Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer The Great

Episode Date: October 18, 2017

We hold back the electric car AND make Steve Gutenberg a star in this week's podcast. Homer joins the Stonecutters and then becomes the Chosen One in an all-time great episode full of paddling swollen asses. Attach your Stone of Triumph and listen along with special guest, Kat Bailey!

This week's episode of Talking Simpsons is brought to you by you. That's right, we're on Patreon now, so head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons. For as little as $5 a month, you can help our show and get all kinds of great extra content on top of that. We've got a ton of great bonus content waiting for you right now, so head on over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons today. I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, a crappy club for jerks. I'm your host, Bob Steinhoist Mackey, and this is the Lazer Time Podcast Network's chronological exploration of The Simpsons. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert, and those egg cancel creeps got to me, too.

Who else? Sacred Parchment, Chris Santista. And special guest... I'm Cat Bailey, and after five years, I still think I'm a chicken. I'm a chicken, Bob. I know, Cat, I know. Yes, so Cat is back after popular demand, and today's episode is Homer the Great. There's a secret meeting place. Yes.

Let's go inside. Sounds good. And today's episode aired on January 8th, 1995, the first episode of 1995. And as always, Chris will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh, my God. 1995, and as always, Chris will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god! Oh boy, Bobby! Take out those dicks, because Tech War debuts on USA. Dumb and Dumber tops the box office,

Michael Jackson puts to bed allegations of illicit sexual activities with children by appearing on TV alone, and there are officially over 6 million people on the line, with an internet connection. Almost all of them in Simpsons message boards alt.tv.simpsons that's right we're gonna get big into simpsons message boards in this episode oh for sure yeah and i mean my catholic school kept tech war from me so i never

learned about it i don't know about you guys gotta learn about tech war sometimes i meant to write a better intro i don't know why i said the thing about the dicks but shatner did not actually write tech war right it was just a name to paste on a book. I love to cat for this. Yes, come on, cat. You know William Shatner had many books ghostwritten for him, including numerous Star Trek novels. He had an entire arc of Star Trek novels in which he comes back to life.

Right. Wasn't he like a ghost in Spock's brain or something? He wasn't a ghost. He gets revived by an alliance between the Borg and the Romulans in a book called The Return. As a spirit? No, no. He literally gets brought back to life with nanites or something like that.

So they dug him up from that pile of rocks he got dug. That was a terrible way for his character to go out. I would apologize but this will probably not be the last time we talk about Star Trek on this episode. Well, the internet is for nerds talking about Star Trek, but I'm getting ahead of ourselves. I didn't use it for that.

I used it for The Simpsons. I did, but only six million people were online in 1995. Including myself. They were all college students, I bet. Probably. The children of college students. And if you look at, like, well, who's responsible for this internet? Well, AOL's pretty big, but Prodigy and CompuServe are nipping at their heels.

I'm like, wow. Tech War, I only watched, only watched the Tech War TV show like one episode of it. And I also remember on the John Henson talk soup, he interviewed him about Tech War once. But not really. It was a great joke about John Henson's interview show. And then it was a typo. Instead of starring, it was staring at John Henson's interview show and then it was a typo instead of starring it was staring at John

Henson and then he is just staring silently at Kirk the entire time. Was it a Space Ghost thing or was Shatner really there? They were in the same room. I'm sorry I brought up Tech War. It's a two season show on the USA Network but I only did it because it'll help you get a Simpsons reference

later on. Yes. I get that confused, actually. What was the Kevin Sorbo show? Kevin Sorbo's Andromeda? Unbelievable. Hercules, The Legend Continues? Well, no.

I meant the Star Trek-adjacent Kevin Sorbo show. That was Andromeda. Now he stars in direct-to-DVD Jesus movies. So that's how his career has turned out. Him and Dean Cain. That's where they all end up. The super hunks are now on DVD.

I think I saw him complaining about SJWs online, too. He would, he would. Get old enough, everyone does. So is William Shatner. Yes.

Oh, God. So today's episode is Homer the Great, and this is all about the stonecutters, which kind of have a real-life corollary. The Freemasons.

Oh, that's who you're pinning it on? Definitely. A mason is a stonecutter. it on definitely mason is a stone cutter yes but i i i dug very lightly into the skull and bones organization it's a little skull yeah i mean bush is in the episode of course but it's really just so the the masons were one of the first modern trade unions and they had a lot of like you know oaths and creeds and secret handshakes, which made people think about conspiracies about them. You know, Freemasons run the country, as we saw in that one episode with Burns. But really, it was a bunch of laborers who got together to drink, just like the Stonecutters. There was nothing sacred about it.

