Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer Badman

Episode Date: September 27, 2017

After a sugary escapade at a candy convention, homer is trapped in a sexual harassment scandal. Will Rock Bottom help him? Does Homer sleep nude in an oxygen tank for sexual powers? And just how tasty is a Gummi Venus de Milo?

This week's episode of Talking Simpsons is brought to you by you. That's right, we're on Patreon now, so head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons. For as little as $5 a month, you can help our show and get all kinds of great extra content on top of that. We've got a ton of great bonus content waiting for you right now, so head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons today. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to TalkingSimpsons, the podcast where condemned criminals dick at each other with rusty hooks. I'm your host, pathetic sexless food tube Bob Mackey, and this is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today?

I'm Henry Gilbert, and I sleep in an oxygen tent that gives me sexual powers. I've heard that, and who else? Grossly overweight pervert, Chris. Today's episode is Homer, Badman. See you in hell, candy boys! today's episode is homer bad man today's episode aired on november 27th 1994 and as always chris will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby or should i say oh boys bobby boys demand have two songs on the pop chart during this week on bended knee and i'll make love to you two ways to have sex uh tim allen's the pop chart during this week on Bended Knee, and I'll make love to you. Two ways to have sex.

Tim Allen's The Santa Claus jollies up the box office, and Jeffrey Dahmer is beaten to death in a prison bathroom. Oh, boy. You know what? Well, let's choose not to talk about Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh, come on. No, I have nothing to say. It's pretty horrible.

Look it up. No, The Santa Claus, that was when Tim Allen truly became the four quadrant superstar that we all know him to be the most profitable trilogies of all time whether you like it or not it's crazy I won't condemn it some of the worst CG I've ever seen in my entire life 1994 CG and this movie is amazing in that it's it's predicated on the death of Santa Claus which I think I was too old for this movie when it came out but that always astounded me. But what annoys me about this movie, the Santa Claus is a pun.

C-L-A-U-S-E. It forever ruined how everyone spelled Santa Claus. They assumed that was just how you spell Santa Claus. I think, yeah, millennials think that's how you spell Santa Claus now because they saw that the most. And I get it too. I get it too. As a rules obsessed child though, I did like the film a little bit because they have that the most. And I get it too. I get it too. As a rules-obsessed child, though,

I did like the film a little bit because they have a dweeb kid in the film who says, well, why doesn't Santa do this? Why doesn't Santa do this? What about houses that don't have a chimney? How does he get around the world in one day? It's like, well,

Santa, when he's in his sleigh, there's basically time delineation and he moves faster than time i didn't know they explained it and every chimney if a house doesn't have a chimney he creates a magical chimney that he will walk out of and go back into that will then morph out of the wall so in and that's how santa does all those things this is a trilogy correct it is a trilogy yeah so the first one also they introduce a um it's that young uh sephardic boy who's in everything but he's they're basically a jewish elf to explains the rules to santa claus and when

he gets it to and yeah the sequel the mrs claus or whatever mrs claus where he's got to kill his first wife well and then marry a matronly old lady. David Krumholz. David Krumholz. Thank you. Thank you. And also it's about divorce. It's a child of divorce. And they definitely have to make it clear that Tim Allen's character is a better, cooler guy than Judge Reinhold, the dweeb who married his ex-wife. But he also doesn't get to have his ex-wife back.

It's very 90s. And look, it's like Mrs. Doubtfire. Same deal. Your parents aren't going to get back together, but your dad's cool. He's trying, man. So many divorces happening in the 90s. It was a current trend. So, there's a lot to get into in this episode. Speaking of 90s, it's quite a 90s episode. It's very 90s. The one thing

I want to get into is not about the content, but the title of this episode. I feel like this is the most artless Simpsons title. It's great. And I was trying for like 10-15 minutes to find out, is this a reference to anything? Yeah. Why is Batman one word? All I could find was like, pre-1950 there were a lot of movies that had the word Batman

in them as one word, but I guess the pun is instead of Homer Simpson, it's Homer Badman? I don't know, but I mean, it's obviously Homer is a bad man in this episode, but is there anything more to this? It just seems so blunt and artless. I feel like there was probably another stupider title, but they just grabbed something from one of the protest signs, and it's perfect.

Unlike a ton of other episodes we watch, I know exactly which episode this is. It should be called You Pinch, We Lynch. Yes. I prefer that sign. Yeah, I think it could be a parody of a bad protest sign of Homer, or they just took it off one of the signs they had it seems like a last minute decision yeah yeah but if you the episode wasn't always about this

well so yeah this episode written by greg daniels and directed by jeffrey lynch would he does amazing his team does amazing animation he is so great at action and as the opening really shows off and even very subtle action too in this episode. But this was written by Greg Daniels, co-creator of King of the Hill, and this definitely has a little bit of the feel of a King of the Hill episode, where so many episodes of King of the Hill are predicated on Hank Hill being caught up in modern times.

It's a misunderstanding. It's just, I didn't mean it. No! No! And that's kind of where Homer is left. Yeah, you're right. It's a real King of the Hill episode right though as greg daniels tells it it was supposed to be more style of a king of the hill episode that it really would have been the

second act onward would have been lisa's love of feminist icon that she is impressed by versus her love for her father and deciding who she believes in this situation. But Dave Merkin hates the media. That's true. And so he takes it over and makes it about fuck the media, which is some of the best shit in this episode. Exactly. I do not trust previous Simpsons writing teams, current, past, present Simpsons writing teams to handle an episode about feminism well.

Yes. Instead, they ended up with a timeless parody of the media. Yes, the media stuff is great. My problem with this episode, which I still love, by the way, I still love this episode, I feel like it does a disservice to the topic of sexual harassment by using it as a springboard into another topic without addressing the things it needs to address. And I mean,

I use this, actually, I use this episode as like a piece of media for my college writing class. It was sort of a writing prompt. That's right. I didn't just go to college. I taught college. And it was basically just like, this episode is a really strong argument so I was like What argument are they making you know write about it so that was my thing But I feel like I was more focused on

The media you know parody Than the sexual harassment stuff in this episode Which I feel like I don't think we get enough Of that I don't think they do enough service to that part Of the story and I mean I think Ashley Grant has like three lines In this episode she is kind of lost They don't make Ashley Grant into a villain.

Lots of 90s sitcoms would have turned her into a total villain. I appreciate that. Somebody who would have purposefully lied to destroy Homer Simpson and get famous. They would have done all these things. They do not do that with Ashley. But they also don't really do much of anything with her. I still think it's alarmingly clever that they can approach sexual harassment

and not take any side at all. Make it one big giant misunderstanding and not villainize. Though that is... I'm going to get into some boring statistics later. I'm sorry.

But this is one issue I did have with this episode which I don't even blame The Simpsons for. But as has come up in the news recently, when you have a show written in a boys club as in come up in the news recently when you have a show written in a boys

club as in no woman on the writing staff i think you sometimes will overlook things and one thing this episode definitely overlooks is that i think unintentionally perhaps it feeds into a fault a narrative that false accusations happen all the time with sexual harassment and sexual assault which is not the case it is actually quite at least in american statistics which is not the case. It is actually quite, at least in American statistics, it is quite the opposite. I'm not blaming the show for this. I'm not blaming intentionality here. I was looking at it with these eyes, and I don't think it does that at all. I do think there...

I can see why it could have that effect on a viewer. Yeah, I fear that there are some viewers who, they will have heard some woman say, I was sexually harassed by this person. And they might think thanks to this episode or in part thanks to this episode, it could have just been a misunderstanding. Like Homer was just grabbing the gummy Venus. Who knows what happened? Nobody knows the truth. Even more insane.

It's like she's lying to get money or attention. It turns out with high profile cases of domestic abuse, like things like Johnny Depp and his wife, you hear that all the time. Like, she just wants his money. No, she's already rich, and she donated the money to charity or whatever. But it's framed as Homer's a gross human, and a woman would get really mad if he touched her. Yes, of course.

They have to engineer the most outlandish situation in order for Ashley to be wrong about this. In order for Homer to make it unbelievable when Homer tells his side of the story, it would be like, that is ridiculous, because it is ridiculous. But I feel like equally the media would blame Homer, but also they would be blaming her as well. Like, what's her backstory?

She's no angel. That is the other problem. I think rock bottom in those shows, they would definitely have done the thing they did to Homer, but the next week they would have been like, we talked to every person who says they've had sex with Amber and she is actually pretty slutty herself like they would have done that there's so much like harlot shaming uh of scarlet the show never does that but yeah i i was worried about watching this episode ahead of time because i was like oh well this is not age well and i think

it has aged pretty well but that is also i think's great. That's my stance as a dude. Because the media has only gotten worse. Oh, yes. No, the media... Of course, yeah. This is just the media now. This is pre-internet media, too. Yes. Oh, my God.

Before, everything was a 24-hour news channel. Before, everything was hot takes online. Before, like, what Rock Bottom does, it would do for 30... What Hard Copy would do, would do for 30 minutes a night. It would not be an entire web page that would be dedicated to 20 stories like this a day yes i mean it's some people's job to wake up every morning and be like i need to make people mad like i need to write 20 stories that will make people mad i'm going to find the most inconsequential things and make them these huge

problems yes yeah and that's that sjw did this it's it almost kind of reminds me of how when i watch network i'm just like well well, this satire fails now. It's just, this is way behind the time. The catch-up Network, the old movie. Though, by the way, the point of Network is that Howard Beale is a crazy suicidal man. He is not a truth teller. He's just gone nuts.

The only time he really tells truth in that movie is after Ned Beatty yells at him. He's just like, oh, yeah, you have no power in this world. That's a great scene. Everybody owns everything. And then his ratings go down, and then he's murdered. Spoilers for Network. You should just watch it.

We have not had a live murder on a talk show yet. That's the one thing we haven't done in real life. They edited it out. I mean, there were multiple murders. Yes, there have been suicides afterward. Oh, there have been suicides on camera, for sure. All right, but I guess. Yes, there have been suicides afterward. Oh, there have been suicides on camera, for sure. Arma Dwyer. I do want to, okay, a huge preamble, but I must bring up Duckman, as I do so often.

So about four months later, the Duckman second season premiere, which is titled Papa Um Mau Mau, which, why is it called that? I don't know. It's just as weird as Homer Badman, but it's a very similar story in which duck man uh pinches two women's butts while the president is in town but he actually does it yes he actually pinches their butts yeah i was gonna say with a lascivious intent uh and they kick him onto a would-be assassin and duck man saves the day and he goes on a geraldo parody hey ofredo uh to be celebrated as a hero. And he basically turns things around on him. He's like, we have video

of you assaulting women. So then Duckman is basically trapped in his house with a media circus surrounding him, but instead of being afraid of it, instead of trying to clear his name, he embraces becoming a celebrity, like a criminal celebrity. And Duckman, that idea came up a lot. Like, you know, criminals are the new celebrities.

They're writing books from jail, they're profiting and stuff like that. This episode is very strange. I enjoy it. But it feels like it's missing a third act because it's just like two-thirds of it takes place in the house. And then it's just over. Oh, jeez. I guess it does. Yeah.

Yeah, it's true. But it does have – I think I'd be happy on Laser Time, Talking Simpsons, all these podcasts if all I could do is look into old candy. Yeah, the candy. I loved all the candy conventions. Yeah, and in terms of things, I do hate these articles, but they're all kind of true because The Simpsons is just a satire of our culture.

