Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer Defined With Nick Wiger

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

This week's episode has Lakers legend, so that demands our podcast welcomes back Lakers fan/cool guy Nick Wiger from the great podcasts Doughboys and Get Played! Homer saves the town through dumb luck, leading to what he feels is undeserved praise, and even Magic Johnson can't improve his mood. Meanwhile, Bart loses a friend in this season three classic. Grab a new set of bongos and listen now! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talking of the Hill, the What a Cartoon Movie podcast, and tons more. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, ahoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that isn't all ham and plaques. I'm your host, the appalling little piece of filth, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. It's Henry Gilbert, and this is the only podcast in America that's not afraid to tell the truth, that everything is just fine.

That is true. And who do we have on the line? Hi, it's me, Nick Weiger. Ooh, a side. And this week's episode is Homer Defined. Dad, I think this paper is a flimsy hodgepodge of pie graphs, factoids, and Larry King. This episode originally aired on October 17th, 1991, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! Oh boy, Bobby!

Atlanta is playing Minnesota in one of the most exciting world series ever for young Henry Gilbert. Other people's money tops the box office and in the video game sphere streets of rage is released for the sega genesis slash mega drive if you're not american so a hot uh these were all favorites of me well actually child me did not watch other people's money later i would and i i think it's a good movie i yeah i can't connect to any of this, Henry. I was, I had a Super Nintendo. I fell in love with Streets of Rage later in life.

This baseball game I know nothing about. What's going on there? Yeah, I'd like some MLB context. And also remind me what Other People's Money was. So Other People's Money was the Danny DeVito movie where he is a um investor like uh predatory investor guy who takes over uh companies and kind of sells them off and he there's this amazing speech he has about like uh just look up his his speech to the investors which is about saying how it's actually great to kill a company and sell it off and fuck over all the employees and he he has this great speech

about how like you know buggy whips went away and the biggest path to obsolescence is to capture a larger part of a shrinking market and i bet you the people who made buggy whips made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw but doesn't matter like it's a really great speech pretty good also like it's it's one of the rare movies where Danny DeVito just has, like, a straight-up romantic interest, and it's not, like, played as a joke or anything. It's like, yeah, a pretty woman loves him. That's the...

Wow. This was the era of My Cousin Vinny. Yeah, that's true, yeah. Ugly Italians could get hot girls. Joe Pesci walks, so... Sorry, Danny DeVito walks, so Joe Pesci could run. You know, Danny DeVito's not gonna run. No, no. Hey, I love Danny DeVito walked so Joe Pesci could run. Danny DeVito's not going to run.

No, no. Hey, I love Danny DeVito. They're both going to stroll. Streets of Rage rules. I love that game. Some people like Final Fight more because they played a different game system, but I played Streets of Rage and loved it. I loved being a cop beating the shit out of people all over town.

It was so fun in that game. Yeah. You could call it a missile strike, as all good cops do. So cool. What's the line? There's a line that's like, only trust your fists, the police will never

help you. That's it, yeah. That's a good one. The music's really awesome in that game. I liked Final Fight because I played it in the arcade first. I don't think there was a Streets of Rage arcade. I think there was console only. Yes.

But this is a dumb kid thing. I liked Final Fight because the characters were bigger. I liked the sprites were just like took up more real estate on the screen. I was just like, that's cooler. Yeah. And then later on, playing them with an adult brain is like, oh wait streets of rage is like a more like a like probably a better game there was no one as big a better franchise there was no one as big as that andre the giant guy streets of rage yes no i think that was andor andor hugo is the street fighter version right

there was a whole family of on doors or and doors in that game many different colors yeah look streets of rage the character designs especially in one weren't as cool like i think they for the second streets of rage they capcommed it up and that's when they're like no we have to have a giant pro wrestler in this one and a kid on rollerblades and of course the next one has a kangaroo that you can play as uh yes my very uh look we've i talk about the world series when it's ones i didn't watch in these histories but yes this was the only time i cared about baseball as a kid was when i lived in atlanta or marietta a suburb of atlanta and i was into the atlanta braves and they in 1991 had the worst to first season where they were in last place in their division and then made it to the

world series and i had never lived in a city that had a chase for the title in a championship and it was right it was just like world series fever and it was it was such a high pitch and man i also got to experience the other side of it, where the Braves lose in game seven. And it is like such a, if you're from Minnesota, it's amazing for your team. But it was heartbreaking. I got to see every adult and many of the kids in my class just being sad for the rest of the month. All the tomahawk chopping suddenly stopped in your town. I know.

They'd later win a world series i think a couple years later but yes that was it's the start so know that when i watched this episode live in october it part of my brain paying attention to this as a nine-year-old was also thinking i hope the atlanta braves win this uh world series the you know talking we're in sports town we're in sports country you know know, this is, this episode features Magic Johnson, which we'll get to, but my headspace would have been, let's see, I'm trying to think 1990 into 91,

so this is in October, so this is after the 90-91 season when that, wait, no, that was not that was not Jordan's first championship. Jordan's first championship is the subsequent season. So, like, Magic is, you know, he's getting up there. the subsequent season so like magic is you know he's he's getting up there he dominated the entire 80s you know five uh five titles uh

seven or eight finals appearances i forget how many how many exactly it was that much of a constant thing that just magic johnson's lakers along with kareem abdul-jabbar and james worthy just constantly being a presence of the championship and championship contention and then they they kind of had a season where they lost to the Pistons. The Pistons look like the new team. And then, you know, Michael Jordan was obviously going to be the next big superstar. But the Lakers, this aged Lakers team, a kind of a somewhat over the hill in sports terms, Magic Johnson ends up going to the NBA finals this next season. And so then it's Magic versus MJ, the showdown, the passing of the torch.

MJ wins his first of three titles before his second of three titles before his little sort of interregnum where he went into retirement. But yeah, this was a pretty big era for Magic Johnson as well. Yeah, this aired months after the Lakers lost in the finals to MJ. Yes, that's right. Right. Yeah. And I only know that because I did research for Magic Johnson's career before.

I normally do, but I figured someone else would do it. Yes. A much better job than me this time. But yeah, I mean, we have Los Angeles' own Nick Weiger, a big Lakers fan as well. Wow. Very, very excited to be here. Very excited to revisit this episode and just to hear the voice of, again, we'll get to it, but the voice of Chick Hearn.

The TV and radio voice of the Los Angeles Lakers for my youth, RIP, and an amazing career. The man who invented the phrase slam dunk. He was that influential of a broadcaster. Yes. He was so great of a broadcaster, yes. And he was just, he was such a, he was so great, you know, in baseball terms, the comparison,

because he's also in LA, has always been scully. He's kind of that level of announcer, of play-by-play guy. He was so, so great. And it's awesome that he has a little bit of a, he even has a joke in this episode. It's nice to hear him. You know, if he had said pull the homer in this episode, it would have become a meme that they wanted it to you know they should have given him the line you know my thoughts up front on that are they wanted it too much they admit on the commentary they realized that they were a pop uh pop culture juggernaut and they could influence the world

into saying this catchphrase but they wanted it too much even 20 years ago on the commentary they could not have predicted that we now live in a world where every other thing we say is a Simpsons reference. So it's a much more innocent time. You know, back in 1991, they were thinking, what if we made nerds say a phrase? Wouldn't that be crazy? That's all we do now.

And yet nobody says Polder Homer. Out of all of the memes of Simpsons stuff online, nobody says P a homer absolutely never happens right but yeah nick weiger uh you know co-host of the doughboys and get played podcast both great podcasts it's uh we've had you before welcome back nick and very excited to be here what what what a treat oh always the funnest and and yes so uh i want to up front say a thing i can well i i completely biffed on the last time we had you on here we didn't even ask you about how you appeared on the simpson oh whoops after

the the when we had had you on you you had appeared in uh that's right you did not speak i believe but your caricature appeared in the show officially there's a there's a our our buddy matt selman who is one of the showrunners the executive producers of the simpsons and it's he is a has been a guest of our podcast doughboys and is a listener to doughboys a good friend but he did it did it of his own volition or or i guess uh you know kind of persuaded the simpsons crew of his own volition to have us as kind of like a little bit of an easter egg in there's a podcast there's a there's like a hangout for podcasters. And so he just put in some figures from some of his favorite podcasts in there. So me and my co host, Mike

Mitchell are just kind of sitting there mutely in the background while the scene takes place. So yeah, nice little thing. I got Simpson Simpsonified officially. I mean, that's pretty special. All special all right yeah not many people can say that you could be on a wiki right now you know i noticed who knows i noticed that they did snub every simpsons podcast on that episode yeah you know there should be a different wall maybe there is it's just off screen yeah it's it's beyond the fourth wall they didn't want to do that that would have broken the reality see it's by the toilets. That's where. No. One. And yeah, so that was so cool, Nick. I'm sorry we for we failed last time asking.

But oh, no worries. It was a total surprise. It aired. And I you know, I this is a this is like kind of a mindfulness thing I do. I don't use my phone on Sundays, which is obviously when The Simpsons airs. So I like woke up to people sending me screen caps of like it like like hey that's you and i was like oh weird i didn't my reaction at first was like oh weird because i just had no context for what was happening i i also love i love your ones with of the doughboys with matt selman and also uh the bill oakley as well just any any questions you can ask them about Simpson writers eating habits I love to hear that especially and and that's like a great time for

enjoying enjoying prime California pizza kitchen that was like really hopping and and Selman's very fun I I think my other favorite thing on the I think most recent Selman one you guys did was when you do a trivia contest between him and mitch and all the questions are about seasons one through ten and he's like oh boy more i get to hear about how the seasons i didn't work on are the best ones and my season but he's he's a good sport i like he was uh yeah he's i hey we'd love to chat with him anytime i'll just i'll put that out into the world here. He's a great guest.

I've been really enjoying it. This is not me sucking up to him, but I really have been enjoying his showrun episodes this season. It's been some of my favorites of season 33. They've been really good. No, I think if you approach this current Simpsons with that perspective, like with an open mind, it's like, yeah, there's some gems in there still. But yes, Nick, you're a Los Angeles native.

Is this true? I've heard this before. Yeah, I've lived in LA County my entire life. So, you know, born and raised in Southern California, big Lakers fan as a kid. It was easy to be a Lakers fan as a kid because, you know, unlike your long-suffering Atlanta Braves, although they eventually went over the hump hump the lakers were just good from my birth they were they were i was born the year magic johnson uh had his first championship season and so like like you know i i had have i had that a pin somewhere but but like a pin from my childhood that was like the the you know one of the titles

one of the championship titles i just had it on a bulletin board as a kid and it was just like i just remember it always being there so yeah the team was always good it was easy to root for them the whole the whole city the whole southland likes the lakers the clippers at the time weren't at all relevant uh i would argue still that people who are from la and from southern california don't really you know root for the clippers that's more just for people who moved to la and they're like i need a team but i don't want to jump on the lakers bandwagon so it's it was it's uh it's i don't know it's a it's a very fun team to root for it's also the bad guys like that's the thing about the lakers is like they are like the yankees or they are like the the the new england patriots of the the brady belichick era where they're just like, they win a lot.

They're obnoxious in doing so. They are, you know, they sometimes don't deserve the amount of hype and attention that they get because they're just such a media draw. And, you know, they're on TV all the time. And so, like, you kind of have it, I feel like, lean into that obnoxiousness of being, like, the fan of the team that other people hate.

Otherwise, it's just, you'll drive yourself crazy with just people always just talking about of being like the fan of the team that other people hate. Otherwise, it's just you'll drive yourself crazy with just people always just talking about how much they suck and rooting against them. Well, also, I mean, yeah, you talk about the media thing, like by being based in Los Angeles, like TV shows like The Simpsons can say, well, we can get any basketball star, but the Lakers are right here, you know,

and that would that would continue right after magic johnson that would continue to you know shack and kobe and and the and i mean that's i wonder if that space jam new legacy would have been made if he uh if lebron had continued playing for cleveland instead i would think not i think a lot i do think part of it is and i think part of his calculus in coming to Lakers was that this is like, you know, this is the entertainment capital of the country. And so he yeah, he definitely had a had an idea for a second act. He's he seems like his whole a lot of his career has been very and I and I like LeBron. And, you know, he's an amazing player to watch.