It was just, like, all these rituals, but all they were doing was drinking and hanging out. I can't tell if I want to go back to those times, but I grew up near an Elks Lodge. And there were two of them in my town, and it's since been bulldozed. But organizations where only men went to go drink. Yes, yes. But it was lavish. A huge pool, a slide, a high dive. Kids could go there on the weekends.

But at night, all men, baby. Is that something I'd want to do? I mean, that's what World War II vets needed to get through their problems. Yeah, were they going there and crying? To medicate your PTSD with alcohol away from your family and then drive home drunk. You know it from the Flintstones, but that Flintstones comic is one of my most recommended things of this year. And they go to that Buffalo Order. The Sacred Order of the Water Buffalo.

To deal with their war trauma directly. And it's such a hilarious, I love that comic. That recent DC comic is very, very good. Yeah, the Freemasons thing. Fred and Bonnie killed all the tree people to take their land. I heard a million conspiracy theories growing up. Like this, definitely the Merkin seasons show that he is interested in conspiracy theories. Like Bart just had a time of going through conspiracy theories in Grandpa vs. Sexual Inadequacy.

And the Freemasons are an easy target for conspiracies, also because the Founding Fathers were Masons. Some of them were, anyway. George Washington and Ben Franklin among them. Also, it's a very UK fear of the Masons, too. There they think, oh, every

ruling class in Parliament is, they're all secretly masons or the murders by jack the ripper or the killing of jfk those were free mason plots but when you dig a little deeper in a lot of them they didn't say well and it's because the free masons are the cover for the illuminati who are the cover for what? The Jews. The Jews. The lizard people. Even the lizard people. It's the Jews is really ultimately where it comes in there. A lot of conspiracy.

I had never heard of this and we were running around a suburb stealing beer from refrigerators and garages and garages that were closed we were spray painting dicks and butts on. And then a guy I didn't know, he's like, your turn. He gets out and he just spray paints, fuck the Masons. And we're like 16 and like what does that mean and watching a dumb drunk 16 year old try and explain the masons like i'll never believe anything about

this organization again and to hear it out of an adult's mouth baffles me yeah not what you're saying well meanwhile with the skull and bones like that's that is the club in Harvard that everybody's a member of. Yale. Oh, it's Yale, not Harvard. Because Bush is in there. Right. Bush and Kerry. And Kerry in it was rumored that it would get you elected to Senate or president.

He did have the boorish manners of a Yale-y, that George H.W. Bush. Harvard had its own club, I believe. I was trying to... The whiff and poops. I could be wrong. It could just be an Ivy League thing. Where's my organization to escape women with a bunch of straight men? I associate this less with Skull and Bones and more with the Illuminati, which everybody

always goes, oh, the Illuminati. Yeah, those people who built the Denver airport. But actually, the Illuminati was the alternative to the Masons because the Masons were too expensive. Ah, I see. So they had their own rituals and their own things, but they were actually cracked down upon by the Bavarian government and went away. I see, I see. So they had their own rituals and their own things, but they were actually cracked down upon by the Bavarian government and went away.

And since then, there have been various groups that say they're the Illuminati, but people always go, ah, the Illuminati. They're the real power behind the push towards the New World Order. I thought Jay-Z and Beyonce were the Illuminati. I thought they were the kings of it. If you ever want to see all of these conspiracy

theories come together, read the books Left Behind. Oh, God. Which is basically where a lot of that stuff go home to roost, such as the John Birch society. I've seen the movies One, Two, and Tribulation Force. Those movies are hilarious. Have you seen the Nick Cage ones?

That is the funniest fucking cover I've ever seen in my life. Everything you think about Nick Cage ones? That is the funniest fucking cover I've ever seen in my life. Everything you think about Nick Cage is embodied on that Left Behind cover. Well, meanwhile, with Skull and Bones, I learned everything about it from the film The Skull starring Joshua Jackson. I'm sure it was all documentary. It all really happened in real time. But we are in the trilogy of, I think, my favorite three episodes from a season. Period.

