Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer Badman With Mattie Lubchansky

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

"It's just hard not to listen to TV; it's spent so much more time raising us than you have." - Bart Simpson After a trip to a candy convention, Homer lands hot water when his attempt to extract a precious gummi from the babysitter's butt gets misconstrued as sexual harassment. As a media circus surrounds his home and makes his life a living hell, Homer finds an unlikely savior in a lone Scottish pervert. Our Guest: Cartoonist Mattie Lubchansky Support this podcast and get over 200 full-length bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow us at @TalkSimpsonsPod on Bluesky!

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com. This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. Ahoi, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons where cats eventually turn into dogs. I'm one of your host, Indignation Coordinator Bob Mackie, and this is the Talking Simpsons Network's chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me, Today, as always. Still hugging my TV, Henry Gilbert.

And who is our special guest on the line? And I'm sweet, sweet can, Maddie Lepchansky. And this week's episode is Homer, Badman. Oh, no, the candy conventioneers tracked us down. Brack me! Oh! For a minute, though, I thought it was in big trouble. It's just a...

This week's episode originally aired on November 27th, 1994, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in Real World history. Happy Thanksgiving 1994. The Santa Claus tops the box office on its third week. The Pagemaster is a gigantic failure for McCulley Culkin. And Boys to Men have their second top

song on the Billboard charts with On Bended Knee. After I'll Make Love to You was like the number one song of the year. It held number one for like several months. Now On Bended Knee is like the follow up also a huge hit. So after they make love,

apologize? Is that the order of events? I forget the lyrics of On Bend to Knee now is I can't remember if it's an apology or a I want to marry you song. I don't see why I can't be both. You apologize with a proposal? Yeah, or I'm sorry for proposing. If you know, I'm not understood.

There's a lot of ways it could go. It was a strong year for boys to men. Oh, so On Bend a knee is a song from perspective of somebody who was broken up with and they're pleading for the woman to come back. So I think the lovemaking process did not go according to plan. Oh, man, that's too. It does feel like the unbended knee, then I'll make love to you, should come next in order of views there.

I'm switching my knee from my apology knee to my proposing knee. And yes, the story of the Santa Claus is, it came up last time because it wasn't number one, like the week it debuted, but it is a slow burn crawl to the top. And it will pretty much rule the entire holiday season of the Santa Claus of 1994. As Tim Allen becomes one of the. of the most popular stars in America in 1994. Yeah, I think he had a number one book, a number one TV show, in a number one movie. He was basically neck and neck with Jim Carrey for the superstar of 1994. To show you how times have changed, how junior, which should have been, you know, the return

of the DeVito and Schwarzenegger combo. That debuts in number four, and everybody turns on it, like the 80s are over and the 90s are here. And the Pagemaster is an interesting, not an interesting movie. I feel like I only watched it once on cable. But from animation history standpoint, it's interesting because Turner, it's a Turner animation film. It bet big on McCauley Culkin. And I'm like, well, McCauley is only available so much for filming.

So we'll just do a little bit of live action. They get voiceover and animate the rest of the thing and do an animated adventure. It is a huge bomb, makes $20 million less than its budget, and kind of sort of kills both Turner animation and Fox animation for a good chunk of year. Huh, I didn't even realize that there was a Turner animation. What else did they do? Cats don't dance? Oh, sure, sure.

Quest for Camelot, perhaps? Is that one of those or is that Warner Brothers? That could be Warner Brothers. A quick history, as I recall, off the top of my head is that Turner animation starts as the Hannah Barber animation, and they not only do like Yogi Bear in Flintstones movies, but they also do that Charlotte's Webb movie that was played on cable all the time when we look at it. Oh, okay.

And then when Turner bought Hannah Barberra, Hannah Barbaro was just finishing up the Jetsons movie, and then that turned into Turner animation. But then when Turner combines with Warner, Warner is like, why do we have two animation studios here? And then on top of that, Pagemaster is a huge flop. So Cats Don't Dance is a project being worked on by Turner Animation, but by the time it's finished,

Turner animation has kind of been closed, and it's sort of a Warner release instead of Turner. Yeah. Damn. And I know everyone out there is dying to know, but Questra Camelot is a Warner Brother. this production, delete your comment, please. But that's everything that was happening the week, this episode of the Simpsons Air back in 1994.

And joining us is first time guest, Maddie Lubchanski. Welcome to the show, Maddie. Hi, thanks for having me on. I'm very excited to talk about this episode. I immediately said your name incorrectly, but you said everybody does that. So I'm one of many. Lubchanski? Lubchanski.

It's okay. No one's ever gotten it right in human history, including, I think, me or my family, so I wouldn't sweat it. Let's call her Matty L. No, that's too easy. How about M. Lubchansky? Yeah. I like that.

Hey, see, that was the first test there. I passed. Thank God. We're so happy to have you, Maddie. You're such a cartoonist. And now you're in the podcasting game as well. Yeah. I've got to, I do one called No Gods, No Mares,

which is about we're doing every mayor in order. We're covering every mayor in human history in order, the order we have determined. And with Riley Quinn and of every. Kelly from Trash Future. And I also do a show called Temporal Culture War, where we go through, we're watching Star Trek Enterprise and talking about how culturally rancid the early 2000s were. Some younger listeners don't believe us. No. They're like, why are you so mad about Trek 2? I was happily watching it while

sucking on my fist in 2004. Yeah, I, but it's like Enterprise is a really fascinating Star Trek because it starts airing. They're filming it while 9-11 happens. They're filming the first season. and the show starts out as like we're trying to get Republicans to watch Star Trek. And then it turns into 24 set in space, which is so bizarre for, especially for new track, as they call it, like 90s on, where it's like explicitly socialist otherwise. It's very bizarre, very bizarre time. I feel like we're on the brink of a new conservative era of Star Trek, given who's leading Paramount and how they've canceled every other Star Trek thing. So we'll say. We could have Enterprise, too.

Oh, they should let me write it. If you're listening, Mr. What's His Face? What's his name? Ellison? Yeah, sure. And people will know your comics. They've been spread far and wide on my end in your recent books, Boys Weekend and Simplicity as well.

Yes, please. Please buy them if you like science fiction comics. I'm very, very, very proud of them both. Simplicity is the most recent that was out last year. There will be a link in the podcast description, by the way, if you're interested in the books. Thank you. I would imagine as a cartoonist in our demographic, you probably grew up loving the Simpsons and being influenced by it.

A full obsessive. So I grew up, I was raised in the New York City suburbs, but far enough out that we also got the New England stations. I had Fox 5 and Fox 10 from Hartford. And so, and the way it lined up that there was one of them had Simpsons from 5 to 6 every day and one had from 6 to 7. And there were different episodes. So I was watching two hours of the Simpsons and syndication every single day for my entire life. It really seemed in my brain. And that's how I taught myself how to draw while watching The Simpsons. And then when I was like an early teenager, my mother bought me

every collected life and hell that exists in a book. And I got really, really, really obsessed with life and hell. And that was like the first, like, comic I truly remember loving. I wasn't going to say, your four panel structure of comics, do remind me a little of Mac Greening's style

for life in hell. Yeah. Yeah, they were really, really inspirational to me in terms of like, humor and timing and dialogue writing and I don't think it's hard to see the Mac Graining influence in my work.

People often also, this is less Simpsons, but I mean, this is also a Simpsons thing, but like signs I'm very into when I'm, especially in my graphic novels, there's a lot of,

especially in Boys Weekend, there's a lot of background gags, which I was credit Futurama for, but also like the Simpsons replete with incredible signs always in the background. Oh yeah, this episode has a number of them.

Yes. This episode is an incredible sign. The candy-shaped rat poison convention? Yeah. In room 11. Yes. This episode, though, what a 1994 kind of episode. Yes.

And when we originally cover this back in 2017, it was odd timing because we cover this in September and then the hashtag Me Too movement started in October. So I feel like we would have had a different perspective on this episode if we had recorded it and released it after that awareness campaign started. But I did look. back on my old notes. And we did call out our issues with the episode back in 2017. So we weren't saying, yeah, that's right. Men are accused too much. Yes, yeah. I don't think I was like, guys, hashtag Homer Innocent. This is how, isn't it always the way that it's always a gummy stuck to the

pants? Like, no. Always listen to women unless it results in a hilarious situation. As you were recording the episode on the eve of discovering that sexual harassment is bad. Yeah. Harvey did what? I think by the next year, like, I think I was. in the middle of recording a podcast about Batman v. Superman. And somebody mentioned when Charlie Rose came on screen in it, they're like, hey, like he just got fired. I was like, wait, what? Like, I learned of Charlie Rose.

Like, that's how fast things were happening. And soon after we did that. And then they fixed it, I think. My recollection is that everything's fine now. This episode is Solid Gold's amazing classic. So many immortal bits come out of it. But one of the issues is Greg Daniels wrote an idea down where he wanted Lisa's feminist views to oppose her fathers.

The showrunner David Merkin wanted that to springboard into a wider criticism of sensationalist media. And I don't think the two mesh very well. I prefer this as a takedown of sensationalist tabloid media than an exploration of sexual harassment. And Greg Daniels would go on to explore that issue in a much more thoughtful way on King of the Hill, I think. I feel like he was always trying to do a feminism episode and he finally got to where he wanted to go with that episode where Luanne is sexually harassed.

Yes, the Dolphin episode, the La Granta, Return. Yeah, yes. John Vity presents return to La Granta. That's right, yes. This Greg Daniels' written episode is very interesting in that, like, yeah, I also is thinking of another King of the Hill one where he dealt with a similar theme, too, where it was the one where in season one or two where Peggy learns the guitar, but from like an indie rock feminist type, like an Annie Lennox type, not any length, Andy Franco type.

And if Franco. Yes, yeah. You know what? too. Sure, I meant that. No. And that caused like a rift there, too of Hank's vision of feminism. And we became more of a discussion of it. Like Daniel says on the commentary, he wanted it to be about Lisa and Homer's differing views on feminism being framed via what happens with Ashley. But this, but like you said, Bob, Dave Merkin was on such a tear and a perfect tear of making fun of the media in this season that it feels like it gets mixed in there too as a way of discreet. editing like sexual harassment is overreported or that's what it kind of feels like in the episode. Yeah. And sexual harassment is a new idea to male comedy writers at the time. So we see a lot of

different shows trying to grapple with the topic and mostly the anxiety of like, oh, what if I'm accused of this? And they did touch upon sexual harassment and Marge gets a job in season four because Burns was sexually harassing Marge, but that was not the point of that episode. And then like the next, like season two of Duckman begins with a sexual harassment episode where, he actually does sexually harass a woman and then becomes a celebrity because via his sexual harassment, he saves a politician's life somehow. Right. I think this episode, to me, is really interesting. Yeah, for these two things where it's like, I had this like sense memory of watching this episode of like, oh, right, I remember hard copy,

the thing they're directly parading, right? Like that old show and the way that the tabloid media did function at the time, another thing that was fixed since then, I'm pretty sure. But this idea that I think was all over comedy in the 90s, which was like the humorless feminist scold archetype of woman, it was everywhere you looked. It was like in every newspaper cartoon. It was in like every comedian stand-up set. It was in a lot of movies and TV shows was always like, here is a woman, often a grad student, often a feminist scholar or an author or an activist or something in that milieu who like could not be reasoned with. you know, and had principles, which is like the most disgusting thing you can have. This is like clearly infected with that sort of like, yeah, I bet this, I don't know what the composition of the writer's room was at this point, but my guess is it was all men.

And if there was a woman, there was like one. At this point, I believe, yes, so Jennifer Crittenden was hired in early production season six. That was the first woman they hired as a writer to be in the room. So I guess if she had any input on this episode, it was not listened to or. He was not in the room for certain things. And this is still like when they still have a bunch of like ex-lampoon guys in there too, right? Like it's all, yeah, like that culture is very like, well, I think Jennifer Clinton too is like, I feel like Junior is even in her title or something. She's a no starting writer in the 90s gets to even say anything.

