Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer Goes To College

Episode Date: March 1, 2017

It’s a new era in The Simpsons and thus for our podcast as well! We enter the David Mirkin seasons, we describe the new writers and directors, as Homer heads to college for the first time in the hopes of keeping his job. Plus, we all learn how we’re the exact nerds from this episode…

this episode of talking simpsons is brought to you by casper mattresses and you listeners right now can go to caspertrial.com slash laser time to get 50 towards any new mattress i heartily endorse this event or product product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, coming to you live from Chuggalug House. I'm your host, Head Bee Guy Bob Mackey, and this is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today?

Henry Gilbert, wallet inspector. And powerful friend, Chris Anteus. Wait a minute, that's not the wallet inspector. And today's episode is Homer Goes to College. I am too smart. I am too smart. S-M-R-T. I mean S-M-A-R-T. Which aired on October 14th, 1993, and Chris will tell us what happened on this mythical day in Simpsons history.

This is going to be exciting. F.W. Woolworths begins shutting down its unprofitable chain of variety stores. The world is in love with Demolition Man, and a five-year-old starts a trailer park fire that takes the life of his sister, and Ohio officials are blaming Beavis and Butthead. Oh, no. And it turned out that family didn't even have cable.

Didn't have cable. I heard about that much later. Well, that's in your home state. And I went shopping at Woolworth's a lot as a child, and my grandma... Stay out of Woolworth's. ...in the late 80s, early 90s

would continually still call it the dime store, and that always confused me as a kid. Like, everything here is, like, it costs more than that, Grandma. There's a ton of shit in this episode. I don't think my generation's special, but makes me feel like cuspy because I remember Woolworths right before they completely went away.

And I also remember the dawn of the Internet, which is in this episode. Oh, yeah. This is a very special episode. I mean, this was also the episode I see myself in quite a lot. I am those nerds. I think we are all the three nerds. I just love how expanded the definition of nerds has to be from just these guys. But I also, if I can give a personal anecdote, this is an episode that made me fall in love

with Bob. Bob? You. Me? You, Bob Mackie. Oh, I think I know why. A wow Bob Mackie fame. I was like, was like Sideshow Bob Bob used car salesman you wrote about this episode somewhere and I don't even think I knew you yet oh yeah you can actually that post is still up I wrote in August of 2010 it's called animation

showcase Homer goes to college it's on dead Homer society yeah and it was which is a website Chris loves by the way I don't have anything against I know you just didn't like zombie I just I just don't like a making a sport out of complaining about this oh yeah well i mean i kind of got tired of that stick and great season how dare they no no offense to the zombie simpsons author if they're listening but my biggest issue with it which i did think he made a good argument that the author did until i got to the point where like then season nine is where it really fell apart like starting with the weird uh episode of the world trade center and then this and then he tried to blame it on mike scully i was like no see yeah boop you if you're gonna actually try

to blame it on the showrunner you need to pick the right showrunner in retrospect mike scully was an all-too-convenient scapegoat for a lot of the problems happening with the show i put it more on ian maxton graham yeah a little bit he problems happening with the show. I put it more on Ian Maxton Graham than him anyway. Yeah, a little bit. He seemed to be the most spiteful and willing to just toss it all into the fire. But yeah, like kill Maude Flanders for no good reason. I've always loved this episode. Written by Conan O'Brien, I believe.

Is he the credit writer? Written by Conan O'Brien, directed by Jim Reardon. Jim Reardon. This is an all-time classic, a start of a new era for The Simpsons. Yeah, I guess so. We talked a lot about last episode. There's still not a lot of episodes like thispsons. Yeah, I guess so. That's what we talked a lot about last episode. There's still not a lot of episodes like this.

The animated flourishes I always notice, but you wrote an article pointing them out. Like how many... Simpsons doesn't do smears and squash and stretches. And crazy off-model poses that are very expressive. Yeah, I feel like this is the most animated episode next to this year's Halloween special, which will happen in a few episodes. If you go to that blog post, it's still up. Read it. I took so many screen caps off my DVD.

Frankie, I do not exist. Just of all of the extreme poses, all of these great key frames of characters that I'm sure made Matt Groening's head spin because he did not care for that. I mean, it's not a twister mouth, and it's not someone from an odd perspective. It's just the movement. They pop between these odd poses. Not odd, I would say more extreme than we're used to. But it looks good and I wish every episode looked like this.

Me too. Yes, there you go. Like you said, Disney, Squatch, and Stretch. Homer especially is made out of jelly. I think it's most of him running down the sewers. Running down the hallway, yeah. The sewer, yeah. That was amazing. Or turning in his paper. It down the hallway, yeah. That was amazing.

Or turning in his paper. It's just a beautiful flourish. Yes. The little dance, like, kicking his heels and, like, skipping away. Yeah, just so many nice little touches. It looks almost like a different show or, like, how a movie would have looked if it were made in 1993. It's more, it's better animated than the Simpsons movie, which looks better than the show at the time it was airing. Which Reardon and Rich Moore, all the major dudes worked on it, but they still were stuck in more of

the rules of The Simpsons by 2007 than they were now. Why did this seem to break so many rules? Just because this is the first episode of the new... I also think it was... Well, it's actually production-wise it is the second episode of New Generation, but it is the first one of the real fifth season we're talking about.

I do wonder if Reardon had more freedom because of the change in management yeah i wonder if reardon went rogue or graining was busy or just maybe they decided to experiment i don't know the rules yeah and he could break the rules that david merkin didn't know about and by season six they're more in order i feel like because i think he got to know better of Like, no, no, no, I asked you to draw this, or I asked you to draw this. Redo this. Maybe Algene and Mike Reese knew what Groening's buttons were and what would push them, and Merkin didn't

as much at this point. So, David Merkin, let's talk about it. One final thing. We are finally free from the tyranny of awful DVD menus. If you're watching the DVDs, you click a button, it goes to the episode. And the animations, you can watch them. They're all very well done.

They're like little Easter eggy things. You can poke on things in the background and the animations will play. And they don't make you watch them to do it. It's so much better. And it actually looks like animation from the show, not this cheapo flash crap they were shoving in our faces in season four.

I just want to say, I don't think anyone's watching these DVDs, but they were the first good DVD menus. Well, they finally started putting a real budget into the menus which is good because you know simpsons simpsons and family guy were the first real big hits of dvd television oh yeah family guy came back i think because of dvd yeah the dvd and futurama as well like those were those are the big hits that did it and and the simpsons and chapelle show that was another of the big hits of the early 2000s.

The DVDs people would buy before streaming was everything and you wouldn't need this for nothing. It's how people ended up discovering HBO programming for the most part. To me, they invented the phrase, which doesn't matter at all anymore, the complete blank season. That's right. They would always label it as complete.

And that became something everybody did. And I would see them in Suncoast, Sopranos, the complete first season for maybe $200 or something. They started out at $89 to $100. Yeah, they were pretty expensive. I mean, I did that myself. I didn't see the first season of Sopranos. And I think that might have been the first time I heard,

a new season of this show is coming. Catch up and rent these DVDs from Blockbuster. Oh, man, that was awful because Netflix had their own exclusive HBO DVD sussing. Yeah. So you'd get like an episode. Like, this disc has one episode of The Wire because we're here to punish Netflix. But all right, I want to talk about David Merkin. Oh, let's do it.

Yeah, let's get into it. Homer goes to college. We're back. We touched on it a little bit in our interview with Bill Oakley, that him and Josh Weinstein were two of the four writers that were left over between seasons and when everybody else left. David Merkin was hired to take over the series. He had never worked in animation before, but he has quite a resume, if I may go through it real quick. So, David Merkin is long time comedy writer and then grew

into being a director one of his first shows was three's company that's how old he is yeah see he even talks about on one commentary that he had a cat he had a cat that lived to be 20 that he adopted from being on there was an episode with cats on 3's company, and he's like, well, I'll take home one of these cats. I think the cat's name was TC. It was TC. We watch the commentaries a lot. I feel like those fans talking to William Shatner in that classic SNL sketch.

Ah, do you remember? The Hordes actually had a bit full now. But anyway, so he worked on those sitcoms into the 80s when sitcoms were getting weirder and different. He was on the vanguard of those shows. He worked on the Gary Shandling. It's the Gary Shandling show, which also Gene and Reese worked on.

I just found out Gene and Reese wrote the series finale of that show. Oh, wow. Though the Shandling show went purposely absurd, went out of order. It had its real final episode, two episodes before its last episode and at the end of the final episode then they say no no gary you owe us three more and so the real last episode that didn't function as the last episode was written by al jean and mike reese i need to get around to watching that so dave merkin worked on that he then worked on the tracy ullman show made a friendship with james l brooks oh then he That's how you get places, baby.

Before Shandling, though, he got really big working on Newhart, the second Bob Newhart show, which is a crazy bonker show. You can see the absurdity, the dream sequences, the satire of television, all that stuff that Merkin is known for is right there in his season's Newhart. That had the infamous series finale, correct? It did have another crazy series finale. What happened in that? Bob newhart had two sitcoms right and at the conclusion of a second sitcom he woke up and realized he was in his still in his first he was a dream sequence

and then his entire series was a dream yeah so david merkin loves screw you audience jokes we should say that right off the bat and so then after he finished the time with tracy holman gary shandling said i want to do a show that parodies talk shows i want to do the larry sanders show and he wanted to co-create it uh with merkin but he merkin didn't want to be that involved with it so he just helped write in the first season and came back to direct the final episode that is is such if you haven't heard 30 2010 hear me exalt larry Sanders' show is so great. So great.