Yeah, this is the start of it and the next two. Yeah bart the comet bart's comment like i love bart this entire season's been incredible like i bought it on amazon and i was just going yes yes yes yes like it feels like every episode is solid except the clip show which doesn't count the clip show everybody can just mentally erase the clip yes but again we're sort of kids at this point, so a lot of this stuff like, oh, nostalgia for three years ago, an astrological event, and an Illuminati organization. Simpsons gave me my context for that. No other show had dealt with this subject matter.

I love this episode as a fantasy about what a secret society really is. It's just like a secret society that makes everything easier and that when you it'll give you all the answers to they'll hand you a book that says secret world history you're like uh finally i have all the truth now i know it that i'm in this secret club and actually you'll never find out the truth but even being in the masons probably doesn't give you the answers you're searching for in this confusing world but uh anyway let's start with a stern lecture from stern lecture promise they should have called

surly joe where was he it looks like you got a leak could you start fixing it pretty soon the basement is getting awfully flooded and i think the cat's down there yeah i probably won't be able to get the parts i need for two three weeks and that's if i order them today which i won't be able to get the parts I need for two, three weeks. And that's if I order them today. Which I won't. Dear. Going up? Emergency call. Gotta go. What should we do until you get back?

Put a pan down there. He floats a pan. Oh, it didn't work. So this scene has one of my all-time favorite visual callbacks since the Simpsons episode, which is always, of course, the big ugly head. Yes, X-Nopalopakettle. You remembered it first, you got it. I can't spell it, though. That's for sure.

Yeah, it's always great to see him down in the basement when they remember to put it there. But it's way steep water it's destroying their fixed foundation that foundation's gone now man and that this yeah i i just love his way of going like which i won't it's the i i love the distrust of a plumber that comes from being a homeowner that like you could do the i bet you could fix this you're just lying it feels like uh working with a mechanic too where They're like, you could do this. I bet you could fix this. You're just lying to me. It feels like working with a mechanic, too, where they're keeping information from you and talking about ordering parts and things like that.

I associate this more with mechanics, but I don't drive anymore, so fuck them. And I rent, so I'll never have to talk to a plumber. And there's that kind of little jab at unionized people being like, I'm just kind of milking this for as much money as I possibly can. What are you going to do? Yeah, it's one thing I don't like on The Simpsons in these early seasons is when they make fun like unions just let people be lazy. Like, I feel I'm more pro-union than this.

I'm not so against it. But it turns out that he's in another different kind of secret society other than unions. He's got a t-shirt to prove it, too. So this entire day is basically just homer simpson's worst day ever uh he gets stuck in traffic uh because arnie pie crashed in on the freeway yeah it was a great return to arnie pie that's true he should have died on that mountain in mr plow i can't be killed tell them i love them okay apparently he's

accident prone because he crashed in the middle of the freeway as well. The only thing that's funny about Arnie is accidents happening to him. If he's just in his first appearance, they got through the one joke they have with him. It's just like Arnie pie with Arnie in the sky instead of pie in the sky. So once they've done that one joke, what more do you do with him other than cause him physical danger? Pretty much. I just realized this is one of two episodes in a row with a helicopter crash. That's true. Yeah. Oh, wait, wait. No, no. It's both in this is one of two episodes in a row with a helicopter crash. That's true. Oh, wait, wait.

No, no. It's both in this episode. There's two in this episode. Wow, wow, yeah. So this episode is bookended by helicopter crashes. Man, that budget must have been huge. Well, that's why they had a bottle episode in the next one. And we get one major continuity breaking moment.

I'm sure Henry was apoplectic with rage. Well, I'm saving that for the next episode. Yes, where Homer's parking spot is basically in the backyard. The plant is not there. The Simpsons' backyard is the parking lot to the plant. It has never been true before or since. And Matt Groening shudders during the commentary at that joke. He, like, shudders like Sideshow Bob.

Well, Bart is way off bottle. When Bart is waving hi, Dad, he looks terrible. And I think it's mostly the continuity issue that that Matt Groening hates he's like it's a funny joke I know but like this will never happen again and like the case of the video game I'm always reminded of Simpsons hit and run because you eventually

unlock a stone cutter shortcut in Simpsons is it hit and run? yeah the GTA clone you drive through that nice cave with all the chandeliers from this episode and i love that that this this episode is so important makes it in like everything simpsons because it does suggest an underground cult that controls everything in springfield it's pretty great and they definitely didn't have the plant in their backyard there uh and they definitely

didn't have the plant there in the movie because that is the woods i don't want to go too deep into canon but i can often forgive uh their whether or not if it goes against canon or whatever in this case if it's a good visual gag because frankly i mean a lot of the simpsons just doesn't freaking make sense where's springfield it's fine it's fine and the movie suggests they live on the edge of springfield they're like like the last house there. And that it's a circular town you can put a bubble over. Trappuccino. And that the church is next to Moe's Tavern that one time for the joke. So yes, they always mess with the geography. It doesn't really matter.

