there's some more of our guests i guess warren sap doesn't talk either no not yet i guess we can go over a few of these folks in case you forget who they are so michel kwan i guess the most decorated skater in u.s history she retired in 2006 just a year after this aired and in recent years she was the u.s ambassador to belize under joe bideon trump said the free right ends here, Kwan, and kicked her out of that role. Terrible. I'm sure she was great at it.

Yeah. Relations with Belize have never been more fraught since we lost Kwan. I feel like she had just won a world championship like a year or two prior to this, too. I know she won like five or six of them over the years, but I feel like it was pretty recent. She was still doing very well around this time. I did read that sadly, an old injury popped up and she couldn't make it to the 06 Winter Olympics. I think she missed him. Yeah. And Yao Ming, so at 7 feet 6, he was the tallest person in the NBA at the time when he played for the Houston Rockets, only Manute Bull and some other guy are taller than him at 7-7.

It's one of them, Victor Webonyama? Because there's a guy right now who's playing for the Spurs who is so tall that he literally went to Slender Man one year for Halloween and walked into the arena as Slender Man. They did explain recording with him and that he didn't know what the Simpsons was. They had to explain it. And then he said to them, do not draw me like monster. I think they did. Of all the caricatures in this episode, I feel like they get the closest to actual Yao Ming

in this versus like a sort of slapdash. caricature. Yeah, yeah. One thing about Kwan is, I realized that she appeared but was not voiced in the Triouse of Horror 10 segment, Life's a Glitch, and Then You Die. She is one of the many famous people going to Mars via Operation Exodus. Oh, wow, I'd forgotten that. I did remember that Michelle Kwan was on Family Guy before The Simpsons. So this is Simpsons ripping off Family Guy. Why do you think Millhouse thinks she can't talk? Because, like, he's never heard her talk in interviews. I don't fully get what that joke means. I think the joke, if I had to guess, is that he's only ever seen her do her ice dancing

and has just no perception of who she is as a person beyond that. Yao Ming, I saw that he's in his retired life. He has a winery in the Napa Valley these days. He's such an interesting one from this time because this is the era, like he was the first big celebrity mainstream Chinese basketball player. There have been other basketball players that had played in the NBA from China,

but no one with this much hype. And he was so managed and he was so, there was all that stuff about like, is the Chinese government going to, let the rockets draft him and all that stuff. And then he walks into the league and then like he's just dealing with all this like drive by racism everywhere. I was actually really relieved watching this that there wasn't some like weird joke about

China or his heritage in there because I mean in this era like Shaq was straight up making like Ching Chong jokes about him like before he had even had a chance to interview him and had to like apologize and shit. Like people were being really weird about Yao Ming when he came in. Is it at least seen as more? It is a more regular thing happening to just have very international players in general in the league now? It was some of that holdover 90s racism where it was just kind of casual and no one was really thinking that hard about it, I think, more than anything else. It wasn't as directed and virulent as some of the other stuff.

But, like, yeah, these days, I mean, NBA is probably the most international outside of baseball, like, of the major sports in America. Like, there's all kinds of people coming in from Asia and Europe and all sorts of other places. So it's not weird to have international players. It's just at the time with where relations were with China, the way we perceive them. Not that things are amazing now, but I think people are a little less weird about it than they used to be. The two of the three jokes they give Yeh Ming are either pretending he doesn't speak English or saying he wishes he didn't leave China. Yeah, and that seems to be the attitude. I think he had a lot of the time, which is that I don't really want to entertain all this American bullshit.

And maybe I, well, at least they're paying me well. And we also learned that Lisa is fluent in Mandarin or she at least understands when someone says I don't speak English in Mandarin. Hey, that is impressive actually, yeah. I thought like, oh, Lisa's reading the subtitles like me, but actually she understands it. It's weird that LeBron James, like, injures himself

and just lays on their table for a while after that. And also then it's weird that after that scene ends, they just have a normal night, like Marge and Lisa are just up sipping cocoa late at night watching their backyard. It's like, but you just have five of the most famous people over for dinner. And they're not even thinking about it anymore.

I think they're just used to it at this point. Like, you know, every six weeks or so, some celebrity comes through the dinner table. They're all sleeping in the same basement, Chester Lampwick slept in. Actually, I guess that, you know, that brings up a good point, Alex, that they're making fun very specifically

about the Passion of the Christ when they had Mel Gibson on their show not that long before this episode, too. I was like, season 9, season 10. Yeah, I believe it was the 99 debut, I want to say. Yeah, yeah. The fall 99 debut, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Though this stuff with Mr. Burns, like that does feel a little like they want to get Ned off the hook a little bit here. And hey, I'm all for blaming the rich guys, but they want to blame the rich financier of, you know, these conservative Christian films more than the Christian film maker, I think. Well, and the other thing with, like, the Mr. Burns stuff in this is that, like, all he does is exist to, to pivot the plot wherever it needs to go with Ned. Like, okay, I'm going to give him money so he can do his big dumb production. I'm going to do this. And then as soon as there's a little bit of pushback, he's like, all right, we're done with that.

We're just going to end that. Now you don't get to make movies anymore. I guess it does offload a lot of any negativity that could be done more on burns than on Ned or making conflicting thoughts. Or conflicting dramatic choices. I have to appreciate Ned's commitment to still filming it all in his backyard. They make an 800-minute epic of Old Testament stuff in his backyard. I imagine a lot of green screens were in place. They built some sets out there, man.

Like, there is some scenery they were using. And moleman is getting whipped. No green screen on that one. It's a whipping joke is funny if it's moleman. Only if it's moleman. What was it? I know, like, what was it one of those stories of that? Like, Jim Cavieselight of the story of, like, when he's getting flayed in that movie,

like, a board on his back that they're supposed to be whipping and hit the board. But then one time it, like, missed the board, and it just, like, horribly injured him. He also had a story of being struck by lightning while being crucified in the movie. And he joked around about it. I was thinking, well, if God, it's real. that is him telling you to stop and not make... I think God's trying to kill him. Yeah, yeah.

I think the whip pierced his brain. The film is completed. It's debuting at the Aztec cinema. This is where, first we had Ned meeting comic book guy. Now we have Carl interacting with Reverend Lovejoy. A thing I also think has never happened before this. Strange pairing. Well, this is why I guess we learn why it doesn't happen that Carl reacts to him.

He's like, what a tool. He's done with Lovejoy after that. This does feel like a story that could have been Lovejoy's as well, but it's just a little bit of him going like, well, yeah, I just want accuracy. And it's Lovejoy saying he wants it to be intentionally. If this episode was about the parody as the A plot, I feel like the whole driving force would be Lovejoy being like, this is kind of messed up.

Like, I don't think I like any of this. And having to come to terms with what modern Christianity wants from its media or something. But like, again, the episode is not really that committed to any of this. Yeah, that feels like the mostly centrist take the symptoms usually have about religion. I guess, too, they had lovejoy, they wouldn't make Lovejoy the protagonist of their post-Super Bowl episode, probably. Yeah, yeah. Antagonist, maybe.

So the film begins with a logo of Burns saying, I'm richer than you, which I feel like should just be the updated logo for Paramount Films these days. Burns' Celluloid Whimsies is really good, though. Yeah. Well, who owns the Columbia lady? Sony. Oh, Sony, okay. The godless Sony.