But his big moment came in 1990. The show he made instead of the Larry Sanders show was Get a Life. Wow. Yes. Get a Life, a two-season wonder, a million years ahead of its time. He created it with Chris Elliott and Adam Resnick. As the story goes, he had the idea for Get a Life, which is Dennis the Menace, except he is a 30-year-old

man-child who won't leave home and who thinks reality is television. Yeah, and I think having worked, it's sort of like John Chris Feluci worked on a lot of terrible animated shows, and he wanted to get his revenge with Ren and Stimpy. I think this was him getting his revenge on working on bad sitcoms like First Company. Like, I want to subvert the sitcom, I want to

say fuck you to the sitcom. And this is the anti-sitcom. And it gets darker and darker each episode. He repeatedly dies in the second season at the end of every episode. Like, okay, South Park, good idea. Get a life. Did it seven years before you. There's an episode where he goes to New York and they don't bother to hide that I'm just walking in front of a green screen.

It's not just a green screen. It's vintage footage of a city from the 40s. It's been so long since I've watched that episode. It's so good. I remember I got in trouble because I went to school and I quoted a line from it like, oh, you must be one of those filthy prostitutes. Slit me a Mickey and my teacher

was very upset with me. Am I the only one who has a blame Chris Elliott as a kid story? It really leaned hard into Chris Elliott being a just weirdo that you're just like, why am I looking at you? Chris Elliott really embraces that.

His performance on that show is amazing. There are some elements of the show that don't hold up. There is this shrewish woman character that is just there for the men to yell at. And I feel like that's an element that is of its time. But the zany Chris Elliott adventures where he's just a detached lunatic whose life is informed by television is the key to what makes a show great, I think. Yeah.

I did not know Merkin was a woman. Yeah. Well, Elliott and Resnick were the more famous pair of it. Elliott, the star, and Adam Resnick, who worked with him, a ton of stuff, who when the show ended in the second season, Elliot and Resnick split off from Merkin, and they went to make Cabin Boy, which everyone loves. Classic. It was supposed to be a Tim Burton movie, and poor Adam Resnick was kind of forced into directing it. Can you do Tim Burton movies? Yes.

Not even Tim Burton can do Tim Burton movies now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was unfairlyly hated people were looking at Chris Elliott like why is this guy in a movie I am outraged there's moments that I love that movie I love I had the poster in my room forever yes the immortal line these pipes are clean after would you like

to buy a monkey and and now re-watching I re-watched a couple episodes of Get a Life before this episode and re-watching it makes me realize that Eagle Heart is is so connected to it like you gotta watch eagle heart if you're listening season three is the biggest craziest mind fuck i can't believe they made it is honestly i could call it the best thing that's ever been on adults when i would go that far yeah it is the first two so it began so here's the similarities to get a Life. It was underwatched, starred Chris Elliott, and mocked television.

And it started as a parody of Walker Treks the Stranger. By the fourth episode, it grew to something bigger than that ever could be. And the third season is a ten-chapter long arc that tells an entire story that makes sense but also makes no fucking yeah i mean the character in that eagleheart whatever his name is i forget is it actually okay his name is chris he's chris peterson but he kills people yeah in that series he's the same character and also produced by conan o'brien yeah yeah so back so back to murky after the oh also the second season of get a life was it was the comedy nerd show, a proto-comedy nerd show. Oh, dear God.

And it got Bob Odenkirk and Charlie Kaufman as writers on it, among others. Of Anomalisa fame. So following that, David Merkin tries to make a sitcom on NBC with his then-girlfriend Julie Brown, the white Julie Brown. Oh, that's why she was on the first episode of Get a Life. Yeah. I didn't know they were married? Or dating. I don't think he's ever been married. Of Earth Girls or Easy fame? I'm in love with Julie Brown still. And so then he

makes a sketch show with her on Fox called The Edge. The Edge is a strange, bizarre, I like to think of it as in living color for white people. But, I mean, it has a diverse cast yes including lots of women and and but it has i think more than one tie over and this makes it real weird from the pbs sketch comedy show square one wow so like the people i grew up to taught me math were then in 90s fox edgy sketch is. As well as Tom Kenny and Jill Talley from Mr. Show, Wayne Knight.

Jennifer Aniston is in a sketch comedy show before Friends, and this is it. And also Bill Plimpton animation separates every sketch. It's the connector. Yeah, when a sketch ends, when the sketch ends, it turns into Bill Plimpton animation,

then it morphs into a cartoon, and then it morphs back into the next sketch. It's like a Tracy Ulman-y show thing. If I can find this on, I'll put it on Lasertime TV. you can find it at laser time podcast.tv dot com slash live just so you know we've been playing critic and duck man and a bunch of old cartoons they're and streaming live i had not watched it when it was new i've dug up a few there's very few poor vhs copies on youtube that's pretty much it. I did watch it. I watched one that was a sketch about designing women, which is so specifically to mock a

late season designing women. And she's a giant at the end. They kicked Delta Burke off the show, and it's making fun of that they kicked Delta Burke off the show. Prove that I watched it! Over the credits, yeah. And it ends with her being Godzilla-sized and eating the cast because Delta Burke is that fat. But she seems so happy. In retrospect, because Delta Burke is that fat.

But she seems so happy. In retrospect, she's not really that fat. No! She was just fat for TV, I guess. Yeah, she was fat TV. I'm fatter than she is. We're all fat. Not Bob.

I wanted TV ugly, not ugly ugly. But on the show, he had one sketch that made fun of the fact that Tori Spelling got to be on a show her father created, and that's the only reason she had a job. Aaron Spelling talked to the Fox Network and was not happy

at all about that. And coincidentally the budget got really slashed hard on the edge and its 18th and final episode was a best of clip show. Wow, they made 18. Damn. How do you make a best of of a sketch comedy show?

So that ends, and then he gets hired by James L. Brooks, his old co-worker at Allman, to work on The Simpsons and take over the show, rebuild it. Famously, we talked about on the episode, the Bigger Brother episode, that was the episode James L. Brooks showed Merkin and said, we don't want another one like this. Like, this is too crazy. Which, honestly, when you think of this episode, that was the episode James O. Brooks showed Merkin and said, we don't want another one like this. Like, this is too crazy. Which, honestly, when you think of this episode,

you're like, I don't think he listened. Like, is that crazy? Jim Brooks was doing other things after this. He was kind of off the show. And to skip ahead with Merkin, he would then go on to, his big thing after this was directing the film adaptation of

Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, which was created by Lisa Kudrow, who he'd known from the L.A. comedy scene, and he directed that film. Romy and Michelle... Romy and Michelle were characters created by Lisa Kudrow and her writing partner,

who was the original in Second City. And so they were characters. They didn't make that film, but they adapted their characters into a film. Got it. Their material, yeah. Their material into a film. And that's what Merkin did with them. And Merkin has worked on other things, but he's honestly, he's in his 60s now.

Yeah. He would talk about that in the 2000s he would just fly. He would just come in a couple days a week to just help rewriting episodes of The Simpsons and be like the joke sounding board. And he worked on the movie as well yeah so that's murky but if i may say something about murkin yes i love this show so that's two-thirds of the show from two years ago we're just getting into it but okay so the here's how i would talk about david murkin the person is that he is related to he is involved in a million things i have loved like i loved new heart as a kid and it's it's hell it's all really well it's gary shanley show

larry sanders show get a life the simpsons romeo and michelle like it but he's always the guy with the person you like and yeah and i'm also gonna say oh i don't want to make the chrysanthesa of television no but that he's he's always involved in these things and then not i don't think other than gary shandling i don't think any of them worked with him again like i and i think that's telling it's especially so that my example for this other than hearing from bill oakley who did have nice things to say about bill uh dave merett but when he came on that there were clashes with everybody we'll really talk about it then at home in deep space homer oh for sure yeah but that they had clashes with him and that he is a kind of a controlling guy it sounded like which hey he's running the simpsons it sounds like

he's one of those cutthroat old hollywood guys who goes in and gets a show done. But so the thing that says to me that he might not be the best dude or to work with at least is that Adam Resnick and Chris Elliott talk around him in interviews about Get a Life. They never mention him. Yes. The only time they mention him is when they say they don't work with him. Pretty much. They ask like, hey, why is he on the commentaries and you're not? And they make it clear like it was either we do it,

we do it without him or he does it without us. We don't do it. Yeah, and in the Simpsons oral history book, there's a story about how the writer, the new writer for seasons five and six, Bob Cushel, was basically ghosted at work

because he kind of called Merkin out on something. I can tell that story when we get to the episode. It's about the critic episode. There was a lot of discussion about that. Merkin wanted it to happen. A lot of writers didn't. And it was pretty heated.

And something happened. And Bob kind of didn't get to write anything after that. And then they ran out of contracts. So, yeah. But so, and I would define Merkin as a man who both is enthralled by and loathes television. Exactly, yeah. define merkin as a man who both is enthralled by and loathes television exactly he loves television and working in it but he hates that he loves it and wants to punish it for it he really hates censors and feeling censored by television and i think the trademark of his jokes is disrupting your expectations completely even if it disappoints you even if it's like that's that sucks like that

that's such a bad payoff like the joke is that he did it and that you're watching it. And that you can't make him do a better joke. We try and bring you back to this era all the time, though, but this era of four channels that are all playing the same garbage. And it's inescapable, but you watch every second of it. It's why I yell at everyone, like, New season of Fuller House. You don't actually like that show.

You don't. It was just the oxygen that was piped in your eyeballs. It was better than the three other things you could have watched it was never good and you spent 10 years enduring it and so imagine being slightly older and that's all the world was like this is what they're giving me i'll watch it i can't stand it and as i said to bill oakley in our interview which by the way this is our first one we recorded after the interview chronologically, but as I asked him in the interview, I do I define the Merkin era Homer as the indestructible

crazy person. That's true. We see a lot of that in this episode, actually. Especially in this episode, and that's not what Oakley and Weinstein were into, and you can get a real feel on their commentaries. They're like, we didn't want Homer to be this. We're dialing this back a bit. They mention in their season 7 commentaries, they're we didn't want homer to be this or we yeah they mentioned we're dialing this back a bit they mentioned in their season seven commentaries are like we don't want to be homer walking down the street with a ray gun yeah it's like it's pretty close in this episode pretty much yeah so that's my thoughts on dave merkin i but but all

that all that negativity i said his seasons five and six are my two favorite seasons yeah i would say i uh if you listen to the commentaries, he's a very dominant force. And you could tell he is very dominant in season five. I feel like six is better because he gets to ease off a bit. And Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein's style sort of creep into the show more because a showrunner gets more tired in their second year. That's how it used to work. Happened to them, too. Yes, exactly.