And it is a very funny joke that Homer seemingly spent two hours in traffic to then... If he could have just walked through the gate in his backyard and walked to work it would have been the same amount another layer to that joke you just say there was barbed wire there man yes I know I know you just know that Burns is like I'm not letting this person walk to work he has to drive here in his car so so far Homer was stuck in traffic got a bad parking spot in his econ. So far, Homer was stuck in traffic, got a bad parking spot, and his EconoSafe stool breaks. And he adds it to his revenge list. It's not that funny of a list, but I noted one

interesting reference. On his revenge list is the H2O water slide, which he got stuck in in season 2. It was a weird continuity. I feel I would credit more to animators than the... Who wrote the episode? This episode was written by John Schwarzwelder, handed

to him by Merkin. Merkin wanted desperately to write this. This is really his baby, but he was too busy. He just could not write. He only had one episode with his writing credit on it, which is Deep Space Homer. What about The Joy of Sex? Alright, fine, but that's in the future. It's also about

a cult, though. Yeah, he loves him some cults. That's how he snuck a Scientology episode past nancy cartwright he was able to do it joy of sect is like half making fun of uh scientology really the opening is the more scientology that is true that is true but uh what i really want to know is what is homer's vendetta against billy crystal i mean he's a bad guy he's probably forget paris yeah i would say about this billy crystal in the book uh in the book by thomas lennon and robert ben grant who have done a million things but it's their book on how to how to write a script and how to write a movie script they also tell stories about their life like oh here's the time we met jackie chan

and he was super awesome here's the time we had a meeting with lindsey lowen and they're like well if you're asking us like who was the worst person we ever met like it is billy crystal like they're like wow okay so this is this is a a hollywood fact that billy crystal and mary tyler moore okay uh-huh i still at least you know mary tyler moore has an alcohol problem i i don't know if Billy Crystal does. He's got a blackface problem. I was going to say, he did that way too recently. Oh, yes, yeah. And a tribute to Katrina. He was like, well, they want me to do my jazz band.

You're going to chuck that shit at tribute, man. It's time to break this out. Also on there was Solo Flex and The Boy and the Emmys. And God. That awful workout machine they would advertise on Nickelodeon as if an eight-year-old watching Danger Mouse wants to get ripped.

It's for the dads. That was all based on a series of idiotic rubber bands. That's what solar flexes were. Instead of weights, they used bands that were contracted,

which means you're doing a workout, it snaps back on you like a fucking mousetrap, and your weights wear out. Yeah, I guess it was just an ad for sad dads unemployed at home with their kids. They infuriated me. It was all over Nickelodeon.

I never like seeing those. There was a great Soloflex joke. No, it was Bowflex on the Husky Bobby episode of King of the Hill. Yes, and Peggy making fun of Hank. Oh, you said three times a day this entire sequence of events that is happening to homer really is emblematic of how well constructed this episode is it gets off to an extremely quick start i don't feel like there's a single wasted second in this entire episode and that this opening will be reflected in this second act opening too that this is structurally a very strong episode

we talked about how the one before this fear of flying structurally pretty weak that it it has like a 10 minute opening that has nothing to do with marge and then it's kind of uninterested in it's it's it's a weak episode in that way this one doesn't need a b plot it is just strong the whole way through and uh yeah so so Homer's having it bad, but then he gets to see that Lenny and Carl are having it pretty sweet. But why? Hey, how come you guys got such great parking places? It's a secret.

Shut up. Hey, you guys help me fix my... Hey, how come you guys got better chairs than me? It's a secret. Shut up. Hey, you guys want to go bowling tonight? Nah, we're busy. Yeah, we got things to do.

Like what? It's a secret. Shut up. Carl was drinking, so he couldn't tell Lenny to shut up. That's very helpful. I love that Homer's just like, well, I gotta tell him to shut up. I think of that reading of shut up a lot in my head. Shut up.