It's funny that Sony is becoming one of the, like, most centrist of our evil, monopolies these days until it gets bought by Paramount or Disney, of course. So this is where here, I have more nitpicks listeners. That Cain and Abel one, the point of it was that not just that it was violent, but that it was supposed to be biblically accurate, which is what the passion is about. These then are just violent. Jonah and the David story, they are not accurate to the Bible. Characters die or kill things who don't die or kill things. I think what we're seeing here is Mr. Burns putting his thumb on this girl.

He demanded a decapitated Joe. He wants butts and seats, man. Although if the real passion of the Christ has a severed head wipe, I might see it. Apocalyptic might. Oh, yeah. It's got to have multiple of those. If you want to get into the Gibson filmography, Bob, there's a lot of gems in there. Also, when Judge Snyder is playing King David, he just had a line in the previous episode.

We're getting a lot of out-of-the-courtroom judge scenes for him. Yeah, not only are you seeing this send-up of the Passion of the Christ, your Austin washing Judge Snyder cut a baby in half. And then himself. That was very shocking. He does three stabs like in a row to cut it in half in that cradle. It's insane that happens. I mean, we don't actually see the baby being stabbed, but still.

There's wet, squishy sounds. You get the idea. And then he bisects himself in a very graphic way as well. And you know what? Look, for all the stuff with Marge, this is the point where I probably also would have stood up and said, You know what? I'm good here. I got enough of this. This is when Marge basically finishes her story for the episode. The only just solution is to cut the baby in half.

Wait a minute. I killed a baby. I'm a monster. I can't take anymore. Ned, there's more to the Bible than blood and gore. Oh, I guess you'd rather see a film about a liberal European wizard school. Or the latest sex capade of Miss Ashley Judd. Well, I don't like this movie, and I'm going to boycott your financier, Mr. Burns. Oh, really? And what would you use instead of nuclear power?

Solar? Hydroelectric? A mix of conservation and wind. Who told you about those? A talking tree at a commercial. Well, I know when I've been licked. Sorry, Ned. This movie will never be seen again.

Disembroider the crew jackets. We can still send them back. I like the jackets gag. Yeah, I kept in that music cue because I was like, okay, they want us to feel bad for Ned here. And I don't want to. Yeah, Ned is doing the wrong thing and Marge is correct. Like, he's getting a little bit screwed over by Burns here, certainly, but to what end? You know, like, ultimately, I'm just like, is Ned better off?

Probably actually not doing this. Yeah. The point of the show is the thing that is doing is wrong. And he should be stopped. And then he stopped, but they still want you to feel bad for him. to get another chance at doing the same thing again. The design of that crew jacket also looks like the Simpsons crew jackets, too, I think. Oh, yeah, I think it's a direct reference.

And by the way, the latest Ashley Judge Sex Capade at the time was twisted. Man, which one was twisted? Well, I'm sure a husband tried to murder her. Of that, I'm sure. I'm not looking at the plot here. It's Ashley Judge. It's Samuel Jackson. It's Andy Garcia.

All your favorites. You got to have Andy Garcia. You can't. The one of those I know the most, my mom was a big Ashley Judd murder mystery fan of all of her many movies. I think the only one I remember is double jeopardy. Oh, yeah, that's the big one. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's the final film by the Right Stuff director, Philip Kaufman. So there you go. Twisted could be good. And then as far as the liberal European wizard school, this was back when it was a signifier that you weren't conservative to enjoy Harry Potter. Yeah, Joanne had not really made her feelings known by that stage. So everyone just thought she was a nice British lady who liked wizards.

Who she would have things like, oh, this character. making fun of Tony Blair and George Bush. Like, instead of now, she fucking sucks and it's crazy. And maybe she always did suck. Only the Gryffendorf's would vote for McCain. But also, I like that they do position it as Marge is going to boycott his financier. Like, she's going to with the money. And also that burns his man that he doesn't control the media enough to not let people know about alternatives to nuclear power.

If only he had, you know, the instincts of like a Larry Ellison or. something, you know, he could really, he could really tighten his iron grip. Is it crazy? I had heard of that guy just because I knew who owned Skydance. And you kind of knew what Oracle was, maybe loosely, you know? And now all of a sudden, like, he is like three Coke brothers combined. You never even hear about the Coke brothers anymore, whatever they're doing. Yeah, I think one of them died. I don't know. But like, I mean, because we all kind of knew Megan Ellison because of Anna Perna and the related game studio attached to that. But yeah, like,

Larry and David, I really knew very little about other than they were rich and, probably evil. And hey, guess what? No probably about it anymore. Yeah. Megan seems to be the good one so far. I haven't heard too much about her these days, which is how I like hearing about Ellison's. It's not hearing about them at all. I have some bad news on that front. Oh, uh-oh. Well, anywho, but if somebody finances a Cohen Brothers movie, that gets a lot of crimes forgiven by me.

Maybe not all crimes, but certainly several. I will erase several crimes for that. But so the film is off. Ned is nobody's going to get to see it. You're supposed to feel bad for him. I don't feel bad for Mel Gibson if nobody got to see his film instead of everybody seeing that film and it's setting records for R-rated movies. Roger Ebert did a very good review of it back then. I remember him saying that like

well Roger Ebert was a mega Catholic so I believe he gave it four stars but he also did mention that like there will never be an R-rated film just for violence if this is only R-rated this movie. So back to the sports time it's time for a very timely

parody of SportsCenter. Welcome to Jock Center. Tonight, the Clipper and the Stripper, a Jones that's chipper, and did Joe Torrey shoot Flipper? But first, professional sports continues. It's downward march into the gutter. This is either about me or steroids. Thanks to professional jerk-ass Homer Simpson, athletes are now taunting and boasting just to get on our highlight reel. Disgusting.

Now, here's our highlight reel. Y'all ready for this? Yes. They got gonna make you sweat and y'all ready for this. The two biggest jock jams there are. I feel like you buy those in a two pack. You can't hear one without the other. It's like the movies they can't release on their own on Blu-ray. It's got to come with another movie. Yeah. How you have to get the fourth. If you want the first three Indiana Joneses and it said, you've got to get the others as well, our package.

For a long time, if you wanted the Iron Giant, you also had to get Quest for Camelot. Right, right. I don't know why the Joe Tori shooting flipper joke gets me for some reason, but it just does. It's one of those random unexpected jokes that either super lands or doesn't, this one lands for me. And I cannot explain why. I actually was as a kid a watcher of the Atlanta Braves. And I should have known who Chipper Jones was, but I had to look that up. In Atlanta Braves, great. Who only is there to rhyme with Flipper later about Joe Tori shooting Flipper.

Joe Tori, a longtime manager of the Yankees. And shooter of Flipper, apparently. Still at large. See, now I didn't know what Sports Center was until the speaking of S&L. Saturday Night Live sketch of Ray Romano, sweet sassy Mo Lassie. That's how I learned about a sports center. As a sports watcher, I've watched my share of it over the years. I think they missed a real opportunity to get Chris Berman in here and do his, you know, kind of run down the highlight stick. But I also understand you've already spent your celebrity budget. So giving Chris

Berman 20 bucks and gas money, probably not on the table. It's where Craig Kilboard was before Daily Show, right? And also, as a Keith Olberman got his start there as well. Hmm. Right, right. Also, this is the second episode in a row where they refer to Homer as a jerkass. Like, this is them recognizing online criticism again. This is now where we get another appearance of Warren Sapp. He has a very brief light. I did not clip out. But Warren Sapp, they make fun of his financial troubles on the commentary. Interesting. Because they've recorded it in, I think, late 2012 or early 2013. And he filed for chapter seven in here. Yeah, Saps an interesting one because, like, at this time, he had just a year or two prior won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ironically, he had defeated the then Oakland Raiders, who he's then playing for at the time this episode aired, which is why he's wearing the uniform. He's the oldest tenured of all the, like, big celebrity football players here.