It is something they invented. There was no candy convention, and now there is. Whoa. The NCAA Sweets and Snacks Expo in Chicago on an annual basis. I'm sure there were industry-only things where if you were a buyer, you would go to tables and be like... That's the only one I could find by basis. I'm sure there were industry only things where if you were a buyer you would

go to tables. That's the only one I could find by name. I would like some chocolates. There was probably something in Vegas with sweaty sales. To me I wonder if it was just these guys go, the writers of the show go to the Television Critics Association convention all these things and maybe they just imagine there's got

to be one of these for candy too. Or you go to E3 and you think there must be one of these for candy too. Come to think of it. Or you go to E3 and you think there must be one of these for candy. Someday I'm going to get my homeboy on here who worked for Nielsen.

And Nielsen has the most insane shit you've never seen. They have phony grocery stores and like fake setups for sponsors that they set up to see how people

can point out brands after commercials. Wow. So I think if you're a TV writer, you do get invited into those, behind those doors. You do get, like, here's every candy Mars has coming out for the next

two years. Well, it's also, I bet, you know what? Their closeness with the Butterfinger candy, I bet one of them went to one of these. You're right, you're right. They were seduced by the Butterfinger company. I bet they tell you, we're like, Matt Groening does a signing at the Butterfinger company I bet they tell you Matt Groening does a signing at the Butterfinger table

I kept my candy research to a minimum but I believe on the laser time you guys did about the importance of the Simpsons I still posit

the Simpsons bought Butterfinger another decade oh for sure 20 years and I had that clip in there that shows you all commercials

for candy bars are like jingles and songs and then the Simpsons made it so like no candy bar commercials are funny and then the Simpsons made it so like, no, candy bar commercials are funny, and that's all you see now. It's neato. All right.

That's right, Bart. Well, let's talk about that. Let's begin with the very sweet, sweet opening. It's very sweet. Oh, damn FDA. Why can't it all be marshmallow? Ew, Bart, don't put the non-marshmallow pieces back in the box. They go in the trash.

Ooh, you like sweets, kids? I know a place that's sweeter than sweetness itself. In this sweet place, earthly donuts are sour as poison. You'd spit them out, you would. I'm talking about the Candy Industry Trade Show! So as a kid, I felt that was very well-observed behavior of only eating marshmallows and Lucky Charms. Yeah, I mean, their marshmallow status is dubious at best. Those little chalk pieces.

I mean, they're technically, they're not cereal pieces. They're this close to that grandma candy. I just hate how they get all squeaky in your mouth when you're chewing on them. You gotta get them soaked. Another thing Simpsons invented, I love this, that Lucky Charms All Marshmallows eventually became a thing, but I think it's almost illegal to sell them. It was illegal to sell them.

They only made them as a giveaway that you could win. Here's the commercial from 2013 for the Marshmallow Only Lucky Charms Giveaway. You can make your marshmallow wishes come true by winning one of 10,000 boxes of only marshmallows. Find your code in special boxes of Lucky Charms.

They're magically delicious. It's probably got like a do not... For novelty purposes only, do not eat. I watched a guy do an unboxing of it, and he was quite excited. I'm sure it wasn't paid content or anything. I looked it up on eBay. They go for five grand, these boxes.

Just buy three boxes of Lucky Charms. That's an $8 value. I want to point out that I think there was some legal issue with them saying Lucky Charms or showing the box of Lucky Charms because for about two seconds of the episode you see the box and you see the silhouette of where the words Lucky Charms because for about two seconds of the episode you see the box and you see the silhouette of where

the words Lucky Charms would clearly go but they don't actually write the letters in. I feel like it was a legal issue because it's like, what if Lucky Charms sponsored us? We don't want to make them mad. Or what if Trick sponsored us? Our competitor. The Simpsons doesn't have real brands in the universe. Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't just make up a Lucky Charms parody.

Or like Krusty in a leprechaun hat. But I actually was not the biggest fan of Lucky Charms. It was my brother's favorite cereal. And he wouldn't sort them out piece by piece, but he absolutely would leave half of the bowl full of the cereal pieces. Even when they coated the cereal with more sugar to make them frosted Lucky Charms. People still wanted to just have the marshmallows. I love candy. I love looking at old cereals. I thought Lucky Charms were the ultimate. I wasn't allowed to eat sugary

cereals. And I think it was my parents' disdain for whatever nutrition facts were available on Lucky Charms that, like, that's the one you really stay away from. That's the crack of sugary cereals. It's the gateway cereal. I thought it was delicious. It was so colorful. And for a long time cereal for like it and i thought it was delicious it was so colorful and for a long time nope there was no competitor nobody put marshmallows in

cereal yeah for a long time yeah the the closest thing i it was the limited edition brief pac-man cereal as a kid that i loved it was you had some monster cereals and i think for some reason alphabets did it eventually yeah well it doesn't't exist now. I think that's too by like, you know, the monster cereals went out of vogue briefly because like all these marshmallows, but somehow Lucky Charms gets away with it. Because it doesn't commit to one stupid thing. I love Count Chocula and all that stuff,

but strawberry cereal is gross. All chocolate cereal with chocolate marshmallows is gross. Boo-berry is the worst and still my favorite. I like Cocoa Puffs. I think we were also a Corn Pops family. That came in a special space bag. They were only allowed kicks. Cinnamon Toast Crunch was number one for me.

Which is also pure sugar. Oh, yeah. It's all the sludge you end up with with milk afterwards. It's just a gray slurry. I don't know if it was just a Calvin and Hobbes joke. It says, part of a complete breakfast. And they pointed out, yeah, notice the boy has a box of cereal,

two eggs, two glasses of orange juice, a glass of milk. Toast! There's usually a stick of butter in that shot, too. It has to have all this shit to be a complete breakfast for a grown lumberjack. Not a child. My mom's got to work in the morning. Homer got the tickets to the Candy Industry Trade Show from getting through two million Krusty Klump bars and Krusty Klump bar with almonds.

Joke on mounds and almond joys. And Apu was very polite about his indignation. Yes. Which, though, I mean, they don't have a million bars of Krusty Klump bars at the Quickie Mart. So did he just go to a million Quickie Marts? I think he just got lucky by opening a thousand of them or something like that. But then he got two of them. So that means he had to do it twice. Like, he couldn't

stop after the first one unless it came with two tickets. It's a tiny bit of the Willy Wonka story there, too. It's not enough Willy Wonka reference for my taste. But I guess it's too famous and on the nose for The Simpsons. Well, it's also one of those things that tells you the difference in ages. It's something I really noticed when Family Guy and Futurama were airing at the same time as The Simpsons.

And they even kind of bring it up on later Simpsons commentaries of, we're 10 years older than you guys. We're not going to have Transformers references in here. We didn't grow up watching the Willy Wonka movie on VHS all the time, so we're not going to do a ton of references to it but futurama and family guy i think almost within the same month did a willy wonka yeah that was crazy lateral thinking the slurm one was the better one obviously i like but i just love slurs mckenzie he's gonna party wiggity wobble i also do like that homer qualifies this as the one event he'd want Marge at, and only because she can be a pack mule for...

It's like big ropey ones. I went way too hard into trying to figure out the derivation of the Krusty Klump bar, and it just seems like spontaneously thought out. That's what I'm happy to report. It just sounds gross, for sure. A Klump, but with a K. I don't think we see them again ever after this. Now, there's a sign for the Krusty Klump bars behind Marge at the candy convention, but I don't think we see that them again ever after this now there's a sign for the

crusty clump bars behind marge at the candy convention but i don't think they've ever yeah i would bet in our future episodes if they ever go to a place that has a candy counter i would bet some animator would fill use it as filler but it's never been a plot point since then and then so then homer presents his his perfect strategy for stealing candy. While we also meet the little scene, but principal player in this episode. Homer, are all these pockets necessary? They wouldn't be if you were willing to sit in a hollowed out wheelchair. Well, that's a babysitter.

No one in town will sit for you two anymore. I have to choose between a grad student at the university and a scary looking hobo. Please, the hobo. Please, the hobo. Please, the hobo. Hi, I'm Ashley Grant. Oh. Ashley Grant!

You gave a talk on women's issues at my school and how we don't have to be second-class citizens. Mom, how can you leave us with this maniac? That is great. I mean, I feel, I don't know which has less dignity, the flasher trench coat Marge wears or pretending to be disabled in a wheelchair. Yeah.

It's like it's a – yeah, what do you go with there? I think the flasher trench coat is a better one because it at least doesn't exploit disability law. It's true. It's harder on your body, though, just to pack all that candy on yourself like a mule. That shows you how, like, crazy strong Marge is. And this is also – both of these strategies are much smarter than Homer is in other episodes. He would never think – I think his brain only starts to work when he's thinking of stealing candy. But yeah, so we meet Ashley Grant, who is definitely a grant.

And she definitely is the typical idea of a college, highly educated feminist who just has, gives speeches on how women aren't second class citizens and how that is seen as crazy by people like bart yeah i'm a little shocked they never brought her back but yeah she i think she only appears in the simpsons movie in that giant giant crowd i mean she's kind of just a catalyst she has no personality really outside of like what she's first and last name yeah yeah the one joke she's given, though, is pretty funny. So, you're one of those don't-call-me-a-chick chicks, huh? Eh, sorry about my unenlightened brother. He will make the next few hours a living hell.

Oh, I don't know. See this, Bart? Disembellor 4, the game where condemned criminals dig at each other with rusty hooks. Do a little housework and you can play for five minutes. No way. See, Lisa? Nails aren't hard to tame. They all follow their video cartridges.

Ow. All the subtle acting with the video cartridge stuff is really great, especially how Bart is tearing at his face when he's looking at it. He doesn't... He never wants to do what a babysitter says, but here's a video game Marge would never rent for him, and he could

actually play it. And it's a reference that probably doesn't need any explaining, but I do love... Maybe not to our audience. I do love that if you look at it now, it looks like a lazy video game reference, but this was in the heyday of Mortal Kombat. Yeah, just a few years after Mortal Kombat 1. Yeah.

And everybody was copying Mortal Kombat. Mortal Monday. Yeah. Like, when 2 came out, a video game came out on a Monday and gave it itself its own holiday. Mortal Monday. Yeah. Well, and it's funny, too, that this episode about a hot-button early 90s issue of even identifying what sexual harassment is, they also deal with video

game violence which which could not have been a more hot button issue hot button and so fucking new we'll see more of that in the bone storm episode next year i think this is what inspired barge be not proud a little bit i i this talk about video game violence here but the i think it's also well and her line there like males aren't hard to tame, they always follow their, she would normally say dicks. Yeah. But Bart, for an underage boy, a pre-sexualized boy, a video game will do just as well. And it's also key to notice here, Homer neither talks to Ashley nor even notices her when they leave. You have to, Homer has to have no interest in ashley not even recognize her as a

person to make it even more clear like he definitely would never that's how little he thought of her she was not a sexual being at all kind of just pulls marge out of the house yes doesn't look like a baby somewhere upstairs well and later he'll just ignore her existence in a car until everyone yells too distracted by candy to be turned on by Ashley. Totally. Yeah, well, the next episode will establish him as almost an asexual being. Yeah, I have to say, watching this back-to-back with Grandpa versus sexual inadequacy, I'm like,

well, Homer should have just brought up that he hadn't had sex with Marge in a year, and he's like, his sex drive is dead. Like, he just likes candy and food. So one of my favorite jokes in the sign jokes ever is the candy-shaped rat poison sign. Because candy convention, room A1, candy-shaped rat poison convention, room A, exclamation point. It's actually room 1, exclamation point, and then room 11. Oh, that's it.