Shut up. And it's funny that Homer, all these obvious tells that they're in a cult or a club is right there, and Homer only notices them that day. This could be the first viewing of the contentious relationship between Lenny and Carl, who apparently live together in this episode. That's true. They leave from the same house in the same car and there's no car parked outside. We could be roommates. Well, I think it's more that Carl came to Lenny's house. Lenny... True.

Well, we've been to Lenny's house before for the poker night. Shave up, stupid. So here's my headcanon. There's a ton of drinking going on at the Stone cutters and one of them has to volunteer to be the uh designated driver so the other can drink uh what they can drive drunk all they want when you got that sticker baby it's true yeah also this is this these three episodes fear flying this and uh maggie makes three all are the rise

of lenny and carl to regulars on the show. Like, they've been around, they've been in nuclear power plant plots, but in this one, in the previous one, they became regulars at Moe's Bar, and now they are central to this plot. Like, the writers are now in love with Lenny and Carl. A love affair that would never

die. And I also love that their ring opens up the Buzz Cola thing. Like like it's just that's really cool though how would nobody like it looks like a green lantern yes but in real life if everybody saw a ring on all these soda machines like this spot for a ring you're like what is this like that is proof of mason of a mason conspiracy i just i Just that runner of, it's a secret. It seems like almost everybody

in Springfield is in this except for Homer. It truly is a, no, it's... There's actually a lot of background characters that just come to life in this episode.

It's Hans Molman. I think it's the only one that's not in it. Yeah, it's Merkin's... I actually wrote down a whole bunch of people who are not in it. Oh, okay.

It's all men, though. For sure, though, right? It's definitely a fraternal order. It's a diverse group, but all men. At least it's not an all white or yellow group. But yeah, it's cute here, too, that Bart immediately jumps on the idea of a conspiracy because he is not shaking his love of it, even after his discussion of reverse vampires. So anyway, Lenny and Carl are never around on Wednesdays, and they don't tell me where they go.

It's like a conspiracy. A conspiracy, eh? You think they might be involved in the Kennedy assassination in some way? I do. No. Anyway, I'm going to follow them tonight and see where they go. Don't start stalking people again. It's so illegal.

Remember when you were stalking Charles Corral because you thought he dug up your garden? Well, something did. I don't want you stalking anyone tonight. Oh, okay. Have it your own way, Marge. I'll be back in a minute. I'm going outside

to stalk Lenny and Carl. Stop! You know, it would be really hard to stalk Charles Kuralt because for 25 years he did a segment on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite called On the Road where he would just do human interest stories all over America. I looked up some on the internet.

They're not worth playing on this show. One was like, Who invented the shopping cart? It's this really old Mr. Burns-style guy in Oklahoma City. I only remember Norm MacDonald did a parody of him on SNL when he died and it was about

all the women he fucked in every town he visited. Yeah, he died in 1997, so he was not long for this world. I gave it to her so hard. He was, my family was not

a CBS Evening News family. We were an NBC family, so I didn't know Too much of that Ed Bradley on your tv yeah too sexy that ed bradley i also again the masons are connected in the jfk conspiracies or in several of them i i'm more on the cia who built the book depository henry what symbols on that building i just want to point out for context jfk was relatively fresh at this time and also x files as we saw a couple episodes ago

was huge and so ufos the whole nine yards that was just forget fire in the sky everybody was talking about all this stuff in the 90s and i mean shows like well you guys were talking about unsolved mysteries but also i think sightings like yeah sight sightings. These dumb shows on TV, which I used to watch, and we're presenting this stuff as real. And people were like, I totally believe it. Why would Fox lie to us? Oh my God, I remember sightings. I watched it all the time and then it moved to a sci-fi channel

and they even made their own episodes on it. It freaked the hell out of me as a nine-year-old. Well, because you don't think your TV is lying to you. Even if it says dramatization, you like well they may not happen it was like the people who believed in uh the the witches movie oh god i can't remember the bitch no the one that was supposed to be a Blair Witch Blair Witch Project that's the one yeah the uh it's something that hurt the x-files when it came back for me when i watched the new i didn't even finish the new season but the first episode joel mckale plays an alex jones type which one is like come on like alex jones is not joel mckale two that then the alex jones guy is proven right like everything he said to molder

is like molder i want to show you this stuff it's true molder's like oh it is true it's all true it's like this is i i think I get that Chris Carter, I'm going to assume that Chris Carter doesn't agree politically with Alex Jones, but he was just saying like, well, who are the lone gunmen of today? I guess it's info. Alex Jones said the recent massacre

was deep state Democrats working with ISIS, and I believed him. He speaks the truth. Oh, he's part of it too? Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, Bob, you know, we're recording this a little in advance. You better be clear. You're being the Las Vegas Massacre.