Like, this was, like, just over the peak of his career, but he's still doing pretty well. And I saw, too, that he's in a podcast Brotherhood, so we have to be nice. He's a fellow podcast. Someone offered him a check. Also, he did Dancing with the Stars and the roast of Larry the Cable Guy, so he's a real Renaissance man. Nice. This podcast is called 99 Problems. He was number 99 in the NFL, so it makes sense.

Thank you. See, this is why Alex is here to explain these. These are the things that are rattling around to my brain instead of useful information. This is also where they do a wrath of con joke with Beware the wrath of Kwan. It's so easy, but they have to do it. They have to do it. You have no choice. And I guess they're not making Asian jokes,

but she kind of does wire foo here, which is borderline stereotypical kind of thing, but whatever. It's not as offensive as it could be, and I think the payoff of the blood soaking through the judge's shirt is pretty good. She's like wirefoo Zorro, which is inspired. They say on the commentary that the judge who gives her a lower score is supposed to be read as a French judge as a reference to a figure skating scandal at the O2 Olympics

that I had not heard of until I looked it up for this. Did you look into this, Bob? I did not, no. Apparently it was, Alex, it seemed to you recognize this little, that a French judge named Marie Rien Le Gange, she gave scores for the figure skating to the Russian pair got an edge over the Canadians only thanks to her scoring. Every other judge scored differently,

but she made the difference, and the Russians won the gold. And it raised enough heads that then people question turned within a day, she admits that she had been pressured in some way to give them a better score. And it wasn't one of the reasons people said was like, oh, that we made a deal that the Russian judge would give the French a better score and a different thing. So we'd win a gold. It was kind of trading gold. Some horse trading stuff. Eventually, the Olympics then just made it. So the Russians and the Canadians won gold that year in the unit. So I barely remember the actual events, but the joke of the

underscoring French judge has sort of. lingered past that. Like, I feel like that's the thing now, is everyone just sort of thinks of the French judge as the outlier, whether that makes any sense to you or not. I heard it led them to like overhaul. This was also on the Wiki page for it, that it led them to overhaul the way they judge it, that it would be less subjective or under a different, and all we care about is subjective reviews, both in video games and in figure skating, of course. After she bloodies a man, we then have another famous person who, earlier in the night, if you had watched it when this aired, had won the Super Bowl.

Indeed. Everyone sucks but me. Oh, yeah, cheer for Tom. Give all your love to Tom. I'm the worst thing to happen to sports since Fox. Monster, you are truly a fool. Homer Simpson, we work for the commissioner of football, and he wants to see you.

I want to see him, too. Maybe he can tell me how to get this off. It soaked through to the other side. I laughed at that. Tom Brady, I guess they recorded him at whatever stadium he plays at, which is why he sounds a little bit different. And it seems like there were a lot of rules they were given for how to deal with Tom Brady, even though he seemed very nice. It was just like he's not going to do more than one take. Basically a lot of rules set down by other people because his time was very limited.

So that's interesting because like he's probably the most immediately famous of everyone here at this time outside from maybe Michelle Kwan. Like, you know, Yao Ming and LeBron would absolutely go on to achieve levels of fame similar, but they just weren't there yet. But, like, I feel like of all the performances in this one, Tom Brady seems like he is the one having the most of a gas. Like, he is just going for it in a way and is just, like, getting goofy with it in a way that maybe, you know, like a Yao Ming just doesn't feel comfortable doing because he doesn't know the language super well or Warren Sapp just isn't given much of an opportunity. But the bigger thing is that also it's so funny. considering where he is now, which is as a much maligned color commentator on Fox. Oh, okay. I did not know this.

I had not kept up with his career post-retirement, too. Yes. So he went on to the Buccaneers. He won another Super Bowl there and then hung around a year past where he should have for a number of reasons, not the least of which was it apparently led to him getting divorced from Chazelle Bunchen. But after he left the NFL finally, he decided to become a commentator for Fox. He replaced a guy in the main prime time slot who everyone really liked in Greg Olson.

Greg Olson still works for Fox, but is doing the daytime games now and seems a little, maybe a little mift about it. Tom Brady is not a great commentator. He has gotten better, but he is still not very good. And also, he's a part owner of the Las Vegas Raiders now, which is a really weird conflict of interest that might make a difference in any other era other than the one we currently live in. You couldn't be the commentator on games. Like, you must be commentating on games of his own team.

So he's a minority owner. He's not the majority stakeholder or anything. But yes, he absolutely has access to information from other teams that would be competing directly against the one he has a minority ownership stake in. And I think the way they're trying to get around it is that he just says, I don't give them anything secret. And everyone's like, cool, great, Tom. You're the greatest of all time. Do whatever you want. I mean, going back to Polly Market, check his account.

I'm sure he has bet on some things that would be very bad. I bet his screen name is Tom Brady 1. Tom Brady 12, please. Yes. TV 12. I'm learning about numbers today. I notice, you know, with LeBron James, he's not as good in this. Brady, I do think, is the funniest of the people doing voices in this, not to compliment him too much. No, but his line read of everybody sucks but me, like, you can tell he's having fun with that and that it comes across.

You know, LeBron James, though, he's more of an Apatal guy, as we learn later. Like, that's his style of comedy. Simpsons Lesson, I guess. LeBron James has a supporting actor role in Train Rack, the Amy Schumer film. That was him trying to prove, like, no, I can star in a movie and you can hand me Space Jam, the important franchise of Space Jam, and I'll do it right. I'm going to say something maybe slightly controversial here. Maybe not to your audience, because I'm sure they don't really care that much about the NBA in general. But I'm going to say, I think LeBron James is one of the least interesting all-time superstars we've ever had.

And I don't mean that from a playing perspective, he is a fantastic and has been a phenomenal player for many, many years. Just as a person, there's nothing to sink your teeth into. I just don't find anything that interesting about him in the way that a lot of other more outsized personalities than the NBA tend to have. He's not like a sociopathic jerk like Michael Jordan for instance. No, because again, that's something you can sink your teeth into.

Like him being a legendary asshole and gambler and weird freak. Like, that's something you can latch on to. I guess he doesn't really have a rags to richer story in his life? Or, I mean, anything below what he's making is rags, to be clear. Yeah, I mean, you know, he was very heavily recruited out of high school. Like, he joined the NBA super young.

It was always really good. And again, it's not a knock against his talent. Like, his talent is phenomenal. It's just that, you know, there's also that other gear that, like, professional athletes sometimes have to have to be major media celebrities. And I think he has coasted mostly on I'm just better than everyone else, more so than his own personality. Tom Brady, he got a taste of this. And you know what? By the next year, he will have many more lines in a dedicated episode of Family Guy of him moving in with the family.

It's the Shapoopy episode. That's the scene most people remember from it. Also, Tom Brady must love working with Seth McFarland because he also appears in Ted 2. They are going to physically assault him as he sleeps to steal his sperm to impregnate a woman to make a baby for 10. I mean, McFarwin's a Boston guy, right? Very much, though, yes. Yeah.