And I feel like the mix of him and them is the perfect show and that's why I love Six so much. That is a better balance. Yeah, well we'll see how I feel by the end of season six in a year. But, so okay. This is also an end of an era that it is Conan O'Brien's final episode, which the commentary sucks because it's just about Conan.

It's what all the Conan commentaries are. He like Skypes in and they only just talk about, they share Conan stories, Skypes in, and they only just talk about... They share Conan stories, which are nice, but they're almost never about the episode. But he quit the show. He quit Simpsons for his show during the making of this episode,

and so all they do is talk about how Conan quit. That's also why it's a real star-fucker commentary, because James L. Brooks actually shows up. Yes. He'd be like, hey, Conan. No, like, that sounded really mean. But it is like Brooks doesn't show up to many commentaries. Yeah, he doesn't really.

But how did he quit? He left. I guess there was an agreement. He got the offer and he said, whatever, I'll be like, I have to do this. And I don't care what I have to pay to get out of the contract. I believe he had to pay a six-figure amount. I thought it was NBC who had to give Fox $200,000. He had to pay it.

Yeah, Conan was talking about it as if it was his money that he was losing. Who knows? Maybe NBC gave him a bonus to cover that. Yeah, I mean, he's made it back a thousandfold by now. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. So one last thing before we start the show. Sorry. We see a ton of new writers in the credits.

I just want to give them all a shout out. There's Bob Cushell, Jonathan Collierier bill canterbury and greg daniels along with like frank mula bill oakley and josh weinstein and the soon-to-be-gone conan o'brien so there's a bunch of new hires and we'll see their episodes soon yeah wow he who knew he would be the one like the most prolific person yeah like after the simpsons he really is so many shows he's created that have been successes only one that really created a lot of successful co-creator and king of the hill yeah with mike judge he's like he's like you're the sitcom guy go teach mike judge how to make a real sitcom and then adapted the office parks and rec yeah yeah and i believe if you watch conan

you see a mug on his desk that was given to conan by great and i think that is why they got daniels too or that might have been his in being friends with Conan. Also, he's a Harvard grad so that means you get in. The Harvard mafia strikes again. That's also what I do like

about Merkin. He's not a Harvard guy. Yeah. All these Harvard guys and then in comes this like, nah, I'm a veteran of sitcoms. I'm working Hollywood. Give me a sitcom.

This was originally intended to be the season premiere. They pushed for it and then they're like, no, we want it to be Rosebud instead. And then they got vetoed for Beatles. They're like, no, no, no. The Beatles episode is the season premiere. Which you can understand.

But this really does feel like a first episode because you want to kick off with a crazy situation that should... Well, going to college, it's something that you can't do again. And what I like is they took the idea they wasted in the front, Homer going back to school, and they make they deliver on it. Homer going back to school in the front was two scenes really, and they were okay. This is an entire episode really, and they make the most of it.

The Simpsons will be right back. 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 hope you're well rested because if you're not,

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ends this week i just know it um and i well it's not that it's i don't i just feel like i don't want to talk right now i don't want to do this at all. The out-hole's the in-hole. The in-hole's the out-hole. Yeah. Spit-roasted by politics. Normally I... Yeah, I'm going to get rotisserie-ed by the right and left this week, I feel. Get bonus time, Laser Time's weekly, full-length, uncensored, and ad-free Patreon-exclusive

podcast, as well as weekly full-length movie commentaries, wrestling and cartoon video commentaries, physical rewards, the first season of talking simpson and more at patreon.com slash laser time starting at just five bucks you'll help us live and we'll do our best to help you never be bored again we rarely talk about couch gags, but it starts with a Monty Python foot squish couch gag. Yeah, perfectly appropriate. Which he, Merkin, is a huge Python fan and also the Knights Who Say Ne'er reference in this episode. This is the first pop cultural acknowledgement I remember hearing of Monty Python. I feel like it too, that I saw.

And I would not see it until maybe 15 years later, because PBS did not show that. They showed things like Red Dwarf and other things. I never saw that until much later. I think Comedy Central aired it every damn day, right before the timeless Benny Hill hour. Oh, God. I did see a lot of Benny Hill, unfortunately. But this is basically how the episode kicks off. Let's hear a clip.

Yes. A minute 30. Let's do it. The safety inspectors show up unexpectedly to the nuclear power plant. The watchdog of public safety. Is there any lower form of life? Don't worry, sir. I rounded up our last gifted employees

and led them into the basement. Uh, Homer, why are we down here? Oh, jeez. I told you, Bernie, to guard the bee, But why? You guys are pathetic. No wonder Smithers made me head bee guy. It's cutting away. Oh, we did bad.

I'm very tempted to give the unnamed guy, we did bad. I do that all the time. I get bad. It's funny. We see two reused ideas. One is from two cars in every garage, three eyes on every fish, inspecting the plant. And this is just like Skinner trapping the bullies and Bart in the basement. You're right. Yeah, with a trick. This is all that makes me, with the front, makes me mix and match all these things in my memory. Yeah, but I think they do more with the idea.

They make it more cartoonish, more silly. We start with the plants being sleepy and like everybody's stupider. There's some bits I see in this plant and also in Rosebud, the next episode, that are just like, I remember in the Christmas episode that it's just a business. It's a business with a boss who isn't nice. And Homer would not have a giant plant destruct button in front of him at his console they're all preschoolers at nap time like that's how that's how goofy it's gotten and a dog helps him a sleepy hound and i love and i love it and i gotta give it to the animation team that i bet in the script it didn't say make these the same testers as in the front

yeah or sorry in blinky but they did and i don't think it was also they have the same continuity when they go to the guidance counselor that is it's not the same voice but it is the same design of guidance counselors in the way we was to be fair i think it's a bit of not laziness but practicality it's like we need inspectors let's go to the model sheets do we have them let's pull them yeah instead of creating new characters with new you know turnarounds and whatever sending them to legal to make sure they can't be stolen by Family Guy. You are right. That is...

It's more... It's just laziness. It's not care about... I wouldn't call it laziness. It's just like... But that thing that like move on to the jokes. Yeah, yeah. You don't need to be new characters.

Yeah. The box, the box. Wait, I'll get to that because this should have been the show. Yeah. The beep in my bottom. No, my bottom's big. So more crazy animation, right? Yeah, the pictures you took of that are like how weirdly Homer swings his ass around.

He emerges from that thing like a full-on cartoon character. Just popping between these really extreme poses. It's really great. Well, and his eyes are huge. It reminds me, too, of how he looked in homer the heretic the first production one of last season of just that he's yeah another reardon one like homer is fatter he's happier he's goofier he's rubberier and and the biba by bot so this is how dumb he is and this is the episode not in even rosebud the next episode but in this episode he, he is Chris Peterson of Get a Life.

Like, these are all things, Get a Life of, like, just refusing to admit reality and failing at everything to such an extreme it kills people. Yes, that he melts down a simulation of a nuclear power plant. Not just being stupid, but stupid and dangerous, potentially lethal to other people. Supernatural stupid powers. Yeah. And Homer comes out as Bill Bixby's The Hulk, which I think the references in this episode also shows you how they've reshuffled the deck

that Gene and Reese had their specific things they liked to reference, and it kind of trickled down to what the other writers would do. Now, Merkin, he has a similar context he goes to references from, but slightly different. And he'll come at it from different angles. You're right. These do feel a little more modern. You've moved into the late 70s, 80s, especially the next few episodes. It's about how much they hate Johnny Carson.

So many Carson jokes. But I love this scene. Burns is given a mandate to bring everything up to code. Oh, I love this. Oh, yeah. It felt like the first true Star Wars reference they ever had when we went into the escape pod. Well, yeah. I was thinking of Spaceballs, but yeah.

I'm sorry. The escape pod... I'm a fraud. The escape pod, isn't it like Apollo footage that they're... I mean, I guess the launching of it looked more like Apollo footage. No, I had the same note. The door was the escape pod from Star Wars. Yeah, it's the Star Wars escape pod, but it looks like the space shuttle separating. That is true. I think it's the same note. The door was the escape pod from Star Wars. Yeah, it's the Star Wars escape pod, but it looks like the space shuttle separating.

That is true. I think it's the same footage. But Homer's not the only one who's indestructible because Burn should have died from that fall too, and he doesn't. Again, I don't know if you said this, Henry, but the show is also much meaner. Oh, yes. That is another thing of Merkin. He is a mean guy. The show is much crueler to characters.

In this episode the dean will get to it but dear god that man suffers he suffers at the hands of an insane man yeah burns his bribery goes a lot smoother in this one than it did in the blinky episode i'm still not sure how he caused the meltdown there wasn't any nuclear material in the truck very well it's time for your bribe now you can either have the washer and dryer where the lovely Smithers is standing, or you can trade it all in for what's in this box. The box. The box. Look, Burns, this is a big problem.

You just can't throw money at it and make it go away. Gentlemen, I've decided there will be no investigation. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go away. You're in big trouble, Burns. Homer Simpson's job requires college training in nuclear physics. Now you get your man up to speed, or we'll be forced to take legal action. Is that so? Well, I have the feeling you'll be dropping the charges.

The painter's moved your desk, sir. Oh, yes. He's trying to murder him. I love Burns so much. He would successfully kill Lenny later in the season. Yes, that's right's trying to murder him. I love Burns so much. He would successfully kill Lenny later in the season. Yes, that's right. With that trapdoor. Merkin loves that trapdoor, man.