Oh, which massacre, right. There could be more after we record this. That is true. We live in America, folks. I love his way of saying, going to stalk Lenny and Carl, just that he can't think of a lie. And he just keeps talking until he realizes he said the truth instead of the lie. I think in an Al Jean and Mike Reese episode, his brain would yell at him and he'd run away. That's true.

I feel like that's more their style. Merkin wasn't so into the Homer's brain talks to him kind of thing. His liver is talked to him more than his brain is. That is true. Or the episode where he's working out the plan and he's going, okay, and now to the Duff Brewery. We're going to the Duff Brewery? I love that back and forth. In by nine, out by five.

He can't keep it to himself. That's true. Well, so that was a very stupid Homer, but my mom, when I first watched this, she was very impressed with Homer's plan of the dripping paint. She's like, that's pretty clever. I just assumed it was

from something else. I thought it was from some movie, but I could not find it. It's very clever. Actually, I listened to the commentary track for this episode, as I do with all of them, and Yardley Smith is on this, and she is the worst person on any commentary. They're all watching the episode, and as Lenny and Carl are

driving away with the paint dripping, she's like, oh, why is the paint dripping? That's so weird. Why is it doing that? Yes. You were part of making the show! Yeah, it's... You were at the table read, probably. She probably didn't watch it. But she was there watching it with them as it was happening in the room.

Yeah, it's... I all respect Yardley Smith. She works hard on the show. It's not judgment, but yeah, she, as a commentator on the episodes, I all respect Yardley Smith. She works hard on the show. It's not a judgment. But yeah, as a commentator on the episodes, I'm like, you could have at least watched this before you came in here. I mean, Julie Kavner is a little better. But she's always like, that's so sweet. That's so clever.

Well, also, she doesn't care. In the previous couple episodes. I can see why people like this show. When David Merkin makes a joke of like, this is a reference to thunder he's like all right julie blue thunder she's like only coming out of my ass like that's what she says salty old dame but instead yardley just constantly he's like oh that's so clever that's so funny while meanwhile nancy is always like i brought my original script here and i thought this old joke that is actually worse was better that's then meanwhile dan is dan is the most fun i'd say well dan and hank hank mainly just talks about his other jobs and talk about huff all the time yeah and then meanwhile dan is dan is the most engaged in the

show and of course harry shearer will never do a commentary ever oh no and not even the movies he wouldn't do it all right so uh we play that as the opening but lenny and carl's expository thing about their secret meeting place is so great just like yes there's it is our secret meeting place the clumsiest exposition ever and his way it made me think of playing video games and stealth missions when Homer goes, do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do. That is video game for data mining. And the whole concept of his whole plan is very video game. You can totally see, like, having the paint bucket item in your inventory that you attach to the car. Then he tries to go in the door and is turned away at the door

and then has to sneak up the building. And just his, he should have died from that fall. Like, that fall into it. I mean, it's like Flaming Moes. Wasn't he standing on top of the skylight there, too? Oh, that's... Well, no, he was up in the rafters. Oh, up in the rafters.

Yeah, that's one of two big falls he takes in this episode. That's true, yeah. He falls through multiple floors after falling through the ceiling. How can Homer be okay? So, he doesn't... I mean, it's...

He should be liquefied by now. I mean, he does get punched repeatedly in the head by multiple boxers because of that brain cushion thing. Yeah, you're right. He has Homer Simpson syndrome, so he can survive those falls. Well, I mean, I guess not get a concussion,

but anyway, the animation of it cracking around him is so great. It reminded me of actually the movie The Lost World, which would come out in two years. Yeah. Except he wasn't a gymnast and they were not velociraptors. That was the one good part of Jurassic Park. It's the only part I remember. They're upside down and Vince Vaughn is about to...