Yeah. I would think him and Tom Brady are probably less friendly since the 2016 election, I would think, probably. Yeah, I don't even know where he landed all of that stuff because the whole thing was that he had like a MAGA hat in his locker at one point. They asked him about it and he was like, I don't know politics and then kind of just sort of tried to talk over it. I don't remember if that ever got followed up on. I do remember the part where Trump said that Bill Belichick had sent him a really

beautiful letter about how good a president he'd be or something like that. Seth McFarland loves the music man so much that he has done multiple performances of songs from it like live on TV as part of his thing. For a writer's guild benefit, he He did a parody of the very complicated, like the song from the music man about like, you know, Capital P and that rhymes with Poole. That song, he did that, except it was a parody about why it's important to have a Writers Guild. And which is just a showing off that you're good at Showtune song. And again, Seth McFarlane, he's too pretty. He's too rich.

He's too good at everything. It's easy to hate him. He can't just be a song and dance man, too. That's illegal. So Homer gets called into the most evil hive of scum and villainy. there is the owners of the NFL team room, about as evil as it gets, I'd say. There are some real freaks in the NFL ownership. Oh, yeah.

Oh, dude, it is around this time, too, even. Like, it is a motley crew of minor billioners, you know, like, they're all super rich, but none of them are, like, good enough to be like, you know, the sort of Elon Musk, like, like, constantly in everyone's face level of rich. They just have team ownership money. So they just become these weird little freaks that have their own little fiefdoms. And their fiefdom is their football team that they can just play around with like their action figures. Eden just become like dynastic in like a monarchy way.

Yeah. Like it's like generations and families. Well, in some cases like Jerry Jones has owned the Cowboys forever. And there's always just a long running joke about what a weird freakie is as an owner. Like the Davis family has owned the Raiders forever. But then you get guys that are in. It's like, hey, I had a bunch of like FedEx money. And then I decided to buy a team.

I had the Gillette fortune. So now I'm going to buy this team. And it's like, I feel like now it's more like these weird conglomerate ownership groups than it is just like some weird sion of some old Virginia money that just decided he really liked the Washington team and was going to buy it. Well, it's also part of the history of the USFL. A certain man who would become a president someday wanted to own an NFL football team and thought owning the USFL would help him basically sue his way into NFL ownership. but even the NFL team owner freaks did not want him in their club. So, yes, yeah. And that man's name was Donald Trump.

They have only excised one NFL owner in the entire time I have been watching football, which is not to say other teams have been sold to a new ownership, but Dan Snyder of the Washington football team fame was so reviled and so hated by even the other owners that eventually the league basically just pressured him to sell the team. I mean, certainly I even knew of his name because of all the headlines about the former name of the Washington football team. Do you have any idea what kind of freak you got to be to get NFL owners to hate you? For them to outwoke you or woke up. But Homer meets with all the teams.

They think they're going to be mad at him for all of the showboating he's causing. But actually they love him because it's causing the NFL to be more popular. they get to make all the money from the fines. And Rich Texan's going to do it to make his own musical about the Jay Giles Band. I also miss when rich guys had stupid side projects like that instead of just being rich and just controlling the media. Well, no, that's the thing we lost. Defense contracting. Oh, sorry, defense contracting too, Bob.

You're right. Dron ownership. But that's what we've lost in the modern era, right? Is that like the weird freak billionaires or, you know, rich kids or whatever, like, they would just shunt them off to the side and be like, okay, yeah, go fund some Broadway shows. You know, go make some. movies or something, you know, like, and use your money in a way that's, like, maybe not helpful, but isn't, like, actively harmful, and we don't have that anymore. We have guys to do both, like, Palmer Lucky where he will fund, like, a fun retro gaming

machine, but also he will support a white ethno state with his weird Lord of the Rings named company. And the gaming machine is specifically designed to fund the ethno state. Oh, good. Well, I'm returning mine tomorrow. I should never ask you to autograph it. No, Bob has had to breathe the same air as this man. Yeah, he's a greasy guy in public.

I have also shared air with this person, and I had roughly the same impression. Yeah. He's got some real Son-a-chew vibes. If you know what I'm talking about, then you know what I'm talking about. So Homer is then hired to do the halftime show, which he says he'll do for free. Then they challenge him on that. Then he says, I would have paid you to do it, which he then does. Homer has a fat roll of cash, too.

He's been making good money off of his new side project. I forgot to mention he told Lisa, oh, you're probably wondering why I'm not at work this week. a joke about how Homer is never I feel like they were doing this joke a lot around this time like I feel like half the episodes I remember from this era is him making that joke at some point along the way this Super Bowl halftime show talk what they're not

saying is this is also a reaction to the 04-1 which we get but it does feel like in the last 20 years people talk about the halftime show but it is funny to cover this one now because I feel like this was the most the halftime show was a topic since

the Janet Jackson one was the 20 26 half time. Yeah, there's like three instances I would post as like the most talked about, not necessarily for good reasons, Super Bowl. It's the one that eventually led to them, I forget who it was that performed. It was around like up with people or some bullshit.

But like, there was one that was so bad and like everyone turned away. I think that's the one that everyone tuned to in living color what was airing at that time because the show was so bad and no one cared. That was eventually led to them finally teetering things over to where they are now where they were getting bigger celebrities involved.

big sponsors and all of that. There's the one we've talked about here, which was the Janet Jackson Nipplegate one, and then there's the one that happened this year with Bad Bunny, where it basically became a lightning rod for no reason other than he's from Puerto Rico. Yes, Ed Bunny performed his very popular songs in Spanish, the language that they're popular in,

and obviously a lot of racist people. And also, he's an American citizen, but he was treated, of course, as an outsider, all these things. Also, I mean, on a technical sense, people said, Spanish. It's like Lady Gaga sang a whole song in English and what, she's an Italian American, she's not white anymore. Yeah. Like, is that how far we've come. Look, the real thing is that like everyone just is greatly underestimating like how popular reggaeton and Latin music is now. Like, it is

way broken containment beyond any kind of regional thing. Like, that stuff is extremely mainstream now. So it's not even that weird of an idea to have someone like Bad Bunny perform because he is a number one worldwide artist in a lot of different categories. I will admit to being old that I only heard of him because he did things in wrestling, and then he did a Simpsons music video. That's when I learned who bad buddy is. Yeah, me too. So real quick here, just before we get off of the owner's meeting scene, two things.

One, the version of the commissioner here is, I believe, a parody of Paul Tagliabu, who was the commissioner at this time. He is only there for another year past that, and then he is replaced by the current guy whose name is escaping me, but he's a total limp blanket, so I don't remember anything about him. The other thing is that they make a joke about, you know, we're not going to pay you. Guess what? They don't pay artists for the Super Bowl halftime show ever. Thank you. I've completely forgot about that aspect of the half-time show.

Wow. It's just the honor of doing it, right? Like, that's what it's supposed to. So they make the artists pay for all the upfront costs. In the case of Bad Bunny, he was pulling in set stuff from his residency in Puerto Rico. So, like, the house set and a lot of that stuff was part of his residency show. But, like, I remember I have learned. about this when the weekend did it

some years ago because they built that whole elaborate like, you know, neon set where he was like climbing around it and stuff and was like wow, that's really wild. I can't believe, you know, they let him build all that and she's like, they didn't let him do anything. He built all that. He paid for it. And I looked into this and was like, oh, right, they don't ever pay artists for this.