Writers remember parentheses woman is her title. We'll cover her an upcoming writer's corner. But yeah, Jennifer Crittenden, she joined the show as a staff writer very, very young. I think she was like maybe 22 years old. at the time. So I could see that being even like a woman period being in that room could be intimidated, but especially a very young person in the room with a lot of men in their

30s and late 20s who are much used to that environment more than she would be. Not to like damn it with Fraser to say like oh well the bar is so low but when I imagine like 1994 sitcoms making fun of like a typical feminist who thinks they're the victim

all the time thing like I feel like they could have made Ashley in this episode much worse or much of a stereotype. She doesn't have armpit hair. She's not wearing a bandana.

She's not wearing a tie-d-ed shirt. Like there's, you know, she is not fully being made fun of so much. Like it actually, towards the end,

like understands her position and she acts very reasonable at the end of the episode. It could be a lot worse. And yeah, the rest of the episode, that was so funny that I'm kind of like,

I don't really care of. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm mad at it. They're lucky they were at one of the funniest episodes of television.

That's all I'm saying. You guys are pretty lucky at season six of the Simpsons back there or else we'd have some real problems. And it's directed by Jeffrey Lynch, who's like one of the best action director. That's why there's amazing explosions and action in this, even though it is an episode about like feminism in the 1990s. And one of my last preamble things is I always wondered why this episode was called Homer

Badman because it's such an odd title. Well, the recent book, Stupid TV, Be More Funny, actually explains that via a quote from Greg Daniels. And by the way, Alan Siegel was on our show. Thanks again, Alan. So here is the quote from his book from Greg. Quote, I had a word doc that was just called Homer Badman, and I made it as stupid and rudimentary sounding as possible.

And I called the episode that to be like, don't be precious about your episode titles. So the title Homer Badman is a joke about two clever episode titles, which the Simpsons would really make their game from like season nine onwards, I feel, maybe season 10 onwards. It's why there's 17 episodes that are play on Old Man in the Sea as the title. One of the humorless, scold feminists, is holding a sign that just says Homer badman. Yes.

Yes. I do like that. To give people more ammunition against not liking this episode. No, but this episode is why is the reason Greg Daniel says he was able to get to make the U.S. office. I don't know if you've heard this story before, Bob. I'm not sure if I have. He said this in several interviews, but I'm sourcing an NPR piece from 2020 where he's being interviewed and that in 2003, Greg Daniels says he was just a fan of the UK office and wanted to meet Stephen Merchant and

Ricky Jervais and so to get to meet them he's like sure I'll have an interview to adapt the office that'll never happen and so yeah I'm going to quote Daniel's here just to like talk to them about it as a fan but I couldn't meet them as a fan without pretending I wanted to adapt the show so I had to do that and then we actually got along really well and they loved Ricky's favorite Simpsons episode was Homer Badman, which I had written. So, Mattie, I see the listeners, you can't see the wild face. Well, now we can't possibly endorse this episode. We'll have something in common with Ricky Jervais.

Oh, my Lord. He said it in many places. I did find one interview with Jervase where he's told like, oh, we heard that your favorite episode. And he goes like, yeah, it's one of my favorites. But like, that was when Jervase was writing The Simpsons. When it was. I just like the parts of the episode where Homer's.

being falsely accused of sexual harassment. And a woman is put in her place. Yeah, the rest of the episode, I'm kind of like, I don't know. I learned that for the first time reading, like there was an oral history book of the U.S. office, and I read the first couple chapters of that, and that came in up in there, too. And I was like, oh, man, now I can't not think of this as what, it's funny, too. The commentary is recorded, I believe, before the premiere of the U.S. office. So Daniels isn't even mentioning it on the commentary when he's on it.

It does not come up. The only King of the Hill comes up. Yeah. I think it's back when they were still joking. Oh, and King of the Hill's over, you're coming back, Greg, right? Like, because he did not yet have the office to make him the kingpin of cable television or of a, well, now he's a streaming kingpin based on how many shows he has. Well, you know, I know of a small feat. I think he has like four shows on right now.

I don't know how well that show the paper is doing. I'm not sure. He's a pin. We can say that. He's a pin of undetermined size. I don't mean to shock everybody, but his four-season show upload ended. Yes, yeah, I think. And then there was only one season of that NPR animated series he did as well, I think, right?

I forgot about that entirely. And finally, just to let listeners know, not only are there three fun deleted scenes on the DVD that I'll be playing, but also there is a final draft version of the script that, to me, reads 95% the same as the episode. But there are a few fun changes from it. They did seven months before the airing in the late May 1994. So I'll bring those up, including it unmasks the first choice for the Dennis Fran's role. Oh. Thank you, Henry.

Yeah, this episode is interesting because, for many reasons, but I find it's interesting because it's written right before OJ happens. Yes. But then it airs as OJ is happening. That is what, yes. I mean, they're parodying just how the stuff that was on HardCol. that was getting ready for the OJ trial. And by the time it airs, all television is the OJ trial all daytime. Like all day time, every network is the OJ trial.

It was, again, young people, you don't understand how much it was playing all the time. But okay, by the episode, after a quick couch gag reference to Time Bandits, as Merkin says, one of his favorites. Then we open with a box of Lucky Charms. Now, I was not a Lucky Charms kid. I mean, I'd have it if it was around, but was my brother's favorite. And yes, he was a pick out the cereal bits or eat as few as possible around the marshmallows. Important to note Henry's brother is still alive. Sorry, Maddie.

He's much healthier than me. My method was to pick out the non-marshmallow bits and eat them dry because they tasted better dry. They were horrible once soaked in milk. Issues with food texture, I did not realize for many, many years was very explicable. But the marshmallows good in milk, good and a little bit of milk. The other parts, the dry parts, good plain. I'll say that. I think they eventually started coating them in sugar more to make the kids actually eat them, I think.

Cool. Another thing that I think young people maybe don't. I mean, are people still eating cereal every morning? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I just stopped because I'm old. I'm still seeing aisles full of it. That's true.

I never see anyone buying it, though. But now there are only three flavors of gum, and that really disturbs me. There used to be a lot of flavors of gum. Yeah. I only noticed that, yeah, the cereal aisle stills. seems to take up as much space as ever. But I only hear about new cereals now when they're marketed to demographically to our age of just like, there's a new Stranger Things cereal or the Kelsey brothers have a new cereal

for their podcast. Yeah. My wife is a food writer and she gets sent a lot of like samples of like new foods. And one time we got sent like probiotic cereal for adults. And then there was also one that was caffeinated and it tasted like I'll be candid here, dog shit. I bought the Stranger Things Doritos because it promised the pizza flavor, but the flavor was actually just chemicals. And you, Bob, live in the land of ketchup chips and all-dress chips.

You don't need pizza Doritos. No, they figured it out. That's the ultimate flavor of chip. I saw they've marked down when I went to the Safeway recently. They really marked down the Stranger Things Season 5 Eggos, the pink ones. Not as much demand for them as there were 10 goddamn years ago when that series debuted. So then, meanwhile, Homer taunts them. He'd been waiting for the kids to give them the perfect setup to brag

that he is going to take them to a sweeter place than sweetness itself, the candy industry trade show, revealing he has two tickets and that there was a minor off-screened Charlie and the Chocolate Factory storyline of him opening candy bars to find the magic ticket. His little monologue here is like my favorite mode of early Simpsons Homer dialogue where he's like, what does he say? He's like, oh, like the, the, taste of an earthly donut where you would spit it out. It would be so bitter.

Sour as poison. Sour as poison. I just love when they give Homer something very like lyrical or millifluous to say. It's always very beautiful to me. He sort of enters a carnival barker style of speech here. Homer got him by destroying every crusty clump bar in the Quickey Mart, much to up who's chagrin, though he didn't stop him. Now, any visitor of Universal Studios in either Florida or Hollywood and goes to Springfield, you can buy, Rusty clump bars there. They sell them for real.

But unfortunately, they're with peanuts, not with almonds. They did. Come on. I have had one in the past. What kind of candy bar is it? So basically, they shove together marshmallows, pretzels, potato chips, then basically glue it together with milk chocolate. And it's just, it really does.

Clump is a good name for it because it is a thick bar of salt. That sounds outstanding. Yeah. It sounds exactly like a take five. Though I would say Farmer Billy's Bacon Bar is the better of your choices if you're going to buy a candy bar in crusty. Because something has to die

for you to enjoy your candy. That's true, yeah. I needed to know a pig died for me to enjoy it. Frightened, yeah. That pig knew it was going to become a candy bar. Bart and Lisa think they can go, but Homer says this is the one occasion he wants to take his darling wife too, and it's only because she can be a good candy mule.

And I love the discreet. I say this a lot of big ropy ones like years to describe muscles. Like good muscles are big ropy ones like Marge has. It's a good visual descriptor. Homer is like very descriptive, I guess, to be nondescriptive on my part in this episode. Though I liked in his speech to start the episode that he said sweet like multiple times in a row. No adjective for it or a synonym. This is where he is convinced Marge to wear a giant trench coat full of empty pockets,

which iconic Marge fit. I don't think I've seen this. Halloween costume yet and I really need to. Oh. That'd be good, but just, they need to fill it. Just inflate it with air. Don't actually stuff candy. Don't wear 200 pounds of candy.

I don't want someone to injure their spine doing this. Yes, yeah. Some sort of like armature can go underneath. Like the poodle skirt, that kind of thing. Yeah. Or the hoop dress, whatever the hell that is. This was preferable to March to getting in a hollowed out wheelchair, which Homer had ready.

This is where. the feminist enters the story because this is kind of Merkin dealing with an old runner in the show that was bigger in the Gene and Reese Sears, which was like Bart is like an omen-level evil child to babysitters and they cannot find any good babysitters. Well, I think the last time they did a babysitter joke, it was a woman who had like a full mental break of just like, no, put it down, Bart, put it down. Yeah, she just did a rocking chair staring vacantly. So this is where we meet Ashley Grant in our first clip.

Ashley Grant, you gave a talk on women's issues at my school on how we don't have to be second-class citizens. Mom, how can you leave us with this maniac? Hurry, March. If we get there early, we can get our pictures taken with the two surviving musketeers. Well, there's also a baby somewhere upstairs. So, they're one of those, don't call me a chick, chicks.

Huh? Sorry about my unenlightened brother. He will make the next few hours a living hell. Oh, I don't know. See this, Bart? Disimbeller 4. The game where condemned criminals dig at each other with rusty hooks.

Mm-hmm. Do a little housework and you can play for five minutes. No way. Yeah. See, Lisa? Nails aren't hard to tame. They all follow their video cartridges. Ow.

I'd like to think the Disimbaler team left and then formed a new studio to make Bonestorm. Oh, yeah. It's like Ving Atari to make Activision, right? Yeah. It's a great joke about the very Mortal Kombat in 1990s as well. This is all of the early 90s things in one episode. Yeah, I think also a very wonderful bit of animation

when she's leading Bart around with the cartridge, a visual gag that has been stuck in my mind for a very long time. Like Bart's thoughtless walking and then... Yeah. I also like a worst way to play it as if he was like mad at, her, but he doesn't even realize why his fingers. No, he has no idea. Yeah. He's just surprised. He came out of his trance. See, and this is like Ashley Grant could be much more of a stereotype here. And they also like give her a win over Bart too instead of like they could have, if the show

hated her more, Bart could instantly like destroy her with logic. You always destroy a feminist. This is why I ultimately come down not like too mad about the episode and it's more dated than it is like an evil object or something because I don't think they hate her. I think they just don't understand the cultural milieu they're operating in, which is, yeah. Now kids today, like, they can just play the most violent things on the iPad they got handed down from a parent or something. They don't, you can't bribe them with a few minutes with a violent video game anymore. I think they're more into gambling these days now, right? Oh, yeah, that's true. I mean, if it's not direct gambling on things like Kalshi, then it's just a thing that trains them for gambling with like hourly

unlocks. And yes. You can't really lead someone around by the nose with like a loot box or whatever. Yeah. And also it seemed crazy to me that in 1994 though, that an elementary school would let an avowed feminist give a speech at a school. That's shocking to me. It does seem a little, it defies credibility a little bit. So now we're at the candy convention. And yes, it says candy convention room one, exclamation point and then candy shaped rat poison convention room 11 which looks just like room 1 exclamation point

incredible and they find their candy jokes where they exist there's a reference to Mr. Goodbar the chocolate peanut candy bar and also the film slash novel looking for Mr. Goodbar which was unavailable for a while but now there's a 4K for Vinegar Syndrome if you want to watch this movie

a very dark and depressing movie I love Homer and Marge walking in past like the throngs of people trying to get The candy trade show, like their celebrities is really beautiful. It was kind of a red carpet moment. The cops are ready to beat those children that are trying to get in. Yes. Yeah.