They should just fire Homer, and I think it's the union that's keeping him from losing his job. That could be the unspoken thing. I don't know if it's the union. It's just like having to be in too many HR offices. If you hire a person who's not qualified, sometimes that is on you as an employer, especially if that person has been there 10 years. I thought it was President Ford's fault. Thank you, President Ford. Project Bootstrap.

Project Bootstrap. And the box-to-box is a reference to the 70s game show Let's Make a Deal. I knew that, but I still want to think of it as a UHF reference. Stupid! Stupid! I'd have to. That's our second

UHF reference on Talking Simpsons, by the way. Wow! At least. Bro Maps! I'm sorry. I think of that line

all the time. Homer must go to college. So you want me to go to college? College? Ha! Barber or clown? Bart!

Remember, your job and the future of your family hinges on your successful completion of Nuclear Physics 101. Oh, and one more thing. You must find the jade monkey before the next full moon. Actually, sir, we found the jade monkey. It was in your glove compartment. In the roadmaps and ice scraper? They were in there, too, sir, we found the jade monkey. It was in your glove compartment. In the roadmaps and ice scraper? They were in there too, sir. Excellent.

It's all falling into place. They love Burns so much. Conan. These first two season five production episodes are so Burns heavy. I mean, especially Rosebud, of course, but this one too. So as far as I know, there's never been an episode where Homer becomes a barber, but within a year he does go to college, and he's just in a barber shop.

That's true. I make it a count. I mean, that jade monkey, I looked at it on the wiki, they say it's specifically a Maltese falcon reference, I guess it is, but I mean, that's just a MacGuffin. The jade monkey is a MacGuffin in a million things. Yeah, it feels like it's a noir MacGuffin,

or whatever. Somebody smuggled something. An old man wanting a valuable item. So we get a flashback to Homer applying to college. That's when we see the way he was. Guidance counselor, but not the same voice. So I think that was just a reused character model. Or they just forgot who did what. And Homer being distracted by a ham

or a squirrel this is like that's again really stupid as as troy mcclure would be asked in the 138th episode spectacular he does get dumber every season and this is this is the dumbest he's been in this episode especially also the way homer homer writes. He holds a pencil differently in the next episode. In this one, he holds it like a child who doesn't know, just in a whole fist. You know what? Let's look at Chopstick. I did notice that.

I think it's just someone didn't know how to draw or just fucked up and couldn't fix it, but he's holding the pencil with his pinky instead of his index finger, between his index finger and middle finger. So I think whoever was drawing that just kind of fucked up and they couldn't correct it i just thought it was meant to make him look even dumber it does make him look a lot dumber so it could have been on purpose but it's like

that's not how you hold a pencil but homer writing his thing like writing it out also just made me feel weird like oh you're you with a pencil you write out a college application what i thought was weird is including a photo which i feel like you you would never do today that's just grounds for discrimination because they can see, oh, that's a person I don't want here. But Homer had read the book Sniglets. Yes. Yeah, don't let these application essays throw you. Let's see. List your three favorite books and how they've influenced your life.

Is TV Guide a book? No. Son of Sniglet? No. Katherine Hepburn's Me? No. Oh, I suck. It was the most I ever threw up, and it changed my life forever.

You're the man, Homer. Thanks, boy. On all these episodes, just Bart encouraging Homer to do horrible things. It's nice. He's me. Again, Bart is being me. Showing how dumb Homer has gotten, that throw-up line is very much a Ralph line. It is. Just about not having worms anymore. That picture is so good.

The picture of him just eating the entire cake. And his eyes are red from the flash. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Like, where you like, because nowadays you have to ask someone to take the picture and like, watch me eat this whole cake. How did this work out?

There's a big story behind that picture. I feel like he was caught in the middle of eating it. But it's not even on a table. It's holding. He's lifting a cake. When there was the, I saw a funny use of that image of Homer laying on the floor writing it when it was Donald Trump saying, I'm writing my inauguration address. And then they have a picture of Homer in the most average.

At least Homer's not holding an upside down cap Sharpie at his hotel concierge. Anyway, I'm going to get in trouble. So two of those books he read son of Sniglet's not actually a book. As far as I can tell, there was never a actual collection of Sniglet's called son of Sniglet's. There were many of like more Sniglet's. Oh, they were a real thing. Oh, yeah. Like one of those coffee table books or whatever.

You just flip through. So Sniglet's are a cute word combination to make up. They're called Sniglets, words that aren't in the dictionary but should be. They were actually invented by, well, invented, but popularized by comedian Rich Hall on not necessarily the news, the HBO monthly news parody. Yes, and I have a clip of that if you want to hear what a Sniglet is. Oh, boy. We should hear up to one that's actually a real word. So these are all portmanteaus, which is combining two words together.

No, they're sniglets, Bob. They're not portmanteaus. I'm going to say some of them are portmanteaus. Some of them are just onomatopoeia. Grit is anything that's sat in the same position for at least 50 years. Like those bottles of hair tonic you always find in barber shops. A yankle is any person who combs his hair over his bald spot thinking nobody will notice. Here we go.

A combination spoon-fork device you find at fast food restaurants is known as a spork. Holy shit! This man is furballing. Furballing is the act of having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or a bank, even when you're the only person in line. I think we're good. These are examples of Sniglets. Yes, exactly. They were books. So they were so popular on the show that they then put those jokes into a book

and then wrote more of them. And they sold enough to make like, there are like eight Sniglet books. There's a lot of them. Did Coder work on that too? I don't think so. Maybe. I do think some Simpsons staffers did work on that. I found it funny how people laugh at the idea of a spork, but that's actually what you call it.

It's what you call it. And there's a lot of jokes about the spork on The Critic. I'll spork your ass. They do love the spork on there. How jokes about the spork on the critic. I'll spork your ass. They do love the spork on there. How useful is the spork? So, Katharine Hepburn's Me, meanwhile, is her autobiography that came out in 1991, so it is new when Homer is talking about this. And it is famously bad. Oh, really? Okay.

In the way that, like, oh, you obviously did write this, Katharine Hepburn. You should have hired a ghostwriter, but you didn't. I assume the joke was, why would Homer read this? It's just a nod choice. Like how he knows about Supreme Court justices. I wouldn't have predicted it was a recently popular book. At least according to reviews I read online of just like, this is one of those so bad it's good books. So here's a couple lines I found online from it.

You won't do anything else if you decide that you are going to resurrect and rearrange a human being. All right. And I'm like the Statue of Liberty to a lot of people. Ew. Comma, colon, is there more to that? No, that's the end of the sentence. Okay. I thought there'd be a funny explanation for that.

I hold up a torch. When I think of that voice, I only think of the Dana Carvey joke of like, I'll strap on this Oscar and do you. That's absolutely it. May John Lovitz throw up at a parking lot. Whoa.

It's according to his comedies. But here, I don't know. I don't know how much of this I even want to play. But I didn't even put it together until you said it. Since all the old writers are out and we're going

through all these references like it is getting into a much younger reference base. It really is and this is the last appearance of Corey who was given a last name Corey Masterson. Yeah who is playing Corey in the movie. Yes and he is a combination of Corey Feldman and Corey Haim which were popular late 80s

teen heartthrobs maybe going to the early 90s which were a combination of Tiger Beat and Teen Vogue. Exactly. So yeah, Conan said it was his idea to make it Homer thinks that college sex robs are real life. Yes, or like an Animal House type film. Yeah. But that's, but this is, like, this is, to me

Animal House is late 70s, but like, this is a very 80s trope. This is Revenge of the Nerds. It really is. It's more that. And so as a reference, I'd seen the source material from for the first time. So I already love The Simpsons, so here's where I start loving it even more because I'm getting everything.

And as you said, Chris, every sex comedy is rapey as hell. Rapey, rapey, rapey. The 80s rape genre? Yeah. You know when the hero dresses up like Darth Vader and rapes somebody? That's a great funny movie, guys.

Animal House is tainted too. Oh, yeah. If you think it's weird, Universal proudly presents the 25th anniversary of Animal House. It didn't matter to people. The sexual politics were different. They weren't right, but they were different.

Yeah, but I love the movie Dean. Finally, the great taste of Worcestershire sauce in a soft drink. By the way, how does Bart look, sir? Steaky. Sorry, son, but there's a program about campus life that I really should watch. We now return to School of Hard Knockers, starring Corey Masterson. Dean Bitterman, I hope nothing unsavory happens during my visit.

As you know, I am the President of the United States. Oh, don't worry. I've expelled those rowdy members of Chuggalug House. Oh, I hate that lousy members of Chuggalug House. Oh, I hate that lousy dean. Chuggalug House. So, yeah. Chuggalug House. A very Chris Peterson from Get a Life thing.

Being informed by TV, bad TV, about what reality is. And then Homer is just so invested in it. Yeah, but also just, like, very on the nose and suggest a hatred for these types of things. Which are not, like not necessarily unpopular yet. I don't know. Ski School was just two years ago. If you're a comedy writer, you know they're the worst. Though, honestly, I would watch Ski School 2 before a date movie or epic movie or any of those.

At least in those, those are R-rated so you can get some titillation. You're not getting any of that in those movie movies. No, I mean, more movies. Just movie, Dean. Your bra bomb better work, nerdlinger. Corey? Don't worry, Mr. President. I...

Mr. President! Lighten up, Bitterman. That youngster will make a perfect addition to my cabinet. Secretary of Partying Down! Brr! Yes! Take that, Bitterman! I was surprised they kept the Corey voice.