The most impressive thing in the performance this year was that the way they got like grass onto the field for it was like guys in gilly suits basically of grass who then like took it off and laid it down. It was a very impressive performance as compared to like, I don't know, the Super Bowl, well, I only really then, I watched the Super Bowl halftime show and then watch the second half in the

background while playing Switch. It wasn't a great Super Bowl, so I understand. The Super Bowl of 05 was an exciting one, wasn't it? That was a good one, yeah. Like, that was a pretty tight game from what I remember. It was the Donovan McNabb Eagles, if I remember correctly, who lost. And I remember it being fairly competitive right up to the end. But that is the third of four in four years Super Bowl for the Patriots that year. Well, here's the thing. While we were talking, I was looking up the famous Super Bowl halftime show that caused people to wander away to a living color who was doing counter-programming. It was Super Bowl 26 in January of 92. The theme was winter magic, and it was a salute

to the 1992 Winter Olympics. The performers were Gloria Stephan, also Brian Poitano and Dorothy Hamill, and members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. And the band was the University of Minnesota Marching Band. And people walked away from this. I mean, Gloria Stephan in 92, maybe not as hot as she would have been like five or six years before that. But at least that's better than, you know, like Shana Nah or whoever they were having before that. Yeah. It was 92. The rhythm was still going to get you tonight.

I did look at it. People said, I read one estimate that it said like 20 million people changed the channel to the In Living Color one, like that much. That's why it was Michael Jackson a much hipper choice the next year, I think. I think I heard, too, that like, that's the end of the movie, the Michael movie that's coming out soon. I think legally they have to end it there. That's where they are choosing to end his story, you're saying. Yes, yeah. Yeah, they had to refill a lot of that movie when they found out that they could not depict certain events. He's really weird.

I just saw that trailer in the theater last night. I was like, so we're just doing this, huh? Like, really? I mean, that Michael's stage show on Broadway has been going. and for years now. Like, I imagine they have done the market research to determine whether people are willing to get over the ick factor to go see Michael Jackson related stuff. And at some point, the line just went up high enough to where they went, okay, I guess

we should try this and see what happens. Yeah, I just, it's also that it's like, the movie that's coming out too is like, it's a relative if he is doing it. So it's like a vested interest by his family in rebuilding his reputation that also is just like kind of grossing. But anyway, hey, let's talk about a funnier thing. Pac-Man in this history of the halftime show clip. The Super Bowl halftime show,

from its humble origins in Super Bowl 1, to the marriage of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man in Super Bowl 16. I now pronounce you Pac-Man and wife. Every single Super Bowl halftime show has been great. Oh, homie, don't worry. I'm sure you'll come up with a great idea. I don't know. It's a lot of pressure.

Do many people watch the Super Bowl? Billions! Oh. Now, they're kind of right with the Super Bowl one joke because one of the performers was a trumpeter named Al Hurt. Ha! That's good. And then, well, Bob, I look to you as the retro games expert here. Now, Miss Pac-Man was, like, brand new in 82,

which was the 16 Super Bowl that they have here. Shouldn't the wedding have really been like the next year when Ms. Pac-Man was more established? I think so. Ms. Pac-Man, by the way, it's a statement for feminism. I think she would choose to get married much later. I feel like she's not going to get roped in. And she wouldn't take her husband's last name. Yes. No.

Was 83 Pac-Man Jr.? Was that the next one? I mixed out that timeline sometimes. There's a baby Pac-Man in there somewhere. Oh, right. It's Baby Pac-Man and Pac-Man. And Super Pac-Man comes in there. Yes. I think so.

The Pack family. I was, it honestly, was watching reruns of the Hannah-Barbera cartoon that made me invested in like the Pac-Man lineage and who met who when and who got married. That cartoon's a nightmare. Yeah. Terrible dancing, well, not even dancing.

The swaying back and forth of the Pac-Man characters in, that was the most I laughed in the episode. Yeah, that's a good gag. Okay, looking it up now, this is very important. Baby Pac-Man does predate Junior Pac-Man, as it was called. Of course. He'd be a baby, and then he'd grow up to be called Junior.

And Leaf is Pinball Table Behind. That's the sign of a good retro arcade place or a barcade if they have the full pinball baby Pac-Man set up there. And then you'll play it and realize like, man, I want this to end. I didn't know a quarter would last this long. Where's Pac-Mania? I know what to do with that. I'm going there.

They picked physical, I think, a good choice, though. I mean, commentary, they're like, oh, we couldn't get Pac-Man fever, could we? I think they could have. I understand his Buckner and Garcia were not that precious. You could have probably just asked them. They probably would have been cheaper than physical, I would think. Though the real one for Super Bowl 16 was up with people, the one that the group Simpsons made fun of with Hooray for Everything.

It was up with people with a salute to music of the 60s. That's kind of all they were really good for, honestly, is some saluting of the 60s. The perfect joke, it was George Meyer, Classic Simpsons writer who made up Hooray for Everything and hated them the most up with people. I love the Hooray for Everything joke of their singing. the Lou Reed song Wild Side. That's one of my favorite ones.

And all the race is saying, do do do, do, do, be do, that's the joke. So, Homer, he's frozen, he can't think of an idea. We cut to the Capitol City Stadium instead of Jacksonville, Florida Stadium, where the Jaguars play. I guess we also don't know which teams are playing in this game, in the big game. Right, it's like the white and the orange team, right? We've known proper names that we're not getting the Atlanta Falcons gag from last night. And also, again, one of the celebrities here is actually in the Super Bowl that this is airing immediately prior to this. So probably not enough time to render that out.

It is impressive that he's able to perform in the halftime show while still playing the game, too. That's how committed he was then. So Homer can't think of anything. This is where the other deleted scene is it's a lengthy one too. And I'll just set up here that when Homer imagines something in this clip, He is imagining the Flying Toasters screen saver from the 90s, just so you know here. We're ready for rehearsal, Mr. Simpson. So what do we do?

And I have no idea what I'm doing. Are you there, Brain? It's me, Homer. Please give me an idea. Any idea. Oh, I wish I was a screensaver. Oh, kids, I'm a fraud. The Super Bowl's tomorrow, and I still don't have a show.

Really? You got nothing? Oh, man, are you a putt? Do you have any ideas? Plenty, but I ain't saying. Oh. Instead, it just hard cuts to Homer driving away from the Super Bowl with no ideas. That's just it.

One, the screen tabor joke is good. Two, I always enjoy Bart calling someone a putts. That's funny. But I think, as it from a directorial standpoint, just cutting away from all of that and just having him go into crisis mode probably makes more sense. Yeah, yeah. I also wish the things he had gathered for his unplanned show were a little funnier

than just circus animals and a guy, in a speedboat car because nothing really happens with them outside of him just kind of walking away from the situation. There's a zebra. There's a guy in a kilt holding a guitar, but nothing is really done with it. Yeah. A giant cake is there too. The jetpack man.