There is also a blink and you'll miss it. Nuts and Gum booth. Okay. Thank you, Maddie. Yes, I caught that too. Yes, yes. Which I never caught before. It is miscolored from its previous appearance.

It's hard to, you got to really be looking. Which makes me think did, like, General Mills or the Mars Corporation, purchased nuts and gum from Homer? And he never saw the profits? Was it stolen? It just raises a lot of universe questions. We're big fans of nuts and gum here. Together at last.

You know that looking for Mr. Goodbar movie, I've never seen it either, but every time I read the plot summary, I'm depressed. But now I've learned that it was like the film introduction of LeVar Burton and Tom Barringer. So it's important. Historically, too. Homer, it feels like a kid in some kind of store.

And as he is yanking every possible free candy he can, This is where we get our first deleted scene, which I'll explain first to the visual of it and then play the fun clip. As Homer is walking around, it then cuts to a man carrying a candy bar, chocolate bar, a woman carrying a peanut butter jar, and they run into each other, and this is what happens. You got chocolate in my peanut butter. You got peanut butter in my chocolate. My product is ruined. We'll be bringing legal action. Fine. We'll drag it out. out for years. Case closed. Homer grabs the jar of peanut butter with the chocolate in it.

Pretty good. I guess a reference to the original Reese's peanut butter cups ed. Yes, that all boomers remember, we only knew in the 90s for references to it in cartoons. Yeah, I only know it from like sly, Gen X cartoon references to it. To think it was a novel idea of peanut butter and chocolate when that seems like the only thing you should do with chocolate sometimes is put it with peanut butter. At least to an American, I've seen Europeans like, hot, Consternated with our love of peanut butter. They sneer at it in Britain. They hate it.

I remember watching an episode of the Great British Bake Offer. Someone did an American style dessert with chocolate and peanut butter. And the hosts were like vomiting and like spitting it out. Be like, what is this horrible combination that no one would ever like? And it's like, come down. Come down Europeans. This should be marzipan, damn it. Yeah, this should be flavored with rose water or something.

Something horrible. Homer is looking around. He also, he gets his first theft in. And no wonder he goes to steal again when he steals a sour ball that can only be contained by a magnetic field. He steals from a rare frink with pupils. Yay, you're right. Oh, yeah. I miss that because I was so distracted by the perfect drawing of Homer's face from eating the sour ball.

This episode, the launch point of two, I want to say visual Homer like things that are used as memes, which is one, the sour. And the other one is him in the shower curtain. Images you see all the time. His just inverted face is so, so great. On the commentary, Jeffrey Lynch also credits Nancy Cruz and Chris Clements as two of the animators who really helped on this, both who would go on to be directors on the Simpsons themselves. So it's a very strong group here on this. Then we have the amazing wax lips scene, too, of just like a rare time where Homer knows more than somebody else. It's like he's the smarter guy in the scene.

As a kid who hated getting wax lips in his Halloween bag, I said, Thank you. Somebody's saying it. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with these. Like as a kid, you're like, finally somebody fucking says the truth. Yeah, like we're all just walking around like zombies thinking these things are fine to be handing out to children. They only have one use. And Homer, though, pours them into his pants anyway once the coast is clear.

It takes the entire bull of them. Then we cut to Marge with her suffering. It's a pretty hard. day for March here. Can't even eat celery that she brought with her unless she pour sugar on it. She'll have to leave otherwise. And this is where we head into the jolly world of gummy bears. They hibernate in your colon, as the sign says. A great sign gag. Any feelings on gummy bears in this group? Haribo versus Black Forest. Any preferences? I've never tried the Black Forest. I love gummy stuff, though. I'm very poor of gummy. I guess just your average gummy bear is kind of bland to me. So I like a sour

Patch Kid. I like when the gummy is altered in some way. The Harry Bow sour bears are good. They sour up the standard gummy bear. I love a gummy worm. I love them all. I'm very pro-gummy. I like when something is gummy. They opened up a lot. They've been opening up in New York City. A lot of those Scandinavian like by the pound candy stores and they're all gummy. And it's really exciting for me to go in there and just go insane. And now when you say gummy, everyone thinks you just mean weed. Like, oh, I took a gummy. They're not thinking like, I had a delicious bear, a cherry flavored. These of days, things are a lot different.

It's true. Or vitamins. For me, like, let's just say like Halloween candy rankings, like a pack of gummy bears was low to me below. Pretty much any commercial grade chocolate, like even a tootsie, the best gummy bear, would I rank it above like an average tootsie roll in Halloween candy rankings? I don't think I would. Like, look, I'll eat a gummy bear.

I was a chubby little boy who wanted to eat all the candy he'd be handed. But it was a choice. The ranking would be I'd eat the gummy bears first to save like a twig. for later. So when you immediately go to Halloween candy, to me, candy to me is a year round affair. So I'm not so narrow minded about it, but to me, if you're

eating multiple candies, you eat chocolate first and then followed by a gummy, you don't want to go the other way. It doesn't seem right. That's my only real thought about that. What about the new chocolate covered gummy bears? I didn't see. Those are not bad. The chocolate covered like regular ass gummy bears that you get

sometimes at the bottom pound candy places are good. I like those. Those are good. A shocking scandal, Rock Springfield. Homer sleeps nude in an oxygen tent. Hey, that's a half-truth. The tabloids are out to expose him. I like it better when they're making fun of people who aren't me. The media wants to ruin him.

Even his whole thing will blow over. Nothing ever blows over for me. And even his friends are selling him out. This is so depressing. My only hope is this homemade prozac. Why is Homer public enemy number one? Come on, I'm a decent guy! Find out on a brand new Simpsons next. Welcome to the break for the podcast with a million uses,

and this is Henry Gilbert saying thanks for listening. And a big thank you to our guest this week. Maddie Lubchanski was great having her on. She's such a funny cartoonist and podcaster that we loved chatting about this classic episode with her. Please check out her awesome books as well as her podcast that she mentions here, like No Gods, No Mares. And books like Boys Weekend and Simplicity, you can find the links to it in the description for this week's episode. Thanks again, Maddie. We'd love to have you back.

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We've covered so many things. And you can hear all of it if you sign up today. At patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons for all the ad-free and extensive bonus features and huge back catalog today. Once more, that's patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Well, this is where Homer makes a dangerous trip into the world of gummy. Saying gummy along. U, gummy bears, gummy calves heads, gummy jawbreakers.

What tax. That is a rarest gummy off the mold. The gummy winest the mile. carved by gummy other hands who work exclusively in the medium of gummy. Will you two stop saying gummy so much? Must have rare gummy. Distract the salesman. No, I won't make a spectacle out of myself any further.

Oh, how'd they get there? Now this is going to take all my skill. Halt, hunt, run by! Poor March has to run in her candy suit, too, by the way. Yeah, well, luckily most of the candy has spilled out. Well, I mean, we all know what happened next. He combines the soda with the pop rocks, creates a grenade, is blown to safety.

I like to think Marge got out first because she's not in that shot. It's fun to imagine that Marge, Homer is so out of shape that Marge, even carrying all of the booty, as Homer calls it, that she can run faster than him, even then. I guess in what, the cop episode later in this season, that's where Homer can sprint for three steps, and then he is about dead. Another great bit of animation here when he kicks the soda machine to kicks the can out of the soda machine

by kicking the machine just so and then immediately get into the pop racks out of his pocket. It's just like such a nice little piece of action animation there which I really love. And it's also so funny this whole episode. It's like Homer's got like a scheme. He's got like all this knowledge

and it's just like he's very, very competent but only in the world of candy. Which is very beautiful to me. That slow-mo explosion. is like that is as high caliber as animation can get on The Simpsons. That's from like Lynch and his team working very hard. To execute it as great as they possibly can. And this is also a reference to an ancient boomer commercial

because there was a life serial commercial about a little boy named Mikey who didn't like anything. But guess what, folks? He loved life cereal. Well, everyone loved that commercial. And then an urban legend spread that the little boy Mikey died because he consumed pop rocks and Pepsi or some kind of. at the same time. And that meme spread so far and wide that General Mills had to take out

ads and publications letting the public know pop rocks were safe. They were writing letters to school principals saying the children can eat the pop rocks. They don't contain enough carbon dioxide or whatever to kill you or make you explode. Whatever happened to poor little monkey, who didn't die. He's fine. So that is what's going on here. Homer is recreating the urban legend. In this case, it can actually cause an explosion. See, the millennials, we had the character that one child actor from Wonder Years grows up to be Marilyn Manson. That was our...

Oh, yeah. Marilyn Manson, who of course later removed one rib so he got himself fallacious, as we all know. You know, now Pop Rocks is like, when I have gone to like theme parks, like the Universal One, or to other places that just sell

drinks you're supposed to show on Instagram, like they are full of Pop Rocks now. Like, they all have like popping candy. Well, actually, I guess they would be non-trademarked. Popping candy. in it that you can have. Especially like when I was in Japan, there was a tapioca drinks would also sometimes come with

that in it. And you'd be like, oh, that's how different things are now. And yeah, they're still on sale. I'm looking at Amazon.ca right now and I can buy 24 packets for 52 Canadian dollars. Seems a little overpriced to me. I don't know. Well, you know, that pop rocks are some of the most heavily tariffed things in American business now, Bob, as we're learning.

I hate to tell you this, Henry, but they do make candy in our country. Oh, sure, sure. This is not crossing the border. It doesn't sound right. What, like maple syrup, that's it? Like, that's just poured into a bag. Basically, yeah, they freeze it. The dental surgery I had to have last year, I mainly blame it on my 10 years ago addiction to maple candies, maple hard candies, I imported from Canada.

I should not have become addicted to those. Sorry, this is going to sound weird, honey. Were you sucking them to completion or were you biting into their firm? You know, I'd suck about halfway and then bite it. Okay, there you go. Sucking to completion, that's all I'm saying. No one take that the wrong way. No.

And I think perhaps if they were more heavily tariffed, you would have been safe. So maybe you are our great president and apology? I do. I do. I'd save so much money on dental surgery. Not having a tooth replaced. The gummy cab's head is a great line to all the different gummies. Gummy jawbreaker, very funny.

In the script, it's gummy lint, which isn't bad, but gummy jawbreaker, I think it's funnier. I think that's funny. Will you two stop saying gummy so much? It reminds me in one of my favorite times where Bob, your wife, Nina, like, replied to us on Twitter with a funny use of it, where we did a podcast about the goofy movie, and we kept saying goofy so many times,

and she replied, like, would you two stop saying goofy so much? Unfortunately, for all the things they sell of Simpson's things, they have never made an official gummy Venus as an edible one. There have been toys that come with it, but there's too many people I can name. You can find multiple cooking guides on YouTube of, how to make your own gummy venus like 3D print silicon food shell to then put gelatin into like so they'll credit to artist katie hargrove back in 2008 being one of the earliest people i found

who made purportedly edible gummy venus demilas and what a great turnaround too 3D turnaround of the venus too that was very good really respecting the work of all those gummy artisans you know it's fun on the commentary too that murkin and daniels are kind of goofing on how like a specially family guy ripped this idea off of like, oh, random things explode that shouldn't explode kind of things. They were saying that like, and then Merkin says, yeah, we get ripped off so much now. We just don't make jokes anymore. So nobody can steal from us.