Right, yeah. But still, that's... I love how just engineered it is to kill people. Just the most confusing sign ever with why would there be candy-shaped rat poison i love it it's so outlandish and there's like there's like a funny like three second shot i just noticed now that's a joke where the cops are holding back all the children and homer and marge are arriving on a red carpet and homer's like waving it's just like it goes by so fast it's just like they're walking it's just a weird joke that kind of just goes flies by i didn't notice it was children wanting yeah it's all children that is so great that shows homer's exclusivity of it and how much he loves it like i can go in you guys

can't i can get all this candy and he's he's happy with torturing children and uh there's a quick looking for mr goodbar joke which is a cliched line but i just knew it as a name of a movie that started dying keaton when i looked up the plot of it i was like what the fuck is this movie i looked at the plot like i'm not talking about this i mean we go over the the basic details it's actually based on a novel and the woman who wrote the novel wanted to write about the real story what happened to this woman but she figured she'd be sued or whatever so she turned into a novel which became a movie basically it's about a school teacher who leads a double life

she goes to singles bars to cruise for men bring strange men home having indiscriminate sex with men who aren't a husband I'd say she got what was coming to her no I don't believe that at all but she brought home the wrong guy who murdered her and that's the end of her story that's the entire movie and then it ends with her being

murdered by Tom Berenger like well if anyone's gonna do it I was trying to find why is this why is there candy bar reference in this fucking title I couldn't figure that out Mr. Goodbar was a just a peanuts and chocolate chocolate bar invented in 1925 it is so fucking lame yes bad candy in that list Simpsons

laser time I was wrong because I it's crackle that's more snuck into that Halloween triple mini combo because Good Bar sucks. It's just peanuts. If I ever got Good Bar, I'd be like, just give me a pure Hershey. These peanuts are not good. I don't like peanuts with chocolate too much unless caramel or nougat, some other type of creamed sugar is with it. It feels like a pre-World War I candy bar. And I thought it didn't exist anymore.

And people pointed out, like, no, they're totally large Mr. Good bars. And sure enough, now I see them. In my defense, convenience stores buy candy, I think, once a decade. And those boxes sit there for a really fucking long time. I'm obsessed with candy commercials. I have never in my life seen a Mr. Good bar. Well, in my research for a Mr. Good bar, I saw that at one point there was so little chocolate content in it, they couldn't call it chocolate.

It's like that brown oil sludge. Like a milk dud. Like a milk dud, yeah. Then they eventually bumped up the chocolate content, and now you can call it, like, how expensive is chocolate? I believe. What are we cutting corners here for, people? They didn't brand it as Hershey's because Mr. Hershey thought it was too controversial

a bar to be associated with the Hershey brand. Take that away from me on the Hershey Highway, good sir. What a time to be alive when that was a controversy. So Homer walking around and getting free stuff. I think this is what made me dream of what a video, what E3 would be like. You can get free stuff, in my experience, going to video game trade shows like e3 packs and well actually that's more of a convention and tokyo game show you do get free stuff but it's like a button or a lanyard or a bag or a bag a giant bag with a that's really just you

walking around for a commercial you don't you definitely don't get free games no no no they maybe get a pen i you would have loved it. Just yesterday, as of this recording, I went to a game event. And they're like, do you want a t-shirt? And I'm like, no. And they're like, are you sure? I'm like, man, I must be the oldest person here. Fuck no. I don't want your stupid t-shirt.

I'm not taking it. It felt really good. I wish you guys were there to see me. I just wanted to the ground. There was an opportunity for a lot of sign gags in this convention. I only spotted one. Me, I did. The triumphant return

of Nuts and Gum. Oh, you saw that? Nuts and Gum is in the lower right. Well, there's at least one new joke and it's Carob, now 40% less bad,

which I don't think I've ever eaten Carob. It's a chocolate substitute, I guess. Yeah, that reminds me of one of my favorite Andy Kindler jokes, which you still see

this same joke construction of. Andy Kindler was complaining about other stand-ups who do this joke like, Chocolate-free chocolate? Who's that for? He's like, it's for diabetics. That's who it's for. Like, oh, it's insulin. Who's this for? What's that all about? And it's the same thing you hear now of people making fun of like, Oh, I'm glad I got this app to remind me to shit. Like, well, the people who do need that app do need that they do need something to remind them to walk around maybe

it's not for you uh then we also get the super sour ball uh joke of homer which i just love it reminded me of this piece of art that i wanted to i don't know if you guys have seen it this is obviously fake i thought that was an ad. Yes, so the super sourball look on Homer's face is awesome. I just love it. He eats the impossible sourball. I hate sour candies. I'm not a fan. I love them. He's referring to the girl in the moose knuckle dress.

She did a good job of covering that up. I don't see that much of a bump. Well, so yes, there's a photograph online of a woman in a very form-fitting dress that is especially being eaten by her crotch. It's incredibly sexy. And so they make Homer's face the center of the crotch. It's just a funny—

I'm guessing that'll be the picture of this episode. She's Miss Talking Simpsons. Let's crown her. But anyway, yeah, that's one of my favorite Simpsons shit posts. But then, boy, I almost, if I didn't love all the rock bottom stuff so much, I would make this line of the show. Hey, sir, try our wax lips. It's the candy of a thousand uses.

Like what? One, a humorous substitute for your own lips. Keep going. Two, ooh, I'm needed in the basement. Keep going. Two. Ooh, I'm needed in the basement. Great animation on this. How he's grinning while walking. But it's like a labored grin of like,

is he buying it? It's a great joke, and I love that my lifetime straddles decades, that I, for the first couple of trick-or-treats, we did get wax lips. Me too. And they're fucking awful. I was confused, like, what do you do with these? I tried eating one, like, this doesn't have a flavor to it. They're the worst gum.

They try and fake that it's gum, but it's like temporary wax gum. It's the fucking worst. That's disgusting. I mean, that reminds me of... And it's too much gum! Have you ever had nickel nips? The small, like, they're small wax bottles inside with, like, a fruity kind of sugary juice inside. And you bite the top off.

And you get a tiny amount of juice and just a huge ball of wax. So it's an old-timey candy. And of course I looked it up to see where are our wax lips now. The original design is proprietary and owned by the Tootsie Corporation. Speaking of old candy. But Tootsie has no Speaking of old candy. Wow. But Tootsie has no interest in releasing it, so it's licensed to Wacko Wax, who still produce the original

Wax Lips design, and it's almost impossible to find. I'd say you'd have more luck finding it in a magic store than a grocery store. You're never gonna find it. Wax Lips are a $10,000 a year industry, so move out of the way for that one. I remember as a kid

now makes me feel a little bit i could still find candy cigarettes like they were just about being yeah out and they were being somewhere being called like candy sticks yeah but they were candy cigarettes some i remember they added an innovation when i was really little that they wrapped it in a gum and paper to look like a cigarette and you blew out the tip and you blew out powdered sugar to simulate smoke. Weirdly enough, they had no problem with Big League Chew, which I bought not knowing it was supposed to be tobacco. It's technically a good thing.

There's a great documentary on Netflix, The Battered Bastards of Baseball, about the minor league team that Kurt Russell's dad owned. But the guy on that team wanted to find a chewing tobacco substitute because he thought it was gross. So he invented it for that team as a substitute for people constantly chewing that gross, gross Redman tobacco horse shit. Yeah, I did. That's actually a line I like,

a throw-off line I like from Family Guy. Just like, I haven't had in a while. Big League Chew. Just a non-sequitur. Or, well, why do Rolos always make you drool? That was a Family Guy line. Big League Chew is one of those things that makes me nostalgic for the 80s when everything had 900 flavors.

I think you can get one flavor of Big League Chew, but it started with six. There were whole aisles of nerds, as far as the eye could see. There's a whole lot of flavored nerds. We've gone too far. Well, there sure were a lot of gummies around when we were kids. Right? I mean, let's get the introduction of gummies here. Gummy bears! Gummy calves heads! Gummy jawbreakers! That's right. When we were kids. Like, right? I mean, let's get the introduction of gummies here. Ooh, gummy bears.

Gummy calves heads. Gummy jawbreakers. What the? That is the rarest gummy of them all. The gummy Venus de Milo. Carved by gummy artisans who work exclusively in the medium of gummy. Will you two stop saying gummy so much? Marge is so annoyed.

She speaks for all of us. Just like, stop saying gummy. So, gummy in America, gummy candies, I think we're hitting a new boom in the 90s. Like, you would see every... Gummy bears, obviously, everybody knew about them. These little gelatin treats of fruity candy.

They hibernate in your colon. Which I like them. But my problem with fruit candy, why I prefer chocolate candy to fruit candy is chocolate will always be the same. If you buy a Hershey bar, it is completely that bar. If you buy Twix, it is completely that. If you buy Starburst, you will get some of what you like. But if you don't like every flavor of starburst you're buying they now sell all all reds good all reds cutting out that lemon

and orange yuck oh but i mean i'll settle for an orange i hate the lemon but maybe again a candy nerd i don't know who didn't copyright gummy bears but the reason why we have that disney afternoon show is because michael eisner wanted to capitalize on the gummy trend. And the spelling of Gummy Divinus de Milo is the spelling of Gummy Bears they did to avoid, I guess, being sued by the fucking Haribo Corporation or whatever. But Gummy Divinus de Milo spelled like Gummy Bears, the show.

I did want to bring up the joke about Marge bringing a piece of celery to the convention and her getting in trouble. So this story will make me sound like an asshole, and you know what? You're right. But this reminds me of E3, and I've been to a number of E3s. I will never go again. I hate it. I'm never more depressed. I'm never more lonely, despite being surrounded

by millions of people. It's just miserable, and you're just surrounded by nightmarish consumerism. I know I'm going to be standing in a lot of lines, so to ground myself at E3, I usually bring a paperback book with me. And I'm always afraid this is going to happen when I'm in line reading a book. Like, are you in the wrong place, sir?

You're clearly literate. This is E3. We're going to need you to put some custom loadouts in that book. If you had brought a Kindle, nobody would have given you any crap. Yes, it's true. I always brought a dusty Kurt Vonnegut paperback. It's like, I'm better than all you fucking scum. You've got to read Dead Eye Dick

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My brother is super loved gummies. Gummy worms were his favorite. I do loved gummies. Gummy worms were his favorite. I do love gummies. And I found at Costco you could buy a giant bag and they're low in fat. I had a period where I wanted to just get high and chew on stuff. And it really worked for me because I'd bite their fucking heads off and then twist their arms off. I prefer the texture of Sour Patch Kids, although I like the sourness of them. So sugary.

So sugary. They're great. My favorite gummy-esque candy is, they were my mom's favorite, too. They're like fake orange slices, which obviously like- Candy for the elderly. Yeah, I know. It is. Look, I like butterscotch.

I like Werther's Originals. I like maple candy. I like old people candy. I like Swedish Fish. Those are great. But gummy calves heads that's a very that's funny i think at least i some people specific yeah some people wonder if it's a joke from a vegetarian stance of like you do know these are made out of gelatin which makes

them actually a a product of an animal but my base candy i'd like to think it's a misguided godfather tie-in and And I also, big thumbs up to the Simpsons for doing jokes about the German Gummy Corporation and not making one Nazi joke. Like, nobody was a Nazi scientist. Ooh, gummy swastikas. I joined the Gummy Corporation

in 1946, and no joke like that. The guys who work, there's no SS uniform security guys who work for the government. This is not itchy and scratchy land. Exactly, yes. Yeah. And so, unlike sexual harassment, Homer is actually guilty of many crimes.