Been a great Lakers tenure. But he but he does seem to have like watch. Been a great Lakers tenure. But he does seem to have like a plan for every part of his career. He does seem to have like, OK, this is the portion of my career where I'm a little older. I'm a little bit, you know, I'm kind of in where Magic would have been career wise as this episode airs. I'm kind of on the downside of my career, although I'm still a very good player. And I'm still an astonishingly good player. So one of the best players in the league at age 37 it's amazing but i think he had the idea of like okay for this last portion of my career i can go to la set up shop be in movies start producing tv shows and then that'll be what will my post-basketball

career will be like well the the only facts i know about lebron james are from the new space jam movie so i know that he's mean to his kids and hates video games though he learned to like them apparently i don't know how the lakers play so well under the watchful eye of jack nicholson it's it's amazing i've been to lakers games where he's sitting in the stands and like because he doesn't come to very many games these days but when you do see him in person it's just kind of like still has that kind of gravity of fame that sort of pull that not a lot of people do not a lot of celebrities do just like oh wow that guy is inarguably super famous and uh nick did you watch do you recall watching this one live in october of 1991 and and being excited to see the the crossover of your two worlds of the simpsons and the lakers it's it's interesting that like there was a point where i i was definitely

into the simpsons for let's see is this my first year of middle school or my last year of elementary school either way i'm in the point i'm at the point where i'm still very like into the simpsons but also the simpsons start starts being less cool than it was. And it's, it's less of like, I think everyone kind of moved on to Wayne's world and that became the thing. So, so I was,

but I was still like watching the Simpsons and then my fandom actually, I think fell off in the next season and then came back in season five. Cause like there was, there was a season in there in the nineties that I didn't watch live. And then the sideshow bob stepping on rakes episode uh the cape fear episode was when i came back on board which i think is a season five episode it's the second episode of season five yep second episode season five so i'd like i it's it's it's out you sound a million years old talking about like growing up

the pre-urban age but i remember reading in the newspaper that there was a new sideshow bob episode and being excited to see sideshow bob again so that got me back at the simpsons and after that it was weekly viewing until like up through college i was i would watch every episode sunday night or every new episode on sunday nights and uh i mean nick you've already covered the the guest star's biography pretty well but i'll just say in case you don't know who irving magic johnson is a famous talk show host right yes famous talk show host i thought so oh yeah uh that you know maybe maybe he did this show partially because his agent's like we're trying to get you more uh entertainment stuff let's start doing that uh but but yes he huge star of the 80s nba like one of the most if not the most famous player, like his rivalry with Larry Bird

started back in college and was apparently it's still the most watched college basketball game ever is the finals of him versus Bird. That's what Wikipedia says anyway. And yeah, MVP in his rookie year, won a championship, like kind of unheard of. Amazing rookie campaign, immediately one of the best players in the league wins the title and and you know he was playing alongside kareem abdul-jabbar who is maybe my i think he i think he's my favorite player of all time i really like kareem as a man and as an athlete and is even though he was his tenure was largely before my time he's just like all-time scoring leader although lebron might ultimately best him and just like so so good and so dominant and he's kind of like the other guy on that team but he

really was the guy in the early going like he really was like the showtime lakers so much of it was just so much of their dominance was just that kareem was so good uh but magic johnson immediately steals the spotlight from him and when he won the mvp that first season famously kareem gets injured so magic johnson who's a point guard starts at centers i'm trying to think of this what this is in in baseball terms but it's kind of like your it's kind of like your first baseman has to step in as the starting pitcher like it's like a bit this is a big change and so he it's not that extreme but it's that level of like oh this is not normally what this guy does he starts at center and has a completely dominant performance and then they end up winning the title so that's why he has this

mvp season his first season in the league it's a it's a really explosive start and we're 10 years from that at this point when this episode airs and uh and yes there is some eerie timing to this episode as well uh because it was october 17th 1991 three weeks later exactly on november 7th at a shocking press conference uh magic reveals his hiv positive status and announces he has retired from basketball and it was probably it heard of magic johnson but i was a little kid who you know hey i was watching the braves but not really any other professional sports but everybody heard about that and i also as a kid had never really considered hiv and aids as a thing like you didn't really hear about it all that much as a as a child obviously adults heard

about it throughout the entire radius it was not news to them i'm pretty sure this episode and then the press conference is how i really knew about magic johnson of course i was in fourth grade and here come the jokes yes yeah yeah what uh i mean yeah i mean nick you probably felt that heavier than than uh than we did as as children when that happened it was yeah it was really like also because I'm a little older where, you know, I could kind of process at least what people thought it meant at the time. This is before this was, you know, HIV was like a disease that you could live with. Everyone thought of it as a death sentence. And so you have like the most beloved athlete in the city and, you know,

one of the most one of the biggest basketball players in the city. And, you know, one of the most, one of the biggest basketball players in, in, in the world that he, that he, it's basically, it was shocking. It was absolutely shocking. And I remember being at,

I remember going to my clarinet lesson, like after I heard about this and then just this other sad kid, just holding a viola that I never talked to. It just like looks over at me. It's like, you heard about magic. And I was like, yeah, we're just like every like the whole like sit like the whole southland was just so bummed out because he was such a such an iconic figure uh obviously he goes on to he's still with us and he's still thriving it's it's a it's a miracle of modern science but it was a

really really shocking sequence of events and i had no idea the way you're talking about it like i'm not in the mind space where i think of this episode and that happening in the same year certainly not in the same you know three week span but i guess it was i guess that was a that was an accident of history yeah this episode made me realize we have one of his uh thrift stores in berkeley all right out of the closet out of the closet yeah yeah we don't and i think uh where i lived in florida there was a magic johnson theater too i mean that's his he really did like become quite a uh prolific businessman and then also that oh yeah and he would come back like i i think too as a one of the most if not the most famous person with hiv at the time like i think he did do good work as an advocate for it and to you know bring talk about it into the mainstream and not and remove a

lot of stigma about it i i do believe i've seen him there was an entire south park episode about this but he's even said i i've read interviews where he's like that him being so healthy might have hurt the hiv advocacy on some level just because people like well you live with it forever like magic johnson he's fine like so not a big deal like interesting but yeah i mean people i remember at that time like my mom even saying wow the people on tv are talking about him like he's dead now like when after that press conference like they were like eulogizing him afterwards it was it was shocking yeah well it was similar to this is and and to

to evoke a recent kobe bryant's helicopter crash it was the same sort of reaction the same sort of shock that same sort of like oh my god this and i know that that that obviously reverberated across the the country across the world as medic john medic Johnson's press conference did, but it's like, like in particular in the area where it was like, this is the team, this is the number one team and everyone's, you know, Dodgers or Dodgers to Lakers one. I just numbered those on my fingers backwards for some reason, but that's just for us. The, the, the, you know, it's, the Lakers are always the number one team in the LA area and it's, And it's and it's just it really was like a like it's like an absolutely shocking turn of events.

That said, it was it. Yeah, it's amazing that he's still with us and amazing that he had the this, you know, this this and this whole second act is this business magnate. And yeah, entertainer with his talk show and on on on as an nba analyst you know we'll talk we'll talk more about him when we get to him in the episode but also bob pulled together history on the writer of this episode let's talk about the writer for this episode howard gortz uh he is on the commentary and that's how i learned a lot about him they had him come in for this he only wrote one episode this it. So he was a freelancer and this is his one Simpsons claim to fame, although he's had a very long career in writing sitcoms. Yeah. You know, whoever writes his Wikipedia page and it's not him does not care enough to explain most of his stuff. That's true. Including some sitcoms he created.

Yeah. It's a very brief wiki page. I don't know, you know, Gertz, if you're out there, there you know get your team to update that thing yeah so he came in to pitch this episode and his main idea was that homer would avert a meltdown and that would somehow lead to him being in the dictionary under the word stupid so that was basically his pitch for the episode and he wrote it from there to amend what we have said in the past they would get these freelancers because it was the guild rule but they weren't actually a wga show but they still they were kind of like shadow guild they're like well we're not officially guild but we will still follow guild guidelines and it's also less work for them to do yes yeah

and then a little less work and we we learned about that i mean with with ken levine in the last season that right these i think the wgea rule exists to give opportunities to people who maybe aren't already decades-long veterans of of comedy writing but yeah it's not usually how it goes with who simpson cyrus for free in this case it was a guy with like 15 years of experience writing sitcoms yeah i think in the last uh few years they've actually used those freelance positions uh to uplift people who don't have a ton of credits including our cool pal julia from everything's coming up simpson that is true yeah so howard his claim to fame is that he named uh the van houtens so he says in the commentary their last name is based on a friend of his former

wife's uh their last name was Van Hooten. But I guess Van Hooten sounded too crazy. So it was changed to Van Houten. So he named the Van Houtens because we never know Milhouse's name, last name until this episode where it's cemented that he is Bart's best friend and he has a mom who looks just like him. I always love anytime I hear a writer on a commentary says my wife at the time. I'm just like, ah ah another divorced writer you're writing

for the simpsons hey it's uh that's that's what comedy writing is all about getting divorced and then writing about it you work too hard it kills your marriage and then you write about how your marriage is bad or your ex-wife takes too much speaking of dana gould there was a divorce in that story as well that's right man so uh yeah he's on twitter and i just looked up his name and looked up simpsons and uh he thanks sam late Sam Simon for giving him this opportunity because he was on Taxi. He was a writer for Taxi. He even directed one episode, but he wrote 10 episodes of Taxi. I didn't dig too much into his stuff, but the second I saw on his wiki page Taxi, I

was like, well, there it is. Like Sam, in case you're new to the podcast like sam simon was uh when he took over taxi like that was he kind of had what happened to al gene and mike reese on this season of the simpsons in season three which was he was like jim brooks creates taxi and then makes him the showrunner and he's like 20s he's the youngest showrunner in town at the time and so sam simon i think he he has his favorites and usually men and he helps him out yeah i'm sure he's that connection to get on the show so uh his first writing credit is on the obscure 1977 two-season cbs sitcom busting loose by the way that's not busting loose it's a different

thing uh and uh you've never seen it i've never seen it no one listening has seen it yeah it was never in syndication it's it's nothing it's gone yeah we've talked about before how like there's so so so many sitcoms that just don't exist anymore that like would usually not even be talked about unless uh like our friends on gayest episode ever might talk about a nothing sitcom because it had some gay element to it yeah like that uh something somebody slept here oh uh jennifer slept here jennifer so i could hear the song except for her name jennifer slept here she lived here it's about a ghost of a movie star but uh we're talking about uh this guy's career so his biggest sitcom claim to fame outside of ready for the simpsons once is he is the creator of oliver bean which was in the post

simpsons slot after Futurama was canceled. And it was moderately successful. I think it had like the biggest Fox premiere in that category of that time. I remember the premiere being very big. If you don't know what that is, it was a two-season show, basically like an edgier version of The Wonder Years. And instead of Daniel Stern being the narrator, it was David Cross. I see they really

foxed it up then yes and you know that this tells me that not only did he get a freelance gig from his old taxi chums but he also was under like an overall fox deal so it's like a favored nations thing and I know uh Futurama fans hate this show because uh Futurama didn't get canceled for this show but it was a show that emerged from the ashes of Futurama. This and American Dad in the same era. So basically anything from between 2003 and 2005 that aired on Fox, every Futurama fan hated. Yeah, yeah. I mean, hey, I get it.

But honestly, as a Futurama fan, I only really blamed Major League Sports. The NFL and MLB, those are the problems. I recall they really hated this and the Pits because they hated mike scully's oh that's sad you know i think they're all everybody's friends now yeah i would hope so also uh howard gertz his other claim to fame is he is the creator of the late 90s jenny mccarthy sitcom jenny okay and i looked up a clip of it online it is so like a Friends clone. It's not even funny. Man, you know, at least her sketch show on MTV was able to give like Brian Posehn and other sketch writers a real job.

Not that she's like hilarious or anything. And have you heard she's just one of the guys? Yes, right. Yeah. No, I feel though I watched that sketch show because I knew Mr. Show guys were on it. And then it was just like a countdown of like, it definitely felt like they had an order from on high of like, okay, write one sketch per episode where she's in a bikini. Yeah, I was going to say, when's the bikini sketch coming? And of course, the theme song for that sketch show unrelated to the sitcom was a parody of the Love Boat.

Right. That's where we were in the late 90s. So he got her, he worked on her network big swing right i wonder what he feels about vaccines and what they call she wasn't out of the closet about vaccines back then hey maybe she was maybe she wasn't making as big of a stink about it as she did in the early aughts but uh she was still the hot chick from mtv yes most people thought of her at the time so you have not seen these i have not seen these no has seen these. I dare you to tell me you've seen these. He co-created two very short-lived and very obscure sitcoms of the mid-80s. 1984's Domestic Life and 1986's All Is Forgiven.

There you have it, folks. He co-created those. You know, see, these shows get to just be forgotten, too, because, like, the lesser shows that went at least, like like three seasons but not the full hundred they would of the 90s those would at least appear on usa these shows just got to be dead they were just nothing not even long enough to be run anywhere just like maybe a season and a half most of the episodes don't even air these weirdo sitcoms other writing gigs he's had are bosom buddies he was on wings a very long time he was like a showrunner of wings for a

while so he couldn't cut it at the simpsons i guess so he was hired on wings boy and then again as we've revealed so many times that they were friends with people on wings the meanness towards wings especially by gene and reese takes on a different component here now feels like needling by friends not just them saying yeah doesn, doesn't Wings fucking suck? I think we need to reevaluate Wings. Of course, he also wrote for Sibs, the Larry Sanders show, Just Shoot Me, Everybody Hates Chris. I know one guy who does. And most recently, the early 2010s TV land sitcom, The X's.

And I think it's funny that the last TV show he worked on was a send up of the old TV shows he used to work on. Yeah, that's great. You age into it. Just like, man, he was working there with Jeff Martin's wife who created Heart of Cleveland on the same channel. Was The Exes the one with the nanny on it, with Fran Drescher? I don't know. I know Wayne Knight is on it. It's like any of those sitcoms.