We just stop being funny. Also, Homer's see in hell, candy boy. See in hell candy boys. So they get home. Bart and Lisa are having fun. Unlocking the waterfall of sugar from Under Marge's Coats. This is where Homer can't find the Vee. Venus, but you can't have gotten far. She has no arms. This is where Marge tells, I think Marge is too

exhausted, and that's why she puts it on Homer to drive Ashley home, I think. Yeah, Marge is not really holding this against Homer. I think she's delighted by how happy the children are splunking in her candy coat. Yes, Marge doesn't have many complaints in this episode, really. Not about being forced to be a candy mule and not about the troubles later in the episode. So Homer is driving Ashley Home of the original script has a different conversation that they have driving. I'll read from it here. Homer, mumbling, Venus, oh, where's my Venus? Ashley, excuse me? Homer, I'm craving something I can't find. Ashley, confused. I don't understand. Homer, my wife doesn't understand either, but a man like me has certain passions. Ashley creeped out. Just drop me off here. I think that adds more to

that scene would make it more understandable why Ashley was uncomfortable in the car and wanting to get out, as opposed to Homer just admitting openly, he wants to scratch himself in two places at once. Which is, on its face, disgusting. And also blaming grad students for the fact that his feet stink. Yes, yeah. I like it. She goes like, I'm sorry?

Like, is she apologizing or is she just saying, I don't understand you? Either works. It's just sometimes a man will be talking to you and you have to just say something. Yeah. And this is then where if she gets out of the car, Homer spots,

it is, as far as, a setup for a misunderstanding. It is very good staging of that. Homer being a thoughtless glutton just sees the candy he was looking for the entire time. He doesn't realize where it is stuck to. It is a massive invasion of personal space

to just rip something off of somebody's bottom of their jeans, too. Even though they would have obviously written this differently today. I think they are still being very careful in 1994. He never actually touches her. I feel like that's an important qualification here. That is true, yes. You see?

the close up of the fingers, pulling it off and only touching the Venus. And then her turn, like, they even use for plot purposes, Homer's drooling joke to be like, he looks like a disgusting man who just sexually assaulted her. Imagine you seeing that man doing that in real life. Like all the Homer drools, always very funny. It's like, imagine seeing that. Imagine seeing a person doing that. And then strangles his son in front of you and you're still, are you going to laugh at?

Yeah. Not very funny, is it? I also love the thoughtlessness of Homer That after a woman screams and slams the door running off He's like, thank you. I also remember my mom laughing at that When he just instantly eats the venus, it's like he wasn't even saving it. He just wanted to eat it then.

It wasn't that important. It's gone just instantly. Like the shape of a gummy matters, right? Like that's what's so funny. It's like, right, it's a beautiful art object. Why would you just eat it? What's the point? Like it just goes and tastes like a regular gummy, right?

When you chat down on it. And he just is like, like, oh, like he's it. It was so satisfied for Homer. Homer is also a very non-sexual being in this episode, I'd say, too. They cut down even more on it. He just is like, they write him more childish than usual to, or well, about as childish as he is in season six, actually. As murderous, that is insane, too, as Merkin makes him.

And he did kill a bunch of people seemingly in that. Explosives. That's a good point. Homer doesn't look great in this episode, I'll say. It's not a lot of good behavior. It cuts to the next morning. Bart and Lisa are feeling sick, but that's another of my favorite, like, the sounds

they make when they are telling them not to give away the candy, they would rather hurt themselves more than have charity get free candy. I like that Lisa is a greedy little goblin in this episode. At first, she's objecting to Bart, not putting the non-marsh-mole pieces in the trash and here she wants the candy more than she wants to give it to needy children.

Yeah, I do. Based on what Daniels' original pitch was, I wonder like, it does feel like more of the change that Lisa, other than her two scenes of Ashley, one where she meets Ashley in Act 1, and then the second one at the end where Ashley apologizes and Lisa is present, Lisa is essentially Bart. Like her and Bart are cohorts in the episode and act very similar. And so they're eating of candy, though, is interrupted by the opening clip I played of the arrival of what Homer first thinks is the candy conventioneers tracking him down to get their revenge. But actually, it is a mob of college students who are here to protest him. They come back for the commercial break, and I like they use the great in the pejorative sense, but they have to clarify it. Because they just use great because it rhymed with eight.

So they have to let you know that it means larger immense. They mean it in the pejorative sense. Yes, there's some designs of the women in the crowd. I think they're mainly just pulling from old episodes, and there's only a couple that I would say like, oh, that looks like man-hating feminist character. One of them looks like Velma. Yes, there is a Velma.

That's the one who gets the line, right? Yeah. Though comparatively, let's just, listeners, you haven't heard of yet, check out the charity episode we did of me and Bob covering The Simpsons guy, but watch it as well to see an episode of TV that aired 19 years later and does a worse version of this story as the first act.

Because quick version behind the scenes, Seth McFarland was mad that feminists didn't like his Oscar presentation. We Saw Your Boobes song. I wonder why not. I like that he called it a presentation like he had a PowerPoint. His opening monologue. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at this crowd now.

I did notice there is the hippie teacher from the school that gets maybe two jokes in the entire series. Oh, yeah. See, that's cool. They have a woke man there, too, to protest. Not just ugly women. In that Family Guy episode, they draw the caricatures much worse of people who, women who were stupidly offended by a sexist joke because they're dumb and are humorless, as was the position of that Family Guy episode. I'm so shocked that Seth MacFarlane made a worse and clumsier version of something that the Simpsons did. That's just very unlike him. That just seems very out of character for Seth MacFarlane.

And years later, too, as well. So this is where Homer, you know, he wants to defend himself to the protesters, but it's just not working out for him in our next clip. 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. At any rate, I believe you, and I think you should go outside and straighten this out. Some of their chants are very catchy and memorable. 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.

Homer accidentally exposing himself to the crowd there with the gust of win. But this bit, so the original script does have a good change that they made, I think in ADR here. So, Bob, you mentioned the one who looks like Velma. In the script, she is credited as heavy woman. And her original line, I think you can see that they must have remixed it in ADR because if you see what she says, that's the oldest trick in the book. Then she kind of looks down a little ashamed versus, like her face acting doesn't really match that. It's because her original line was, he's lying. They don't make gummy vener. Mr. DeMilos, or so I hear. So it was a fat joke.

They cut it originally. Yeah, improvement, I'll say. Yeah, a big improvement. It's much funnier to just say, like, that's the oldest excuse in the book. Like, I think nobody has ever said to defend sexual harassment was that. So, yes, it must have been late because I think her animation reflects, they animated to the original line. It would have only changed it. So they head back inside, and this is where Homer explains to kids what he thinks sexual harassment is in 1994.

Or using no references to say Anita Hill or otherwise, but instead a postcard of an alligator biting a woman's bottom. Which they all thought was funny. This joke is very funny to me. We all thought it was funny. This conversation is mostly about animal sexually harassing people. We all thought it was so funny, but it turns out that alligator was sexually harassing that woman. He asked about the copper tone ad. He's like, well, that's a gray area.

Yes. That has to have been altered now, right? That has to have been changed. The copper tone ad? I look into this. The copper tone ad, the famous iconic image is of a dog kind of yanking down the swim trunks of a little girl whose back is towards the camera.

They still use that imagery, but it's a silhouette of that iconic image and it's mostly on the products for children. Okay, all right. So you're not seeing the bottom of a little girl anymore in it then. Okay, that seems like an improvement. The way he says that was sexual harassment, he thinks he's teaching the kids something here, too, as well.

Though, yeah, the way Lisa says she doesn't, I don't understand what she's saying you did. It feels like there could, you can see this is the on-ramping Greg Daniels original pitch of like Lisa investigating and we focus on Lisa. And of course, though, Lisa gets shoved to the side entirely. And this is a story about the media. There's no time for Lisa. I also love another thing stuck in my head since this. The word, the way Julie Kavner says, she's a teet-tie. Yeah, I was sneaky that too.

It's the shanty town. Now there are, of course, if the Simpsons family was instead politicians who perhaps supply bombs to apartheid states, they'd be arrested like this camping on the lawn. It's just a general apartheid state. Who knows what I'm talking about? Who could say it's very funny to think about these grad students being like we have to go do an encampment outside of his one guy's house to yell at him for all day. It's just like, I've never seen a television show get what a protest is like, correct? Like it's never been correctly depicted in like anything. Every time you see any protesters and anything,

it's wrong for like 20 reasons. If you've ever been to an actual protest or an action, this one is particularly very stupid. But it provides a very good visual gag of him getting rocked back and forth. I would say it's a general light left punching here, I'd say. It's just like it's college students wasting their time. Like there's, yeah, yeah. They shake, you know, Homer is very nice as they shake him all day long.

It's adding more good points for Homer that he lets them stay at work. He vouches for them when Smithers is questioning their presence. This is where there are actually two deleted scenes, one in the script and one they actually animated. So in the script, the protesters also, it then, from work, goes to Homer getting a shave

at the barbershop. And I'll just read from the script here. Homer's getting shaved. Protesters stand around him, shaking his barber chair. The barber uses a straight razor. and nicks him again and again. Protesters, no shaving for you. Try to get a good shave.

Why would you try to get a shave today? And then after that, we cut to the Homer and Marge bedroom, which this scene is technically in the episode because this is where Homer in the next scene is begging March for help. But before he does that, he actually is trying to cuddle with Marge. And he's having trouble getting in the mood because of the chance outside the window.

And here's that clip. Come on. On March? Why aren't you in the mood? He's too fat. He needs a wig. Homer is a sexist pig. Oh.

Could you guys chant something more romantic? Something romantic. You want romance? We will spoil it. Picture grandma on the toilet. Mashed. I just love the phrase grandma on the toilet. It's perfect.

I wish this would have stayed in. That's really good. And it's also another great Simpsons thing, which is like, a crowd getting together and then saying something very, like the way that crowds are portrayed in this era of the Simpsons, it was very funny to me. And then like mumbling to each other

and immediately having a chant is very in line with that. Springfield Rabble, no matter where they are in a political debate, they do work as one, no matter what. Very united front always. And this is where Homer is almost out of options here. And man, this is just another like perfect joke in this next scene, right? I mean, I have the clip here because it's really the delivery. and the pause on the phone call

that really makes it great. March, 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? Uh-huh.

I already talked to the indignation coordinator out on the lawn today. I told her you were a decent man, but you 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. On own. I need him. Help. Oh, God, help me. Help me. God! Hello. Hello, Homer. This is God. Free Jones from the TV magazine show Rock Bottom.

We're aware of your problems, and, Mr. Simpson, we want to help. I saw that report you did on Sashquash. It was fair and even-handed. Oh, do it! Not just the pause on Godfrey Jones, but also that, Harry Shearer has to give him, like, the God voice. usually performs Godwin in the show. So he has to keep talking that way the whole episode.

And also that Homer, there's something about the way Kessaloneta says, Sasquatch. Like, Sasquash, yeah. Because of his weird line reading on that. And then later, that was a Simpsons trivia question a few weeks ago, and I was able to nail it because just remember that very strange line reading. Sasquash. So here we are at the introduction of Rock Bottom,

which, yes, context again for people. This is very direct parody of hard copy. But it was, hard copy was just one of several tabloid network news programs. But they were really syndicated. I shouldn't call it network. It's what they used to call it news magazine. There you go. These were sort of like not necessarily celebrity focused versions of TMZ, just like very, very sleazy.