Murder. He kills indiscriminately hundreds of people. Or maybe just makes them really wet and sticky. I guess. But, like, how did he even get away with walking away from that explosion? It's a very public place. He was thrown clear. I think it was choreographed by the Double Dare people. It's a super sloppy explosion.

And Marge hauled ass with all that candy in her trash can after it exploded, too. She ran faster than Homer. And I love the joke about Pop Rocks plus Coke. That's so great. Yes, I did the hard research on this, guys. Okay, so Pop Rocks, it's a candy that was invented in 1975. It caused an urban legend about the kid Mikey from the Life Cereal ads that he died by ingesting a fatal combination of soda and Pop Rocks.

If you don't know who Mikey is, this clip might help you. What's this stuff? Some cereal. It's supposed to be good for you. Do you try it? I'm not going to try it. You try it. I'm not going to try it. Let's it. I'm not going to try it.

Let's get Mikey. Yeah. He won't eat it. He hates everything. He likes it. Hey, Mikey. When you bring life home, don't tell the kids it's one of those nutritional cereals you've been trying to get them to eat. Lie to your children.

Yeah, so that's Mikey. If I was a kid, I would have been fooled by, hey, there's a Quaker logo on here. No, no. That's why Captain Crunch didn't, it did fool me. That's the cereal I did get. That's a healthy and sober old man.

He will not give me good cereal. So yeah, I mean, so this is interesting in that it is how like memes spread before the internet. Like this, this meme spread so far and wide that people were calling

this kid's mother to be like, we're so sorry what happened to your kid. And there was a similar story. From eating Pop Rocks and Coke. And drinking Coke or something. I don't know how much he had to ingest. I'm sure it was different depending on what state you were in. But the story had the same basic elements to it. And there was a similar story about Bubble Yum being full of spider eggs that I heard as a kid.

Oh, wow. Containing spider eggs. I remember Yellow 5, which is an ingredient to make things yellow, shrinks your dick. Is that true? I don't think it's true. I heard it was red something when I was a kid. That's why they got rid of red M&M's.

Yeah, yeah. I think that was true. I miss tan M&M's. But when we were young, I remember the one being that Marilyn Manson was the kid from Wonder Years. And that he sawed off a rib and sucked his own dick. Yeah, he sucked his own dick

and then he told people to kill themselves, like all those things. Fucking internet ruined all this shit. Well, that's why I discovered the website Snopes in like 1999 or 2000 or whatever. It was the first of just like, if you can't trust Snopes, then nothing is true online, so you kind of have to trust it.

So there's more to this story, too. So this was such a serious thing for General Mills. They took out full-page ads in 45 publications and wrote letters to school principals saying, Pop Rocks will not kill you. And eventually, it got so bad that they sold the candy to Kraft, who marketed it under the name Action Candy. And then after it all died down, Pop Rocks came back. But you know what? Pop Rocks suck.

They're not a fun candy to eat. I don't like it at at all there's no flavor there the novelty is gone in like a second they are little pockets of co2 yeah sealed in flavorless nearly tasteless uh sugar that dissolves on your tongue it's it's technically you shouldn't eat it at all no i i mean can you even eat it it just because it just disappears in your mouth. I'd rather just have Rice Krispies. I can get the same sound effect. Yeah, let the milk do the work, not my tongue. Exactly, yeah.

But Mikey is still alive as of 2012. I don't know if he exploded later. He went on to be in a bunch of those live cereal commercials. That's why Mikey likes it. And I do want to say, see, I remember the Pop Rocks. This is how I know what era it's from. It was specifically with Crystal Pepsi. Pop Rocks and Crystal Pepsi. You can make a pipe bomb or something?

Yeah, and that will make your stomach explode. That's how dated the rumor is. That's the last one I heard. So, homers jump away from the explosion in slow motion. Jeffrey Litton says on the commentary, this is based on every Bruce Willis film but clearly it is I think it's the Die Hard ending I think it's Die Hard 2 but then I looked into it

it also could be Hudson Hawk which I refuse to watch for the purposes of this show written by the Heathers guy though it was his second shot at stardom great NES game but it did remind me of one of my favorite songs of the lonely island i love that song especially anytime will fer Ferrell becomes Neil Diamond again is perfect.

And it shows clips of dozens of films have done the cool guy walk from Explosion ones. One of the ones that most impresses me still is the one from Dust Till Dawn where they are, they're not just doing a cool guy walk. They are saying dialogue in front of Explosion. It's like, if you fuck up this line, like you can ADR it, but they're not going to build. They can't blow up that place again. It's the one time they can blow it up. They did that. It was the biggest stunt in the most recent and not great James Bond film, Spectre, where they make the biggest natural explosion probably ever in a movie of its size.

And they say a line of dialogue in front of it and it's it's just like geez this is a big risk but though one of my favorite walking from explosions is from the john woo classic for a better tomorrow too where chow yin fat blows up something and he's supposed to do the cool walk from explosion but he was way too close to the door or the explosion was bigger than he thought it was and it legitimately throws him forward and burns some of his back and so you get to watch but chagin fat is so cool that doesn't they should have called it for a better tomorrow with the to being like a two yeah i would have preferred that sorry for a better tomorrow too has one of the best ending fights in a movie but it has to it it's predicated on well chagin fat's back because his character had a twin brother last movie the there's always a twin

brother yeah so so yeah homer actually is very guilty of crimes in this episode and it's completely forgotten you think rock bottom would have pulled up that like homer just killed people at this convention destroyed the convention hall and uh and, yeah, last thing about the Homer dive forward. I just love the silhouette on him, the fire. It's not a surprise that Jeffrey Lynch would go on to animate tons of great action scenes, including being the, I believe, lead animator of Spider-Man action in the Raimi films. We did miss how Homer used all of his skill to steal the Venus de Milo. He just punches through the glass and grabs Homer used all of his skill to steal the Venus de Milo. Oh, yes, yes.

He just punches through the glass and grabs it. All my skill. Punch. If I may burn this one off as we're, Jesus, 45 minutes in leaving the candy convention.

We're almost at act one. I mean, act two. Two surviving musketeers. I went to look up the origins of three musketeers. Oh, yeah. One of my least, middle favorite candy bar.

No one's favorite candy bar. Three musketeers. Why, I was like, why is it called that? It used to be Neapolitan, and it had three different flavors. And then they found out, like the Simpsons joke, people only ate the chocolate. So it became one giant chocolate nougat thing instead of vanilla and strawberry. Wow.

There you go. I'm done. I retire. We know too much now. And I also do all the animation of the kids Crawling under Marge's giant jacket That's so cool Scrooge McDucking through candy Marge's attitude really changed after the convention

She seemed to be pissed off the entire time But she's like happy to be home And happy to give the kids all the candy Well the kids are tickling her But then when the candy all falls out of her I like the animation that she like Exhaustedly sits down like I think that's also why she

doesn't drive ashley home which he normally would she's like i am spent i've been carrying a hundred pounds of candy with me all day i do like the line though so the piles of candy are on the ground and they can't find the gummy de milo and homer says she can't have gotten far she has no arms it works on two levels like one uh it's just it's a piece of gummy it's not a person but also you you would use your legs to run away not your arms it's like that's so true yeah I tried to look a billion people have made the gummy de milo so no one officially with a simpsons license or an official gummy license just etsy of candy of course de milo is public domain so away, gentlemen. And the gummy Venus also appeared as a power-up in the Simpsons video, the Simpsons game.

You're right. It's how Homer transformed into his blob form. He would eat the gummy of Ilo. Jesus, that game sucks. It does suck. It's really good if you're a Simpsons fan. And then Ashley is driven home by Homer, and she has, I would say, a very natural response of a normal person

being around Homer. Oh, a graduate student, huh? How come you guys can go to the moon but you can't make my shoes smell good? I'm sorry. Ah, nobody's blaming you. Hey, could you take the wheel for a second? I have to scratch myself in two places at once. Just drop me off here.

Precious Venus. Thank you! And he just eats it! It's like Paul Giamatti drinking his wine with a bucket of chicken and sideways. Didn't enjoy it, didn't set up an event around it.

I laughed in first viewing i like gasped and laughed so hard that homer all he wanted was to eat the rare candy it was nothing to him in terms of sound design i think they amp up the shittiness of the car too to make this whole thing be even grosser for ashley because car sounds even shittier than normal it's like sputtering you know that's true she's in a i would see her being in a bad mental state being around this gross guy who's just talking about how he needs to like... Who left her in the car for 20 minutes.

Yes, who wants to scratch himself in two places at once in front of her. Which are all things his family is just like, yeah, that's Homer. People who know him are just used to that being Homer. And then I also do like that they show what Homer looks like from her viewpoint,

which is a gross, disgusting man who, what if she felt a thing on her butt and she feels movement on her butt and then sees this guy who she only knows

as a vulgar man? What would you assume? And Homer is too clueless to be like, oh shit, I need to talk to her. I need to call her. I need to let her know what happened. Her reaction seemed normal to him or else, thank you.

Well, he didn't even know. Like, for Homer, I'm sure all he was thinking was, I'm going to eat this gummy now. Like, he's not thinking about her at all. That's got to be a fetish. Eating warm gummies a woman has sat on. Oh, my God. There's at least three subreddits about that. It is gestating in me right now and i in terms of simpson's lexicon jesus christ his version of thank you i've definitely use it

however i playing destiny 2 every time i'm revived into the microphone thank you like every single time uh well so then it's the next morning i love the sound bart and lisa make as they're getting sicker eating candy, but don't want to give it away. They're like sadly coveting it. It's so great. Hey kids, got some candy left for breakfast. Why don't we give it to some needy children then? We finally get into the actual plot of the episode. Oh, no, the candy conventioneers tracked us down!

There he is! There's the man that sexually harassed me! Oh! For a minute there, I thought I was in big trouble. It's just a... Don't! Two, four, six, eight! Homer's crime was very great great meaning larger events we use it in the pejorative sense marge i swear i didn't touch her you know how bashful i am

i can't even say the word titmouse without giggling like a school girl oh greg daniels on this episode's uh commentary talks about how this era especially the simpsons sort of pioneered the unrelated first act. And it was sort of a writer's cheat in that you can present an entire set piece with a collection of jokes. But also you would only need one plot related act break. And it's hard to come up with two plot related act breaks to get people to be interested in a story, you know. So it's a major cheat, but it's one that they used a lot. And he says it's a good thing.

Yeah, no, I think it worked out pretty well so all right what do you guys think of of ashley's response to being sexually harassed that she gets together a group of protesters to protest homer's house yeah i think like from her perception i think the thank you is the icing on the cake can you imagine some yeah that's true yeah thank. That's true. I think that would make me more pissed, but no one's grabbed my ass in a while. I mean, I feel like it is weird that the law was not involved, but also women don't often

get the law involved because they don't want to be shamed. They'll be shamed. The stats of actually bringing the guy to justice are quite low. The burden of proof. And in normal reality reality the police can only do so much and in a world of police chief wiggum yeah you can't do anything like you who's to say she didn't go to wiggum and he then say like i do that every day who's that's not is that

sexual harassment that's something to the recent anita hill documentary is so amazing because the what our generation knows about sexual harassment and it's better understanding of it hardly great but better was forged in the anita hill trial well it wasn't even a trial was he questioning and just that the shit she went through you watch it it's full of men, including Joe Biden, who was a senator then, saying, well, I mean, is that really sexual? I mean, he just asked you. All right. It was all these guys saying, like, wait, that's sexual harassment? I thought women liked that.