They got it right. It's Hank Azaria, as we heard in the earlier call-in, the Corey hotline. Corey, Montessori, Allegory. Homer doesn't even get how silly it is his name is Bitterman. Take that, Bitterman! And I'll give it to the designers, too, that they did

a great design of the president that gets cast in those movies. A person you look at and you're not distinct in any way. I don't know why you'd be elected, but you're just like Cesar Romero type. I think part of the joke is, as you know, I am the president. It's also

very hacky writing, but they want to establish that within the movie as well. And there have been worse cabinet picks. Again, I'm going to stop. Oh boy. But I'm going to give this one. When Homer doesn't get into college. I'm giving this my line of the show. That's the joke. It's the first time I love this heightens Burns' weakness.

Oh, yeah. In every single episode. And it starts right here. I love every second of this bit. Burns trying to intimidate the board of the college to accept Homer. I'm sorry, Mr. Burns, but I must object. This Simpson is not qualified. I see. Well, you know,

fellas, I look at the admissions board a lot like a baseball team. You all like baseball, don't you? Yes, well, to have a successful baseball club, you need teamwork. Not some hot dog admissions officer playing by his own rules.

Excuse me, what are you doing? I'm giving you the beating of your life. Look, if... Stop that. If you want to do that badly, why didn't you just say so? Smithers, dismember the corpse and send his widow a corsage. So Burns is pretty much like I murdered this guy Burns is pretty sure he killed him

it's like in the past that maybe worked for Burns maybe in the 40s I don't know Burns has murdered people and he's cool with that I love his chair at the college to get Homer into it the Doberman chain to it so this is a reference I have a clip

here now this is a reference to a very specific scene from The Untouchables, which is a movie I felt like everybody referenced in the 90s and nobody ever talks about now. Especially The Simpsons, for real, yeah. Everybody was in The Untouchables, which is a remake of the L.A. and S. TV show that starred Robert Stack. But there's been a million films about L.A. and S. who took on Al Capone in the roaring 20s

Robert De Niro in a small role as Al Capone Robert De Niro at like fat and bald as Al Capone and so this is Al Capone, Robert De Niro talking to his group of guys Oh man is that Dirty Grandpa himself? It is Dirty Grandpa What is he?

You follow me? No one. Sunny day, stands are full of fans. What does he have to say? I'm going out there for myself. But I get nowhere unless the team wins. Team. Team.

Team. Team. Team. Jesus Christ. Dude, I forgot. That's what happens when a game is straight. All about this scene. I had no idea.

I don't know how you dug this out of your brain, Henry. Everything I read about this episode did not mention this at all. This Untouchables reference. Yeah. It's so direct. Yeah. But again, no one remembers this movie. No one does.

Or talks about it. Well, I don't know. The opening to Making Gun 33 and a Third is a parody of this movie, which was an homage to Battleship Potemkin. Right. But that was 1992. Jesus Christ. But also in this film,

everyone remembers the very racist line, just like a wop to bring a knife to a gunfight. And Chris protested. They wouldn't be a town. And also, Sean Connery is really good at it. And he also has the line of like, they send one of yours to the hospital,

we send one of theirs to the morgue we send one of theirs to the mall. That line has survived in pop culture. Maybe not, you know, people don't remember the source, but I've heard that line before. It's not even that great a film. And like Kevin Costner is like just walking through it. As always, Kevin Costner is not good at it. He's the wallpaper of his own movies. But it's a Brian De Palma film, and it's one of his better ones.

But De Palma's a great director. I'd watch Blowout before that, before Untouchables. But Untouchables, fine little film. I forgot all about it. I'd watch Blowout before that, before Untouchables, but Untouchables, fine little film. I forgot all about it. I'm learning so much from Talking Simpsons. Well, you're about to.

I want to give this show money. I love it when we dip into meme territory, because this, like, this is one of those things I see, like, embedded in comments everywhere. You correct somebody

or say, actually, and you get hit with a line from this scene. Nerd! Hmm, that isn't very nice. Marge, try to understand. There are two kinds of college students,

jocks and nerds. As a jock, it is my duty to give nerds a hard time. Hey, pal, did you get a load of the nerd? Pardon me? Love that. That's like the opening of 21 Jump Street. They try and go back to high school and engage with all their old, like, yeah, fuck you, fag.

And, like, I'm openly gay. I'm the most popular guy in school. I see this. Yeah, I like that wake-up call. Like, a jock doesn't care about a nerd what are you talking about this doesn't exist here i do like how homer is immediately met with reality but refuses to acknowledge it like the second he steps in the college it's someone is there to show him this is not right the thing you believe is not true but he

keeps believing it the guy who said hey jock said pardon me yes he never lets it go and then homer thinks he's a jock he thinks he's he's a jock i can't it's i guess if homer thinks that there are two types of people in the world then he's that one if he's a jock yeah he's not he can't be a nerd because he's not smart i i have i have a couple clips i had to just want to touch upon because this is to let you know it's revenge of the laser time about no let me hear that again there's ogre telling you nerds but like if you want to be a real hipster simpsons fuck if you want to embed the nerd clip you need you need oh i love to use the spanish one yes it's so funny great rolling r It's great Spanish Homer

Humberto Velez It's great to know nerd in Spanish is the same as nerd in English I guess it's just English slang It's borrowed English slang And I think for some reason the DVDs are really good to show you what Simpsons the Simpsons sound like around the world

I love watching it as an anime freak I love watching it in Japanese It's freak, I love watching it in Japanese. It's so amazing. But I think someone found that clip because for some reason, Simpsons is pretty litigious when you upload something to YouTube. But somebody uploaded a bunch of Simpsons stuff in Spanish, and it's mostly from this episode. If it's not in English, it's usually in Spanish on there.

Though I've seen ones with Russians talking right over it. So, yeah, I have another. If you wanted to hear more of this episode in Spanish on there. Though I've seen ones with Russians talking right over it. So yeah, I have another. If you wanted to hear more of this episode in Spanish. We'll get to that in a moment. That actor's really bringing it. Totally. I like it. I thought he just died.

There is a linked video with Marge and just gigantic hooters. What's even happening? I don't know. The Spanish version is crazy. I guess that's the episode where she got breast implants. Let's not talk about that. I guess we'll have to. That didn't happen.

I will quit the show before we get to that one. The same season she got to be buff-marked on steroids. They're really playing into the Marge fetish in season 15. Yes, excuse my F-word drop. I'm just trying to be authentic. But subverting Homer's expectations of what college life is like. It's weird. Homer has a flask.

Did you notice that? I'm not used to him. He drinks beer. He doesn't have a flask. I've been given three great flasks, and I can't, like, I bring liquor every, I just drink it in the same bottle. I don't care. Also like, where are you going to, you drink at home, you don't go places. You'd have to leave your

house, Chris. That's out of the judgy. I'm saying that for all of us. But this, and only because like, I just I feel like it's Conan. I've always wanted to spit something into a rag. I've never had that opportunity. I do like that, yeah. Attention everyone, the punch has been spiked.

Don't worry. Your parents have been called and will be here to pick you up shortly. Yay! Marge, someone squeezed all the life

out of these kids. And unless movies and TV have lied to me, it's a crusty, bitter old Dean. Hi there. Hello, I'm Dean Peterson. You can call me Bobby.

I just want you to know if you ever feel stressed out from studying or whatever, I'm always up for but you can call me Bobby. I just want you to know if you ever feel stressed out from studying or whatever, I'm always up for some hacky sack. Or hey, if you just want to come by and jam, I used to be the bass player for the Pretenders. Boy, I can't wait to take some of the starch out of that stuffed shirt. This episode has a lot of ADR lines, but I'm always up for some hacky sack.

Sounded like it was recorded in a different room. It really did. Further away from the microphone or something. It's so off. Yeah. I think my knee-jerk reaction was like, if you want to talk and rap for a second. But they really made it a point to make the Dean really cool. He's not just faking it to be.

He's like an actual cool, nice guy who is very forgiving, we learn later in the episode. So I did a little research on bassists and the pretenders. Thank you, Henry. I did not do this. So when he says he's a bassist from the pretenders, he cannot be the original bassist, Peter Fardon, because he was a British... Peter Fardon.

Fardon. And that he was a British drug addict who died in 1983. The band broke up briefly. So not Bobby Peterson. That's not who he is. But then the band reunited later in the 80s and they had multiple bassists, including Smith's member, Johnny Marr,

was briefly a bassist. What is a famous Pretenders song? I'm drawing a blank. Back on the Chain. Oh, okay. I'll stand by you. Wow. I love that the Pretenders are so great.

Their music holds up real well Despite living my entire life Hearing it and it being completely innocuous They also have a great Christmas song Like 10,000 miles There's 10,000 miles Chrissy Hynde, the greatest I love her

I can't not think of that line from the Peaches song Like, fuck the pain away The Peaches song Check like, fuck the pain away, the Peaches song. I'm just like, check out my Chrissy behind, it's fine all of the time. What else are then the Teaches of Peaches? Yeah, Florence and the Machine sounds like a new Pretenders. But so the Dean might be the 85 to 87 bassist is Malcolm Foster. That's the one he's most like.

But him being that they had a kind of revolving door of bassists to replace that guy. It's something that pretenders go through as many bass players as Hogwarts goes to the defense of the dark arts teacher. Am I right? Somebody promote me. I don't read children's literature. Stop it. Watch children's movies.

I will do that. I guess Pete Fardon would be oh crap I can't remember the name of the first one from the book. From Philosopher's... Sorcerer's Stone? It's okay. I'm here. It's the localization ruined it. You did not read it in England. Stop censoring my stones.

And the line we played previously in Spanish, it kind of is one of my favorite moments in the show. I love Simpsons characters laughing too hard. Yes. Laughing at themselves. Good morning and welcome to Nuclear Physics 101. I see a lot of new faces but I know the old saying

out with the old in with the nucleus. Now we'll begin by... Oops. Did you see that jerk? by... Oops. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Did you see that jerk? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! And drop this nose! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Now, if anyone would like to stay, I'm going to hold a comprehensive review session after every class. Do we have to? No. Then kiss my curvy butt goodbye. I don't know. It's a little touch, but the idea that Homer's always shot from the teacher's perspective.