Oh, the jetpack man. That's what I think of as like, wasn't a jetpack man part of one of the first Super Bowls? I feel like I've seen that in videos of just like old early NFL things. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there was one where they did some sort of jetpack expo or something. So Homer drives away, and this is where he passes the church. and realizes he could ask the vagrants who are staying there for it. There's a sign gag of that rapture threat level is at orange, which is funny because I think about 10 minutes after this,

there will be a threat level joke in American Dad on TV2. This was a favorite joke of the time. Back now, you just don't need it to be orange or red. You just feel anxious all of the time in general. Yeah, we're in the red, nonstop, 100% of the time. We still have a system. I looked into this, except it no longer. color-coded, we just get information about specific threats.

Or made-up ones. All right, yeah. I'm saying the Simpsons are making fun of a Mel Gibson appearance or a previous guest star. You know what? In this next clip, this is when they also make fun of a different previous guest star, as Ned says he's like Michael Moore, except God loves him and his pants fit or what he smells good. God loves him.

Michael Moore had been on the previous season Simpsons, and I think still loves the Simpsons. My dad would make fun of me saying that I look like Mike. Michael Moore, which you know what, I didn't have a beard then, but it was a hat and ill-fitting clothes. I think you avoided hats for a while, Henry, because of that reason, correct? Now I'm pro hats again, but yes. Being compared to Michael Moore scarred me a bit. He's out of the zeitgeist now. You're fine. It's true. He's still doing stuff, but yeah, as our friends on the Michael and us podcasts often talk about, give us updates on Michael Moore and what he's been up to. Well, Henry, I think it was also because you kept trying to enter government buildings with a camera.

Yes, I was copying him in not just fashion, but also in my camera. My camera, my camera, work to. I tried to buy a gun in Walmart. It just didn't work out the same way. It was Florida, so they were like, here's a gun, sir. You want three? No, I mean, yeah. Only one gun? What are you doing? You're below the minimum to come in here.

So this is where Ned and Homer realize both can help each other. I wonder if other Super Bowl producers waited till three in the morning the night before to plan their halftime shows. A church. Maybe the homeless people sleeping on the floor will have some ideas. Flanders? Yeah, I guess you've got some late-night problems too. Yeah, I made a great film, but I'm having trouble getting it out there. I'm like Michael Moore, except I'm skinny, my jeans are washed, and God loves me.

I just wish I could find somewhere to spread my message. Have you tried checking the oil filter? Are you been listening to me? Sure, I'd be happy to tell you my problem. I've got a venue the whole world will be watching and nothing to fill it with. Wait a minute. You've got a medium. And I've got a message. I've got a message.

Maybe God brought us together for a reason. Yeah. You help me, and I in turn him helped by you. It's a fun way that their plot lines can come together here, though they do throw Marge out of this. Yeah. Also, Ned is kind of the bad guy. His movies were always bad and representing religion in a way that Marge just agreed with. I think it would have been better if they want to spend more time on this aspect of the plot and they kind of don't.

If Ned's Bible movies were very bland and offensive and then Burns came in as the financial... financier and made Ned make them more violent. So when Burns is out of the equation, Ned could go back to making the bland Bible movies that would please everybody and the message could be, well, Ned always met well, the end. Yeah, that works much better and truer to character, too, for Ned. Yeah, it actually kind of makes sense in a way that this episode does not.

Yeah. I guess Mr. Burns didn't really make the movies more violent. They were violent to begin with. They just made them bigger. Yeah. Yeah, it just increased his budget, even though. But we've talked about this, too, more recently in episodes alike, In the Bush era, that's where Ned is less nice Christian.

Like he is reflecting American conservative Christianity more of its time. So it's not like inaccurate. But the meek, turn the other cheek, Ned is not really around in the Bush era so much. Though what Ned ends up presenting to the world isn't the violent, well, I guess people do seemingly actually die performing it. I think we watch the murder of 20 figure skaters. That's true. It's death in service of art, though. So is it really murder?

So Homer picks Ned for it. And I think he also picked Ned for a good reason because as we saw what Ned could do with his production values in his backyard, he is the type of person who could have this entire halftime show ready and planned in 17 hours, I think, after he gets hired by Homer here. So we go to the Super Bowl as we see it named off in its Roman numerals. Man, that America's priority is joke line made me laugh a lot harder. Because they just finished the stadium and it's going to be raised in two weeks,

something like that. That's another those like, oh, satire is dead type jokes, because, again, I only know this because of wrestling. Alex, I don't think either of us watch this, but there was a recent wrestling show that was in a stadium that was built in two weeks in Saudi Arabia recently. Yeah, a place where they like to build a lot of very big structures very quickly with, let's just say, very little regard for the people building them. Yeah, Saudi Arabia, what could be the secret magic they have for quickly building things. I think it's slightly. I think that's what it is. Is that always?

Yes, it was so funny seeing Paul Levec looking like in videos of like, wow, look at that. They really built this stadium fast. Isn't Riyadh amazing? It's like, hey, enjoy it, CM Punk. Enjoy performing there. Good times. Anyways. Okay.

But America's priority is a joke. That's for sure. Get back to that there. We had a fun little gag that Marge's air is blocking a man who paid $1,000 per seat. I looked it up. One post I saw said, the cheapest seats at the Super Bowl this year were $4,000. So this again, four times the joke amount in this cartoon.

Then we have a quick cutaway to Mo as we learned that Mo is one of the sponsors of the Super Bowl halftime show. Pool hustling, which I guess for Mo is to pretend he's about a pool and then club the other man over the head with the queue and take his money. All right, I'm trying to a couple of things about this. One, I think the guy he's standing next to is one of the power sauce guys. I think you're right. Reused guy for this. It was, I guess, an ad executive. This is another example what I was talking about earlier, though, where this is one of those things where they're trying to do the thing that Old Simpsons does, which is spiraling out a joke into directions you wouldn't expect and then coming on a punchline that you're certainly not expecting.

The problem is in this era, I feel like a lot of times when they do this, they are just grasping for random things and they just don't fit with anything. Like, why does Mo pool hustling here? Yes, hitting that dude over the head is a better joke punchline at the end of that than just ending, ending. it there, but like, none of this fits with anything else. It's not really that funny and lingering on it for so long feels like this is something you would cut from this episode normally. Yeah, I guess, I mean, there is a pool table at Mo's, which is never really used, but that's the only real connection I can see. Like, they're just trying to throw out like, hey, Mo's kind of a dirt bag, so I guess he would probably know how to pool hustle, right? But it's just like the joke doesn't go anywhere. I think it's just funny that it's Citibank, Ford, and Mo's as the sponsor, and then you can just leave it at that. Yeah, that's a joke.

You can just leave it at that. And by lingering on it so long, the man is unmoving after Mo cracks him in the head, so I assume he's dead. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Bare minimum, major head injury. I think in the real world this year, the halftime show was only sponsored by Apple Music, like the logo for it was on in the corner the entire time. Yeah, there's usually one big company that just does the sponsor. that year. There really isn't too much. Like, obviously, tons of companies spend a ton of money on the Super Bowl. For the half time, it's always just like one big sponsor.

The fireworks begin for it as Homer is introducing us to where we are. The director of the episode, Steve Moore, says that he believes this is the first time After Effects was used for animation in the show. Huh. A big first for the series for the fireworks have our digital applications via After Effects, apparently. And so Homer and Ned pulled it all together. They are pretty, presenting the story of Noah's Ark and First Homer sprays pesticides on a bunch of performers who seem surprised by it and die. This story, I mean, Ned is returning to the violent stories of the Bible again. This story is about mass murder, and Marge just sitting there quietly enjoying it. Yes, as a man drinks her hair. Now this I like.