And a hard copy lasted from 80,99, so not really long for this world. But it had no contemporaries, like Inside Edition. That was another one I watched a lot of. And that is still running to this very day. There was still inside edition out there. It's like it's really it's the tablet version of 60 minutes or 48 hours basically. Yeah. Yeah.

Hard copy really peaks in 1994 and 95 thanks to OJ, like their OJ coverage. On Internet Archive, I found the closest to the air date of this I could find was a September 94 episode of it. And this really shows you the alignment of hard copy. The first two stories like the first third of it is OJ related stories. then they have a story about an NYPD female officer who posed for Playboy and is being fired for it

and then report from the new season of Baywatch is the third story in the episode our special feature on the bikini yes yes exactly yeah it is sort of like Ion Springfield too I don't know about YouTube

but I watch these shows a lot as a kid and I really thought like I am learning about how the world really works the dark truths big time oh yeah I mean, too, I saw like, well, also, I did read what aired. Another thing they did do this week on HardCopy when this aired is that there was a music video for Dr. Drey and Ice Cube for the song Natural Born Killas with a Z.

It was getting a bunch of news because it was seen as too violent and they couldn't air it. And then HardCopy was going to also aired the unedited version of the controversial video to let you decide. side, but really just to have their cake and eat it to a varying a salacious thing while also complaining about it. And so that was like the big in-between stories about, oh, they had a Menendez story in that same episode too. So not just OJ, but also Menendez was still coming up. So this is also funny too that like, yeah, I found a 1999 piece on why hard copy was going away in the New York Times. And their main point in that article was that basically shows like Dateline in 2020, had just copied hard copy so much that hard copy became redundant.

It was just like, well, Diane Sawyer's just doing hard copy stories anyway. We don't need to keep doing ours instead. So just the entire media apparatus like sunk to their level. Cool. I mean, what they are doing in this episode, like parading hard copy, like the satire got outpaced by like the TMZ show like 17 years ago or something, you know, like not even now of TV. Yeah.

on like the legit news, like Fox News of the early odds, things like that. Just like, well, it's outdated satire, but it's still very, very funny. Oh, it's the greatest. So yes, Godfrey Jones interviews Homer. Homer explains everything pretty clearly and thinks like, oh, this is going to be an easy thing. His only thing he asks is that he wants to meet Sasquash. In a deleted scene, Homer actually gets to meet him. So when Godfrey, like, stands up and is confused by Homer asking for that,

the scene actually continues in our deleted scene here. Say, can you introduce me to the Sasquatch? I like his style. Yeah, sure. Yeah, how are you doing there? Here's my card. I do kids' birthday parties. He has to be Jesus out of him. Wow, proof positive at last.

It's clearly a man in the suit dressed as Bigfoot out there. When Homer has handed the card, that is the proof positive he thinks he has now, at long last. I was a Sasquatch, an obsessed child. I would have really appreciated seeing that, but it's too bad. What do people who still believe in Bigfoot do these days when everybody has cameras and there must be that you would think

they would expect proof by now, right? You'd think, but I believe that the truth is still out there on this particular case. I think one day I'll be vindicated that my Sasquatch belief. We're calling on all you squatchers out there. Let us know. Well, now I am a resident of the Pacific Northwest.

I'll keep my eye out as well for him. Well, now the Sasquatch can take that train to Bellevue, Henry. You're in trouble. You're right. Yes. Even his whole family of them if Harry and the Henderson's is taking his fact, which I do take his fact. So we hard cut to the title logo of Rock Bottom, which is a perfect parody of the hard copy

intro of just the slamming of the ball, like the bouncing ball of justice, as Homer calls it. He was a typewriter on hard copy? He was like those typewriter balls, right? Yeah, yeah, that's what it is, yes. Then we first hear a story about going undercover at a sex farm for sex. Silkers, the way the guy hits the word sex twice. It's really good. I feel like this farmer guy would be Cletus if this episode had been made a year or two later.

Absolutely. He's one of Cletus's associates. In this period where they liked Yocles but didn't realize Cletus was the one, they just bounced between them over time with Cleetis. And there's just like several Cletus-like men around. The guys that are joining the Army, when Skinner goes back to the Army, like, hang all them group toilets no more. Like, that guy should also just be Cletus.

There's a lot of guys that should be Cleetus. Yeah. So this is where Homer, though, learns what the actual framing of the story is. And there's so many good jokes about what hard copy or similar ones would do, but just the framing of her happy graduation photo to just slow-mo footage of Homer reaching for his keys. with the most sinister music possible over it. I feel like this, what they would be pulling through here most of all would maybe is the Amy Fisher scandal.

I would think the, or cry. I don't know what to exactly call it. We all thought it was funny that a guy had the name Budafuko, but he actually is a horrible, horrible person if you look into him at all. I'm more about Jeff Galooly. Oh, that's a fun name too. Yeah. Letterman loves saying Buttafuoco and Galooly. There were some of his favorite things he said on his show. Maddie, you grew up in, that must have been even bigger news in the New York area.

The Long Island, Lolita stories. I was quoting things here, folks. Yeah, I think I was just too young to have. So that whole thing happened in 92. I was seven years old. So I was like just a little too young to understand that. I definitely was catching all the jokes and just being like, here's a guy named Budafuku, he's famous for something, him and Cato Caelin and

Jeff Galooly all kind of like lived in the same house in my head of like guys with funny names who I'd hear Letterman say or whatever. And I didn't really have a like conception of what actually was going on in the world. I certainly was hearing the names constantly and they are, you know, I'll never forget them. But I, yeah, like I actually don't know the details of the Fisher story that well. It's basically everybody who was in that 1994 weird old song headline news. Yeah, basically. A song I loved and knew nothing.

Yeah. And actually did not understand a word of. Here's the exclusive report on babysitter and The Beast. She was a university honor 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. Oh, crap. Somebody had to take the babysitter home. Then I noticed she was sitting on her sweet can.

I grab 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. March, kids. Everything's going to be just fine. I'll go upstairs and pack your bags. We're going to start a new life. Under the sea.

You can't do these jokes anymore of a freeze frame of a VHS, but that Homer is like open mouth finger. Oh, God. So good. It's also the great bit of every time it cuts weird of like when they're manipulating, what are you saying? There's the clock in the background, zipping around. Yeah, I love the tracking line on the frozen video and also the very cheap digital zoom on the image.

Yes. And I love the great staging or layout of it that. Godfrey is faking it worse than he has to because they could just use him seated in the same room with Homer, but instead he's like crossing his arms and he's outside when Homer is clearly indoors too. It just turns into like a Max Headroom bit too. Oh, and please tell me you're having our editor drop in under the sea. You have to play it full. Let's get to listen to Homer's plan in song form right here.

sea under the sea there'll be no accusations just friendly crustaceans under the sea that's your solution to everything to move under the sea it's not gonna happen not with that attitude yeah I remember watching this for the first time in this

in particular just blindsiding me because it's such a weird side route for the episode of take that just waste everyone's time but it's an amazing sequence and I actually prefer this to the Alan Man Mankin and Ashman version. I'm sorry. Wow. I know they had to come first.

We're going to have a problem. We're talking Mankin and Ashman. But I, this is so funny. I mean, it is, I will say, sort of family guy-esque. And it's like absolute sort of like complete non-sequitur detour nature. But crucially, unlike one of those family guy gags, it's funny and works and they put some care into it. It's very, very funny. I mean, Merton was just so happy to like.

he thought the Little Mermaid was too cute. He's still complimentary to it of saying like it was a good movie, but he's like, it was just too cute. And he wanted to imagine like, what if you killed all of the animals in it instead? And Homer just ate them and left them as just a pile of bones in. David Merckin,

a vegan, by the way. Yes, that's true. Oh, what's funny about this, it's also, it's like five years later. Like,

it's not, culture just used to move slower. I was thinking about this. Like, oh yeah, like Little Mermaid's from the. 80s. Like, it's 89, 88? Like, yeah. We get to see my vest this year, too. And by this point, it's like a four-year-old movie. Right. Man, Merkin was really on the anti-Disney or parodying

Disney tie. Yeah, actually, that's great on the commentary that Merkin starts to go into, like, his, you know, vegan ranch mode. And graining complains like, oh, don't get him started. And then, and I think that Merkin just leans into it more and is playing the, like, vegan crank, I think, right? Now the original script had different lyrics for Under the Sea I'll read here Under the Sea Under the Sea Life will be groovy like a popular movie

Under the Sea Where a man can be free Indefinitely Under the Sea Here that's where I'll be here under the sea I like the lyric like a popular movie They're being They're being They're being

I think I love too have the final version That the whole family is in on it They're all loving playing the being Marge playing the harp is I think my favorite of the drawings. And Marge's reaction too saying like, that's your solution to everything, to move under the sea. It's not going to happen. There's some very few trauma-looking slugs there too, dancing around, which I belonged. This is then when something even worse than protesters arrive.

The news media, because now Rock Bottom, has made this nationally a famous story, and the national news media has now moved in and is blowing over Homer's car. This is where we get a run on of things as the Simpson scandal begins, which first they're photographing Homer, taking a shower, and I just, the drawing of him unconscious, perhaps concussed. It's so good. I do get some use out of in my day to life. And it's a reference to a famous 1986 image of Michael Jackson sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber. And I guess the story behind that is he and his press agents release that to the public to stir up discussion about Michael Jackson when there wasn't enough to talk about. Ah, I see.

Like, here's another weird thing about him. Oh, well, they got their wish. They pulled it off. Then they would spend a lot of time trying to hide facts about Michael Jackson. Well, now I'm going to only believe what I see in a popular movie as the song goes. And we can look forward to Michael this year that will tell us the real truth about Michael Jackson. Up until 1992. Yep.

Is that where they're drawn the line? It is, yes. Unbelievable. I'm not sure when the story cuts off of because of the deal they made with his victims, they cannot portray any events in his life after a certain time that involves them. So they didn't know that. Now they'd reshoot an already very expensive movie. Who's that movie for?

I don't understand it. Every time I see a preview for it, and I'm just like, and then what? And then what? And then what? And then what happened? What happened afterwards? It's crazy making. What if Bohemian Rhapsody made you uncomfortable with the people in front of the camera instead of just behind it? I love to you that Homer reflects on sleep.

sleeping in an oxygen tent to give him sexual powers as a half-truth. This is where, though, the Simpson scandal starts heating up all over the television. As one of David Merkin's favorite things is just going up the dial and watching multiple parodies of daytime talk shows in a row. 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. Today on Ben, mothers and runaway daughters, reunited by their hatred of Homer Simpson. And here's your host, Gentle Van. I just have one thing to say. Let's have less Homer Simpson. and more money for public schools. Ben, I have a question.

Ben is one of the funniest 30 seconds in the whole show. Okay, so watching this at like nine or ten years old, I thought this was a real show. I thought there had to be... Okay, so I understood that it was a parody. I understand I was watching something that was making fun of something.

But I was like, well, there has to be some bare-based show that they're making fun. I was convinced there was a different bear talk show that they were like parody or some sort of bear based media on TV where there was a bear hosting a show there had to have been. I'm realizing now that's definitely not true. There's no way that's true. I think I've only been made aware of Gentle Ben through parody because there was a 1967 movie called Gentle Giant, which then spawned a two-season series with Clint Howard and a bear called Gentle Ben. Yes.

Yeah, it's so funny. that like, if you look at the timeline of it, I think it like burned brightly for the first season and then like it's canceled in the second season. It was like a contemporary of the Adam West Batman and Star Trek. Like the kids who grew up with those two shows, which we saw all the time in syndication, also were watching Gentle Bend to see, you know,

cute young Clint Howard playing with a black bear, which is, I mean, it's just in black bears are apparently very friendly. But still, it's like a child acting with a bear, every week seems like an insane TV show. Yeah. I think I'm particularly love about this sequence is the people that come in and take Ben down all the Ben control jackets

on. Yes. I mean, God damn it, it's so perfect that like it's a stupid, ridiculous show of like a bear walks around with a microphone strapped to its head and people in the audience just shout into it about things. And then by the second question,

it falls apart. Yeah. And then Oh, no, you go. That's funny. I was going to say, and then after the chaos, we see a title card of what they viewed the show ideally as just a woman pouring your heart out to Ben's microphone on his head without any incident. And they're holding hands. He's got his hands up like this. She's holding both of his paws. And there's so much story, too, of like his handler going, no, Ben. No.