Oh, yeah. Always just way in the back of the room. It's a nice choice. It really accentuates everyone else just not moving, sitting still, and he's just in the back laughing. It's really great, yeah. It did scare me at the idea of what college was of like this overwhelming class like oh is this what college is gonna be like for me fortunately i just went to community colleges and state schools and so i never had to

see any of this both and i got kicked out of one i went to a lousy state school youngstown state university by the way i'm in it's my uh i have a bachelor's in english from there but it was a mix of smaller knees uh we're the fighting penguins but But it was a mix of smaller... We're the fighting penguins. But it was a mix of smaller classes and the general rec classes were the huge auditoriums with 200 students and just one tiny professor showing things on PowerPoint. And that it was real in that it was boring. And I think that's the thing Merkin really is into too. He will have very arched satire characters and then sometimes he will put the arched character into reality. And it's just them bouncing off of like, no, this is just a boring teacher talking about notes. Well, I think also Oakley and Weinstein love that.

Boring reality mixing with crazy sitcom stuff is what they love to do. I can't believe it's taken us an hour to get to it. Well, then Homer almost kills everybody, and so he needs to get new tutors yes and his tutors are in room 222 which is a reference to james oh do you have no no no i just i i sort of like that's from room 22 but i don't understand the relation that's a spin-off of love american style yeah room 222 is one of those pilots on love american style i got a real show yeah executive produced by James L. Brooks. Okay.

And I was like, well, I must not have heard of it because it only ran for a season. It ran for five seasons, but we just don't know it. Like, it never re-ran. It never syndicated. I'll say it's not a good reference. It's one they made because they could. It's just, let's have a room number. What's a room number we can use?

That's kind of funny. It's a reference to something. It's a wink to their boss. Yeah, it is. But so the nerds. The nerds, baby. Yes. Hiya, King.

Intruder alert. Intruder alert. Stop the humanite. Look, I'm supposed to get a physics tutor. Well, you come to the right place, then. There's one thing we know. It is science. And math.

And the worst every mighty python routine we are the knights who say there's a lot to talk about here really it really is this would be seen later in a market episode but like this was kind of the moment for me of like, I'm a nerd. So am I. I am especially Doug, Doug the heavier one of the three, particularly him in the Poochie episode. I'm like, I hope somebody was fired for that blunder. Yeah, I want to break them down really quick because only one is named.

So Gary is the black nerd. He's actually Rich Moore's design, but painted brown. If you watch the end of March versus the monorail, you see Rich Moore going over the escalator to nowhere, but he's white. They just recolored him because, again, they needed to make a new character design and they didn't want to have to draw a whole new character. And Jim Reardon says Rich Moore makes fun of him all the time for that. Yes. So that's Gary. And he has really screwed up teeth, but this is digging so deep.

If you watch the Critic special features, you see Rich Moore with braces. So whenever those features are being filmed, Rich Moore fixed his teeth. After seeing it drawn in a cartoon, he's like, alright, I'll fix it. He has terrible teeth as a caricature. So Gary is the black nerd. Benjamin is the nerd with red hair,

voiced by Dan Castaneda. And Doug is the heavier nerd in the sweater, voiced by Hank Azaria yeah because I knew I was on the internet early I knew the Monty Python reference I just thought it was

a good reference to I don't know people it did not connect with me like I'm a nerd when I saw this I mean I'm still really cool

we are those three guys we said it earlier we are them I mean watching this I'm like the Monty Python nerds of 93 are the Simpsons nerds of 2017. We're worse, actually. We're much, much worse.

We worked for a British... They did not have a podcast. We worked for a British company for a while. And he asked about Monty Python quotes. Because in England, that's deep nerd shit. Oh, really? Public Monty Python quotes is like dressing up as a Star Trek

character according to him. That's when I realized that it wasn't that appreciated by mainstream British people was in the office when if you remember they did the trivia night thing and it was Brenton Finch the guy who's worse than

Brenton Finch, the guy who's worse than Brent. Old Finchie. Old Finchie. Their team is the dead parrots, and then they annoyingly do the dead parrots catch-two. It seems to be. But this did teach me, like, I should probably watch Monty Python. I love it.

The secret, I would memorize every line from the Holy Grail. I really did i watched holy grail a lot it was a life of brian man well life of brian was hard to see all the time on comedy central yeah you know when i about four years later i really got in life of brian and that is the best monty python film but then when you watch the when you watch the series you the family guy had this joke, and they are right. There are five sketches that you remember, and then there's a whole lot you

forget for good reason. That are them, almost in a Dave Merkin way of just like, we're wasting time on television. Can you believe it? We're not going to give you anything. So basically like Wonder Shows and Patience episode. It's more to me like I love for a hot second Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker's Guide.

Then realizing like silliness for silliness' sake can't sustain 7,000 pages. I got burned out after the second Hitchhiker's Book. Yeah, it's like none of this is all meaningless. And you're not like I think satire with no point or purpose. Yeah, there are no rules. Nothing matters. You hate all these characters. You're being forced to write these at this point but this does capture nerds so well that it is just like we say

references to each other that is the existence of a nerd yeah and they're also like sexless losers they're not they're not cool yeah and they're not and their arc isn't about them getting sex and they're always on computers they're always typing away which is cutting edge then yeah it really was nerds always looked at computers their intro their first words are a reference to an arcade classic i have a clip of it that's berserk but they get the quote wrong are you nerdier than the i'm nerdier than the simpsons nerds one-year-old Simpsons nerds? I have to be. I host Wreck-It-Nuts. The humanoid intruder alert. The humanoid intruder alert. Wow.

I have not played Berserk in a while. It's a 1980 arcade game, rather. How have you? And I have to imagine the writers were like, we don't have access to this. There's no YouTube. We remember this talking. So the nerds say intruder alerts stop the humanoid. Actually, the quote from the game is the humanoid must not escape and attack the humanoid. They don't say what the nerds say intruder alerts stop the humanoid. Actually, the quote from the game is the humanoid must not escape and attack the humanoid.

They don't say what the nerds say in the game, at least from the footage I watched. You are out-nerding the nerd stereotypes. I host retronauts. I host retronauts. I have to get this right. Bob's job. Fuck you, three nerds. Yes, I always say, like, no, I'm a fan of research.

Well, I'm not a nerd. I just spend all my nights reading about it. Speaking of out-nerding people, I think Bob has another funny story to this one. I do. We played Dungeons and Dragons for three hours. Then I was slain by an elf. Listen to yourself, man. You're hanging with nerds.

You take that back! Homer plays. These boys sound very nice, but they're clearly nerds. Really? But nerds are my mortal enemy. Dad, nerds are nothing to fear. In fact, they've done some pretty memorable things? But nerds are my mortal enemy. Dad, nerds are nothing to fear. In fact, they've done some pretty memorable things. Some nerds of note include popcorn magnate Orville Redenbacher, rock star David Byrne, and Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Oh, not Souter! So we have more strange Supreme Court knowledge from Homer. Yeah, David Souter was a then very recent uh appointee to the supreme court he was appointed by hw bush and many expected him to be conservative the whole point of appointing a supreme court justice which is why he should be really fucking scared right now oh for sure is that you try to get the most extreme person to whatever side of the political spectrum the president is and get them in there so then for 30 years they can fuck up everything in one way or the other only death can check their power so that's what

he thought that's what hw thought suitor was going to be turned out suitor was more of a swinging judge who would actually go more left than not but still a nerd and when and he was a nerd he i'd say him more he's more of a dweeb and he would he actually is one of the rare non-death leaves he just retired yeah i think in 2009 2009 replaced by soda mayor all right okay cool so 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.

So I was watching this with my girlfriend who is a true nerd, not like me. I only play video games. I'm trash. She plays Dungeons & Dragons every week almost. And the joke is three hours is a long time to play D&D. That's not true. My girlfriend, when she plays, it's like a six to seven hour session. So she was like, sit three hours, whatever, dude.

You can pick up over multiple nights. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a continuing campaign, but only three hours for D&D is not dnd is not a regular dnd session no way yeah it's an all-day thing you bring all your bags of cheetos to the table and you when i play tabletop role-playing games the best times of it we're playing at we had a friend who had a friend at denny's who ran the denny's they're like we have the private room where you guys can just have just have it all night long from like 10 to 6 in the morning. And if you give us like a $30 tip, we'll refill your drinks all night. Wow.

All the coffee and French silk pie you can eat. So good. That's the champagne room of Denny's, right? Yes. The D&D and the pancake room. You don't realize it's your salad days until they're over, man. I have to give a shout out to Freaks and Geeks and I love its

Dungeons and Dragons episode where Franco realizes the same thing and just leans into it. I love it. I love that episode. And does that make him cool? Them cool

or him a nerd? Which does it do? And obviously, oh, I also did love the animation. I just caught it this time that Homer, when Homer says

you take that back, he has a knife in his hand. He's holding a knife in a Bart. And Bart's reaction is just like, hey, whoa! Yeah, and when he pulls the knife away, Bart rubs his neck, like, oh my god, he almost stabbed me in the neck. That was so extreme. Yeah.

Again, Chris Peterson, that's who Homer is. Just like an unpredictable, insane man who has no idea what reality is. Oh my god, I want to skip around here. But they eventually... You know that the nerds have a Devo poster? I really like that. It was very accurate.

And so Homer, instead of doing the studying he's supposed to do, he then realizes, well, at this point in a college film, I have to have a prank, right? He pulled a big prank. And it happens in every fucking college movie. It really does. My favorite, Real Genius. Real Genius.

The popcorn one or when he tells them not to masturbate? No, no, no. The icy hallway. Oh, the icy hallway. Oh, is he smarting me? Can he do this? What? Love Real Genius.