Yes, they've completely forgot why Marge boycotted this or what she cared about it. So then as it keeps going, the celebs nearly drowned as the audience reacts to Ned's final pronouncements at it. Hey, do you guys think Homer's mad at me? I waved at him in the parking lot and he stared right through me. I left the People's Republic for this? Yo, Michelle, you got a boyfriend? Not in here, I don't. After 40 days and 40 nights, the rain stopped.

And Noah set forth a single dove. So God bless Noah and his sons and said to them, never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between God and man. Thank you. A fair response. Yeah, I don't know what we're supposed to feel in this situation, because, yeah, this sucks, Ned. Get off the stage. It's a bad show.

Yeah. And they were kind of going for like a Charlie Brown Christmas thing at the end there, but you're supposed to, I guess at the time you're supposed to think that, well, line is. is good. Now I'm like, sit down, Linus. Yes, yeah. This is a public school. Take it outside, church boy. It's a public school. Okay, I have a theory that I do think they worked backwards from conceptually.

What if a halftime show ended with reading from scripture if people reacted to that like they saw a nipple? Oh, totally. That's the thing that was written on the whiteboard. Absolutely. And so conceptually, they work backwards from that, and the passion of the Christ's like comes in there in

some way. But this is completely antithetical to how Ned has acted the entire episode. This is not violent. seemingly the violence is from Homer being a violent person or accidentally killing people with pesticides or nearly drowning the celebrities as they're walking the arc on the field. I just feel like there's no, I don't feel anything toward any of this. For the reasons you cited before, like Ned's behavior through a lot of this episode just isn't anything that really endears him to me or makes me sympathetic to him. Yeah. It's just Homer, you know, being a clod like usual and doing something dumb, but like I don't feel really that badly for him. Marge seems weirdly out of all of this, so I don't feel anything.

Like, the whole thing you're supposed to land on is this punchline at the end of the lady in the interview being like, I try to raise my child as a secular humanist, and they just look at they shove in front of you. And it's like, okay, yes, that's funny. But everything they do to get there is just not that good. Yeah, it feels like they're trying to throw a bone to perhaps religious people in the audience, because you're supposed to be on Ned's side when he is booed. and then Kent reports that it was a flagrant display of decency at the Super Bowl halftime show. Yeah, I don't equate reading scripture to people as decency. Nor is the end of like, I don't know, the covenant of man.

Like, they could have read from one of the Jesus parts, though. I also wonder if they were told, like, stay away from New Testament stuff. Like, that's too controversial. You can only feel an Old Testament thing and not touch the J-Man for any of these stories. It could also have been that, and internal pressure. But as for the celebs here in that line with Warren Sapp and Kwan, Bob, don't they say on the commentary that, like, they recorded together? And it sounds like they wrote that joke because they were being a little friendly during the recording. I think Warren Sapp was being a little friendly with Michelle Kwan.

It might have been one-sided. Okay, yes, that's true. I wouldn't make any presumptions there. I just know that Warren Sapp is a very funny, goofy guy. So I'm sure maybe there was some chemistry there who can say. Everybody boos. We don't even find out who wins the game at this Super Bowl. We don't even know what teams are playing.

Yes. Instead, we see that everybody reacts like they saw a nipple on television, and we get to sort of the moral of the story. And as well, I also include in our last clip here, the out-of-context scene over the credits of what should have been Tom Brady's joke in the middle of the episode when they're all being trained by Homer. All over America today,

viewers were outraged by the Super Bowl halftime show's blatant display of religion and decency. You try to raise your kids as secular humanists, But these showbiz types keep shoving religion down our throats. Mommy, why wasn't I baptized? You see? You see? I thought America was hungry for meaning. I should have just sent a crocodile into space like I originally planned. Homie, I think you did great.

And to celebrate, I made omelets from the eggs people threw at our house. Dig in, everybody. Amlets for dinner? This is the best day of my life. Really? Didn't you just sign a $90 million contract? That was a good day, too. Welcome to the Homer Simpson Showboding Academy.

Today we're working on poor sportsmanship. But I like to stand for good sportsmanship. Quiet, you. Yes, sir. It's his sad, yes, sir. It's almost like the droopy voice guy that they have. Yeah. It should have just been part of the scene.

Yeah, why wasn't this just part of the scene? It's five seconds. I wonder, did they clip it out because they were like, Well, if Tom Brady wins, if his team wins, that should be the outro joke then. Let's save our Tom Brady for the end. That's my only guess here. I cannot understand why. Yeah, it's just, it's a thing I've never really seen the show do much with.

Like, the throwing random parts from other scenes that didn't make it into the episode into the credits. It's just an odd thing for them to do. And like you said, Bob Marge is just like, oh, homie, I liked it. It's like, what? Who are you? Like, remember Act 2, Marge? Now she's just turning thrown eggs into omelets and not. thinking about the content of it.

Yeah, well, the thing about the crocodile in space, on the commentary they talk about Fox had a lot of crazy ideas for halftime shows, and one of them was to drop a man in from space, but then they found out there was no way to do that without killing him. They didn't do that. I don't think they've even cracked that

nut today yet. They haven't figured out the 30,000 dead drop into an arena without killing someone, so then it would have been really wild. You know, Lady Gaga did her best to fly around, They got that. That was pretty good. That was a good show.

LeBron was only on a $60 million contract then. The 90 million one was a joke. Now he is on a two-year $104 million contract. And it's hardly the biggest in professional sports either. No, I mean, for him, I think that's actually pretty low, considering the salaries who's making his peak. But I will say this line is probably the funniest thing LeBron James gets in this entire episode. Like, he actually sells it a little bit.

What did he get for her playing against LG Rhythms team? I assume another version of the Monstars? I didn't see this movie. When he won Bob was the love of his son. But not the love of the moviegoers. Well, listen, LeBron Jr. Second place is first loser. So get better.

Someday maybe we will have to do it. The problem with it is nobody's done like a tell-all of what all went wrong with it because I think nobody wants to piss off LeBron James. So there hasn't been a like, what was wrong with this movie type article yet? The oral history will be coming in about 10 years. Well, hey, we'll still be doing this podcast in 10 years. I'll be ready for it then. As long as they keep making cartoons.

But yes, what a Super Bowl. After watching this, we were all ready to laugh some more at American Dad. Okay, as far as the Simpsons taking advantage of like their shot, like at their biggest audience, as Bob said, second biggest ever, do you think they wasted their opportunity? Or do you think they'd like, did they do something good with it? I'm of the mind that I think you guys would have much better context for this than me because I've only seen a handful of season 16 episodes.

I feel like for the time and the current, let's just call the vibe of the show and where they were at with the writing talent. Like, I don't think they nail it, but it's by no means the worst episode I've seen from this era. It's a little incoherent and not all the jokes land, but I feel like the central thing they're working back from could have been a lot funnier. And some of the individual gags, at least land. So it's not like a total wash for me, but I don't think it's like, if you told me this was still the second highest audience they've ever had for this show, I think that's a lot. little sad. Yeah. I mean, we are on episode eight of broadcast season 16.

I would say this is a little below average for the average quality of an episode from that season. Okay. And I do feel like, yeah, it is a lot of missed opportunities and too many things going on here. The mix of the Passion of the Christ and all of these guest stars and the Super Bowl, there's just too much to handle in 22 minutes. And I don't think they pull it off.