It's like, well, he used to be on a sitcom 20 to 30 years ago. They're on one of these TV land shows or used to be. I don't know if they make these kind of shows anymore oh you know the fran dresser show i'm thinking about is happily divorced that's the one where it's it is about her real life i remember it again as a gay show because it's about her real life uh she was married to her manager right then late in their marriage she's like i'm actually gay and she's like wait well and so it's about it's about you divorce your husband who came out of the closet. That's a crazier premise than the nanny.

I think so, yeah. And yeah, his first novel came out in July of 2021. It's called Don't Kill Me Because I'm Beautiful. And you can buy it on Kindle. It's a futuristic thriller, I believe. And it's interesting how many of these, know uh 90s sitcom writers uh are going into this self-publishing game that's funny man but yeah that's howard gertz and uh that's his career just uh i don't know like 30 years of writing for sitcoms about like 35 years of writing for

sitcoms and now he's trying to write novels so good for him it is funny that that a longtime showrunner goes into like the supplicant mode on the podcast. I think that's why, unlike say on the front commentary where Adam Ilapidus is very like, you know, respectful, nice, like, oh, I'm so happy to be here, all this stuff. Oppositely, Guritz on the commentary just keeps going like, you changed that joke. Why'd you change that joke? I don't know if he was trying to get on the show, but throughout the commentary, you get the sense that they were making a lot of his jokes

more cartoony and more over the top, so maybe he was just thinking in standard sitcom mode while writing this script. There's, you know, this, yeah, I could see that. The Simpsons will be right back. Forget the hair, just give me the blush. Oh, we're on. We interrupt programming for a special bulletin.

Stay tuned for another episode of The Simpsons with guest star Magic Johnson. Next. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You're looking up. and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more.

Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. Welcome to the break, everybody, or as we like to call around here,

a piffling malfunction. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Nick Weiger. It is so awesome, as always, to have on such a great podcaster as Nick. We love him on the podcasts. Doughboys and Get Played. Check them out if you haven't yet.

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cover an animated feature film super duper in depth just like we do The Simpsons. Last month we covered Who Framed Roger Rabbit for six and a half glorious hours. Yes, we really went that long and many of our others go over five hours long covering such films as

1940's Pinocchio south park bigger longer and uncut and at the end of this month toy story 3 and a giant back catalog that covers everything from akira to a goofy movie beavis and butthead to america to spider-man into the spider-verse and kiki's delivery service to the lion king a huge back catalog you got to check it all out at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. But also in this episode, I forgot that this was the one that defined millhouse's character like this is millhouse had been in previous ones but this is like a major millhouse app as well so huge millhouse app it's more like millhouse defined sorry sorry nick it is no this

is i hey bob that's perfect it is more like Milhouse to find. You're absolutely right. We're so getting the essence of Milhouse's character here. We're talking gifts. We get that iconic gif of Milhouse on the seesaw by himself. I see that all the time. Milhouse had always been Bart's friend. He was the first specific friend designed for Bart for the Butterfinger commercials, but pre the debut of the series. but they never gave him a characteristic.

I think he was even part of like a Matt Groening pitch for different ideas. Like that design was on the board because he's kind of like an Akbar and Jeff style design from Life and Hell. Yeah, no, that was, yeah, you're right. David Silverman said that on Twitter. I was just like, well, I didn't just invent this guy.

He was on a character who looked a lot like that was part of a pitch package from graining so it was like a graining design that already exists and also we uh recently on the really cool video channel cartoonist kayfabe they i want to give them a shout out they did a pulled out this lost bit of media basically like an apple computers ad that graining did right before the series debuted and he it's life in hell style but he draws a millhouse character who's like saying to buy apple computers and how awesome they are for students yeah uh but so cool uh but yeah you know this episode starts first we get a squeaky chalked chalkboard gag that every time i wait does it always squeak in every episode

no that's it's the point of the joke. And a couch gag with a space alien, which reminds me of our wonderful appearance on the Get Played podcast talking about Bart versus the Space Mutants. What a fun time it was. What a blast. I always feel like we have to apologize to our guests on that show.

Sorry you guys had to play that game. It sucks. It's really bad. That was a blast to have you guys. There's good Simpsons games we could talk about with you guys in the future. All one of them. Maybe two. Yeah.

What would you say? Because Hit and Run I always think of. Hit and Run and Arcade I think is the definitive. Oh, Arcade. Yeah, sure. Hit and Run is the best game that actually is about the Simpsons. And the Simpsons Arcade game I think is the one I would play the most if i play one right now yeah i think i probably see yeah i i feel the same i don't know if i'd want to revisit simpsons hit and run i don't i doubt that's aged well but i the the one

and we talked about this a little bit on your guys episodes i believe what but the but virtual springfield the cd-rom i spent probably a significant amount of time with that as opposed to some other you know any like more dedicated games that i got just that that interactive experience software toy version of of the simpsons yeah it was it was more of a a uh what a screensaver really it was a busy box yeah uh but yeah 100 uh the episode begins with them mocking usa today with usa of us of a today uh with usa today uh at that point at that point in time a fairly new national newspaper it wasn't even a decade old i get why people i suppose it probably did dumb down uh media and people

of america but i mean i feel more bothered today about like i don't know that jeff bezos owns the washington post that feels worse for media of course yeah in usa today but yeah i mean certainly all of its pie graphs and larry king bring brought down the iqs of people tossing larry king under the bus former guests hey you know and future guests yeah yeah it's so wait it's so funny to me this is just like such like this feels like a writer had an axe to grind against the usa like he was just like like extra mad about usa today for some reason because i'm like what a weird crusade to have to be like i and i get it i remember seeing that somewhere else or usa today was like the simplified newspaper with all these color graphics was a big thing

you were supposed newspapers were supposed to be black and white like that this had color imagery was supposedly some some negatives some strike against it and all the articles were short but it's also like you just watch it now it's like wait what that's what we were over said it we're so mad about like usa today this is before listicles where america's favorite pencil it was a a scandal just the idea of writing something that fluffy. You know, we've made fun of it before and how much we love the Larry King parody that the late Norm MacDonald also did about it. But I had pulled up a classic from 92 of Larry King's USA Today column,

which he did weekly for 20 years, from 81 to 2001. And here's some classics from it. Like, despite what you think of Lawrence Walsh, we will always have need for a special prosecutor because a government cannot investigate itself. With the addition of Barry Bonds, Greg Maddox, and Doug Drabeck to the division, the National League West stays out in front of baseball's absolute best. itself with the addition of barry bonds greg maddox and doug drabeck to the division the national league west stays out in front of baseball's absolute best my spies tell me barry levinson's new tv series homicide is a winner so like there's nothing clever about them it's just like we're

here five things i thought of uh today whatever dick clark takes every day please send me more which i guess he did take that stuff because he lived a very, very long time. Though the person who tweeted that out did make the good point of like, this is just tweets. Like this is just, he was doing tweets before. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. It just is dot, dot, because each one ended with an ellipse, right? Yes. It was like, yeah. The one I remember reading that I think he maybe talked about on Conan

because he was a frequent guest on Conan. I always thought like thought like oh he seems to have a good sense of humor about himself so i i like larry kegg and and probably the simpsons guest appearances uh probably maybe think that as well but like he he just talked about his his observation no one smokes a pipe anymore i guess that's true like 1994 sure one of my favorite things with him with the late in his life was when he would just like barely care about his entire history when asked like ben schwartz did his his late talk show and he asked him this great question like oh yeah you were in ghostbusters he's like yeah i got a good check out of that every now and then whatever like that's it okay you can ghostbusters meaningless to larry king like yeah so funny uh also on usa of today is the babysitter bandit still i think the animators cared more

about the appearances of babysitter band we don't know her fate there's no there's no headline for her but i guess yes we as children were to know that usa today is bad because lisa doesn't like it and she's the smart one who dislikes things for the right reasons and yes this is also when uh bart shows off his uh letter or his birthday card to millhouse which uh yeah there's funny the graining on the commentary talks about how he's like i really don't want this show to feel like it's animated by horny animators but this episode yeah lots of breasts are on display also i i like associate season three and four of the simpsons as having like almost wholly unrelated b plots to the point where i forget which episodes they're in and that feels like the one old-fashioned part of the show because around this time that's when seinfeld was

really innovating the interwoven plots where we're sort of almost a mystery story like how will they all result together at the end? This feels very much stuck in the older style of sitcom this season three and four. 100%. Like I, I was, as I was rewatching this, I was like,

oh yeah, this is the episode where Bart and Milhouse aren't friends anymore for, for a, for a brief second. And I knew it wasn't, but I was like, wait, is this the episode where millhouse

dates samantha stanky it can't be but like it's a similar sort of setup where we're dealing with barton millhouse being estranged yeah yeah the a and b plot don't really seem to have any connection at all also like the crusty the clown sells very inappropriately sexual birthday cards that is i love that child audience buys for the for other kids no i think that's like that whole thing is a great joke i really like that and and also the great bit that bart wrapped up the president in christmas wrapping paper that's also pretty great like yes yeah very funny uh though yeah so this is when millhouse is officially a dweeb like he is the he bart is the jerk friend to the dorky kid with low self-confidence like this

defines their their friendship i think they uh point out a commentary that like al jean is like yeah i was the millhouse in friendships like i was i think we've said it before many writers on the show where the millhouse of and the millhouses are now writing the show like yeah before this millhouse shared the same amount of lines and the same houses are now writing the show like yeah before this mill house shared the same amount of lines and the same amount of personality as like wendell and richard and lewis and all of these other nobodies that fade into the background now he's the star of the bart friendship show like he's he's the the lead once all the dorks who write the show realize like wait this is me i can put my childhood and i'd say this as i was also millhouse

like i was and you know what my mom was there are some friends i was like nah my mom didn't like him for battery for good reasons i had to admit she was right about a couple friends i was like you were right that friend was a bard and i shouldn't have stayed friends with them i'm sorry that was that was yeah you were right mom i but but yes yes, in our very first clip here, this is when Bart gives his gift to Milhouse. Milhouse, just because your mom didn't let you have a party doesn't mean you can't get a present. We had a lovely time on Saturday, Milhouse. I liked the balloon. I liked the party hat.

What are you girls talking about? Nothing. Twins. Open your present. They're official Krusty the Clown walkie-talkies. I'll keep one and you keep one. Now, whenever you want to talk to me, just call me on the phone and tell me to turn on my walkie-talkie. Milhouse, I'd like to express my appreciation for Saturday.

Jelly bean baskets, personalized noisemakers. But the little touches are what made it enduring. What's he talking about? Hey, look at that dog. Isn't that something? Wow, brown. Whoa, Springfield Elementary last time. Oh, and by the way, I'd like to say thanks and applause, applause to birthday boy Milhouse for his totally bitching party on Saturday.

Yay! Oh, Milhouse, I think I left my pants on your roof. You did have a party. You didn't invite me. I thought we were best friends. Sorry, Bart. You know, Milhouse is a little wiener kid, but he is throwing bitching keggers. Yeah, you know what?

All these friends showed up. You know, when Marge later says that he's like some loser who doesn't have friends all these kids showed up to his party you know it's the second child party auto has been to yeah you know i'm gonna say auto keep your pants on at this children's party yeah you know keep them on and also don't get drunk around you or i would assume super high is what he did but but that's what it seemed like yeah i love the designs on the crusty walkie talkies too and it this was the time it hit me like oh bart's gift is actually a it's kind of selfish like it's a gift for himself as well as for sure yeah i definitely related to that just in the sense of i i me and my friend bought walkie

talkies as kids with the same idea of like like we can we can talk to each other anytime when we're at each other's houses and i remember my dad being so mad and then making me return it to radio shack it was so humiliating i mean like go back go back and just like return just just my walkie talkie my one of the two man he kept his yeah that's rough man i know uh that you know the crusty walkie talkie looks cool too i really like the design of it like it looks great it's mark kirkland and his team did so many great little bits in here of their their animation not just drawing uh women with large breasts well but also drawing lots of stuff well in it yeah also what a

great that's a great line just call me on the phone and tell me to turn on my walkie-talkie what a great well i mean as always matt grating is just complaining about everything he sees on these commentaries yeah i know we're i think i think he's mad about futurama being canceled or you know about to be canceled on these uh 2002 commentaries you're right this is this is in late 2002 uh i because they even say say that Chick Hearn recently passed away. So they're like, okay, it's late 2002. But yeah, I guess that's probably why he's in a bad mood. But me and you, Bob, have agreed on this so many times.