No, Ben. He's tried for so long. I did see that Hallmark about 25 years ago tried to relaunch Gentle Ben with a couple of TV movies starring Dean Kane and Corbin Burnson. And the Wikipedia also says that there was a 1981 Gentle Ben cartoon, but Lost Media, like, archives and stuff, doubt to this. Like, the only source they could find on it were like an encyclopedia of cartoons. Like, there's no cells people have found. And it's in 1981, like, not to say, you know, it couldn't have been taped, but people had, there had to be some crazy person taping every cartoon.

cartoon in 1981 and one of the expensive ECRs. You would think it survived, but I'm saying I doubt the existence of the Gentle Bed 1981 cartoon. You're a truther about that and Sasquatch. Now, I would say the most reactionary conservative line, too, was also in that clip. From the Sally Jesse Raphael parody that comes right before the Ben clip. Yeah, that could be taken the wrong way. That could be used as ammunition potentially in cases that aren't hilarious like this one. Yeah, I mean, your tears say more than real evidence ever could.

I'm just going to say that's probably Ricky Jervais's favorite line in the episode. Yeah. And hey, Sally Jesse Raphael, still alive as of this recording on April 14th, 20206. And she still has those big red glasses. So she's keeping it. Nice. Keeping the iconic look. After the bend control ends, then we're smashing straight into another hilarious, hilarious scene,

which, before I get into what it could have been, Why do we hear the Fox Night at the Movies? And now we return to Fox Night at the Movies. Homer's Portrait of an Ass-grabber, starring Dennis Fromms. Ooh, portrait. Sounds classy. Doesn't it? Mr. Simpson, a cat is a living creature.

I don't care. Have me some sweet. No, Mr. Simpson. That's sexual harassment. If you keep it up, I'll yell so loud the whole cudgeril here. With the man in the White House? Not likely. God, he's good.

Dennis Franz. He is perfect live action Homer for this. Yeah, he played Homer's idol, Lieutenant Cipowitz, on NYPD Blue, correct? Yes. Someday I need to watch, I feel like I sparingly watched a little NYPD Blue. I was in one of the markets that banned NYPD Blue for years in my conservative northern Florida area. It did not air on our ABC affiliate. But it was banned in several by, you know, the networks can choose what they are and what they don't air.

A lot below the Mason-Dixon line shows to not show NYPD Blue. Was it not copaganda enough? It was there. It was the butts. It was too many butts. Though now I feel like I need to see it because I love Deadwood. Like I learned that David Milch got to make Deadwood because he was like one of the best writers on NYPD Blue. and that Sipowitz is kind of his character, the David Milchiest character.

So it's always been on my list of things to watch just as a deadwood enjoyer. Well, there are 261 hour-long episodes. So that's going to be quite a mountain. I say start with M. By Petey's Shoe and then go on from there. See if you're still into it. Yeah. A really incredible joke that goes by very quick in that bit is when she's like, you know, I'll report you and he goes, with a man in the White House, who'll believe you?

A very funny joke That I can't really explain why it's so funny to me But it's very good And this means nothing to people listening to this in 2026 Or perhaps even 10 years earlier But the intro to Homer S portrait of an ass grabber It's a perfect send-up of the Fox Night of the movies Intro graphics

Which was a movie showcase A bit of programming that was from 89 to 2005 I saw the first movie that they aired was The Fly And the last movie in 2005 that they aired Was Jet Lees the One Wow, man That's funny. The Fly 2, the 1. There's a pattern there. The Fox Night of the movies, it could either have, you know, the network premiere of a popular film or some made for TV movies.

There's two from 1994. I wanted to shout out. It was the premiere of Revenge of the Nerds for Nerds in Love, which was the TV movie fourth one, which I think also ends with like their version of like a Supreme Court hearing on. nerd rights, I think. Like, there's a big portrait scene in it, as I remember. Yeah, finally, nerds can vote. You know, where'd they come down on nerd rights? Because I hope it's that they don't have any.

That's why I hope they had them. Oh, I'm sorry, a few days before this aired, you could have watched Alien 3 on Fox Night the movies. Oh, that's a movie. And for comparable movies to Portrait of an Ass Grabber, by early 1995, they'll do movies on O.J. Simpson, original TV movies on O.J. Simpson, and on the Mia Farrow, Woody Allen, situation. This is not that much of a leap

from what they were actually hearing. Now, I know Henry has some secret dirt because on the commentary they say Dennis Franz was their second choice because one quote unquote barrel chested actor dropped out at the last second and the show was originally storyboarded to include that actor perhaps it went as far as the animatic. So Henry, reveal, please. From the script it was Brian Denahey. Oh. Which you can imagine him that even early

90s Brian Denny he is barrel chested is a very accurate description for him and when looking at what was going on in his career then I think he if the script is dated late May his television show which I'd

never heard of called a birdland had just been canceled after eight episodes so maybe he was like my show just got canceled I don't want to hear a cartoon bullshit like could be that around that time he just got the script for Tommy boy, perhaps. Oh, yeah, man, that's, he's so good as Chris Farley's dad in that.

Like, he's, he's, he's, I enjoyed the work of Brian Denny. He was a good actor and stuff. Birdland, a medical drama? Sure. With the CCH Pounder who went on to be in the R anyways, so. Oh, yeah, I love her. She was so good on the shield. Like, he's apparently like the psychiatrist to doctors in it.

Like, that's what the plot of Birdland was. And then he would go on in 1994 to do a TV movie, not unlike portrait of an ass grabber called Leave of Absence, which IMDB says, when a married man's mistress falls seriously ill, he must make the toughest choice of his life. I'm excited already to watch that, but yes,

the animators had a whole, I would love to see what the character design of Brian Denahey-Simson style would have looked like. If they did the animatic, then they must have designed him too. So there you go. It was Brian Denahehe, finally revealed by the Internet Archive upload

of this original, script from May of the same year. I also just love the Friends. It's like, I don't care as he runs over. Like, that delivery, Denny He would have delivered that pretty good too, but. That's actually Franz. Oh, yes. Yeah, it's really, you know,

I should be, just like your last name, Maddie. I need to be Dennis Franz. I think it is. But he's, it's like a Chicago, like I'm Dennis Frans. You know, yeah, it seems, yeah, it does sound more likely, doesn't it? Yeah. So, well, we should just beat ourselves up over this until Dennis Franz appears on the show.

or friends. Then he'll beat us up himself, Sipowitz style. I'm assuming Sipwitz was a violent cop, I think. I think so. Then Kit Brockman even gets in on it as the local correspondent on this. This bit seemed like it was in the script, but it does feel slightly informed by the OJ chase. I don't know. It feels very OJ-ish.

Yeah. And actually the body heat camera joke is not in the script. So I wonder if it was like, oh, we could do this cool VIII. video effect, like, came in late, and it was added, like, post-color on it even. I love that in the heat signature animation, you can even see Homer, like, point at the screen and then put his head in his hands, like, depressed at it. Like, it's really messing up. And then we think that everything's about to turn around for Homer as his friends arrive in a,

it's a wonderful lifestyle turn. I don't have a friend in the world. Oh, really? Come on, let us through you, vultures. Oh, Marge, it's a miracle. How can you judge this man, without talking to the people who know him best? We get the real dirt on Homer Simpson,

and the bedding starts at 10 Gs. I'm in 10 Gs. 10 Gs! I need a hug. How come you guys hesitated? Sorry, Dad, we do believe in you. We really do. It's just hard not to listen to TV.

It's spent so much more time raising us than you have. Oh, maybe TV is right. TV's always right. Talking to TV. No. And with a kiss. I really enjoy the commentary about the effects of TV from this era because it is very quaint. I just rewatch the film The Cable Guy.

It's a very funny movie, but it's very hand-wringy about, like, oh, we're just so addicted to television. And I guess the thing is, we didn't solve that problem. We just have a new worst problem on our hands. I want to go back to when we would just mindlessly graze on the content that was just put in front of us. That feels like a simpler time. Now we don't have time for television as much. It's like, well, but the little TV in my pocket shows me things that are much more engaging than it feels like homework to watch TV now. I love to like that Homer, this is some of my favorite bits in it as far as like satire commentary goes,

that Homer is just as propagandized and indoctrinated by what TV tells us. as every other viewer of TV. But it's hurting him so much to be like, well, yeah, we all believe whatever TV tells us. But now it's disagreeing with the reality you know. What do we do? We can't believe anything anymore. And also, Bart's like, it's spent so much more time raising us than you have. A perfect joke, too, about just parents and just sitting kids in front of TVs as babysitter.

It's not just a member of the family. It's a guardian. Yes. But also that Homer's friends just show up to stab him in the best. back on his doorstep for for money. Like that is, that is what, I mean, that is what happens in these moments back then of just like, oh, I know this person. I'll give you the story for this money or this money.

Yeah, like him and Moe were not close at this point in the show. Moe's a guy he knows. Right. Like. We briefly see Hibbert is there. I want to know what Dr. Hibbert had to say. He's giving up. Was he violating HIPAA?

I think so. I think so. I love, too, that it is like a sitcom parody too, like Merkin loves to do. like in a bad sitcom, this is the ending. His friends show up and tell the truth about him. Gets people to change. Now, here's something that clarified a joke in the bidding war for me that I never caught as a joke, but the script makes it clear.

So one of those guys who bids up that goes like, 10-5 G's. He's supposed to have an Australian accent. You guys just heard it too. He does. I clocked it this time. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. He has an Australian accent. I wonder why that is.

It calls him Australian reporter in the script. So it is supposed to be like a News Corp joke, I think, a little bit too. Oh, okay. Australian reporting, but yes. Or that also this is now a worldwide story. I guess they're gearing up for their attack on Australia soon later in the season. But I've heard that line a million times. I never read him as Australian until the script.

Like even his, the accent is there, but I just saw him as like, well, that's just another guy shouting. Like he needs to be wearing, you know, like a full, like crocodile hunter or outfit for me to read him as Australia. He needs to be dundeeing. Yes. He needs to be brandishing a huge knife right then as he says it. And a smaller knife for comparison. Of course.

Of course. That's the commercial break. We come back and Homer has now become a full shut in watching TV all of the time doing, he couldn't doomscroll then so you can only just keep flipping the channels. on your TV, Pacman. We mentioned Letterman's predilection for saying funny names over and over. Funny on his show, Oscar viewers did not

like Oprah Uma, and it lives on to this very day. I thought it was hilarious. Yeah. I'm sorry. They weren't ready. They weren't ready for it. Their kids are going to love it. In the script, they actually were a little meaner to Letterman. They had two other examples of jokes he's running into the ground.

The other two were my speeding tickets and Madonna. So, which he was, was really, the Madonna stuff really was getting a rolling, a bit much at that point. You'd be shocked to know this actually, but society doesn't like women very much.

Yeah, so I don't know if this occurred to you at any point in your lives. Well, wasn't it Madonna's fault for aging and still wanting to, like, appear places? How dare she? She had a foul mouth on that show, from what I remember. Very unladylike. but I just love Homer's.

The way Homer says, I like it better when they're making fun of people who aren't me like that. I think of that sometimes too, as we've all in our social media world, too. I like it better when they're making fun of people who aren't. Yeah, I prefer when everyone's yelling at someone who is not me. And when they're yelling at me, it's suddenly, guys, a real problem with the world today,

actually now it functions that they're all yelling at me. If you think about it. It's great that Homer can't turn it around. He's like, oh, actually, it gives him, It's the moral of the story in the end that it gives Homer no insight into things. But this is the moment here, too. He's just like, he doesn't get the making fun of other people who aren't him, maybe is bad too or makes him regret anything. Instead, he switches to evening at the improv.