You can't put pubic hair in a can of Coke. I thought this was America. That's the most notorious thing from that trial or questioning. Documentary's called Anita, by the way. Just Anita. I will point out, I love the show F is for Family. I just got into it. It's super great. I think it's like the next king of the hill for me i really like it uh the second season uh has some episodes they're just like this is what sexual harassment was in the workplace for women yeah and like kind of setting up like i

mean the show is about how terrible the 70s were in general but it's like here's how women had yeah i can't watch it while eating it's too gross it. It is pretty gross, but I love how gross it is. But I love it. It's about, it is anti-nostalgia. It's like the 70s were fucking miserable. Everybody was racist and hate-filled and music sucks. Unhappy. Everybody sucks. They ate poorly.

They made terrible decisions. They didn't know better. It's really great. They were holding the scars of war all over them that they couldn't even deal with. So I think this episode also exists in a point in time where the mainstream men uh the men the men of the mainstream world were kind of realizing what sexual harassment was and what they thought as innocent was not so innocent and but especially and also maybe believing women just a tiny bit? It's just locker room touching. So this taught me the word pejorative. And I also like Marge's part, saying some of their chants are very catchy and memorable.

She's worried about that. I wrote down the signs. Touch a butt, go to jail. You pinch, we lynch. Thou shall not grab. And, of course, Homer, bad man. So then Homer tries to tell his side of the story which is quite unbelievable you grabbed me in the car oh that no i was just grabbing a gummy venus de milo that got stuck to

your pants yeah right that's the oldest excuse in the book come on i'm a decent guy he lost all he lost all sympathy he would get by accidentally exposing himself to them it's kind of similar to scotch tober fest actually now listen to ashley grant i'm wondering did they try to cast a guest for her and just they couldn't that's that's pamela hayden who plays millhouse yes in that clip sounds way too much like mill's with no video that's true he grabbed me this is this is boring statistic time about like this is dealing with a false accusation of sexual harassment to homer and i really don't want listeners obviously i'm probably preaching the choir here but i just don't want listeners to think that false accusations are a job are the real problem with sexual harassment

because i think that is a very male focusedfocused take on sexual harassment and sexual assault. Just like, well, what if somebody lies and say I did it when I didn't? If that is your main concern with sexual harassment and assault, you are not looking at it properly. This is a grain of research I looked up. It is shown that little more than two percent of accusations that are actually filed as reported are false and it is far far more statistically likely that a victim will not report anything for fear of a trial or worse and that when the person even is taken to trial the odds are not great that they will actually even do jail time for what they are for in the

trial that they will even be found guilty in general the justice system is more likely to trust the words of a man over a woman and the fear of false accusations of a man from sexual assault did not really reflect the very grim reality of sexual assault and violence in america so if the accusation happens at fox news it's 100 true yes there's any man at that company who has not been i know it's really crappy that i really wanted to like i wanted to dislike all the women at fox news all the fox news blot ladies who all got hired but they're all being tortured they're all victims they're all like they're all victims of consistent sexual harassment by disgusting men horny old men and i feel i in a way i feel bad for the kelly's of the world who are on those channels.

Not me. Look, they spread disinformation and horribleness just as much as anybody. But they thought they were like, yeah, I'm a Republican too. Let's join in the club of hating people different from us. They're like, no, no, no. You aren't a human to me. I molest you. They all had to see Roger Ailes' cruel parody of a boner.

Just think about that. He's a melted wax man. Pause the vomit, everybody. Get mad at me if you want. I'm glad he's dead. That guy is so... I'm so glad he's dead. He does look like a papier-mâché sculpture of Benjamin Franklin.

That's the end of me. All right. So anyway, that's... See, that's a mighty soapbox you are on but like when the mics were off henry was advocating the three grabs and you're out politics this all happened i'm telling you people uh so yeah i also do like how march says shantytown yes some kind of shantytown and homer's bad explanation of sexual harassment to the kids but that i i do like that a little boy's idea

of a girl's butt is the source of all cooties. It's a cute little line. I also like how Homer's depression outfit is his Homer the Heretic outfit, which I don't think we've seen. It's the green robe with the bear slippers. I think they pulled that from a season four pack or something. He put it back on. He wore it briefly at the Do What You Feel festival

in the Brad Pittman episode. But that's the only other time I can... That's interesting. That is his loose outfit. Well, he only... Oh, that's a sinner's outfit. And I don't trust this because it's from the Simpsons' Wikia page,

which I feel like has reported this information before. It claims it's the first episode of The Simpsons ever to be rated 12 in the UK because of all the sexual references. I wouldn't be surprised. Peggy 12. I could swear they they said that about another episode so well probably the next one the next one is certainly dirty as is

um well the one where homer and marge are basically nude natural born kissers yeah i would think that one would get them in a lot of trouble but the uh i think homer really was only wearing the robe for the joke of exposing himself, which is just like God is out to destroy him. Did they cut out the butts in The Simpsons at some point? After Janet Jackson, no more butts. And then they came back. I've said it before, but they did come back, but butt cracks are now blurred out.

I remember seeing one on American Dad shortly afterwards, and they blurred it out. I don't know if they've since rescinded that rule. It's the one thing everybody has. Nobody doesn't have a butt. It's one line what's that gonna do to people i apologize to any listeners born without butts well since appearing on since going to tbs a i think american dad finally does have butts again they say shit all the time on that yeah just like hey we're on tbs now shit shit shit like american dad is the best seth

mcfarlane show probably because he is less involved. Sounds like someone hasn't seen The Orville. Oh, fuck that. I haven't, but we got to have Cat back on here. I didn't realize this show, The Orville really is just him hiring a bunch of people who worked on Star Trek to make a Star Trek show for him, starring him. That's pretty nuts.

Like, fuck you, Seth MacFarlane. He's like 15 vanity projects past his expiration date. Yeah, I'm sorry. Anyway. What if we make a movie where Charlize Theron kisses me a lot? So I do like that the, it's a very visual joke, so I don't have it here, but the joke of the protesters following him to work, shaking his car, walking with him on the freeway somehow. There with me.

Yeah, I love it. It's there with me. I also like the quick throwaway line, we aren't too crazy about nuclear power either. It's like, I like that these protesters have, they have a lot of problems with Homer, not just the sexual harassment. His entire life is problematic. Homer's only problem, though, is the protesters.

The media hasn't smelled blood in the water yet. I really love Homer's desperation when talking to marge because he's just used it's kind of similar to actually in a previous greg daniel script of him begging lisa to fix his marriage it's like please i don't want to do anything you always fix this problem just do it for me please and that but but marge can't do anything and then we and that also leads to the introduction of one of my favorite ever one-off characters marge please this is where i need you the most i'm counting on you to do something or say something to make it all better okay go homer i already talked to the indignation coordinator out on the lawn today i told her you were a decent man but she wouldn't listen besides standing by

you and supporting you there isn't anything more i can do. You mean I'm on my own? I've never been on my own. Oh, no. Unown. Unown. I need help. Oh, God, help me. Help me, God.

I love it. Yellow. Hello, Homer. This is God. Bray Jones from the TV magazine show Rock Bottom. And it is Harry Shearer doing his God voice we heard in Homer the Heretic. That's true. It's just for that one joke, Godfrey Jones has to have that voice pretty much the rest of the episode.

And we learn from the season five finale that Homer can only offer Marge complete and utter dependence, which we're seeing in this scene. That's quite true, yeah. That I also love his just deliberate yellow. I mean, yellow was Homer's catchphrase. You played the Simpsons arcade game, right? That's true, yeah. And also I like how he says Sasquatch.

Dan Castaneda says Sasquatch like he's never seen the word before. He says Sasquatch. Sasquatch. Bless you, Chris. So, alright. I was curious, what show were they basing this off of? And I instantly thought of Hard Copy. Absolutely. Rather than doing the research, was it kind of...

Which was a tabloidy, pre-TMZ, Fox News baby syndicated show that aired daily in afternoons. But if you go to the Hard Copy wiki, the second entry is this episode. It is 100% Hard Copy. The sound of the rock bottom screen is, well, okay. But the setup of the naming of segments, the presentation of stuff, like, okay. So I looked up, this is the opening to a 1994 episode of hard copy, just so you know what it was like currently then tonight on hard copy rosanne

arnold bears her soul about her broken marriage rosanne claims that tom beat her humiliated her in public and even threatened to kill one of her bodyguards it's the queen of comedy's sad story that she's living in fear of the man she once loved so much fear that she's fled the country and from behind the walls of roseanne's home it's the heartbreaking details of a marriage gone bad she's done absolutely nothing wrong so yeah i mean you can't see this at home because this is a podcast, but the ominous zooms. The zooms, the reusing of public domain footage. That is rock bottom to a T, Jesus Christ. It's rock bottom to a T. And even actually, you know what, let me go back to that clip because I want to fast forward to the host and you can hear how similar he is to Godfrey

Jones presenting things. She called herself Roseanne X. Very. So, well, also, I watched the rest of that thing. They're like, Roseanne bears Barry So well also I watched the rest Of that thing they're like Roseanne Bears her soul not to them They're reading things from a court case And then they hire a

Scientician basically to read you what was Said it's over sensationalized Dramatic news stories that may or may not be true Elton John sued them yes for claiming He had AIDS and they said He moved to Atlanta to be close to an AIDS thing. A dirty, dirty show. I'll get to the Elton John thing when we get to the apology at the end.

There was a triforce of these shows. There was a hard copy, inside edition, and a current affair. And I think Bill O'Reilly is the only one who rose to the top and then was kicked out for sexual harassment. His gross, clammy body. Nobody wants that. His 60, clammy body. Nobody wants that. Boy, it's funny. There's no words there! It is funny to see this intersection

of Bill O'Reilly in both the topics of rock bottom and sexual harassment. He was exactly the Godfrey Jones type. He was a newsreader and a presenter of things. He's not a journalist. He's just a professional opinion haver that are fed to him to make you angry about things.

I'm actually shocked that 94 episode is not all OJ, but they're probably like, look, we did OJ all week. There's something new with Roseanne. Let's just do Roseanne. Oh, man. They probably just fed off of OJ for years and years. And just that perfect... It's something like Tim and Aaron... So many great comedies of today have done of just the zoom in on grainy VHS footage. Like, well, how do we make Tom Arnold walking look more ominous?

Zoom in a little more. The only thing I learned from that video that you couldn't see, and I never knew this, that Tom Arnold's middle name is Dwayne. What a Dwayne. Because it's slowly panning over his restraining order. Keep that fact in your pocket. So, Homer trusting Rock Bottom, even though

they did that great piece on Sasquatch, he does seemingly an innocent interview with them explaining his side of the story, and is excited to see what's going to come next on come next. This is almost as good as the Killbot factory. Almost. This is a minute long, but

it's all perfect. Here comes the bouncing ball of justice. Tonight on Rock Bottom, we go undercover at a sex farm for sex hookers. I keep telling you, I just grow sorghum here. Uh-huh. And where are the hookers?

Round back. But first, she was a University Honors student who devoted her life to kids until the night a grossly overweight pervert named Homer Simpson gave her a crash course in depravity. Babysitter and the Beast. Aw,

crap. Somebody had to take the babysitter home. Then I noticed she was sitting on her sweet can. I grabbed her sweet can. Oh, just thinking about her can. I just wish I had her sweet, sweet, sweet can. So, Mr. Simpson, you admit you grabbed her

can. What do you have to say in your defense? Mr. Simpson, your silence will only incriminate you further. No, Mr. Simpson, don't take your anger out on me. Get back, get back. Mr. Simpson, no! Dammitization may not have happened.