Season three with the big cute eyes on the Simpsons. I love that look. And I know Graney constantly goes like, oh, the pupils. Like he says on this commentary i like i think these pupils are cute we should have told him when we met him yeah with our two sentences we got to say to matt graney one of them should have been like you know what you're you're too much of a complainer about those pupils matt just being dragged out of the room screaming season five pupils but i also you know what i feel a lot in common as a child though not just with millhouse but

with martin as well because martin i think mart the twins are rubbing it in to bart but martin is just like he's just a fruity reviewer he has to just give his like great review of the party he made it enduring but yes bart is heartbroken too sad to even get off the bus and otto is too stoned to notice he stays on the bus so they drive away the the joke there of of bart being of millhouse like check out that dog and bart being like wow brown is like i love anytime like bart is like homer stupid because he is kind of he's kind of an idiot we they don't lean into the stupidity as much but it's fun it's fun to to play a dumb joke with bart yeah and also nancy's delivery of wow brown

like it's so good so then uh we cut to the power plant and this act one is a lot of like real big uh changes in mood and tone it's like the end of the world and then a boy and his friend. I like that there's room built in for this awkward conversation between Smithers and Burns. It's very nice. Like he's reluctantly getting to know this man better. You know, first off, Burns saying like time to pay back for your two days of debauchery. I was thinking of that with all the people being called back into their office jobs now by bosses i think a lot of them are thinking back they're thinking like burns these days just like time oh you were ahead on your laundry well guess what those days are over

you spend sunday doing laundry now commutes are back in a big way now i also love smithers tgim sir that's a great what a suck up and while we talk about characters uh becoming more of themselves smithers wasn't not gay in other episodes but this smithers is 100 percent gay like this is like he is a gay man who well here i'll play the clip about smithers weekends you can you can learn how he is. Time to pay for your two days of debauchery, you hungover drones. DJ, I am, sir. So what did you do this weekend, Smithers? Well, I caught up on my laundry, wrote a letter to my mother.

Oh, here's the kicker. I took Hercules out to be clipped. Who the devil is Hercules? He's my Yorkshire Terrier, sir. He's kind of tiny, so, you know, it's a joke. Here's a picture of Herky. Well, Smithers, don't you know how to paint the town red? May I ask how you spent your weekend?

Well, a bit overly familiar, but I'll allow it. I took it a movie. An appalling little piece of filth. Its leading lady was a blonde harlot who spent half the film strolling around naked as a jaybird. Oh, just give the great unwashed a pair of oversized breasts and a happy ending and they'll oink for more every time what a movie and that blonde cutie does she have assets sounds like my kind of flit and how uh their excitement at oinking together i love that yes but yeah i mean so smithers of course he owns a little dog as no straight man would only only a gay man and of course no straight

man loves his mom or would write her a letter that's only what a gay man would do he's horrified of female nudity yes yeah that's not sure if that's the correct stereotype but no i think so i don't know why burns is so repulsed by his Yorkie, who I think looks cute. Yeah. But he sees Hercules just like, lul. I know. I don't know what it is. Yeah.

I mean, he's, well, you know what? Actually, later in the season, he talks about how much he hates a dog. And he's like, you know, if somebody slobbers all over your crotch, what would you say? Yes. Yeah. Right. Burns is correctly old in how he complains about movies, but the idea of Burns by himself going to a modern movie theater, that feels wrong. So funny.

Yeah. Yeah, his definitely character got a little bit more Howard Hughes-y, a little bit more reclusive as things went on. He would have had a private screening in his own theater. He would have gone out to see one with the plebes. burns went out to see basic instinct by himself it does sound like it's it's part of the basic instinct era of erotic the uh films but we're briefly in theaters yeah uh and our pal dave schilling he just did a great write-up on uh that era of of sexy films and how uh and watching them with his partner and

what's that like in the in the 2020s you know also herc though hercules never returns his little dog though in the season 33 episode where smithers gets a boyfriend uh played by victor garber he does at the end of the episode adopt a doberman puppy and so uh they've re-given him a new little dog since then wow which he put a little bow tie on just like his bow tie and and that shows you how much things have changed like smithers has to be coded gay in this episode in that episode uh he's like i can't find any good men on the dating apps until he has a puppy dog in his photo on the dating apps and then guys start responding to it so things things have changed in 30 years but yeah it then cuts to homer's uh control panel which kirkland talks about how like oh yeah we went overboard on the lights and everything like this is fancier

than his control panels ever look since this is the the control panel episode really it's it's funny i think the movie and the marketing of the movie defined Homer's favorite donut as the pink frosted cake donut with sprinkles. When it's donut defined, Milhouse defined, donut defined, things are being defined all over the place. But he prefers the grape jelly donut in this episode. So that was a retcon. He wants purple. Purple, yeah. That was a retcon. He wants purple. Yeah. No, you know, I guess at Universal Studios is lying to us with their Big Pink that it should be cream fill or purple fill. Yeah.

But I also like that Homer, you know, I think the joke is supposed to be it's gross that Homer's putting his finger in all the donuts because someone else will eat them. But now I just view it as like, no, Homer's eating that whole box. He's just picking the one he's going to eat first. Yeah, he's deciding on the first donut. Well, I always think of like Homer, like like usually take the box of donuts to the bathroom so that's what i always think of that's why i know he's going with that box after he's not eating like a duck yet yeah not yet no uh we have a quick cut to auto he's uh he's humming frankenstein by the edgar winter Winter Brothers again. I also like this little moment of like that you get to know that in off screen

all this time, Otto and Apu have like their own like kind of spin off of just like, hey Otto, Apu, what's shaking man? Like they're just buddies. Yeah, I wrote a rare scene between Otto and Apu. We don't really see that. They're on a first name basis with each other. He would be a frequent customer.

I think in there for a hot dog. The subtext is Otto gets high a lot and he goes to the convenience store to buy munchies. And that's where he literally says munchies. Yeah. Yeah. Again, now pot is legal. And so these jokes are very different now. It's just like, oh, it doesn't need to be coded.

Like they again, they've done multiple episodes. They actually another recent one I liked where Marge starts working at a dispensary and Homer starts a competing dispensary that tries to make it feel like back when pot was illegal because Otto and others are like, no, I want to buy pot and have it feel like it's illegal and I'm hanging out in someone's house. It's a clever episode. But, you know, this reference to heat lamp dogs, Nick, I know on the Doughboys, you guys are not usually giving high marks to the 7-Eleven hot dogs, I don't think.

Yeah, I mean, look, the issue is there, I think, is just consistency because you don't know how long that thing's been on the roll top. Sometimes it's been there all day. I think the hot, I will say, if we're talking about things that are on the roller grill, I think those big bite hot dogs are a better bet than the go go taquitos, which can be really hit and miss. So I would I would usually opt for a hot dog over those. Also, in in in COVID times, they a lot of time, a lot of places they got rid of the cheese pump and the chili pump, which you could use to plus up your dog. And so that's a little bit of an issue. But I always feel like I'd rather get the pizza or the wings from from 7-eleven's hot case as opposed to the hot dogs uh you know i started to do the taquitos

uh i i by only 7-eleven eating time was when i worked by a 7-eleven for a couple years and would would pop in there and yeah it's those roller dogs but also i worked in an amc theater that i had to man the roller dog station and it makes makes you even more disgusted by it they but the secret of the rollers are even though they're all rolling you can turn off some of like okay the back row is rolling but it's not hot so you can put the fully cooked ones in the back like that's that's part of the system that's fascinating i never knew this i can't tell you how uh if it's improved any of the technology of rollers in the last 20 years but that's that's where it was at in 2003 i remember

i had no idea you had that level of control i i remember it was the premiere of return of the king and we every roller was occupied with a hot dog because we're like this is the biggest crowds we've had all year we gotta put every hot dog on a roller right you're like this is a hot dog crowd i can tell theater managers turning both their keys like a launching a nuclear missile from a submarine yeah it's like firing up all the rollers at once it's got to be you really need reinforcements at that point i also have a question though auto finds out the bart's there and he's like oh i was about to drive to drive to Mexico. I was like, how is he not coming back at the end of the school day? Is he just taking? Yeah.

What's going on? Is it a Friday? I don't know. How often does he just abandon the just go to Mexico? Does this happen a lot with that bus? I have a lot of questions. But yes, we cut back to Homer. The heat of the core has gotten so hot that the dial is melting the purple goo on it and the way it

like pops and hits the back of his head like that's great again kirkland and his team on the animation side like the camera angles are getting more dire and the scene is darkening like this like the color palette is darker than it was in the last scene because things are getting like the drama is ramping up like it's really good direction i love all the lighting when the emergency lights start coming on yeah yeah it's very cool it's it's so efficient too it's just like really like really escalates to the state of panic and does a good job of doing it with a you know just a very limited amount of screen time uh but the the meltdown has begun and uh burns and smithers learn about. Call me old-fashioned, but movies were sexier when the actors kept their clothes on. Vilma Banky could do

more for me with one raised eyebrow than an entire... Warning! Problem in Sector 7G. 7G? Good God, who's the safety inspector there? Homer Simpson, sir. Simpson, eh? Good man? Intelligent? Actually, sir, he was hired under Project Bootstrap.

Thank you, President Ford. Huh? Noise. Bad noise. Five minutes before critical mass. Critical what? Okay, okay, don't panic. Whatever problem this is, I'm sure they know how to handle it.

Huh? Ah! It's my problem! We're doomed! Sector 7G is now being isolated. This is back when meltdowns were special in Sim. They've had meltdowns so many. Well, the recurring gag for Homer, they wrote the line even like, what's an Eltdown?

Anyway. Yes, right. the the i remember multiple meltdowns i think in the college episode uh so yeah i did they definitely this but this was the time when like oh wow this meltdown could happen this could just completely i mean they really they play it up in the media too it's just what the stakes are that's basically going to annihilate all of springfield the surrounding area i don't know it's this is this is great this this is it's just like a a great like uh you know it's a great plot device to kind of to put homer at the center of this and at the plant and i also like i really like the joke about um the project bootstrap which

i don't know if that was a real initiative or not i like it more if it wasn't i like it more if it's something they invented it was like their you know, their version of the New Deal that President Ford did fictionally. But whatever it is, I think I just love Mr. Burns contemptuously saying thank you, President Ford really gets me. And Vilma Bankey could have lived to see this reference, although I don't think she would have appreciated it because she passed. She passed away in March of 91. This aired in October. So yeah, she died at age 90. Wow, man.

Wow, that's amazing. And you know, for my research, Project Bootstrap is not a real thing. The only Google results for it were this episode, but it's such a great name. Like it implies that a failed foreign administration thing of like, we'll start project bootstrap

that'll uh get companies to hire people who aren't good at their jobs but you know what that's not real but keo plans are real we'll talk about those very soon it's incredibly boring uh but though i married marge would invalidate this bit of canon here because he uh homer was clearly hired in 1980 uh not in 1976 or during the ford administration maybe they passed it just as he was leaving office okay sure it could be a grandfathered in you're right i could see well there was also maybe on the i think it might be the grimes episode where homer oh yeah me and me and carl both have our masters they're talking about their their advanced degrees in nuclear physics. But Homer just showed up on the first day the plant opened.

And then I think he's like, I didn't even know what a nuclear paner plant was. I don't know if that was the episode or not, but that's my memory of it. Oh yeah, no, that was all very accurate, Nick. That was a great memory. When you said Grimes, I thought, was Elon Musk's ex-wife on a new episode? Oh man. Not yet. How is said Grimes, I thought, was Elon Musk's ex-wife on a new episode? Oh, man. Not yet. How is old Grimey doing these days?

You know, the buzz around town is she's been seen canoodling with Chelsea Manning. What is this, Star Snoop? But yeah, I also like the continuity today. Remember, Homer's job is safety inspector and he works in sector 70. It's all that is correct. That's great. Yeah. But yeah, just the look on Burns' face saying, thank you, President Ford.

Like, what a great line. So good. I also wonder how many times. Great Mr. Burns episode. How many times do Smithers have to just stand around while Burns gives him movie reviews? Like for hours. It's been the entire morning it feels like yeah right that's mainly his job but uh but yeah so then we quickly

cut to bart bart and auto are just in a bus so they don't know what's going on and they can just everyone else in town knows about it but i do love auto i knew guys who lived on their ex's uh couch with the in their with their new husband i've known a couple dirt bags like that they're not as proud of it as auto i just i also love the animation the way his head gets huge when he says i'm sleeping on their couch like it's it's no now i drive the school bus it's not as good as that but not as good no we needed one more of those i don't think there was a third one yeah you're right one more auto proud screaming thing well you know we'll keep an eye out for it in the auto show episode the spinal tap one could be coming yeah oh man i haven't watched that in forever it's funny to listen on the commentary of just them

trying as nicely to say that christopher guest wasn't nice to them and that they thought that he was kind of but uh but yes the they then cut to marge watching soaps as had previously been established in bart's dog gets an f she's watching uh search for the sun just like last time and uh this is the first time when in the episode we hear john lovitz i love him as mr devereaux he's so call me mr devereaux just such a great great line and then we cut to more fun graphics like the designers oh man the springfield action news sign and the design on the the melting tower for the meltdown like that's really good art they were ready for this first few minutes of the meltdown it's true yeah ahead of time they move as fast as internet uh commentators and they're just like social media it also makes march seem very old-fashioned that

she drops her knitting like she's like and drops her knitting like it makes her seem like she's a mom from like 1930s this is where burns comes on the news with his file photo with the blue hair painted on which it's the only time he denies his baldness in public. But I kind of like that vanity of Burns. He lets that go in the future. It's like a file photo with a toupee, right? Is this toupee humor? Yes.