So this is also where David Mercky just gets to like take a swing and hack comedians on TV, too. This was an A&E comedy showcase on the A&E channel on cable. It ran from 83 to 96. and it was a real showcase for a lot of softball comedy from the comedy boom. So you'd see a guy like the late Richard Jenny, let's say, on this a lot. Elaine Boozler, perhaps. Judy Tenuda, I can go on. And in 1994, they were still dressing like it was 1987 doing their like warmed over Seinfeld style stand-up too.

Yeah, actually I take it back Judy Tenuna too extreme for Evening at the Improv, RIP. Paula Poundstone, perhaps, instead. Oh, yeah, she'd have the widest shoulder pads, perhaps some overalls too. You know, it's funny, too. Now, putting them together, it just hit me. We have Letterman here, so this is like the 1130 time slot of CBS. And then we have, like, dated stand-up comedy showcases. That's what's taking over 1130 on CBS very soon.

When the Colbert show ends, it's going to be replaced by the Byron Allen, which I think it's, like, technically an infomercial. Like, he's paying CBS to be on the champion. When I hear Byron Allen's name, I don't know about you too. I think he's a guy, right? He can be on a show. I don't know who he is. I don't know who that is. I have never, see, and he's about to take over Colbert's time slot.

I only know him as a joke that comedians say like, oh, we're going on a hack place or you're a hack comic. You got interviewed by Byron Allen. He's the guy who's always standing around and walking. That's him. What Byron Allen, I think, is mainly known for is that he does like terrible setups to get a comedian in an interview to just do their stand up where he goes, like, you know, so I heard you went to the airport recently, eh? And then the community just goes to see. You want to hear something really grim is if you look him up on Wikipedia, he's listed as

an American businessman, film and television producer and comedian. It's grim. I don't like that, and I don't like that he's stealing Dr. Katz's bits. And doing a much worse job, it sounds like it. Apparently his scam just is that he gets, you know, comedians to show up for probably little to no money, paying them in appearing on the show, then he buys time on networks, and then he sells the ads himself on the show and then runs it as a profit. It has turned profitable enough that also the like guy, I think it was Letterman himself

said it this week, that it just is like CBS is, I mean, they hate Colbert for lots of reasons the owners of CBS, but one of them is that it's an expensive show and that instead they're going to put on a show that pays them to be on the next. network instead of having to spend money on a late night programming. Well, now Stephen Colbert is doing what he really wants to do, and that's writing a Lord of the Rings movie with his son. Sequal or prequel? I believe it is a sequel, and it's about Marion Pippen and their sons because it's written

with Colbert's son and made with Peter Jackson and his children, I believe. Yeah. It's always really, really good when people whose work you like have aged many decades, and they start making work with their children, it's always good. I can't think of any examples where it's boring and bad. So that's great. That's good. It always turns out well.

Yeah. It always turns out awesome, actually. Yeah. Oh, and man, Peter Jackson returning to the world of Lord of the Rings, that always leads to a great film, too. Uh-huh. Can we do a GoFundMe for him or something? I mean, we're already about to get like the Andy Circus Gala movie that like...

Is that also happening? I thought that got canceled. Is it back on? It's filming right now, I believe. I think it is. If it's anything as good as Vanham let there be carnage, the other movie I've seen of his that he directed. Well, I know we're all really excited for that animal farm film he's got coming, right?

Oh, yeah. I think someone's finally getting it to the bottom of what that book means. Finally. I believe Snowball is played by Seth Rogen. Like, that's not a joke, I think. But anyway. I'm evacuating all the air from my lungs and one breath. Hold on.

He's Pumba. He's Donkey Kong. He's Snowball. What can't he do in that one voice? You know, at least it's not Chris Pratt. You're like, hey, it's me, Snowball. What's up? At least he'll have a funny laugh. At least he'll have that funny laugh. So Homer is broken and Marge comes in with an idea. And because this is 32 years ago and Homer can't just do a front-facing video from his dashboard.

Instead, he has to get on public access television instead. I know in the Greg Daniels world, like, not just on King of the Hill, but also on the office, like, he loves public access TV. Off mic, we were talking about On Cinema. One of the members of the On Cinemaverse, Mark Porch, or I only know how they mispronounce it. It's Mark Proach is his real name. Mark Porch. Yes. Mark Proach, like, he has a career because our friends on Found Footage Fest knew him and made him part of, like, found footage pranks on local.

news and then he gets cast on the office and that then led to his like full on career and like years of acting on shows like what they do in the shadows. Public access was really fertile ground around this time. I think comedy writers were really tapping into it because it feels like in this era of SNL, half of the sketches were send-ups of public access programs like Wayne's World.

Right. And whatever that Tim Meadows sketch that would come on very late on SNL, it wasn't the ladies man, it was the other Okay, the one that wasn't the ladies man, right? Yes. Well, I mean, 90% of the sketches on SNL have always been like talk shows, right? Yeah. Yeah. Or game shows.

Yeah, a game show or a talk show, I feel like now, even now, it's still just is like, even as talk shows die, it's still like, no, it's every sketch is a talk show and a crazy character shows up. Yeah. A feature of society, it used to be our cranks were sort of like, we had like catch fences for them, like public access television, letters to the editor, things like that. And now it's like, well, you have to hear like, you know, comment sections or whatever. But now it's like everyone's opinions are everywhere all the time.

It's like, I don't think people have gotten crazier, but there used to be places where you could just go be insane in a public place. Everyone was like, that's where they put cranks and they can say whatever they want on public access television. And then you can also watch like your kids high school musical, you know, one of the morning. Yeah. Maddie, some of my favorite cartoons of yours have been the ones commenting on how everybody has to listen to every comment all of the time now. And the bizarre rants are now free for everyone. Yeah, like the letters to the editor, there's no editor anymore. We stopped having one for society.

Homer is getting set up at the home of the bizarre rant, which is just all social media now for all of us. I say this is the bizarre rant. I have done my own innocence reports post like threads back on Twitter back in the day. So, yes. Not against accusations or anything. That made it sound like I was accused of something. No, I haven't been that.

I just mean. I don't think you're a Spider-Man fan at all. Yes. I definitely went on, oh, boy, I was just on the podcast chasing Amy Adams, which is a fun podcast about the filmography of Amy Adams. Oh, is that Louis thing? Yeah, yeah, Louis Piecese. Yeah, yeah, it's great.

And Dave McDonald, it's a really fun podcast. And I came on for the one for the 2017 release of the Justice League. Not to be confused with the Zach Snyder cut of the Justice League. Oh, sure. And it really did take me back to when I was posting a whole lot about how much I hate Man of Steel and the resulting films from that. And now I was like returning to a war that I had completely forgot about. Like, oh, yeah, this is very important to me.

I was trying to remember why I was so angry one time. And so those are my version of The Innocence Report, saying why Superman shouldn't kill people, why it made me very angry. You can get me start on one of those rants if you really try, I think. I still can't. But, yes, but Amy Adams, Innocent, she is not the problem with those movies.

She is barely in the 2017. Justice League. Seven minutes. I counted it. Seven minutes tops. It was news to me. And half of it is scenes re-shot with Joss Whedon that are much worse than the scenes that are in the Snyder cut version. Like, uh, Zach Snyder should be thankful that Josh Whedon made a worse version of his four-hour movie that makes you think his movie is really good by comparison. But anyway, Innocence Report, it's time for Homer to address the allegations directly. After we learned that Abe does not respect the state of Missouri. 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, they'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 cinderblacks. And I... Oh, got to go. Innocent! And I am so proud of you! The switchboards are lighting up! Yay!

Two calls! That's our best ever. Hello? No, Janice doesn't live here. Hello? Yes, I am interested in long-distance saving. very interested. So yes, Homer, he gets cut off before he can really lay into the penny farthing community in his speech.

To describe his assaults on someone. Yes, yeah. His innocent speech, getting derailed by that is funny. I also think of how when he gets attacked later for it, that's what happens when one of your rants on a social media account escapes containment, and people outside of it are just like, oh, so you make an offhand joke making fun of a, like some fan community of, say, a role-playing game or something.

And then you then end up with 500 quote tweets saying like, oh, you don't like that game, huh? You don't like this character, huh? And you just wanted to make a one-off joke about a Magic the Gathering card or something, for instance. But after they cut it off, this is where it then plays like the sitcom ending as well. Like, oh, the switchboards are lighting up. But actually, they only got two phone calls, one wrong number,

and the other to try to change long-distance. providers very interested. Another very 1994 elements of this show. Who even thinks about who they're paying for long distance anymore? We were in the trenches of the long distance wars at this point. The collect call wars were on the horizon. I think

when we cover that freakazoid episode, there was the joke about like the entire plotline of an ET parody was who is he going to sign up for a long distance provider for phoning home? Remember that, Bob? Yes. And ultimately he decided on whatever company Candid Bergen was the spokesperson for, maybe

Sprint, who knows? He was turned on by Candace Bergen, yes. It's wild that was a show for children to watch that I was watching as a child being like, well, I understand this. This is something I get completely. That was the peak of like the Steven Spielberg could sell anything to Warner Brothers era. Just like

the freak is always, it was the most niche of all of them and he was able to get two seasons out of that. We thank him for it. I loved it so much as like a 10-year-old, which is just a bananas thing to like, I don't know, it just feels like so disconnected from anything I understood or knew, but I loved it so much. I was so attached to it.

A few years ago, we covered the episode where they take a basically nine minute timeout so one of the characters can perform a number from Hello Dolly. Yes. Uh-huh. Of course. Amazing television, amazing. It's just millions of dollars just spent on that just to have David Warner sing a parody of Hello Dolly.

We used to be a country. We used to be a real country where this kind of thing would happen. We cut to home. Homer has now gotten more depressed than ever. He's making his own homemade Prozac, needs more ice cream. Now, hopefully, Homer can, his insurance covers a generic Prozac that he can take. Maybe that's why he's strangling Bartless in the series these days, because he's not generic. Instead of his homemade goop.

It's mostly ice cream. Then Homer answers the door at first. It is one of the guys on a penny farthing, kicking him in the face, which he barely reacts to as well. I love this gag so much. It makes me laugh, like fully actual out loud every single time I see it. It's so perfect. The violence is pretty extreme. And you're right, Henry. There is not a big reaction from Homer. That's how depressed he is. To be kicked in the face. It's like, I deserve it. And also, I think if I'm casting it in my head, like, I would just think, like, oh, well, if it's somebody writing a penny farthing, he should sound like, you know, a fancy,

like, 1800s New York kind of guy. He should not be. He should not be. the Bronson voice guy, right? That's not, you would normally think it would be. Yeah. I love that it's the Bronson voice guy. It's really, it makes it for me, honestly. But this is where Homer finally finds his savior, who was inspired by Homer's Innocence Report.

Homer, I love amateur video, and your show is the most amateur video 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. Oh, baby. Oh, yeah. Oh, baby. Oh, no, that's Mayor Quimby.

Ah, here we go. Precious Venus. Thank you. Clears you completely. You know, the courts might not work anymore, but as long as everybody is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done. Oh, what a lie.

What a line. I mean, that's not true now, right? Like, everybody films everybody else all the time, and justice isn't done, I would say, right? Yeah, and I mean, since we last cover this episode in 2017, AI really muddies the water as to what consists of evidence of these days. That is also true, yeah. I mean, as well to what Homer,

in Homer's innocence report of just like, nobody cares that I'm innocent. I mean, this would date it to mention who, like, it still is, at least, every month there is a new expose on this person did horrible things to women, this powerful person, and they rarely do go away.