That's my favorite line ever. Two Harry Schreier voices in a row. I can't even do it that fast. The perfect legal cover. They're zooming in on the frozen VHS frame of Homer with a bad tracking line at the bottom. That's a tracking error. With the music over, too, and same, too.

The perfect animation. I've heard many animators say that slow motion is the hardest thing to animate, and just the great slow motion of Homer reaching for his keys to try to make that look ominous because they just, like, filmed him from the bushes. And Godfrey Jones is outside and Homer is inside on a set for the interview. I don't know what you guys do with deleted scenes now. But when the actual interview is being conducted before it's chopped up into that clip, it ends with a woman's footsteps running out of the room and slamming the door. Which leads me to believe there's a cut joke after that.

I think we'll get to it. Yeah, I mean, after the interview, Homer says, like, I liked your piece on Sasquatch. Or can I meet Sasquatch? And then a woman runs out of the room. But it doesn't really make sense. Yeah, they give her footsteps. They give all that sound effect. And a door slamming.

I wonder what happened. Maybe he thought he was going to interview Ashley. Or he's like, is Ashley here too? I imagine, what I imagine is them over-explaining the joke we just saw the result of. Yeah.

We will get to the deleted scene soon, so when the season's over. I was like, I just love the delivery of a sex farm for sex hookers. Feminization,

made an ad. It's just perfect. And the way he screams, no! Mr. Simpson, your silence will only incriminate you further. It makes it, they all but say, like, you are guilty, Homer.

Which, that is the only problem with it, though. Like, I know in the real world, Hard Copy would have done a show the next night to say that Ashley was guilty. And have done the same thing. They would have played both sides because that would have given them more content and filled the media hole that is their company. They clearly don't care about justice. It's all about entertainment. And then hard copy goes straight into another of, or rock bottom goes straight into another

of my favorite ever scenes. Oh, it's so great how the plot just screeches to a halt for this fantasy sequence. It's amazing. And I love the song too. We're going to start a new life under the sea. Hmm. Under the sea. Under the sea.

There'll be no accusations. Just friendly crustaceans under the sea. There'll be no accusations. Just friendly crustaceans under the sea. Good job. It's hitting everybody. Homer, that's your solution to everything. To move under the sea. It's not going to happen. Not with under the sea. It's not gonna happen. Not with that attitude.

Somebody didn't play Bioshock. At karaoke, whenever anyone puts on Under the Sea, I try to sing along with these lyrics. They're better, frankly. Well, dude, that song is so much better than the official Kingdom Hearts music. Oh, you're right. Kingdom Hearts 2.

Oh, that's terrible. Every bit of orchestration in that song is better than what's done with actual Ariel Al Claussen and his team did an amazing job and I also think too as we saw

in Ancient Scratchy Land if you ask animators to parody Disney they're gonna work at least the Simpsons animators they worked extra hard to get they keep away from that

well no when they have the slugs dancing together they're like no that's the slug dancing for the Simpsons in general as an animated program has kept away from almost all Disney. All the Disney references wormed their way into itchy and scratchy based episodes.

They almost never do anything. I mean, I know David Merkin hates Disney. I feel like this is his idea. He wanted to see all those creatures get eaten. Yeah, I know. He saw Little Mermaid like two years before production on the show, three years. And then just like fuck those fuck those cute animals dancing around to under the sea homer should eat all of them and kill them

and just that he uh big credit to dan too for keeping the homer voice while also hitting the that was a great yeah great performance that note was a long note too yes yeah so the rock bottom sequence obviously is when the go sign goes for all the rest of media to attack homer and go after him and uh that leads to the scene that i recall being in the ad for this episode that made me go like what the hell is this episode about simpson scandal update homer sleeps nude in an oxygen tent which he believes gives him sexual powers hey that's a half truth i don't know homer simpson i never met homer simpson or had any contact with him but i'm sorry i can't go on that's okay your tears say more than real evidence ever could that's

the line i hate most in this episode and i did want to include that because yeah it's an ugly line it that is the kind of shit that feeds into false accusations and say that women cry on tv and that means more than real evidence ever could like that's i really don't like the spirit behind that joke and i feel like that even the writers on the show wouldn't make that joke now i want to believe that like but it's just yuck i don't like that sally jesse rafael would absolutely have shows oh sure for sure let's skype greg daniels right now yes yeah but the but but also though the sleeps nude in an oxygen tent that was in the ad for the episode and i was just like why is homer it was another nudity from homer and then just him falling down like why is this episode

about this and i also was not aware of it was another michael jackson reference which we've actually already if you listen to talking critic patreon.com slash talking simpsons uh on there we talked about the vitiligo line that michael jackson did to oprah when he just talked about his vitiligo problems and how it was parodied as vitilardo. There were so many of these Michael Jackson interviews where people were just like, what the fuck, dude? That was basically the whole point of the interview. What the fuck? So this is from the same interview

where Oprah is asking him about the rumors that inspire that joke of Michael Jackson sleeps in an oxygen tank. All over the house upstairs when you weren't looking, looking for that oxygen chamber. I cannot find the oxygen chamber anywhere in the house upstairs when you weren't looking, looking for that oxygen chamber. I cannot find the oxygen chamber anywhere in the house. That story is so crazy.

I mean, it's one of those tabloid things. It was completely made up. Okay, but you are in something there. There's a picture of you. Where did that come from? How did it get started? I did a commercial for Pepsi. You can finish the end of that story there.

I want to say shout out to DoodooFan for that great capture. Yes, thank you. So yes, he was horribly, Michael Jackson's story was that he was burned and he was doing that to recover from horrible burns. Well, he was burned on that diet, Pepsi, horribly. But DoodooF but... Jesus Christ. Apparently a Michael Jackson fan as well. The YouTube channel, Jesus. Well, they're the only ones who are uploading this Oprah stuff.

They get around Harpo's protection. I shouldn't dwell on this. But so that's where the sleeps in an oxygen tent thing comes from. But I just love how he says, sexual powers. It's so great.

I pretty much just have every clip from the TV because they're all the best scenes. All great. This joke... I was desperate this had a real-world foundation. I love it. Today on Band, mothers and runaway daughters

reunited by their hatred of Homer Simpson. And here's your host, Gentle Ben. I just have one thing to say. Let's have less Homer Simpsons and more money for public schools. I agree. Ben, I have a question. No, Ben, I have a question. No, Ben, no. He just wants to eat the food.

God, I love everything about this. I wish somebody actually bothered to do this. Strap a microphone to a bear's head and have him host a talk show. I do love the technical difficulty sign. It's someone speaking heartfully into Ben's mic. Yes, it's so great. The joke they're making is anyone can host a talk show. You just staple a microphone to somebody and they can do it.

These shows are so easy. I watched so many of these daytime talk shows growing up. Especially when I was sick. And there was always the audience members that was like, I think cheating is wrong. And everyone stands up and claps. It's just like these broad things that everyone agrees with the best is that mr show life yeah lifeboat sketch that is a talk show that crashes on a cruise ship and all the survivors do the talk show anyway because life is precious and god in the bible exactly who who and apparently that people people

have gone on tv to say that mr show but anyway i'm a fish yeah i i fucking love that fabian line like i was on an island patty prince looking motherfucker yeah that's uh and the other one they did two of uh they mr show did basically every sketch twice but it's like but the one of of uh them being in the audience the guy them snapping back at each other. But Gentle Ben was a real show. Based on the book. But also a ripoff of Flipper.

Like, well, Flipper's popular. Well, let's get Clint Howard. Young Clint Howard. Yeah, listen to the Gilbert Gottfried podcast to hear stories about that show, him being on it. Looking at the videos, like, is it good to have a child actor and a bear all the time? It seems bad. He talks about on that podcast how, like, to get Ben to do anything, it was all food-related.

So watching this Simpsons clip again, it's like, oh, yeah, that's all the bear cares about is eating the food. Clint Howard famous as the Tranya-drinking space alien. I prefer him as Ice Cream Man or whatever the fuck that movie was. But Clint Howard, it's always fun to watch a Ron Howard movie and then see like, oh, there's a Clint Howard cameo. He always puts his brother in it.

And I look forward to seeing him in the Han Solo movie. Jesus. But so that's. One thing to look forward to. Yeah. All right. I think I I think this is the line of the show. The next parody, though.

Sure. That's the joke. And now we return to fox night at the movies omaris portrait of an ass grabber starring dennis from portrait sounds classy doesn't it No, Mr. Simpson, a cat is a living creature. I don't care. Now I'm going to grab me some sweet. No, Mr. Simpson, that's sexual harassment. If you keep it up, I'll yell so loud the whole country will hear. With a man in the White House?

Not likely. Oh, man. I just love this. With a man in the White House? Not likely. And they turn Ashley into a child in like a Sunday school dress and pigtails and everything. But Dennis France fucking rules in this. He is perfect as Homer Simpson.

And it's funny, too, that later Homer will talk about how he wants to wear a button-up short-sleeved shirt with a tie because Sipowitz does it, which is the role that made Dennis Frantz, I think, most famous. Oh, yeah. I love Dennis Frantz. And, like, he's great as a complete lowlife in the film Blowout, in the Brian De Palma film Blowout. He was always just a character actor, which means ugly actor. I love, there's no time for this, he was their second choice. They wouldn't reveal who was first.

It's annoying. They just said barrel-chested actor, and I love trying to think about it. God, I wonder who it is. Brian Dennehy. I want it to be Brian Dennehy. John Goodman. I bet it was John Goodman. I bet it was John Goodman. I bet you.

I think so. But I want to say that this is lost to time and it's all visual, but the Fox Night at the Movies was real. It was a real showcase for Fox movies and for movies they bought to air later on TV.

And the intro that you see is like perfect. It's the perfect parody of that Fox Night at the Movies thing. On our show 302010, the 1987, the 80 fox night at the movies thing on our show 30 2010 the 1987 the 80s portion of the three decade segments is those tv movies are just something that doesn't happen anymore i remember i pulled up on 30 2010 that tv like dean coons tv movie which is like oh this is a horrifying film about a sociopathic murderer somehow pg for television ripped from the headlines

but totally fake no real blood but he'll he'll just describe in detail that he will massacre her face until she her mind breaks oh you're right that thing yeah i mean i was looking at i was looking at a list of all these made for tv fox movies and most of them have a colon in them like something something the something story like homer says it's classy it's having a colon makes it classy and like though a colon makes it classy. Though I thought of it as Portrait of an Ass Grabber was a parody of Henry whatever. Portrait of a Serial Killer starring crazy person. Michael Rooker.

Old Mr. Spenning himself. That guy's nuts. But I love him. I love him, buddy. And so, I just got this. Just the line of, with a man in the White House. With a man in the White House? With a man in the White House? Not likely.

Then even Kent Brockman, the local news, gets in on the action. This is hour 57 of our live round-the-clock coverage outside the Simpson estate. Remember, by the way, to tune in tonight at 8 o'clock for highlights of today's vigil, including when the garbage man came and when Marge Simpson put the cat out. Possibly because it was harassed, we don't know. Of course, there's no way to see into the Simpson home without some kind of infrared heat-sensitive camera. So let's turn it on. Now, this technology is new to me, but I'm pretty sure that's Homer Simpson in the oven, rotating slowly.

His body temperature has risen to over 400 degrees. He's literally stewing in his own juices. Now, here are some results from our phone-in poll. 95% of the people believe Homer Simpson is guilty. Now, of course, this is just a television poll, which is not legally binding unless Proposition 304 passes, and we all pray it will.