A rare instance. Right. That's what I was trying to place. I was like, is there another time when Burns has a toupee? This might just be it. Yeah, I think so. I think so, yeah. I guess he has more hair when we see him in

like the 60s flashback and mother simpson yeah slightly more hair yeah it's kind of a michael eisner comb over kind of thing going on yeah but the implication is this is and to bring it back to basketball this is kind of like this was this marv albert period this is when he had a very obvious toupee he was wearing for for a few until he abandoned it. Oh, you know what, Nick? Recently on a podcast, we were talking about toupees on sportscasters in the When Flanders Failed episode. And I could only pull Howard Cosell, but I think it was more about Marv Albert was a more current, bald guy not admitting it. Yeah. I think we were too, as someone whose hairline keeps creeping back, I think we were too hard on toupees for a while. I think that, hey, sometimes someone looks all right with a toupee.

Let people get toupees. Give these guys a break. Yeah, I mean, you know, well, now I think the hair plug technology, whatever Elon Musk is doing on his hairline, it's gone far beyond toupees. I love that old PayPal picture of him. It's such a perfect photo. Oh, yes. Yes. You know, it's okay to make fun of the thinning

hairlines of evil billionaires i'll say otherwise don't be mean about hair lines but 100 agreed yes i also like that burns like he is so media trained he's like that's one of those annoying buzzwords you know we and uh he is so good at playing the media which is not normal for later burns but i kind of like him as being this media trained avery mr deborah we interrupt search for the sun for the special news bulletin meltdown crisis the first couple of minutes forget the hair just give me the blush no we're on this station has just learned that a serious crisis is in progress at the springfield nuclear power plant oh my lord on the line with us now is plant owner C. Montgomery Burns. Mr. Burns?

Oh, hello, Kent. Right now, skilled nuclear energy technicians are calmly correcting a minor piffling malfunction. But I can assure you and the public that there's absolutely no danger whatsoever. Things couldn't be more ship-shape. Sir, where's my radiation suit? How the hell should I know?

Uh, Mr. Burns, people are calling this a meltdown. Oh, meltdown. It's one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus. This version of Burns, who, for lack of a better term, is more with it than he becomes is very is a very funny comedic character and he is like in touch with what's going on with the plant and you know is it he's not just this guy who's just always making these esoteric references to to the

19th century like he actually is like a you know engaged with running the plant i i don't know i think i think it's funny and i think funny. I think the scene is very funny. Yeah, he's very invested in protecting his legacy as he's preparing to die. Right. Yeah. I also like, you know, thinking of we just recorded the Blunder Years episode, that season 13 one,

that is also about averting a meltdown, but it's Smithers Sr. who died preventing that meltdown in that episode. Oh, right. as we learn again that one i i choose to follow bob's track of like you know that didn't happen that's not birds did not know smithers is a baby he hasn't known he didn't help raise smithers yeah that's a treehouse of horror episode it complicates things too much makes the the canon too weird. So Homer then has to read a manual, and it's not going so good for him. Somewhere there's a thingy that tells you how to work this stuff.

The manual. The manual. Right. Huh? It's as bad as a bone book. Congratulations on your purchase of a Fissionator 1952 slow-fishing reactor. No! Get to the point, man! Ooh, what's this?

No! Who would have thought a nuclear reactor would be so complicated? 90 seconds to core meltdown. Sir, there may never be another time to say, I love you, sir. Oh, hot dog. Thank you for making my last few moments on Earth socially awkward. Looks like this is the end. That's all right. I couldn't have let a richer life. That's a great, that's such a great one.

I always love this. This was the era of cutting to Moe and Barney just commenting on things. And I just love that it's just them alone in a bar saying, well, looks like this is the end. It's like, guess we're dead. There's a lot of this in that episode where they're just cutting around Springfield and cutting around the plant. And just sort of we're seeing these little vignettes of everyone, you know, either making peace with or confronting or avoiding their fates. I don't know if this is where we get to the senior center when we start to see yeah we start to see the senior center like that's like a great gag too

just them completely tuning it out and that's where there's a big change in the episode uh and listeners uh heard last time when we covered bart to the murderer we mentioned that that episode aired the week that red fox died well that caused a change in this episode that's right i think what they were watching was probably just like a Sanford and Son parody. And they changed it to Wheel of Fortune because Red Fox had just died the previous week. Wow. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there.

You see, our new Net Zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricarland.ie and because it was just uh audio on the tv they could change it or maybe there's finished animation that they couldn't use who knows just here yeah i bet it's just that because that's an easy laugh right there i laugh hearing that sound just doing it right now it's funny yes you know the wheel of fortune jokes i do think the wheel of fortune is joke is good though yeah i i also think my mom always looked down on wheel of fortune like she was a jeopardy lifer but was like a wheel of fortune is so dumb compared to jeopardy but the last time i visited

her she admitted like i watch wheel of fortune now i'm ashamed to admit it but i like watching wheel of fortune does it does it come on before jeopardy in every market i have never lived anywhere where it's not that. I think the Merv Griffin Productions, I think, just partners them together. It's there to get the gears turning for Jeopardy, I think. It's to make you think about letters and how to put them together. Great block of programming. They also mentioned on the commentary that they say that then recently they had just had to make a similar change.

They changed James Coburn to lee marvin and i know what episode it was it was season 14's bart versus lisa versus the third grade where she says that bart makes some joke about like he should be lee marvin's like grave digger or something and so apparently or i don't you know i don't think it was grave digger but like lee marvin's barber but it now to know that it was james Coburn who died one week before the episode aired. So that was a late change of classic Western stars. It happens to them all the time. They're lucky on the lip sync there that they at least got someone with the same syllables.

Meanwhile, they did an episode where they animated a Strom Thurman joke into it. And you see him on screen and i believe it did air the week he died i think you know what good yeah hey yeah whatever rest in piss buddy uh i also i love marge's prayers that she admits like oh yeah i'm bad at charity like i i'll actually give people something that i'll give the needy something they want other than a can of pie mix. That's good. Yes.

Yeah, that's good. And to be a stickler, when it says one minute to core meltdown, it is actually 72 seconds. It's not one minute. Hey, give more time. And really, you know what? If you add that seven seconds that's left on the clock when Homer presses the button, then really it's 79 seconds when they say that there's one minute left to court meltdown so but yes homer then has a flashbacks to a rubik's cube which like so easy back then you could just be like remember the rubik's cube huh that was something like this is a brand new form of humor yeah right this is like not even a decade old this reference yeah the the idea and then he's

like uh and he's he's working on it while that that he uh an off-screen technician is telling him like like like hey it's very important if there's ever a meltdown look at this button and in his memory he can't like think of what but he can't he wasn't wasn't paying attention what button it was because yeah he was just trying to get one side done which there's also a joke of that's the wrong way to solve a rubik's cube if you just get a side you're not going to make any progress you have to get a full edge wow so that's the wrong way to solve a Rubik's cube. If you just get a side, you're not going to make any progress. You have to get a full edge. Wow.

So that's part of the trick. I didn't know. Man, I also love Homer's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, push the button. I got it. Exactly. Yeah. He's so dismissive. Yeah.

It's a great, I mean, I don't know if it's subtle, but I just love the idea that, no, this isn't that complicated. They made it so someone like Homer can run it and it involves pushing one button. Just here it is. This will prevent a meltdown. Nobody will die. But I also, and he says, push this button and only this button.

So that's why Homer knows. He could just be pressing every button and see what works, but he does remember that bit so he can only press one. I also love him. He still has the Rubik's cube. It goes, this is all your fault.

Yes, yeah. Which does become kind of a runner. Hitler says that to Bobo when he blames the fall of Berlin on the bear. He goes like, this is all your fault and throws it aside. Oh, yeah. Then comes a big part of the commentary, them talking about a censored word in an exchange of words can you believe in 1991 the fox network would be so uh picky about this yeah they so so nick they were only allowed to say ass once in this episode but they wanted to say it twice

and they had to choose fox wasn't sure they'd even let him say one ass which i mean in in your life you've you've worked on some shows that do dirtier things than say ass i've seen full nudity on one of you on the show you've written for yes yeah they've they've really uh that you things have things have loosened up in the age of streaming that's that's fascinating i actually worked on a fox show it was it was owned by fox corporate it was on fuel tv was the network uh pretty you know 10 plus years ago and the one note i remember getting back which was very funny uh to me was we'd written the word wang into his script and there's fox standards was like uh you cannot say wang. Suggest substituting dick.

You're okay with dick? That seems worse than wang. Say monster cock. That's what you can say. Well, the great butt-ass switcheroo was, so in the first airing, Byrne says, kiss my sorry butt goodbye. And then Bart says,

bad influence my ass. In the second airing and the syndicated version and what's on the DVD, Byrne says, kiss my sorry ass goodbye. And Bart says, bad influence my butt. I like the first one

because the joke is a kid swearing. He's proving he's a bad influence. Yeah, yeah. Which, and thanks to, we didn't have this back when we first covered this episode, thanks to Super Simpsons Twitter account Daily Simpsons, they helpfully archived both versions so I can play them for you now.

I guess there's nothing left but to kiss my sorry butt goodbye. May I, sir? She says you're a bad influence. Bad influence, my ass. How many times have I told you? Never listen to your mother. But Bart, she threatened to cut off my allowance. 30 seconds to core meltdown.

Oh, Smithers, I guess there's nothing left to do but kiss my sorry ass goodbye. May I, sir? She says you're a bad influence. Bad influence, my butt. How many... There you go. So the DVDds are mostly faithful like on season one we got an alternate ending for the telltale head there's like three possible

endings i think for that episode yes and then in season four uh i think it's marge gets a job it's uh there's a tourette syndrome joke cut out they changed that one too yeah but the punchline makes no sense because they changed tourette's to rabies yeah yeah but hey you know Matt Groening couldn't uh PC cut that one before as he should I mean yeah Tourette's jokes are also very easy it's like you know you can we can do better I think yeah but uh you know what's also funny is uh so occasionally especially now that we're in seasons they ran I've been referring more back to mike reese's book springfield confidential a great book folks should get and it's a good audiobook too but the funniest thing for this episode was when i was re-scanning it through twit kindle i was like the only mention

he makes of this episode is still being mad that they couldn't say ass twice that's the one thing he mentions and he brings up that he was mad that in 1998 fox would later do bobcat's big ass show a game show that was on the fx network and he's like they they put ass in the title and they wouldn't let us say ass twice so still still had an axe to grind even uh in his 2017 2018 book which again great book i get it it's got to be i mean like the the i totally agree with bob that the the the version with bart saying ass is better although you do at least get bart saying how many times have you told you never listened to your mother which at least pays off the bad influence aspect but yeah him him actually swearing is is the cherry on top this was also how we learned i was reminded on the commentary too that at the end of season two's

homer alone i it always does seem weird how bart says i'll never trust another old person the original line was grandpa you magnificent bastard and they as you know as a reference to rommel you magnificent that was uh war of the simpsons right war of the simpsons yeah not homer alone yeah sorry i wrote down homer alone because that's what kirkland says on the commentary but you're right it's it's war of the simpsons we get to see everybody's doing they're doing duck and cover and skinners who's laughing now that's really great i love that i love that this is this is all just fits into the again we're just seeing little little slices of life across the town and yeah that's that's a great one he's being smug about this nuclear

holocaust i i love how Magic Johnson says holocaust. Celebrities say words in fun ways. We just did Talkie Futurama, the episode of Leela of Her Own, and Hank Aaron is in it, and he says the word hologram instead of hologram. It's so cute how he says hologram. So we have holocaust and hologram. But yeah, so then a fantastic close to this act one, and it's a long act one, but just I remember as a kid who, again, didn't understand they're not going to kill everybody on a sitcom. But as a little kid, when it goes to the commercial break with Homer pressing the button and just cut to black, that I remember feeling a certain, you know, anxiety.

Oh, no. And then you heard coming up next on Drexel's class. Yeah. And then you're like. They'll next on drexel's class yeah and then you're like they'll still be drexel's class no matter what happens whether sims for at least one year exactly yeah great act break and uh and yeah homer just says eeny meeny miny moe and he presses i love that he like presses his finger into the camera as i am doing now on our video you never see the button it was a good move i don't think you see it in the shelbyville scene either do you no you do see him hit a button okay that's

true but uh yeah i and yes so cuts away we come back and homer is holding his head hands to his ears thinking i'm dead everyone is dead and then no oh he saved the day hooray i love the shots of everybody awkwardly getting back to normal like like, you know, just pretending they didn't just like smash open a soda machine. And I like it's like a very subtle animation thing. But the people praying kind of like come to their senses almost like, oh, what were we thinking? Yeah. Yeah. And also, I love I mean, the cut also earlier when Burns Burns said like, oh, you know, everything's fine here.

And just the cut to everybody like screaming, just crazy screaming. It's it's that's a great scene. And the rats running back into the power plant is great. But though, man, what a cab that guy using using the thing to have sex with a woman. You'll never call back. Not not nice. Yeah, I know. I know.