And yes, it is very odd that I think people probably saw the show for the first time in a decade after the Super Bowl, like a lot. of folks who had not watched it since the 90s, this is probably what they saw, and they might have walked away, or they might have become big American dad fans. Yeah, I think maybe it did feed into the perception of zombie Simpsons at the time was that, like, some people's only viewing of The Simpsons in this era as far as a new episode goes, was seeing this one, and they see one that is like not a bad satirical idea, but when they don't give enough time or gets a bit muddled. And then on top of that, they have to make a lot of room for

celebrities in it and it's Homer gets a new job and he meets celebrities and also Al Jean is still chasing the success of the baseball of the softball episode and all of those ones like he's never had a celebrity focused episode as good as Homer at the bat since then even Cresty gets canceled close to it but like as far as sports celebs go like this can't touch Homer at the bat as far as an episode no no and drawing the stark difference between the two of those I feel like the big thing apart from just the general writing quality is that the celebrities on Homer at the Bat, even the ones that weren't great voice actors, they found a way to give them lines or give them bits that outshined the fact that they were not great voice actors. You know, like Steve Sacks, maybe not the greatest actor,

but they found a really good bit for him to do in that. And that's what this episode I think is kind of missing is that the bits, for the most part, with the celebrities, just don't have much to hang your hat on. Tom Brady's enthusiasm does a little bit. there and I think a couple of individual lines are okay but like you know Yao Ming pretending not to understand english is one of the worst delivered jokes in the episode not necessarily because of him but because they don't have a thing for him other than quiet kid I've got a good thing going like it's just not that great you're right everyone kind of had their own bits and their own schick in the softball episode even though there was not a lot of time and there were more guest stars

to work in you're right yeah I think too maybe they were boxed in by they had not a bad satirical idea to, you know, what if there was the opposite reaction from religion to a Super Bowl halftime show and tie it into the passion of the crisis popularity, but also the fact that they are getting like official NFL approval to some degree to use the term Super Bowl and that it's a big deal episode for Fox in a prime position. Nobody says this on the commentary and I could be wrong, but I would bet there was at least unexpressed pressure of you can only like, you can't challenge them too much. You can't bring up Janet Jackson a thing that the NFL doesn't want to directly reference, for instance. Yeah, I feel like if you had not that pressure and you had a little bit more edge to what you were trying to do, I think you do this same plot line, but you find a way to get Janet Jackson on the episode. I think you find a way to get her in there and do at least a cameo bit or something. You know, even if it's along the lines of like Dolly Parton in the last Super Bowl episode they did, you know, just something to kind of bring her in and like, kind of sitting like, hey, we know, right?

But you can't do that. If you have the NFL's approval, there's no way that's going to happen. Yeah, that might have been a little too radioactive for her, even without the NFL getting involved. That whole thing was such BS, man. Yeah. As someone who watched that Super Bowl live and was definitely a little bit surprised when it happened, like, I just, the outsized reaction to that was so ridiculous. And to this day, still kind of like raises my house.

That's Janet Jackson. You don't ban Janet Jackson from anything. And the nipple covered. Yeah. It was a covered nipple. Meanwhile, I feel like at least once every, like, Grammys, one person is nude on the red carpet. Oh, they celebrate it now. Like, that's like half a Sabrina Carpenter's bit now is just look at how fucking sexualized I am.

Like Chapel Rowan basically was topless on the red carpet this year at the Grammys. I mean, to be clear, she did it artistically. But, yes, the girls were out. Yeah, yeah. No, hey, and I love Chapel Rowan. She can show her boobies anytime she wants. Like, yes, yeah. but yes, it's just how things have changed, isn't it?

And also in some ways, how they haven't changed. Yes. Ultimately, we learn that he has risen, Christ is Lord, and belated Easter, everybody. Happy belated Easter. Yes. That's what the episode's telling us, right? Yeah, pretty much. No, I'm a believer in it, just like Professor Frank, I'm a believer now.

Yes. Well, thank you, Alex, for being on the show. We will have you back again to talk about something a little more fun than this episode and the yellow album. But please let us know where we can find you online in more about Nextlander. I will tell you right now, this was a fun one to do regardless of the quality of the episode. It's always fun to talk about my, you know, weird jock leanings every now and again. So if you need me again for sports duty, I'm there. I'm ready any time.

Your knowledge is invaluable. Nextlander.com. If you want to go check out what I do for a living, we do podcasts, we do videos and streams around video games and also sometimes not video games. We have a watchcast where we do movies and TV as well. And it's nextlander.com or patreon.com slash nextlander. At the time of this recording, you relatively recently had done what I think our listeners would enjoy if they're not gamers, which is the ranking of 80s cartoon intros. You did. That was a good one that I ensure all our animation fan listeners would enjoy watching.

I made liberal use of my YouTube downloader and various other video stripping technologies and pulled out a whole bunch of cartoon intros and we just sat around reminisced for a while for two different streams, actually. We did a two in a row, so a lot to cover. But thank you, Alex, especially for knowing sports. Always happy to oblige. you so much to Alex Navarro for being on the show. Please check out Nextlander, everything they're doing over there. But if you want to check out more of what we do and get these episodes ad free. And one week ahead of time, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpson, sign up for five bucks a month. You get exactly what I just said.

Add free episodes. You get them early. And you also get access to at this point nearly nine years worth of bonus Patreon content over 200 bonus episodes covering shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critic. And that will also get you new monthly episodes of our regular mini-series, Futurama and Talk King of the Hill, and that is happening at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. There is a $10 level.

You want to get on that and get a very, very long podcast once a month for patrons of that level. Penry, what's going on there? Well, Bob, you're talking about our What a Cartoon movie podcast, which is our premium one that we do each month. In addition to all of the $5 things you mentioned. This last month, we covered James and the Giant Peach. And this month, you're going to hear us talk about Teenage Muti Ninja Turtles 2, the Secret of the Ouse. That's our once a year live action cartoon that we cover. And we've been doing years and years of them.

They're basically like three extra podcasts. You get in addition to all the other bonus stuff at that $10 level. We've covered tons of Disney films, tons of Pixar films, tons of Warner films. I know you'd love hearing us talk about Space Jam. If you liked all of the sports talk in this one. And we've even covered junk like Shrek and Cool World. It's all there at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. when you go there, check on the collections page.

You'll see all the cool stuff you're missing out on. One more time, sign up today at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Blue Sky Letterbox, many other places as Bob Servo. And my other podcast is called Retronaut. It's a classic gaming podcast about old video games. You can find that where you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retronauts. Sign up there and support the show and get a bunch of bonus stuff there as well.

Henry, what about you? You can follow me on Blue Sky and Instagram as, at Talking Henry, and I am on Letterboxes, H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. And if you're following me and Bob on the social medias, follow at Talk Simpsons Pod as well, because that's where we're always posting official updates to the network there. At Talk Simpsons Pod, keeps you in the loop

when things go live on free feeds, on Patreon. If we have cool announcements, at Talk Simpsons Pod. And don't forget that all the previously free podcasts we've done of both Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon can be found at Talking Simpsons. Thank you so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for season six is Lisa on Ice, and we'll see you then. Stupid internet, whole world laughing at me.

Monkey, dance, monkey, dance. Basta, basta, take him a picture with the internet mama luca.