That's a great American Idol-style justice. Yeah, we all pray it will. We skipped this. Actually, we passed by, but I want to ask you guys, what do you prefer? Do you like Homer S., Portrait of an Ass Grabber, or Blood on the Blackboard, the Bart Simpson story? I love Portrait of an Ass Grabber. I also like how they call it Homer S. It's like a legal thing.

Oh, it's totally a legal thing, too. Well, just like in Blood on the blackboard fly like well they changed it just enough that they don't have to pay us yeah those sleazy hollywood producers yeah just that's right but that i love the little touch of in and i i i'd want to know they don't talk about it how they animated the heat signature stuff like it was so like really computer effect yeah that you can see homer live putting his head in his hands in sadness while watching it. And just that he also, though, it's pretty impressive they have a rotisserie in their oven. Yeah, it's pretty fancy.

For $5 an hour. Yes, but so, wait a minute. So watching TV is a hallmark of the Gene and Reese eras, but this episode does a ton of TV stuff, but more so in the Gina Reese episodes. Those are just like Homer watches TV. Then the plot continues. All of this TV jokes are related directly to the plot. They're more earned than just it's a commercial for the new Star Trek movie.

I thought I would love nothing more than a Springfield frenzy. But a media frenzy is just as fun in an episode of simpsons well this is in general about an irresponsible media that i try a person before the courts can which that is a problem the media in general it is uh it is it is a separate thing from talking about the false accusation hysteria in they've already decided he's guilty but they have no legal power yet yes you put him in jail they want it and and i also do like that homer i will first i love the tease that homer is going to be saved by his friends like that is a frank capra style thing like see oh you don't but really they they obviously want to sell out and make money off of knowing most really low-balling it only 10 g's yeah well

they're starting the bidding oh it starts at 10 g's it's going up it's going up 10 more g's we got the real dirt got the real dirt well they do they actually have seen homer commit many crimes if they only told them about things we've seen homer do on camera the media would last forever with that like they would be totally fine and as a kid it really clicked with me hearing bart say like uh, well, we trust TV more than you because it spent more time raising us than you. Even Homer trusts the TV. He's so conflicted. TV taught me so much. TV's always right.

And the joke that he's asking the kids, are you hugging the TV? They say no, and then they start kissing it. It's a great act break that ends on Bart kissing the TV, they say no, and then they start kissing it. Like, ah, we're not having any more. That's a great act break. It ends on Bart kissing the TV. And then it's very weird that the show had been pro-Letterman just a couple a year ago, and though this is totally a joke about Letterman getting bad and

running a joke into the ground. And the number one reference that I am running into the ground is Homer Simpson. Ay-yi, ay! It's Homer Simpson! Me ha molestado! Oh, I like it better

when they're making fun of people who aren't me. I know. Evening at the Improv. They never talk about anything beyond the 1980s. See, I think about weird stuff. Like, what would happen if E.T. and Mr. T. had a baby? Well, you'd get Mr. E.T., wouldn't you? And, you know, I think he'd sound a little something like this.

Abhidithu, who doesn't phone home? I wouldn't want to be Mr. T right now. So the Letterman thing, I think, is a specific reference to how he loved the name Joey Buttafuoco. And it would just be a non sequitur punchline. It would show up in top ten lists. And he would just get a laugh by saying, Joey Buttafuoco. Because the word but's in there. The word fuck is almost in there. Buttafuoco.

Yeah. And it's a fucked up story. It sounds like something an Italian Brooklyn dude would call a gay guy. It's about Long Island. I mean, it's a story of Long Island trash, of course. He's this late 30s guy who gets into a relationship with a 17-year-old girl who later shoots his wife in the face. And she lives.

And she lives. And it was more of those things that you look back now, like this was the media's practice for O.J. It was all these things that lead up to O.J., like it, the media's practice for oj that they it was all these things that lead up to oj like it the menendez brothers bobbit a bobbit all these things that then eventually pay off with like oh no the oj is the is the nuclear bomb going off all the rest were like smaller bombs but yeah the joey buttafuoco also reminded me of my favorite one of my favorite jokes on news radio which is it's a cold open andy dix

character matthew leaves from just doing the news and he's like so matthew you know the name is pronounced joey but he's like oh what that's great just because i'm a nerd and i've used this sound effect in some videos david letterman's audience is the same audience from the Simpsons Married with Children parody. Wow. Awesome. It's the exact same. Trust me, watch the video where I go to the monkey park. I use it quite a bit to highlight monkeys fucking.

And the evening at the improv was still on TV then. Actually, I... It was about that bad. I watched a lot of it as a kid. I watched a ton of it too. As a kid, you want to see all the stand-up you can, and so a weekly show that's all of it. The story of Cable is a story of exploiting stand-up as a business in a lot of shitty comics. It made me think I hated stand-up for about 10 years.

Those comics were doing work for exposure and hoping that eventually they'd become the next Tim Allen. I think it was on it like every night. Yeah, yeah. Though I found a very fitting episode of Evening at the Improv right here. Tonight, on location from the Chicago home of America's

premier comedy showcase, it's A&E's and Evening at the Improv. Tonight, starring Mr. T and featuring the comedy of George Lopez. on tonight starring Mr. T and featuring the comedy of George Lopez

Jeff Dunlop Anthony Griffin and Vic Dunlop oh my god so he had a ping pong ball in his eyes baby doll arm

that's my new sort of profile pic they said live from Chicago but they scrolled past the Hollywood So he had a ping pong ball in his eyes. A baby doll arm. Yeah. That's my new sort of profile pic. They said live from Chicago, but they scroll past the Hollywood sign on the intro. They're not going to change their opening. What the hell's up with that? I just love that if you watch it, you can look it up. Just search Mr. T eating at the improv. Is it all mother-based comedy? Well, no.

It's all gold-based. He basically does two minutes of jokes about gold, which which by the way, like Mr. T, love you Mr. T, what you aren't is a standup and you should not be hosting a standup show, but they basically give him two minutes of like trash to say, and he's like, and now actual comedians and one, or then second, I got Jeff Dunham is just Jeff Dunham now. It's him with peanut. It's just, he has been the same guy for over 30 years. He just put up a new thing on Netflix.

A new one of just more. Yeah, like Tommy Blaze. He just got more racist. Yeah, like on early MST3K, Woozle's name is Peanut. It's a Jeff Dunham reference. Oh, man. Yeah. I bet.

I mean, Joel Hodgson probably worked with him. I'm sure he went on tons of tours with Jeff Dunham. Yeah, well, same with... Though, meanwhile, the other guys on there are such a parody of, like, you've got black guy Anthony Griffin, you've got prop guy Vic Dunlop, and then you've got angry Tommy Blaze. Weird prop guy with no more than three minutes.

He died of cocaine overdose. I don't know that about Vic Dunlop. He's probably a listener. We're sorry. Sorry, Victor Loppy. So that is what Evening at the Improv is. And so saying that it's stuck in the 80s, it is, I just love the guy they create there

of this wannabe Jerry Seinfeld who tells, you know, I think about crazy things, which is just a terrible hacky in into a bad. Henry, the beginning of a great Quentin Tarantino impression. Just keep trying. I think it would go something like this. I think it would go something like this. Ripping off Bob Newhart, too.

And then just his extra hand motion. Like, come on, more laughs. Laugh harder, people. So then Lisa comes to Homer with the idea of going on public television, which technically still exists. But in a world of YouTube, public access, you don't really need it. It's very weird. By the government mandate,

as the public, you're allowed this one channel. I don't know how it still works. I flipped to the Berkeley Public Access channel about eight years ago, and the one time I did it, it was two nudists talking. And just like, but about growing up as people of Hispanic heritage. Because you can't curse and be nude on this one channel as well.

But they were just two, a nude woman and a nude man with about two feet apart, a distance between them. And also you could tell in their apartment where they were filming, it was a big window that they had to like put a bed sheet over to film it. In my hometown, people would film their barbecues and put them on public access or like make extremely excruciatingly long rap videos that were like 13 minutes long and put them on TV.

But this actually reminded me, this episode reminded me of one thing I saw on public access. I was just, I flipped it on to like, what kind of weird thing Will I see It was a dude Just on a couch

In a really shitty house Being interviewed by somebody And it was basically like He bought time On public access To talk about How he was convicted Of child molestation

And how he was Actually innocent So this was his Innocence report Wow This really happened man Well I walk by The public access station

At Berkeley a lot Because it is in the high school. I live two blocks from the high school. Here's my address, folks. Find Henry and kill him. You can be the next host. But I do live near the high school. And when I walk home from the grocery store, I just see the one door of the Berkeley public access station. Come in here.

Film stuff. You've got to do it. I, and also any worse than our YouTube channel, every great crazy person on Tim and Eric's awesome show. Great job. They were found through public access. They were all the either unfunny Loki,

local comedians or special young guys like, uh, Leba hearts who just, uh, I know that has some success stories like Tom Green or James Quall Beach Blast

Was that where the Chris Gethard show came from? Yeah, it was local public access to Chris Gethard show is great I love Chris Gethard His podcasts are amazing His shows are amazing I saw James Quall sing Beach Blast live in Cleveland. Oh, wow.

I have that memory. Did you lose a bet? No, no. I paid for this. If you want to feel old, know that they're doing the 10th anniversary tour of Tim and Eric. Oh, that's true. That's of the Tim and Eric Awesome Show. Tom Goes to the Mayor is more than 15 years old.

In the original video they made, I think it was like 2000. That's how fucking old we are. I counted the stars on that flag. 38 stars, not 49. And Missouri became a state in 1821, which makes Abe 200 years old if he won't recognize Missouri. It's a wonderful state. I did a little bit of that research, too.

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Of states founded. It's the 24 states. Wasn't it the one that caused the Civil War, right? Or it was the, well, it was. Just say slavery. When they would make, well, it was slavery related. It was, I'm going to When they would make... Well, it was slavery-related. It was...

I'm going to probably have some factual accuracy here. But you see, when our country was made on the wonderful compromise of having some free states and some slave states, great part of our history there. Centrism, it always works. Yeah, it didn't lead to a giant civil war and calistroses. But anyway, any time they would make a a new state they'd have to make two states because the slave states would say well if you make another state that's a free state it will

outnumber slave states and then we get double carolinas and then you'll get rid of if you do that two virginias you'll somehow get rid of slavery which would be terrible so every time they do it they'd have to do two at a time and i believe it was when it came to missouri like we don't have another territory that could become a state right now but we want to make missouri a state and they had to make some crazy compromise read about it in your history books kids but it was it was a very important state in the road to the civil war bitter about it yes yeah uh then. Yes, yeah. Then we get Homer's innocence report, which is, honestly, he doesn't share any facts.

He just shares feelings. And as we know, facts don't care about your feelings. Now it's time for the innocence report with Homer Simpson. Hello, I am Homer Simpson, or as some of you wags have dubbed me, Father Goose. You know, everybody believed the worst about me right away. Nobody cares that I didn't do it. But I didn't.

Okay, look, I've done some bad things in my life. But harassing women is not one of them. Like one time, we were having this race with this stupid old-timey bicycle with the big wheel in front. So I figure, we're having this race with this stupid old-timey bicycle with the big wheel in front. So I figure we'll see about that. So I get this big chunk of cinder block. Oh, got to go. Innocent. Great, great, great Marge noises.