Another another the one the one we see the scumbag guy kind of being with the woman in the soap opera. And then we also see it a reality. The thing the thing was, this is like rewatching these episodes and having them all kind of jumbled together in my brain through so many syndication rewatches. I was sure this is the one with the joke where where Mr. Burns gets in the escape pod and says, for the love of God, sir, there's two seats. And he's like, I like to put my feet up. And I was waiting for that. I was like, oh, wait, no, this isn't that one. I was expecting that, too.

Yeah, it really that Homer goes to college is just a lot of sequel jokes to this meltdown. But they're they are really funny. Yes. Yeah. I like to tell myself that after this event, Burns is like, well, I need to build an escape hatch out of this place, the next meltdown. By the way, I discovered another, this is all your fault line. So we have the Rubik's Cube, we have Hitler throwing away Bobo, we have Homer throwing away the sandwich.

Wow. He does that. But then he picks the sandwich back up and he says, how could I stay mad at you? So we have at least, that's a three-peat. All right. It's a three-peat, officially a runner. It is enshrined as an official Simpsons runner now. Also, you know, speaking of running gags, they kind of dropped.

Comic book guy being a bootleg shirt seller. Like he did this a lot back then. He'd be at, I think the next time they do this is the auto show when he's selling like bootleg T-shirts in the parking lot. And the I survived Timmy o'toole being trapped in a well that's right yeah oh yeah and and the the the ones in the x files episode the the homer is a dope t-shirt he's not selling those right i don't think he's involved with those oh no that's uh yeah by that point he's not a bootleg merchant anymore yeah the stitching on dope wouldn't be as fine if he was making them oh no no you know now that job is just taken over by a facebook algorithm

that's who does it we also cut to them uh watching wheel fortune they get it wrong three coins in the fountain they say three loins in the fountain which it was actually uh recent at the time of this recording viral moment of people fucking up on wheel fortune and it is it's always amazing to watch those uh the one they could not, two of the three people could not get another feather in your cap. And all it said was another ether in your app. And I was like, how?

But the extra drama of it is the third guy who definitely knows it, he spins bankrupt twice. So he can't guess. So he just has to stand there it's it's amazing drama this i see why people watch wheel of fortune it's moments like when i saw that clip i thought of that joke even though you don't even see the tv screen in this episode right well it's also just the the i just like that the that the seniors they're just like they

didn't even pay attention to the meltdown they didn't give a shit you know they could have all they could have all died in those chairs they wouldn't have batted an eye, they're just like, they didn't even pay attention to the meltdown. They didn't give a shit, you know. They could have all died in those chairs and they wouldn't have batted an eye. Now they're just watching Wheel of Fortune and maybe don't even know this ever happened. And you know, in a world where Red Fox ate slightly less red meat, the joke would have just been them laughing at Sanford and Son. You know, we wouldn't even have that joke. I love when it returns and as Burns is talking to the media, like I believe I have the clip right here. I'd like to solve the puzzle. Three loins in the fountain.

Yes, we've isolated the problem. Wouldn't you know, false alarm. It seems a single wayward crow flew into our warning system. Very good. Well, sir, your point about nuclear hysteria is well taken. This reporter promises to be more trusting and less vigilant in the future. Excellent. Well, ta-ah! Mmm, Smithers, I can

still sell him snake oil. Now, bring me a wine spritzer, and don't be stingy with the vino. Yes, sir. So, Smithers, it seems you've underestimated one Homer Simpson, our next next employee of the month now one thing i associate with seasons three and four along with unrelated b plots are uh reusing animation because they're rewriting the show at the last minute to either make things

funny or make things clearer so in this scene it's just you see the frozen shot of burns chair and they recycle his animation of his hand just gesturing yeah there are there are more subtle ways they do it but this is one of the ones that sticks out to me for sure i think that we have a little bit of a canon here with with with in deep space homer he's never one employee of the month but i i guess i guess maybe maybe what we can we can assume here is that this award gets retracted after we learn that that homer was a fraud and that he never ultimately gets awarded it despite what their union contract says i think you're right i think they resend that but yeah though clearly though after this they also made the change that like smithers got to win it all the time which then would be changed

by deep space homer that everybody gets to win so that's a win by the union. But I guess, you know what? The plant does go on strike in season four, so that could have been one of the changes made in the strike. That's one of their gains. Yeah. That makes sense. Hey, I am certain that Mike Reese would just think we're insane if we said this to him.

I'm just like, oh, that's... But yeah, I also... White Wine Spritzer is another favorite drink of the simpsons of of the dorks or what's he meant it's what ned drinks when they go to las vegas white wine right sir right now as an adult who drinks alcohol to relax after a long day perhaps it makes it much funnier to me like oh burns almost died along with everyone else and he's like better relax white wine spritzer let's have i also just love hearing kent just say out loud this reporter promises to be more trusting and less vigilant in the future like what a great yeah it's great though you know what for the

ending of this to work everybody has to know homer's not a hero so then the media has to know that there was a meltdown that homer did avert and instead of the lie that Burns told everybody. So a little aspect that's a little confusing. Yeah. Oh, well, it's I just love the smither. Again, Burns would not nor in future episodes, I don't think would be this media literate to know how to trick the media. No, no. But he would be more familiar with like maybe like the 1920s media.

He'd want to pay off like Hearst or something to run a good story about him. We'll just go straight to the Pinkertons, a.k.a. hired goons. Yeah. You know, his beloved hired goons. After all of this death was averted, we then get to hear the truth from old Milhouse. Milhouse, a little salt? Sure. Now we're even for your party.

Come on, let's go play. Bart, my mom won't let me be your friend anymore. That's why you couldn't come to the party. What's she got against me? She says you're a bad influence. Bad influence, my butt. How many times have I told you? Never listen to your mother.

But Bart, she threatened to cut off my allowance. Whatever she's paying you, I'll double it. I'm really sorry barge it's funnier with ass it is funny i wish you know it's funnier if this is the dvd just make it both ass you know like just double up the ass you're on dvd now you know and it's still even on disney plus it's the it's the dvd version i was gonna say save that filth for disney plus we all know what disney's up to i've read the stories i see what the senators are talking about these children talking about their asses it's it is funny though i'm not i'm not serious everybody but new listeners we are not serious this is a joke i do think it's interesting that it's still pretty fresh even by the start of season three in

1991 this is about parents who think barty is bad and that he does teach kids to swear and disobey their parents like that that is what luanne is being in this episode millhouse is the sad kid not allowed to watch the simpsons yeah that's true sure i know i've said it on the podcast before but i don't know if you guys had similar incidents at your schools where simpson's merch was taboo but i remember at my school a kid had a i'm bart simpson who the hell are you shirt and was was sent home and returned with it altered with a sharpie to say i'm bart simpson who the heck are you? And after that, it was okay. You know, I think my parents would never even buy me a Simpson shirt that would say hell on it. Same here. So I didn't recall any Simpson shirts being outlawed. But yeah, we've, you know, Nick,

you're like Bob and me that had parents that would allow us to watch The Simpsons. We've had on guests of similar ages who they were in the i could only watch it once it got in syndication when my parents were still at work during the day my my wife for whatever reason her dad did not let her watch the simpsons but did let her watch married with children a much raunchier show wow i don't know what it was oh boy she just was just like oh it's a rude cartoon so you shouldn't watch that. But yeah, this sitcom's fine. See, Married with Children, that was the show, and I still wasn't told not to watch it, but

that was the show that did get me in trouble in school because I didn't know what the word slut meant, but it was said on the show, and I repeated it in school as a elementary school, and a teacher was very mad at that and i did get written up for it which i i learned that you shouldn't say that word in school no that millhouse's mom is she's the prototypical parent who does not like bart simpson but just in real life and yeah just hearing bart say especially if he says my ass didn't i tell you to never listen to your mother like that it shows that they're actually right like they kind of agree with the parents like yeah your kids shouldn't listen to Bart Bart is bad you shouldn't listen to him and as we heard from

John VD in our interview he's like they in season three did start cutting back on how much Bart swears because they heard from their friends who were parents of like, you taught my kids the word bastard. And I wish you hadn't. But yeah, so Homer, we have a quick bit of Homer bragging and celebrating with his pals. I love that. Like, hey, way to save our lives. Yeah, we owe you one. Great, great line. It's weird.

I thought they were going to like undercut a spit take. But like Homer sort of does do a spit take. I thought it was it's like either do a full spit take or undermine the spit take it was weird that it was like a half spit take to me i'm only bringing this up sipping soup what is he having here it's like it's yeah just soup it's just like he's just sipping broth yeah i took it as soup yeah but it is kind of strange yeah uh so it's our job to talk about this and i feel bad because it's so boring but smithers uh is protesting homer getting this employee in the month thing and he brings up his own achievements he's like i saved

the plant by putting a five percent cap on the keo plan and i'm sure like the 50 other times i watched this i was like oh that's just some something he made up or whatever but no that is a joke about how bad the plant treats its workers and how smithers made things worse for the workers because and i'm sure people in the comments will like be more specific about this i'm just gonna give you the broad strokes a keo plan is a profit sharing plan that funds pensions he made their pensions worse the joke in 1991 was can you believe it the pensions are getting worse that's how that's how far we've come since pensions exist yeah they're worse existed. In 2022, these would all be contract employees, and they would have no rights or vacation days or bonuses or anything.

But in 1991, it was like, can you believe the pensions these days? And that's what Smithers did. He fucked over all the workers. That's great. By putting a harsher cap on their profit-sharing plan. You know what? It's fascinating. It's a real thing.

We need more comedies, though, of the Simpsons striking stuff. We just had that great unionized Staten Island, Amazon place. it's a real thing we need more comedies though the simpsons striking stuff like they they yeah we just had that great unionized daton island amazon uh place like i think i sometimes think about how the simpsons mocked unionized labor for so long as as it started dying and in the 90s or i mean the 80s in the reagan era was really when it american sure uh unions took a big hit but yeah now i think unions are good. It's so weird to watch old episodes of Simpsons about like these union guys, they all work for the mafia and they're just lazy. It's still crazy.

Yeah, the Teamsters thing I always think of like, wow, so surly and lazy just talking about like how he always wanted to be a teamster. And then there's always when the, you know, the flashback sequence to the union, I think, forming at Burns' plant when they're like, you know, they will form a union that will become, I'm going to mangle the quote, but it's something like, that will become shiftless and disorganized or whatever. They will go mad with our own power. The Japanese will eat us alive. Like it just kind of talks about how the unions became too powerful

as some sort of people. But yeah, it should tackle another union episode. Why not? One of the best episodes of all time. Yeah, it's a stone cold classic. But yeah, so Homer is presented by a Buxom Beauty, a ham, a plaque, and a discount coupon book. A great set of things for for saving everyone it's

great uh it's great acting on the woman the spokeslady or whatever because as she gives homer things she turns to smile every time because she knows that's her job yes kirkland compliments horny animator tuck tucker for for animating the uh the bathing beauty. But yes, now it's time for the main event. Homer has a special phone call. Homer! Homer! Homer! What did you do? Homer! Homer! For your bravery and skill, we award you this ham, this plaque,

this discount coupon book, and my own personal thumbs up. And to ensure your immortality, your heroic visage will be added to our wall of fame. Oh, and what's this? A congratulatory

phone call from Irvin Magic Johnson. Magic Johnson! Yellow. Is this really Homer Simpson? Yeah. Wow. Homer, I just used our last time out to call and congratulate you on averting that nuclear holocaust.

Well, thank you. Magic, if you play on that ankle, you'll be in incredible pain. I don't care. Uh, Magic, what if people think a guy's a hero, but he was really just lucky don't worry sooner or later people like that are exposed as the frauds they are thanks magic you know magic johnson not a great actor that i don't care joke always uh hit me the wrong way because i feel like that wanted him to say i don't care yeah but he's just like i don't care i don't care i you know i always read it as stoic he's like i don't care i mean but i like i kind of like his

delivery there even if it's yeah not what they intended um i don't know it it's uh this is a it's a funny little thing i like that i like that he's getting his ankle taped i i always put it together that like oh wait he didn't use his last time out for this they had to take a time out because he got injured i don't know if that's what's intended or not but also i want to note that for for people listening that henry acted out the mr burns thumbs up as it was happening it was very very convincing great portrayal i i like how not not henry but mr burns i like how proud he is once he gets it up he like he like waves it around goes ah yeah that's great so it's a real achievement another instance of uh another thumbs up issue with Mr. Burns. Obviously, of course, Lenny giving him the thumbs up is traumatizing in a later episode.

So I also now as an adult who knows a little more about TV production, I am astounded. Like, wow, all the Lakers logos on all this stuff. Like, clearly it's not just magic they talked to. Yeah. No, they got that all cleared. So that guy, 3002 on Twitter twitter says that in the original and he's a guy who collects original scripts like table read scripts where they change a lot after he says that in the script version he has it was joe montana on the phone not magic wow but i would

guess you know different sport with all this laker stuff it must have been the lakers like who paid who i wonder but they said also that they recorded magic at the last possible second they could like they are like if we don't record him now we can't ship it with his voice and they uh went to his mansion and brought a digital recorder and it was fucking up at first and they said they were like they're like oh my god we're i think we've all been there as professional podcasters. Yes, that intensity. I think the most famous person that happened to with me and you, Bob, was like with Matt Besser.