And that soundtrack is amazing. But they end up landing on the pig prank, which I only mention. This sucks. This is 1993. In 1993, in 1995, little Chris antista was starting a punk rock band with him and his angry white friends uh and were you mad about chris uh no one understood us it was all about how everybody like how even people you look you think are cool will sell you out seriously that's what every song was about and then my pitch was to make the band called dirty

as fuck with like an umlaut over the u and no c awful please don't hate me more than i already do but the logo was the pig that bark drew abner yeah that was the on the on the chalkboard on the chalkboard that was the logo for the band where did abner come from that's a green acre oh okay for the first band ever i ever formed the insignia was from this episode interesting not really but it was an anecdote Where did Abner come from? That's a green anchor. Oh, okay. For the first band I ever formed, the insignia was from this episode. Interesting. Not really, but it was an anecdote.

I think he's better than... It counts as a podcast. He's better than Spider Pig. Yeah. But they devise a big old piggy prank to steal the mascot of the rival college. The only other college in 50 miles is Springfield A&M, so they're our best target.

Those bastards. Meet Sir Oinksalot, the beloved mascot of Springfield A&M. Those bastards. Gentlemen, I propose we kidnap Sir Oinks-a-Lot. And then we roll him up in a carpet and throw him off a bridge. What? And that Bart scratching the chalkboard before that, that was another, like, I mean, it's not even worth saying. It's a Jaws reference style. We should all recognize that, but that's what Flynn does.

Quint. There's an earlier scene in this episode. We can't cover everything, but I want to cover this. And that Homer is living the stereotypical college student from 1993 lifestyle where he's in his room with the posters of Einstein sticking his tongue out. By the way, there's an amazing Mr. Show sketch about that from the new seasons. One of the best ones ever. Yes. So good. And also W.C. Fields.

And there's one more. But I feel like the modern one, the one I grew up in, was like maybe Scarface or Fight Club. Scarface, John Belushi, Khalid. The two lesbian girls kissing, the poster called The Kiss. And maybe the naked girls with like the things painted on their backs. It's a bunch of naked women. It's the naked backs and it's all the covers of the Pink Floyd albums. Oh, okay, yeah. As somebody who frequented Spencer's Gifts a lot because my friends worked there.

I know all those ones. Yeah, it was the Belushi black and white with college on it. His college shirt. Or, yeah, the two lesbians kissing in black and white. I never saw an Einstein or W.C. Fields in a dorm room in the early 2000s. The third poster of Homer's was the red shoes. It was the ballet. Oh, you're right.

Yeah, yeah. To show how far we've come, that Mr. Show Joke was real dated. Or the Rick, Bob, and David one. Because I never saw that in a dorm room. I saw that in professors' offices. Ah, yeah. And in college classrooms. That's where it evolved to.

I mean, it was a sketch written by a 50-year-old. It was. Oh, I forgot about that. They're old. But hey, it still was a pretty, there were maybe some bits that weren't funny, but it was a pretty good season. I thought it was a great show. And so now we get our first of three in a row of richard m nixon he would be dead in april like this is october he'll be dead in april wait he's not dead he just wrote an article for red book they're really

rolling the dice that doesn't count not the real guy they're really rolling the dice on nixon living to airing of this episode and the three in in a row, again, three in a row. And Groening hates Nixon. I mean, Nixon was a villain on Futurama for a reason. For a reason. But I think it's too, Merkin is into it too. Oh, for sure, yeah. There were a couple of Nixon jokes in the pre-Merkin years,

including like, I also like that particular beer. He's never drank enough in his life. But Nixon really gets it in these three episodes. I love this. Especially Halloween. But yes, the prank discovered. I loved every second of this. Hey, the pig's acting kind of funny.

Me and Mr. Simpson split a case of malt liquor. Guys, he's really sick. Hello? That sounds like a pig fainting. I'm sorry, boys. I've, I've never expelled anyone before,

but that pig had some powerful friends. Oh, you'll pay. Don't think you won't pay. Uh, the, the, I think in the perfect version of David Merkin's world that the pig would have died,

but I think he was like, you can't kill the pig for sure it's too it's too much of a bummer to kill the pig and that yeah that nixon gets them expelled the dean that's they had to create that too because the dean is too nice he wouldn't have expelled them for the pig yeah he's even very apologetic in expelling them he's like i've never done this before i'm my hands are tied i'm sorry and the pig biting Homer is such amazing yeah like a great smear

and like just extreme these giant shark teeth on the pig yeah his face looks ferocious for like two frames of animation it's been five hours

since I talked about it but please go back to that blog post I mentioned I freeze frame my way through a lot of the great scenes and show you

what makes the animation great and then they meet the wallet inspector that is one of my favorite outro lines of any scene ever where Homer goes the great scenes and show you what makes the animation great. And then they meet the wallet inspector. The wallet inspector. That is one of my favorite outro lines of any scene ever, where Homer goes, like, that's not the wallet inspector.

Meaning that he thinks he's met the real wallet inspector. Yes. Somebody has ripped him off. But it's also cranking up the absurdity of jokes that we have throughout the rest of the season. Even Snake can't believe that lame line. I have to point this out because this is I don't know, I love how dated it is. Homer has already called a dean from a payphone.

Yes. And the nerds have moved into the Simpsons' house. I gotta do this. Marge, they don't have anywhere to stay. And they're geniuses. They'll solve all our problems. They'll elevate us to the status of kings on earth. Mr. Simpson, we all have noseble'll elevate us to the status of kings on Earth. Mr. Simpson, we all have nosebleeds.

Now for the love of... But the early Internet. Let's date this by explaining the Internet on the show. What's wrong with this phone? It's making crazy noises. Those crazy noises are computer signals. Yeah, some guys at MIT are sending us reasons why Captain Picard is better than Captain Kirk. It's making crazy noises. Those crazy noises are computer signals. Yeah. Some guys at MIT are sending us reasons why Captain Picard is better than Captain Kirk.

They're out of their minds. Come on. You're not happy the definition of nerd has evolved beyond that? I like Captain Kirk. I understand that. I was going to say, in about a month, they would be arguing between Joel and Mike on MST3K. Yeah. True. This year, yeah.

Mitchell's very close. That is the Flaymore I know from early internet, not Picard versus Kirk. I wanted a big, dirty thing here where, hello, that would have cut them off of the internet if Marge would have picked up the phone. That's true. Maybe they're working on their responses. Marge, come on! I just didn't realize how short-lived, in the scheme of the whole internet, how short-lived the dial-up modem was. Maybe a decade.

Maybe a decade. In terms of worldwide middle-class internet access. I mean, it disappeared right when the internet really became mainstream, when cable got more into it and Ethernet and all that. I remember watching this episode, like, they're going to make a nerd joke before the internet the internet's already there you go the internet is in the episode the first instance of the internet on the simpsons and then oakley i mean as we got from our interview with oakley they were online they are they're making fun of specific people they're meeting in the message boards and which in and when you imagine what the nerds are doing know that it's all text.

All hard-to-read text in like 400 pixels. And there are no pictures or probably even colors. And they're posting to newsgroups. Bulletin boards yelling about which is the best Kids in the Hall sketch. Who's better, Joel or Mike? I read all TV Simpsons for about a decade. I was there, man. And if you wanted porn, you had to read it.

Because you weren't going to be pictures. Not a thing. I never believed this would have happened to me. So, that Itchy and Scratchy... That's such a great joke. And this is another of the things that dates where they are in this era. The idea that you could never see something again. But that's

what it was. I feel like children need to hear this explained to them. Do you think so? Yeah. They don't understand the concept. Oh, I've heard about this. This is the one where Scratchy finally gets itchy. Wow. My purpose in life is to witness this moment.

We need the outlet for our rock tumbler. Plug it in! Plug it in! What? The rock tumbler or the TV? The TV! The TV! The TV! Wow! They'll never let us show that again! Not in a million years! Come on, that did happen in this era yeah i know my friend and i have the martin lawrence snl monologue from a few months later that is gone it is gone forever

unless you have it on vhs i mean i remember this clear as a bell because i've seen every simpson episode on its first airing up until like i don't know season 20 or something like that but the one i missed was itchy and scratchy land and it totally burned me i i felt regret my entire life like i missed the first run and i had to wait until that summer to watch it yeah i when i think of things i couldn't see again as a kid it was i got to see half of the commercial where the tricks rabbit finally got to eat Trix. But it was like, they will never show it again. Because it was just the winner of a... It was the end of a contest, so it's not going to stay in circulation for a long time. And it's a dumb commercial.

Why do I care? I'm not stating superiority, but I love that we're stopgaps. We remember the close of Woolworths and the start of Amazon. We're not true millennials. We're frauds. Yeah, we remember TV shows disappearing forever and we're also very adept on YouTube.

I love that. But that does ruin it now of just like, oh yeah, they just watch it on YouTube or they find it somewhere. There's no lost episode of anything anymore. That's how they sold things. Mr somewhere and there's no lost episode of anything anymore. That's how they sold things. Mr. Show again had their lost episode joking about how

there were always lost episodes of TV shows. There was the lost episode of Star Trek they'd never rerun or the lost episode of The Honeymooners. Which is like a fucking

half a season. Exactly. All these lost episodes but nothing is lost now and that itchy scratch. Except some Doctor Who. they're pretty lost. But that Mr., that Merkin, it felt like such a Merkin-y thing of, they'll never let us show that again.

But stating it so clearly, you'll never see this again. Talking to the actual viewer of The Simpsons 2, probably wanted to see that as well. I could be Bob quoting here, but both the animation and the kids. Oh, yeah, yeah. How Krusty burst from a curtain 20 feet back into the camp, full face in the camera. Wow! It's some of the most animated you'll ever see.