I think what Louis C. Cates, he's like the lead guy of the Netflix joke convention this year, I think, for, he's back. Yep. No problems there. I will say, though, very rarely do these men have exonerating videos floating around? Yes, yes. Seems to be a big

difference. If this were to mirror reality, there would then be like 17 more videos of Homer taking candy off of women's clothes instead. Exactly. It's great that every single Scottish person films everybody all the time. That that's how it can even explain. Though, I mean, even in real life when they were writing this, like, when they say justice will be done, like, this is after the Rodney King verdict that did, even with the videotape

of the police battering him, in the first trial, they were found not guilty and got away with it. there was a second trial that then did see criminal prosecution for the police involved. But so even then, everybody filming everybody else, did not lead to justice being done anyway, unfortunately. This feels like a classic. It's a sitcom and we have to have a solution right now. Sort of thing. Yeah. Well, they're so in love with Willie in this season, too, that they let Willie be the one to do it, right? This is where Ashley, at least, they could have not like this result.

it. They didn't have to show Ashley again. I'm glad they did, not just like to show that there's like no hard feelings. Homer's not mad at her once she apologizes. I like that too. Yeah. And it's not really a formal apology. And I like how it's softened by the fact that Homer admits I'm an animal and I'm a good man. Yes. You're both right. Yes. She never says I'm sorry, which is great. I'm glad she doesn't, she's not like shamed formally for this. At least in my estimate. Yeah. It's very like, oh, we had a misunderstanding. and now we understand each other. You are like a weird little animal freak man,

but you're not a pervert. Yes. He's like, yep, absolutely. You'll kill dozens of people to get a gummy Venus de Milo, but he would not pinch my butt. And so this is where the episode wraps up with even Rock Bottom having to do a correction on it, which leads to a long string of corrections,

which, boy, I mean, Bob, I assume you probably got the list. I wrote them down last time. I'm not going to read them all this. time. They're online. There's 34 of the jokes. Sorry, there's 34 of them. This has been transcripted for a very long time. Although I will say, all of these are true, except for the fact that they point

out the older Flanders boy is Todd, not Rod. That's not true. Todd is the younger of the Flanders' crew. So even they got that wrong. The mnemonic device is Todd is tiny. Tiny Todd. Tiny Todd. Tiny Todd. I have two of my favorites here. One is just, the

Cheers Gang is not a real gang. That's a great one. And then the other one, which feels also more timely than ever, Mr. Dershowitz did not literally have four eyes. So an Alan Dershowitz joke back then who, I mean, he was all over the news back. He was already pretty famous back then. For his very normal defense of, well, Bob, you just watched the movie. Yeah, Class von Buello. Hey, I saw reversal of fortune.

Claus von Buello innocent. That's my take. Watch the film. Alan Dershwin's, great lawyer. Yeah, amazing man. I haven't looked into him in the past 40-ish years. Probably hasn't done anything weird. Strange.

I will say the script reveals one more thing they cut, which was another admission. Bart says is Terry Gar isn't an arsonist. But also I just love this joke as them going like, we know now you nerds freeze, frame everything. So we're going to, and like I remember I taped this off TV. This was difficult to get to read even half of them. I don't think I even, until either the internet or the Simpsons episode guide, I don't think I knew all of them until then. It was really hard to freeze frame on VHS, as we saw earlier in the episode,

pausing a VHS, those scan lines make it hard to read those things at times. DVD is when people could finally read it. Being able to step through a video was like life-changing to me, as like a young freak who would watch things a thousand times. So this is where after the truth comes out, nobody learns anything in our final clip. See? Homer, I thought you were an animal,

but your daughter said you were a decent man. I guess she was right. You're both right. In our mad pursuit of a scoop, we members of the press sometimes make mistakes. Rock Bottom would like to make the following corrections. Oh, VHS isn't one eats gasoline. And Ted Koppel is a robot.

There's you, Yay! Tomorrow on Rock Bottom. He's a foreigner who takes perverted videos of you when you least suspected. He's rowdy, rowdy peeper. Oh, that man is sick! Groundskeeper, Willie saved you, Homer. 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. Let's never fight again. again. And that was the true conflict of this episode. Homer was fighting with the TV. And they made up. TV was attacking him and he couldn't deal with it anymore.

And now he's back on TV's side. TV told him something. He can't. Homer is a perfect American. He TV told him to feel something. And now that it's not about him anymore, he feels it once more. I will say Rock Bottom did get it kind of right with groundskeeper Willie. that is weird to do and mad.

I like how the sinister video of Willie is Willie giving Godfrey Jones a videotape. Yes, yes. That is great. It's like they're working with him. They just aired it. Yeah. Also, Marge, like Cassandra,

grasping the fucking prophecy here, which is we just have to like videotape each other all the time and there'd be no problems with that. Also, rowdy, Roddy, Peeper, a great name for a segment on hard copy. Yes. He too.

Just something that's like echoed to my brain for a really long time. Just the exact line reading. Routy Routy Peeper. No, Harry Shearer, God, he was so back when he cared. He really... We're talking about him like he's dead. He's dead to me. Henry, his best friend was killed.

Yes, I know. Listen, man, you watched the last five minutes of Mighty Wind. You tell me to watch him Harry Shearer and then not be dead to me. Yes. Yeah. Harry Shearer, if you're listening, and I know you are, I assume. I see. No, his character transitions at the end of that movie.

I forgot that, yes. Man, it went so fast at the Oscars. He was on stage with the other Spinal Tap guys at the Oscars, right? For the memorial, I think he was. They memorialized every movie that he made up until 1994. Yeah, North didn't make the cut. It was pretty funny to just be like, stop in the reflection on Rob Reiner's career 30 years ago.

Like, hey, it was a great list of movies. It sure was. North, the first. The first movie I ever saw in a theater and didn't like. That was the first time I went and it's that real right of passage where you're like watch a movie and you're like, wait, this is bad? Movies can be bad. North was my first experience with that. So thank you, Rob Reiner for all you've done for me.

Yeah, Roger Ebert steered me the right way on North. He famously hated that movie. Yeah, he did. I also love that Homer's hug and kiss with it ends with like the TV of the show turning off to like it is. There's like, hey, you're just like Homer's. or two. You're watching your TV and love it. Don't you, viewer? And it's true. It's true. We're so lame. I agree. Now you can't really hug your 4K TV. It's too flat. It's stuck to the wall. It doesn't have that gentle hum and the warmth. You might knock it over. Yeah, it's too dangerous.

It's too dangerous. The tube was much more friendly back then than the liquid crystal display. Yeah, you can no longer experience the warm, glowing, warming glow. Marge, my friend, I haven't learned a thing. March, my friend, is so funny. And he puts his arm around her like they're buddies. That is really like David Merkin's nihilistic ethos with his seasons of the show. Like nobody can learn anything. We're all just too damaged to internalize any of these important lessons.

It's very bitter, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems. Yeah, as a closing line. And you know, to the redaction of their Homer story, Lisa's reaction. of saying like, there's you, Dad. It means that it just scrolled by too. Like it was an unreadable correction. That's all they did. Which I would say the equivalent to that today is like when CNN or Fox News defame somebody with a lie.

Like, if you get a post on a website saying it, like that is above and beyond what they would do on a correction. Like even a legally mandated one, like that they lost in a court case. Even then, they will try to hide it as much as possible. So this also, I'd say, satire outstripped by reality, too. An interesting episode to end message with it. The media stuff, in my final thoughts on it, yeah, I mean, like, the media stuff is so perfect.

Like, it is so funny and so well done, and so captures the tabloidification of all of American news media by the 90s, like, pre-saging what was going to happen in the OJ trial in all media after that. But, man, I wish it wasn't built around. a woman accidentally accuses someone wrongly of sexual harassment.

I wish it wasn't built around that. I wish it wasn't Ricky Trevace's favorite episode. I wish we could remember it for better reasons. It's telling me that this is three, I was thinking about this, I was like, this is like only three years after Anita Hill. The country learned nothing, almost like Homer himself.

It just feels like it is a sort of a you know, you hate, I'm loath to be like ideas are dangerous or whatever. but it is a sort of dangerous idea politically to be like, yeah, women are often making it up or mistaken when they come forward with these kind of accusations, which is like almost never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever true. And it is, I think, irresponsible to put that sort of stuff forward. It is, that said, it like handles it so basically fine otherwise that it's a strange thing to watch.

And yeah, the media stuff is so funny. Everything up through when he first gets accused is so good. Like the candy segment is so great. The beginning is so great. Land of contrast. Yeah. Despite it being a little misguided, let's say, in the kindest terms, it is lucky to be one of the funniest episodes of anything ever written. So like I said earlier, they got away with it.

And I will say I slandered Rob Reiner earlier. I just rewatched a few good men. Or sorry, watch it for the first time. Amazing film. He really could do anything up until 1994. And then, yeah. He was trying, like we all are. He really could freak it for a while, though.

He was on a historic heater. Oh, man. Yeah. Five great movies in a row. You can be a lame lib who makes no good movies for another 30 years, like, and perfectly fine. I haven't made any good movies. Not yet. We're all waiting.

We're tapping our watches. You would be both. Well, thank you so much, Maddie, for being on the show for the very first time. Please let us know where we can find you online. And please plug your books and other projects. Oh, yeah. It's easy to find everything I do at Maddie Lubchanski.com. My name.

My podcast. No, God. and temporal culture war are up every week or biweekly. And my book's Simplicity and Boys Weekend are for sale wherever you get fine books. Yeah. And you're about to hit the road with your podcast too, aren't you? I am, but I think this is coming out after. You said this is coming out first week of May?

Oh, yeah, May 6 and 13th. Well, if you were at the London Live Show last week, thank you for coming. I hope it was good. Keep an eye up for more dates. Yeah. Well, I get my co-hosts to come to America. I don't know. I'm having trouble with my co-host coming to America, too.

Henry, you are like a two-hour train right from Canada. I'm tapping my watch about that, too. I'll do it. We got that maple candy you like that ruined your mouth. Now I've got a new tooth to ruin. You can wear like a mouth guard while. chewing on the can to ensure that you're sucking it off to completion. Thank you so much, Maddie.

Thank you for having me. Thanks again to Maddie for being on the show. And hey, if you want to support us and get these podcasts a week ahead of time and ad free, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up for five bucks a month. Again, you will get ad-free podcast. If you don't want ads, this is the way to get them ad-free. And you also can access nearly nine years worth of Patreon content that includes over 200 full-length miniseries episodes

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Animation did. It is a very interesting part of their history. And that's just the most recent of nearly a decade, the better part of a decade of what a cartoon movies we've done, hundreds of hours of Giant Back Catalog of Studio Ghibli, Pixar, Warner Brothers, superhero stuff, junk like Shrek 2, unless you love Shrek 2, then we love it too. It's great. No, but you'll love hearing what we pull together in all those histories with tons of bonuses, plus all of the things Bob mentioned to that are ad-free and early at the $5 level. When you sign up at the $10 level, you get it all too. Head over to patreon.com slash talking Simpsons to get a look at all of it right now. And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackey. If you want to find me online, I'm on Blue Sky and Letterbox as Bob Serbo. And I have another podcast. It's called Retronauts. That is a classic gaming podcast, all about old video games.

You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and sign up there for a bunch of really cool bonus stuff. And Henry, what about you? You can find me on Blue Sky as Talking Henry. I'm also that on Instagram. And be sure to follow the official account of this podcast as well, which is at Talk Simpsons Pod, both on Blue Sky and Instagram as well. If you follow that, you will stay in the loop whenever new episodes come out,

whenever we have cool stuff going on in our Patreon, and other interesting things happening, you will know if you follow at Talk SimpsonsPod. And don't forget that every free podcast we've ever released is available on TalkingSimpsons.com. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for Season 16's Pranksta Wrap, and we'll see you then. There'll be no accusations, just friendly crustaceans under the sea.

Oh man, that's your solution to everything, to move under the sea. It's not gonna happen. Not with that attitude. Look, maybe this whole thing will blow over.