He was our Magic Johnson. A lost interview. Yes. Matt Besser. Oh, man. Matt, you can't do improv on an ankle. I don't care well also nick as as a lakers expert i would guess this is them drawing them playing in the forum then right this is uh because that's where they would have been playing in 91 uh then

yeah this is pre-staple center and certainly pre-crypto.com arena i'll take the dignity of staples any day yes yeah yes exactly exactly give me the office supply brand uh it over the the scam cryptocurrency site uh but it's a it's a uh yeah this this would have been the great western forum i think at the time was it now now just the i think it's just called the la forum oh yeah nick are you i know you're also in Inglewood. Not to derail this with wrestling talk, but are you going to the AEW show after the forum that's coming up in June? I don't have tickets yet, but I am definitely planning on going. I'm just going to get something on the secondary market close to showtime

and, yeah, go with some friends. Yeah, definitely. I got to see AEW live in person. I am kind of cheesed off. They're not coming to the Bay Area for some reason. figured oh after their first la show they're coming as sf but nope nah all right okay wrestling talk over hey but yeah magic uh he's it's funny him also letting homer think he's a fraud like tell him that like yes though homer shouldn't you know what you did save everybody even if it was just dumb luck

take a little pride in that you know what magic johnson not picking up on uh the subtext of this question like why would this hero be asking me about this yes well we're both heroes homer i don't know why you would ask such a thing but yeah so we cut to at home they're watching itchy and scratchy it's a my dinner with andre parody my favorite bit is that itchy's already killed scratchy by making him drink acid but he also just for good measure splashes some extra in his face like that that's really great and also just lisa's saying too subtle like what yeah i'll be lying as far as watching it stone face yeah it's great uh and so homer comes home

with a 20 pound ham i also think like this is almost too emotionally complex for homer like him being ashamed at being too praised like i i don't think of homer having that kind of emotional maturity he'd be happy to be a fraud in like 18 months exactly yeah free ham right exactly all he cared about was that he mmm ham at that point there'd be there'd be no no deeper thought to that it is it is a crusty brand ham is it not oh yeah you're right it's from his his special ham that he uh had a heart attack advertising you're right it's like i i hadn't noticed it but i think you see a little crusty logo on this on that bad boy i think you're right i also just love that homer everyone's loving him a hero in my own home how convenient like lisa's i guess you'd call it a c story that lisa now looks up to homer for

the rest of the episode i also i love his i get enough admiration respect at work i don't need it here at home you know hams hams are kind of like the currency at the power plant because marge almost gets a free hand when homer at the plants, but then he comes back to life. Right. Cancel the ham. Again, I want to compliment the animators. Great staging at the table with the ham. The ham is in the center and on each side of the ham,

you have Marge, Maggie and Lisa bright eyed and excited. The other side is Homer and Bart and they're both depressed and sad. Like that's really good. Just like layout of a shot. I think the animators did a good job with that. Yeah, I agree. I love a good ham.

I think a honey glaze, mm-mm. You know what? Pigs are smart, beautiful creatures, Henry. But they taste so good. They do taste good. I haven't eaten pork in some time, but man, it is absolutely tasty. It is inarguably delicious.

How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new net zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. I don't want to be like other podcasters with you, Nick, and try to pull you back towards meat. I think I'm proud of your meatless. You're relatively meatless 2022 after 2021.

Yeah, I'm not full. I mean, I'm still eating. I'll dabble in fish and poultry. But yeah, I've not gone back to red meat. I don't think I'm going to eat pigs again, partly because I kind of had that Lisa the vegetarian sort of thing. Just sort of, you know of seeing animals as living beings. So it's a little bit easier for me to get over that when I'm not dealing with mammals.

You guys are talking me out of ham now, but I won't allow this. No, ham's still good. Look, hey, no shame on anyone who wants to eat a ham. Ham is delicious. I love Homer saying it tastes like ashes in my mouth, and then Lisa saying back, like, maybe you ate a clove. Yeah, that's great. Which Homer will eat a full spoonful of cloves in season five during the Gambler episode.

Don't forget the Tom Collins mix. Oh, yes. And a frozen pie crust. I also love that Homer always hates Milhouse. He never likes him. And just him saying, like, if Jorge's with a big nose nose you don't need friends like that yeah it's millhouse and then lisa thinks that's like a good advice yeah it's housed in that's so great yeah much lower stakes on the second act break where first act break uh a nuclear holocaust and somebody's hitting a button

second act break a walkie talkie goes in the trash. Yes, yes. Not their highest stakes. I also like Lisa just watching with quiet awe, which Homer's like, well, at least it's quiet. A role model in my very own home. How convenient. Look, I get enough admiration and respect at work. I don't need it here at home. How are you enjoying your ham, homie?

Tastes so bitter, it's like ashes in my my mouth it's actually more of a honey glaze maybe you ate a clove what's your problem boy i had a fight with millhouse dead four eyes with a big nose you don't need friends like that how's zen what what is it what are you doing looking at you with quiet all well as long as it's quiet here's more esoteric little details homer bends over in act one and you see he has a belt on which i was like wait they never draw a belt on homer for no reason which in that scene there is no reason to it but i wonder if because they do a loosened belt joke here with him on the couch that whoever animated the other scene for the episode like well wait no homer wears a belt we draw it in the next two we need

a belt establishing shot folks yeah work it into the budget somehow so yes the bart and millhouse they have a sad thing i feel i feel bad for millhouse he is such like a people pleaser and so lacking in self-confidence just saying well please don't hate me please like sad little loser i i'm speaking to my younger self now i do love the joke as it starts of homer going to the employee spot right next to burns and hitting his car it's a guy he'll never know who did it and yeah and that's the same parking spot that burns has in three eyes on every fish, the Burns Runs for Governor episode. So again, more wonderful continuity. And then meanwhile, Smithers has to drive all the way to the other end of the impossibly sized parking lot of the Springfield Power Plant.

They would really play up the Smithers versus Homer stuff in season seven. It would take a while, but Homer versus Smithers. Sorry, Homer the Smithers. Yes. Great episode. take a while but homer versus smithers or sorry homer the smithers yes great episode right but yes this also though does feel a little more like a regular sitcom kind of thing of like the big speech like i have to give the big like that's like a dick van dyke plot that was in simpson delilah yeah last season wait so yeah it's already them reusing a season two thing but homer gets four

words into this speech before a new meltdown happens so that's true the scene is less about that did we already have uh bart and or i'm sorry the scene with the with homer and lisa at the bar oh no that's uh coming up after this but that's coming up i apologize no it's okay i but yeah i think you know smart on the writer's part to you know they get to do the kind of overused trope of the big speech and then not even have to write the speech because he gets interrupted. Yes. Right. But yes, in our next clip here, it's the first appearance of Aristotle Anadopoulos. Ah, Simpson.

There's someone I want you to meet. Aristotle Anadopoulos. Owner of the Shelbyville Nuclear Power Facility. Huh? What? It seems Harry's been having terrible worker problems at Shelbyville Nuclear Power Facility. Huh? What? It seems Ari's been having terrible worker problems at Shelbyville. They've lost their zest for work. You must help them find their ine haratu na du leve.

Their ine haratu do la what? Yes. We want you to give them a pep talk that turns them from a bunch of donut-eating goof-offs into a pack of Homer Simpsons. But I really can't tell them anything. Don't cut the false modesty. It's getting tiresome. Besides, it's your duty. Employee of the month isn't all

ham and plaques. Well, Smithers, how kind of you to pay us a visit. Couldn't help it, sir. The parking here is terrible. This man has no love for his power plant. Be gone from my sight. That one's always been a problem.

Now this guy, Aristotle Amidopoulos, a parody, if you're under 40, you might not know this, a parody of Aristotle Onassis, a controversial figure for boomers because he sullied the purity of Camelot by taking away Jackie Kennedy. Yeah, it's so funny. He was long dead when we were kids like

nobody like jackie and jackie o had moved on to many other things in her life but yeah it hurt it did hurt her standing people that i remember when i was in college a elderly uh very religious professor also talked about how she's like oh you know that uh saying uh beware greeks bearing gifts that was about aristotle onassis because he was he tricked america and stole jackie i was like what i think i think it's about the trojan horses is why you're afraid it's it's a fitting uh parody because marge is a bouvier so we have a parody of onassis on the show now and i like the idea of burns having a rich friend and a eccentric rich friend he only comes back back in the softball episode, and that's it. Anadopoulos should have appeared so much.

He's such a perfect, like, one of my favorite things in DuckTales is that Scrooge has an evil counterpart, too, who's rich, called Flintart Glomgold. This could be his Flintart Glomgold. Yeah, of the Lovitz characters, obviously i've always thinks of arty ziff but but aristotle is is very very funny and uh yeah you're right it's a great it's a great dramatic counterpoint for counterpart for for burns uh it's uh i i just like the part that really makes me guffaw is that this man has no love for his power plant like it's just like some indignity to criticize the parking at your plant that would make you some sort of pariah in the eyes of the plant owners and then that smithers uh kissing up

to burns all this time is meaningless like burns instantly he says one bad thing once and burns like he's always been a problem he's cast out already do you mind if we jump to the marge at uh millhouse's house oh you know there was i I just want to say that cut the false modesty. That's also a very funny line because he's just like enough of this shit. Like, yeah, but okay. Right. And it wasn't until the commentaries over 20 years ago at this point or almost 20 years ago that I realized

the design of Mrs. Van Houten, not named Luann for another six years. That's a joke. And just the way they hold on her when she first starts talking to marge the design is supposed to be a joke like can you believe it's just millhouse and address that's who this character is as a kid i took it at face value i'm like this is the rules of cartoons you kind of look identical to your to your parents and the parents look identical to the children but

that reveal is a joke yeah and then the then the reveal of Kirk is another joke, and they tell a story on the commentary that Maggie Roswell does the voice. When she was at the table read, she did an impression of Milhouse. They were like, no, no, no, that's too crazy. You can't do that. But then Hank Azaria did an impression of Milhouse

for Kirk Van Houten, and everybody laughed, and Maggie Roswell was very mad that Kirk Van Houten is just an adult Milhouse voice but she didn't Mike Reese agrees is like justifiable she was upset by that yeah yes and I don't think you hear or

see him until Barkett's an elephant when he goes get off our property yes that's right man how I mean it's so great that her the both of them look like Milhouse and they're kind of each other's cousins. Like, that's so funny. But yeah, I like, you know, Marge.

Although she's from Shelbyville, right? Yes. Bob has a really, Bob has a great theory about that as well. I don't want to steal his theory. What, that they're cousins from Shelbyville? Well, that she is the Shelbyville, how everybody how shelbyville has their own episode and everything and that she is the she's the kirk van houten of shelbyville but then they marry each other wow she's the mirror mirror version yes yeah but that's great but you know as it it's a little

too cute but i do kind of like marge is just she feels bad for Bart. But she also is the mom defending a bad kid who's just like, no, but he is bad. Like she kind of has to be like, you know, he just has this spark. He's not bad, but he does do bad things. And he's even as good qualities for like get him to do into trouble. Yeah. Like the spark isn't the spark is not a bad thing, but it makes him to do into trouble yeah like the spark uh isn't the spark is not a bad thing but it makes him to do the bad thing so even his like one quality she can speak of is also bad mrs van houten i'm bart's mother we met in the emergency room when the boys drank

paint i remember please come in marge i'm sorry but i think it would be better if millhouse didn't see your son well look i know Bart can be a handful, but I also know what he's like inside. He's got a spark. It's not a bad thing. Of course, it makes him do bad things. Well, Marge, the other day Milhouse told me my meatloaf sucks. He must have gotten that from your little boy,

because they certainly don't say that word on TV. Well, I can't defend everything he does, but let's face it, all Bart and Milhouse have is each other. They're too young for girls, and they're a popular target for bullies, and in the Christmas pageant, they're always sheep. Please, please let them be friends. I'll think about it, Marge.

We met in the emergency room when the boys drank paint. I like that. It's specific. And then the memories book Bart goes through before, they're all about injuring Milhouse. Milhouse is always the bottom. Everything's... Where are you going are you going i don't mean it like that i mean he's on the the lowest part of the totem pole i almost that's what i was gonna

say bottom man on the totem pole not by any hey let's move on from that i i also like hearing luann say like and they would necessarily not say sucks on tv they wouldn't say a word like that that's great but yeah i think march is march has the great pitch to her of like look they're both fucking losers like you're just basically yeah they're not gonna make new friends they're just let they'll you'll either have them be in a toxic relationship or they're just lonely and so girls don't like them other boys want to beat them up yes yeah and and like you said nick then it cuts to the reaction gif of we've seen many a time on twitter of millhouse on the seesaw alone it's uh it's a great shot it's great great shot uh yeah we cut

to the bar this is where lisa is uh we're in the middle of hearing a racist screed from bardy but about carnies or carny folk but just and lisa goes like i'll do that. But, you know, I'm actually here to see my, look at my dad. It's just his line. I used to follow my dad to a lot of bars too. Great, great line. Every Barney line in this episode is a Cadillac. They're all fucking bangers. So next time somebody tells you county folk are good, honest people,

you can spit in their faces for me. I will, Mr. Gumbel. But if you'll excuse me, I'm profiling my dad for the school paper. I thought it would be neat to follow him around for a day to see what makes him tick. Aw, that's sweet. I used to follow my dad to a lot of bars, too.