We'll see about that. I like the little touch of Bart manning the camera and how he goes like under and up to shoot him and and that i would think in the real world homer's thing would have just been re-edited again by rock bottom to just be another story like homer admits that he does harass women in new video i think it's a great touch that the squeaky voice teen is the producer as well the switchboards are lighting up two calls that's our best ever hello no janice doesn't live here hello yes i am interested in long distance savings very interested every time i get a phone solicitor call i do think of like very interested he's a loser who's excited about this call but

he also thinks he's savvy like i'm gonna i'm gonna play hardball with these guys like let's talk let's make some deals uh and uh this was the introduction to the idea of prozac for me which i've never taken that antidepressant once it was awesome uh again i've mainly been given serotonin uppers which you know work briefly but then you think you're fine and you stop taking them. And anyway, but then homemade Prozac needs more ice cream. I love that too. And then Willie actually saves the day after multiple episodes of him failing to save turtles, failing to save the family in every dimension of the horror episode. He then actually saves the day.

I love amateur video, and your show is the most amateur video I ever saw. My hobby is secretly videotaping couples and girls. I didn't come forward because in this country, it makes you look like a pervert, but every single Scottish person does it. Why'd he stick to it? Oh, baby. Oh, yeah. Oh, baby.

Oh, no, that's Mayor Quimby. Ah, here we go. Precious Venus. Thank you. Dad, this clears you completely. You know, the courts might not work anymore, but as long as everybody is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done.

That is truer now more than ever, except when you're videotaping cops. Yeah, yeah. That still doesn't work. It's like, he just shot my husband. I don't care. We maybe saw a video, but, well well the laws are

fucked up it's just that's but everybody is videotaping everybody else now which is good it's a super super surveillance state yeah not just by the government but we all have cameras on all the time on ourselves so yeah that's i mean i just recently saw a video from a uh portland thing of a cop um perhaps being less nice uh arresting someone than they should be and he's being filmed by tons of the rest of being filmed by tons of people and he throws a flashbang at one person to stop them from filming it's like dude you're making everybody everyone else filmed it like this this was even worse than if you'd done it like but so i i marge's acceptance that the courts don't even work anymore well the courts might not work anymore as if they ever did but um

but just that marge it's an extra cynical line for marge to give yeah and then also though willie willie saving the day like keys in more i don't want to spoil our season wrap up but like willie has to be the the all-star of this season they the writers have fallen in love with groundskeeper will you use me skitter yeah i use name every scottish person does it desperately wish there was some foundation reality for that yeah scottish listeners let us know i know you wear kilts and play golf but do you uh videotape people without consent in their cars? I need to know. Oh, yeah. The guy on the Velocipy who kicks Homer in the face, too.

I like that it's the Charles Bronson voice. You don't like the old-timey bikes, huh? Yes. So it is nice, though, too, that Ashley isn't made to really apologize. She apologizes to Homer, but it's not about shaming her in the media. Homer accepts her apology just one-on-one. Which involves her saying Homer is an animal. Yes, which he agrees with.

And that Lisa's on her side, too. I like that. So then Rock Bottom has to apologize. The closest thing in reality to this was the previously mentioned Elton John case. He moved to Atlanta. They said it was because he had AIDS and needed to be near an AIDS treatment center you know the hotbed of aids treatment atlanta georgia an aids hospital for aids people yes and so he threatens to sue them and to get around it they do a puff piece on him that is just like elton john's one of the greatest uh musical uh stars of all time but he

also is a great philanthropist who talks a ton about his AIDS charities. Would a man with AIDS dress up as Donald Duck? I don't think so. So they had just tons of clips of him talking about his AIDS charities, endorsing AIDS charities. This thing is just like, its spirit is nice, except you know it only exists because they didn't want to be sued by a millionaire. Like, oh, fuck, this might shut down the show okay just say how great he is please i mean he makes plenty of money playing rush limbaugh's wedding so he'll be fine yuck boo help john why why must you do that but so so rock bottom then

apologizes which is the the close at the episode and again one of the best video jokes ever like visual games i mean do you think they do these kind of freeze frame jokes on anything anymore i really don't i think it was just sort of a novelty of the vcr era and then went away when they got bored with the idea once they realized everybody could pause everything all the time they never did fast jokes like well i mean futurama was definitely in love with like we'll put secrets in the margins and if you want to pause the screen you can figure it out but they didn't have a direct i think these kind of jokes have died out too we members of the press sometimes make mistakes rock bottom would like to make the

following corrections great music wow vhs isn't one it's gasoline andoppel is a robot. There's you, Dad. Yay! Tomorrow on Rock Bottom, he's a foreigner who takes perverted videos of you when you least suspect it. He's Rowdy Roddy Peeper. Oh, that man is sick. Groundskeeper

Willie saved you, Homer. But listen to the music. He's evil. Hasn't this experience taught you you can't believe everything you hear? Marge, my friend, I haven't learned a thing. I love how he says Marge, my friend. So it's this podcast's job to be interminable but thorough. And there are 34 jokes that go by in about four seconds. Can we go through them?

We got to do them all. Okay. How about if we all have them here, them? We gotta do them all. I got them all. Okay, okay. Maybe I'll... How about we each... If we all have them here, why don't we each... We read them in a circle. Does it start with People's Choice? Yes.

Yeah, okay. So how about Bob, me, Chris, Bob, me, Chris. Okay, People's Choice Award is America's greatest honor. Styrofoam is not made from kittens. The UFO was a paper plate. The nerds on the internets are not geeks. The word cheese is not funny in and of itself.

The older Flanders boy is Todd, not Rod. If you're reading this, you have no life. Roy Rogers was not buried in his horse. Our universities are not hotbeds of anything. Mr. Dershowitz did not literally have four eyes. Our viewers are not patheticbeds of anything. Mr. Dershowitz did not literally have four eyes. Our viewers are not pathetic sexless food tubes. Audrey Hepburn never weighed 400 pounds. The Cheers gang is not a real gang.

Saltwater does not, quote, chase the thirsties away, unquote. Licking an electrical outlet will not turn you into a mighty morphin power ranger. Cats do not eventually turn into dogs. Bullets do not bounce off of fat guys. Recycling does not deplete the ozone. Everything is 10% fruit juice. The flesh-eating virus does not hide in ice cream. Janet Reno is evil.

V8 juice is not 1-8 gasoline. Ted Koppel is a robot. Women aren't from Venus and men aren't from Mars. Fleiss does not floss. Heidi Fleiss? Yeah. Quail is familiar with common bathroom procedures. Bart is bad to the bone.

Godfrey Jones' wife is cheating on him. The Beatles haven't reunited to enter kickboxing competitions. The bug on your TV screen can see into your home. Everyone on TV is better than you. The people writing this have no life. So yeah, 34 jokes, but we don't see that Homer was innocent. It scrolls by while they're watching it it not us this is so this is such the same joke as the

fallen people are gay and all the names scroll by which they had to like make an agreement of every per they had to like every name we put on this uh list of gay people has to say they will not sue us for saying were any writers on that list i guess i believe it is the writers yeah we will get to it very soon in Bart's Comet. But that joke is so great. And I couldn't read it all as a kid. I could never get the pausing right on the screen. It just goes too fast.

A tracking error not unlike Mr. Simpson. Nope. Yeah, I mean, even on Frankie Yak, you can't read all the names because the captures aren't fast enough to get all the information. So, yes. Yeah, because Frankie Yak is a great GIF machine, but it is not 24 frames per second gifs, which would make them gigantic. I understand why they aren't that way. But all those jokes are awesome.

The hotbed, the colleges are not hotbeds, is the most still true to this day. Still relevant, especially when we live in Berkeley, which is like, what's going on at that Berkeley University? Oh, no. Yeah, I'm so tired of hearing about Berkeley. So, yes, this was Homer Batman, a wild ride for us on this podcast.

Love this episode. A few tiny things don't age well, but I feel like its heart is in the right place and it's still really funny. All the jokes about the tabloid media are still awesome. If you look at things like Breitbart, things that really gin up hysteria and anger, it's gotten even worse

and you can access this stuff at any moment of your day, not just when a show comes on. So I feel like they have a lot to say about this and it just informed me as a kid so much. What do you guys think? Yeah, no, it's one of my, it is one of my favorites still. I really liked it. It's there. I address the parts that I don't like now where I would at least find problematic as the word goes,

but I still find this episode so funny. And I think it's, it's honestly not mean enough to hard copy in my head. It's like hard, hard copy are the worst humans alive that they even attack Willie who gave them their crate scoop. And then they instead just film him the same. And Oh God, that that was the one that felt just like the hotbeds thing that felt the

most current to me of like this foreigner. Yeah. The way they say it. It gives it the flavor that i don't know that it's tabloidy and exploitive and i don't know this it's this is so predictive this episode because i don't view it even as breitbart right or left like huffington post does this too and i think snl talks about well our highest rated episodes are political because not everyone's watching game of thrones and not everyone's seen this new movie everybody's paying

attention to what the president is doing so while we have a weird dumb president every single blog of every type is tripping over themselves to dissect

explain slander defend everything the president says yeah I mean the content grind is something this episode doesn't have to talk about that we had

to live through actually the every detail is something that needs to be discussed by a fucking doctor that the dumbass president tweets it's why do you look at the sun well i'll explain it to you his brain is diseased the the fourth the fourth season of bojack horseman actually digs into this a little better of the the grind of writing for a blog hard man yeah i feel for people writers everywhere they're having to

churn out content based on that yeah but but but this, I wouldn't say timeless episode, but still a very good episode, though. Please, please keep in mind the things about false accusations of sexual harassment. I agree. So, yes, thanks for listening. This has been Talking Simpsons. I've been your host, Bob Mackie. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Retronauts.

Every Monday, occasionally a bonus episode on Friday, We have a great classic gaming podcast for you. Just go to retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast machine. We have hundreds of podcasts. There's got to be something you're interested in that we talk about if you like video games and you should like video games. And Henry here will tell you all about our Talking Simpsons Patreon which has too much content

frankly. There's too much content and you should love it I think. I'm H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter and yes, Patreon.com frankly yeah there's too much content and you should you should love it i think uh i'm hnyryg on twitter and yes patreon.com slash talking simpsons is where a ton of extras live there i'm gonna list off real quick for you guys number one you get every episode a week early and ad free uh if you sign up for there you can get an rss feed that you just put in your podcast device same as any other and it downloads it but on top of that you get exclusives like weekly episodes of talking critic as we go through every episode of The Critic

with Diana Goodman and Mike Oroparas. We have multiple interviews with people who have worked on classic Simpsons stuff. We actually did a free preview podcast of those interviews if you want to listen to them in the free feed. We have done premium video content on there, including us watching the entire first season

of Simpsons Shorts together. And that was some fun, huh guys? And tons more cool stuff on there, including us watching the entire first season of Simpsons Shorts together and that was some fun, huh guys? And tons more cool stuff on there. Starting at $5 a month, $10 a month for the premium video stuff, but it's all awesome. We love everybody who supports us there and we

suggest you head there too. Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Yeah, and Laser Time, the show we started before this one, is about the only distinction I can think of right now. But we did an episode with you guys about the historical importance

of the Simpsons. Talk more about Butterfinger and candy bars. We recently did a show, if you like cartoons, and you should, about the origins of Rick and Morty, which was really, really fun.

That's my favorite new show on television, even though it's four years old. If you want to hear us dying on air, cooking alive, listen to that podcast. It's great. Literally stewing in our own juices. I know I old. If you want to hear us dying on air, I'm cooking alive. Listen to that podcast. It's great. Literally stewing

in our own juices. I know I was. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week with Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy. We'll see you then. Wow. Infotainment.