Yeah, shooting up at the kids with their tongues darting out of their mouths and that great animation cycle. It's so good, yeah. And even the bad animation in this episode is actually some of my favorite. Homer holding the... Everybody else can keep Homer in the big hat with with it my favorite worst homer drawing is him holding that toast and just like going through four mouth movements it's like and we could all live together peacefully yes march i feel that like that was a mistake and they probably could have fixed it if they had the money but homer in the hat was an intentional drawing made to be goofy. That seems like just an odd error.

The pupils are in the wrong place. I think there's like a cell that moved too much or something. And it just looks so bad. I wonder if it looked even worse and they're just like, we have three good mouth movements. Just rewrite a line. It could have been that, yeah. We're going to cycle through it. I wouldn't be surprised. But I love how bad it is.

They got to get rid of the nerds. They got to get back into school. Why does it have to be zany? I love that line. I was going to say that. Why does it have to be zany i love that line i was gonna say that why does it have to be zany like really good yeah just uh just someone questioning homer finally just talking to homer like what are you talking about elaborate or well played yeah it doesn't need to be zany but and it's not zany it's it's a murder plot because i love it it ends up with a dean being run over by a car. It's so mean of Ogrim. It's the worst thing Ogrim's done to this point.

This is not a prank. This is attempted murder. Well, Dean, I'm really sorry for the running you over prank. Prank? And all those other pranks were my idea, too. I'm the one who should be expelled. Well, I'm touched by your honesty. And who knows?

Perhaps I've been a bit of an ogre myself. Yes, you have. How's this? I'll readmit your friends and we'll forget this whole silly incident ever occurred. Oh, Dean, this is what your new hip is going to look like. You're going to have to go

easy on it. So, welcome to the meanness of the Merkin era. It's a lot of fun, but it is kind of mean. Dean's life has been destroyed by Homer. I mean, I've known people with hip replacements. It sucks. He'll be in constant pain the rest of his life.

Yeah, I mean, their lives... It's good you can replace a hip, but it's not a great life after that, I know from experience. My mom is a robot, like, below the labia. Oh, boy. Barely get around. Was your mom? Okay, never mind. Don't want to get into it.

But Homer's reply after that, just like, well, we wrapped up everything fine. That, to me, is the meanest of the Simpsons writing from here on out. Like, we don't care if we give you an ending or not. Yeah. Well, that seemed them joking on. In another sitcom, they would have said, who cares that Homer ending or not yeah well that was that seemed them joking on in another sitcom they would have said who cares that homer graduated or not we told a different story and now the episode's over and then they're like no the point like then they just smash you in the face like no the point of

this was for him to graduate college and he had marge is sort of like the sitcom ending police here yeah you know uh he's trying to be coy about it she's like do you mean you hacked your grades with a computer well that's i i love the i I love the montage of him studying because it's meaningless. He fails because he's a fucking idiot. The cram doesn't work. And again, we must mention the test turning in animation of him jauntily slapping it down and skipping away. And fucking his heels like Archie, which I can't quote anymore because Riverdale exists. And Archie's too busy fucking his teacher.

And Archie fucks now. Also, Homer's punch of the Gary. Yeah. Me. Pretty savage. Which, wasn't that a joke when they're training Krusty and he's slapping his cheek? That's the same joke. Yeah, the exact same joke.

Yeah, reusing Jack. Come on, guys. Season five. Get it together. Pull his arm afterwards. But yeah, so then basically Marge says, no, you're not allowed to have this mean of an ending. She's pretty much the fun police in this. I like her.

Marge gets a better turn at the end of the next episode wrapping it up. For sure. In this one, she basically has to say, no, no, no, no fun. Here we go. Man, I can't believe you failed. Oh, I'm going to lose my job just because I'm dangerously unqualified. Mr. Simpson, there is a way. We could, well, use a computer to change your grade.

Computers can do that? Oh, yes. The only problem is the moral dilemma it raises, which requires... Mora was a... Great reading. An A+. How did you do it? Oh, let's just say I had help from a little magic box.

You changed your grade with a computer? Way to go, Dad. Look, the important thing is that we all learned a lesson. These guys learned the richness and variety of the world outside college. No, we didn't. Oh, then I learned the real value of college is to study and work hard. No, you didn't. You only passed your course by cheating, which you always taught us was wrong.

Hmm. Oh, God. Changing your grades was a computer thing. Yeah. I grew up with computers and hack-rars. I don't know anybody who's ever done that. Well, the college would first have to put your grades in a computer. Yeah.

But it's a trope that's been around since fucking Ferris Bueller's day off. It was. That's true. I don't know how he did it. You know someone doesn't know about computers when they make a joke about changing your grades. Yes. But it's still a thing they're guilty of up to this day. Computers are magic, right?

They just are magic and do what you want oh sorry we saw this kind of ending in Blood Feud where it's like we're not learning anything we're just going to end the show I feel like Merkin would amp this up a lot because he hates learning in shows he hates you know morals and lessons he loves just

ending with no one learning anything and that's how this show ends yeah so technically Homer learned something and goes back to college and that's how the show ends yeah so technically homer learned something he goes back to college but that's just an excuse to have a animal house montage yeah and we assume he passes but he could just hack his grades again and didn't tell march i guess i mean in the frank grimes episode i think that's established he is a college graduate yeah even though he's still as stupid as ever i didn't want to call it out but the idea that he has to pass one class in college and not college.

Oh, yeah, that's right. It's even a college course. Basically the intro course to his job. Can you imagine being able to go to college for one class for one semester and be able to be qualified for another better job? God. I wish I could find – maybe I should search more on the DVDs. I want to find those credits without the text because all those images are perfect. They're great drawings.

Because they are clearly drawings. Some of them surpass what you would have seen animated. They had more time to spend on one drawing. It just made me wish, why don't more shows just close out with things in the credits that never happened? More anime shows.

They do. Boy, I think this is now our new longest episode ever yeah maybe almost yeah we'll get to it I think this will be it so that was an incredible start to the season

we needed half an hour to explain David Merkin I love this episode quite a lot it's technically the season premiere even though next episode is I think the only thing that hurts it episode is i think that the only thing that hurts it for me is just that i think homer is just too mean like it's so funny but for the character of homer who i feel has a continuity between episodes this is a homer that is too cruel but that's the only negative i'd say i love homer at this at this at this setting i'm fine

with it i love it they will dial him back a bit, but he is, as you said, Hank, the indestructible idiot in seasons five and six, really. Pretty much, yeah. But also that this defined nerd culture, in the realest way I'd seen it in TV to that point, because if you were a nerd

and you see Revenge of the Nerds, you're like, no, you're clowns. These guys are just losers. They don't have... They clowns like these guys are just losers they don't have they're not funny they're just they don't even seem particularly good at school which is the kind of nerd I was I read a lot but I don't get good grades and Saved by the Bell had no idea

what nerds were they were basically I feel like I don't think this is controversial but I feel like there was some just like making fun of people with Asperger's or autism or something when you watch a little Saved by the bells, like these are like special needs people and they should be not mixing with the jocks and Zack Morris who will destroy them. Yeah, they're not

smart. They're just weirdos and screech the weirdest of them all. And that guy who talked like this. Oh, yeah. He had serious throat issues that should have been resolved. But yes, this has been Talking Simpsons. I'm ending on a joke based on a horrible character no one remembers, so I'm sorry

about that. But you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I will do the froggy Saved by the Bell impression, you know, on demand for you. And you can find me also on my other podcast, Retronauts. It's a classic gaming podcast that airs every Monday at retronauts.com. Please check it out. I also write for fandom.com and

somethingawful.com. Everybody else, what do you do? H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter is my account and you can find all my thoughts there. I also write for fandom.com alongside Bob. Literally alongside me. Right next to you. Adjacent even. We aren't sick

of each other yet. Also, I do, still do a lot of stuff at laser time including this but this wouldn't be possible were it not for patreon.com slash laser time which is home to a bunch of great stuff including exclusive simpsons content like the entire first season and the season's wrap-ups of two three and four that four that just went live and we did a ton of cool stuff on there that pays for this show like Bob and I

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you can give there is really helpful and just for $5 a month you get access to hundreds of hours of extra stuff of us talking yes helps us live

all that stuff because this show and the entire network is brought to you by people like Margaret H and other fine folks oh thank you who sponsor us at patreon.com slash later time remember an uncut exclusive show every week almost 100 comment full-length movie commentaries video commentaries if you're an animation fan i try to show bob some of it the danger mouse drinking game danger mouse is trash well you try and drink every time the animators weasel

out of drawing a mouth moving it's you will get hammered in 11 minutes trust me it'll work it'll work it's up there patreon.com slash laser time they made those 30 drawings work chris i gotta say we we got a bunch of fun shows we recently did our oscar show hopefully moonlight has won everything um hope so and we we introduced a dumb little experiment called Laser Time TV. You can find it at lasertimepodcast.com slash live right above our show schedules.

But at 7 o'clock every night, why not watch the episode of Duckman or the Critic? Mystery Science Theater 3000 every night at 10, 12 o'clock, Tales from the Crypt. Movies in between

and good ones right now as we're recording Who Framed Roger Rabbit is playing. I don't know how much longer we're going to be able to get away with this but it's a bunch of free content

that's ad free and fun and you can chat underneath I see we're hosting some new content on there a video series I really enjoy Cartoons 101

those are great videos by the way I've watched them several times by a fan of Lazer Time Matthew J he's now integrated he's part of the Lazer Time gang

that's great to hear up there on LazerTimePodcast.com He's now integrated. He's part of the Lazer Time gang. That's great to hear. He'll be up there on LazerTimePodcast.com, I think, every Friday. Matt, you can kick me in the dick if I'm incorrect. But so much great stuff we got out there, guys. Look for it all. And also, if you're new to the show, listen to that Bill Oakley

podcast. We are so proud of it. It was amazing. What a great guy. i would love i would love to do it again at the end of the next season yeah i hope we can yeah so thanks so much for listening we'll be back next week with rosebud the citizen kane parody see you then Wow. Infotainment.