Here you go. One beer, one chocolate milk. Uh, excuse me. I have the chocolate milk. Oh. What's the matter, Homer? The depression effects of alcohol usually don't kick in till closing time. He's just a little nervous. He has to give a speech tomorrow on how to keep cool

in a crisis. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? I had to give a speech once. I was pretty nervous, so I used a little trick. I pictured everyone in their underwear. The judge, the jury, my lawyer my lawyer everybody did it work i'm a free man ain't i uh also like the depressive effects of alcohol usually don't kick in until closing time again great joke but yes barney describing the dui trial that he had seemingly

like i'm a free man ain't i yeah so good so good pictured everyone in their underwear yeah like the judge the jury everyone i'm a free man aren't i it had to be vehicular manslaughter or something normally you're not testifying when you get a dui not that i would know of course but yes we then we have a cute uh very quickly a cute little moment with marge and bart that plays out like a regular sitcom until she leaves the room. And then Bart, he thanks her. Like, aw, they hug. And then the second she leaves,

Bart just pulls out his BB gun and starts pumping it up like he's going to blast Milhouse in the face with this next time he sees him. Like, oh my, that's so good. Really? We can be friends again? Did your mom die? I don't think so.

Who cares? Milhouse will be right there. Sorry, Maggie. Game's over. Hey, Mom. I'm friends with Millhouse again. Well, I knew his mother would come to her senses. Thanks for sticking up for me. What makes you think I did it? Who else would? You'll be gone.

I will. I also like how many times he pumps it. He just immediately takes what would later be a little bastard BB gun or whatever. He just takes the BB gun out and starts pumping that out. Real quick, just another joke I like in the Lisa bar scene is Mo getting the drinks backwards, giving Homer the chocolate milk and giving Lisa the beer. He needs Lisa to say, I ordered the chocolate milk. Oh. Yeah.

And swaps them. He's used to serving children, I think. That's true. Yeah. He served children a lot. Yeah. So, yes, we cut back to the uh the shelbyville plant homer's about to give a speech again great acting by love it's him going

like i just he says when i look upon all your friendly faces i think of how much i hate you just like you like your goats like wasteful goats i just love it the violent mood swings of love it he's still good at uh at acting that out yeah but yes, we have a little Obi-Wan kind of thing of Homer hearing like, picture them in the underwear. And I feel bad for the animators because they were told to do a sight gag where Homer sees them all in their underwear and then they're all drawn as like muscular and in Viking helmets. So he's more intimidated.

But they said it just didn't read. So not only did the animators have to do a big crowd shot they then had to do it a second time oh so right that's that's but i think the version they have now does read very clearly it is a funny it is a funny little capper where where homer sees himself naked and then he freaks out and hides behind the podium and his voice cracks homer overdoes it and imagines everyone including himself that's great yes but yeah that's good uh but yes homer is saved by the bell by a big uh another meltdown it's funny every nobody blames them for the meltdown no where is their homer simpson to stop this why do they need to pull the celebrity in right well also i i'll i'll say that this is

one where the pacing of it because they just really like get right to it. Like they go straight to a blaring alarm. Homer's at the station. He's got it. He's got to solve it. Like it happens so quickly. It's super duper efficient. But I always thought because this is paced so quickly that this was paced up for syndication and watching the full version for this episode. I was like, oh, no, that's how it's always been. They didn't cut anything here. It really just gets right. Get straight to it. The alarm goes off and then they say, OK, well, here we are.

Like, let's do this now. Like, do what you did before, which I feel I think you're right. For plotting purposes, it would be better if there was a moment of like, wait, we have the guy who knows how to turn this off. Let's get him. Do it again. Nobody else knows how to do it. Like, it seems like they just like, well, hey, we've got him here.

We'll let you press the button. We all know what button to press, but we'll let you press it over. Right. But yes, in classic sitcom fashion, the truth must be revealed. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by the toe.

Wigby hollered, let him go. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Crisis has been averted. Everything is super. Thank you, Homer, for saving my plant with that idiotic rhyming. Do you even know what button you push? Sure, moe.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Is Homer a hero? The answer is no. I'm Kent Brockman, and that was my two cents. Now back to Scott Christian with laugh and a half. Thanks, Kent. There was more dumb luck in the news today when our own police chief Wiggum

foiled a bank holdup without even trying. It seems the chief had gone to the bank to cash in his penny jar. 48, 29, 50. What the? Good work, chief. Just doing my job. Yes, it seems the chief pulled a Homer Simpson of his own.

You know, Kent's My Two Cents is an underrated runner. It has appeared in six episodes after this. It only lasts until Carsey gets canceled. Yeah, yeah. Which, I mean, it's a great My Two Cents. I think after that, they're like, you know what? Kent Brockman can just give a speech anytime. It doesn't need to be this section of it.

That's the difference of the Mercanary, where it's like, you know, he's always editorializing. That's true, yeah. Right. Although maybe he also just gets into trouble for saying that on all the little sob's and then after that they discontinue his segment the the the i i like the presence of scott christian i do we see do we ever see scott christian's laugh and a half again or is this is it right i think it's the only time yeah i think so what about uh when wiggum is it wiggum that gets pulled to the hot dog machine this is gonna get worse before it gets better oh but that that's yeah no that's at the um

film festival okay jay sherman presents okay i was misremembering security cam footage but it also shows you how far snake has come they're like oh we need a criminal well it's gonna be snake we we draw like snakes a relatively new character at this point but they've already fallen in love with him yeah i also love they're like you know we're gonna have my two cents and laugh and a half like back to back two different segments and this is how you know what before there was social media you needed a newscaster to off the cuff meme something off the cuff me kind of this this whole episode is a lot of media criticism right it's just like saying how trite and superficial and, you know, obsequious the local news is. And then we're starting, of course, obviously, with USA Today just being lambasted by the show.

So, yeah, they're definitely a little upset with the news media in this episode. And right after the Scott Christian segment andian segment we and wiggum of course we get our second uh magic appearance and chick hern as well yeah i have uh our last clip here where we get to hear the late chick hern uh commentating on a game of basketball the lakers have the ball magic johnson coming down the floor on the fast break magic stops his feet slip up the ball flies out of his hand hits the referee the referee in the head. Goes in the basket. It's a three-point play. The Lakers win.

Looks like I pulled a homer. Our dad. Now he belongs to the ages. I guess they do that to give Homer a win at the end. You know what? He is in the dictionary. Let's do that. give Homer a win at the end. You know what? He is in the dictionary. Let's do that. He actually is in the dictionary.

They have a new dictionary that has Homer's, like, a woodcut of Homer in it. I love that. It's so, like, yeah, I love how that looks. I love the look of his dictionary drawings, whatever that's supposed to represent. But, yeah, that happens three times, right? And by the end, it's basically the happy accident that it ends up being. Yeah, I don't know.

I like that ending. It's kind of a slight episode, I guess, overall, just in terms of the stakes. I mean, whatever. They're huge stakes. So we're talking about two possible meltdowns. So in some sense, they're there. But it's also just like, personally,

it's just like, oh where bart's friendship is in peril and homer is having like a self-esteem crisis basically like he's feeling like a fraud but yeah i don't know i did i like the way it resolves and uh i like that lisa never has a moment where she's like disappointed by her dad she just keeps looking up to him yeah yeah that is sweet yeah i and as uh as a lakers super fan what do you think of chick hearns uh caricature in the episode you don't just hear him you see him no it's great it's a it's a it's a good it's a good representation and man he just really absolutely commits to calling this like it's a real game like he just he 100 says it in the same cadence that he would if this actually happened if a ref actually went off a ball's

or a ball after actually went off a ref's head and into the basket to as a game winner yeah it's great hearing it back to back i was like oh he is a better actor than magic and it looks like i pulled a homer like not too much energy henry you're right yeah i wonder whose idea was that he's crashing to a bunch of hot cheerleaders. Like what animator was like, oh, it's even funnier if he lands in a pile of hot cheerleaders. Do the Lakers cheerleaders have a special name or are they just the Lakers cheerleaders? The Laker girls, right? Oh, what am I saying?

Of course, the famous Henry clearly doesn't care about female cheerleaders. Yeah, I'm sorry. There's the announcer, the in-arena announcer at Staples Center, now Crypto.com Arena, Lawrence Tantor. May have been the one at the forum, too. He's been with the team forever. But he was the Laker girls. Wow. I always have that in my head when I think of them.

It's a classic one. I think the ending is a bit rushed, but there's lots of fun stuff in here. It's the origin of the van houtens and uh but yes the one failure like we said up front is they couldn't coin a phrase they really tried but you know the previous year we all did the bart man we felt bad about it we weren't about to pull a homer yeah i you know they they never got it to go i i it you know the episode did through the use of monopoly it did teach kids that they could eat the the pieces and should swallow and there's plenty of them so it's fine but uh yeah the the only uh last bit i'd have to add is just about the simpsons and dictionaries this didn't

get in the dictionary but in the dictionary thanks to the simpsons in major dictionaries like webster oxford are doe meh gibbous imbigins and cromulent all are in dictionaries thanks to the simpsons so they couldn't pull it off with pull a homer but they they got that but yeah lisa the iconoclast was the word creating episode yeah i man right but yeah i think the that yeah i think this is a fun episode that isn't too, it certainly is built around like a big celebrity appearance, but I like that he doesn't like fly into town and hang out with Homer's guests. He's a voice on the phone. He doesn't stay up with Bart.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. He's not, he's not writing songs with Bart all night as an adult man alone in his room. You know, not doing that. I think it's a fun, I think it's a fun episode that occasionally has like like nick said also very very fast-paced third act that kind of just rushes to the to the big reveal but i think uh i think it's a good a really good episode that also just shows how much the show is growing that they can count on like let's just cut to

these characters for a joke and these characters for a joke we know how funny our cast is and how funny everybody in springfield is we can just fill this with scenes of like skinner can just have a joke or apu can just have a joke independent of the of the plot and just cut to them yeah very very very good episode i i fully agree i also think that i also agree that this is the right amount of magic johnson it reminds me of the tom kite appearance it's just like okay here's an athlete who's a non-actor who we're just going to kind of get in for you know a scene or two and that's it and and that's that's the right right amount of cameo for this guy well thanks again for joining us nick please let us know where to find you online and more about your podcast doughboys and get played oh thank you guys so much an absolute delight to be here. I'm so, so grateful you thought

of me as the Lakers guy. Very, very fun to talk about this episode and talk about Magic Johnson and Chick Heard. I am going to say that you can check out my podcast Doughboys with Mike Mitchell. We talk about chain restaurants and check out my podcast Get Played with Heather Ann Campbell and Matt Apodaca. We talk

about video games. We used to talk just bad video games, but now we talk about all games. We used to talk just bad video games, but now we talk about all sorts of video games and it's kind of a more general catch-all pod. So yeah, those are both fun. You can find those wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah, we talked about Bart versus Space Mutants on Classic Get Played.

I call it classic. I think, but yeah, and the new reformatting of it has is i think been been really great we just had on uh apodaca as well and when chatted about that with him too that was great but then apodaca i'm sure it came up but he has the moth tattoo yes arm yes yeah we can't do yeah though unfortunately you know what we can't yeah i i don't know if heather will want to talk about simpsons again with us for a return but we'll do we could do an Evangelion podcast with her, maybe. We could do that.

She'll talk Simpsons. Of course she will. She'll come back. But thank you so much. Yeah, thanks again, Nick. So fun. Thank you guys so much. So thanks so much to Nick Weiger for being on the show.

Please check out his podcast, Doughboys, and get played. Ask for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these episodes one week at a time and ad-free. Please go to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Sign up for five bucks a month to get just that, but also access to everything behind the $5 paywall. That includes over 100 full-length podcasts, and you also get monthly access to our regular episodes of Talking Futurama and Talk King of the Hill and any other bonus stuff we might do behind that $5 paywall. It's all happening there at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons.

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check it all out the entire back catalog at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons so as for me I've been one of your hosts Bob Mackey you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo and my other podcast by the way is Retro Knots that's a classic gaming podcast about old video games

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And if you're looking for an easy to explore back catalog of all of our free podcasts, you can always go to TalkingSimpsonsPodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next week for the May episode of our community podcast. Talk to the audience, and we'll see you then. Okay, okay, think back to your training. Now, Homer, this may very well save your life one day. Homer, please pay attention.

This button here controls the emergency override circuit. In the event of a meltdown, push this button and only this button. Ooh, it's tight. Simpson! What? You see which button I'm pushing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Push the button. Got it. This is all your fault!

This is my fault!