By the way, I was just invited to like this in the past now. But in New York Comic Con, I got in some invites to stuff like hey I have an interview with this person who directed this independent film and they're doing this new film with Vince Vaughn I was like oh which Vince Vaughn film I looked up it's like oh the one he's making with Mel Gibson about cops who finally get rid of the rules and start

really busting some heads like I'm good I don't think I need to see that that's not tone deaf at all it's just Dirty Harry again finally Mel Gibson is going to tell it like it is I need to see that. That's not tone deaf at all. No, well. It's just Dirty Harry again. Well, finally Mel Gibson is going to tell it like it is. Oh, boy. Cops need to do what they need to do. All right, so then Homer has figured out what Lenny Carl's club is,

and he wants in. I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff. And I want in. We don't know what you're talking about, Hubba. And you can't join the Stonecutters because it's too exclusive. Oh, well, that was a real nice secret organization we had once. Stonecutters, eh? How do I join? There are only two ways to gain membership. Be the son of a Stonecutter. Next. Or save the life of a stonecutter. Hey! I saved your life.

That egg sandwich could have killed you by cholesterol. Forget it, Homer. While it has been established that eggs contain cholesterol, it has not yet been proven conclusively that they actually raise the level of serum cholesterol in the human bloodstream. So one of those egg council creeps got to you too, huh? You got it all wrong, Homer. It's not like that. You'd better run, egg!

The man in the egg suit sounds like a rat. It's so weird. I guess it's supposed to sound like little chicks chirping, perhaps? I think it's just the rat noise. Just like he's vermin. He's like a little creature or something. It's an odd choice, but I think we talked about the Incredible Edible Egg on an episode of Talking Simpsons. In Burns' air, we covered it when Burns talked about the Egg Council Advisory Board. Eggs have gotten a bad rap lately, you know?

This is all of the era in which, oh, eggs are good for you now, and soon carbs will be bad for you. Well, the Incredible Edible Egg campaign, it was kind of around that. That's the Egg Council. The Simpspsons obsession with the egg council continues quite a lot in this uh but the i also just love how homer goes next when hearing the son of a stonecutter just because he when you really care about someone you shouted from the mountaintops so on behalf of desjardins insurance i'm standing 20 000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you.

Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? Doesn't know that grandpa is one and also i don't think he even thinks about grandpa most of the time that's true well in this within the continuity of this episode he has a mental block installed by hypnosis to make him not even think it's expensive just to ignore your father and that it was two years ago which you think would prevent him from going on the road with him to sell tonic. But I also love just the passive aggressiveness of Lenny's like, real nice secret organization we have.

So then we also get a nice little flashback in the introduction of the ultimate club for Simpsons geeks, the No Homers Club. Why don't people like me, Marge? Everyone likes you. You're a wonderful person. Why don't those stupid idiots let me in their crappy club for jerks? I'm sure it's nothing personal, Homer. It is. It's been happening to me all my life. Hey, Billy! Hey, Joey! Come on in! There's plenty of room! Sorry, not you, Homer.

Why not? But you let in Homer Glumplet. It says no Homers. We're allowed to have one. I felt so left out. Kids can be so cruel. We can? Thanks, Mom!

Ow! Cut out! Little kids just love coming up with really pedantic rules. No, not No Homer Club, No Homers. We can have one. We're going to find our little... I can't tell you how many times I got something like that. Where it's like, well, I found a loophole. Yeah, oh, no, you didn't. We meant it.

This is the no girls allowed club. But the actual No Homer Club in real life is an internet message board who does not hate the Simpsons as much as you would think. That is the Dead Homer Society. They hate the Simpsons, the newer Simpsons. By newer, I mean last 20 years of

the Simpsons. So I posted there for five years. You can probably read all of my thoughts on episodes of that era and, you know, earlier. I think they're a fun group of people. Yeah, the No Homers Club replaced alt.tv.simpsons as the top one in 2001. And it kind of, they've also like, they've hosted AMAs, or I guess before they were called AMAs with people from the show including Groening, Merkin and also Oakley Weinstein not only did AMAs on there

but they also solicited questions that they then answered on the season 8 commentary. Yeah that was such an awesome thing that they did for those people in the homers and that made me think like oh they must like their fans because they're willing to do this for a website, you know? Yeah.

Though also the, I mean, you'll hear no homers brought up a lot on the commentaries as, uh, as people who hate every episode and the, the show, not every show writer likes them. I think Mike Scully had a funny joke of saying like,

no homers clubs, favorite guy, Mike Scully, because they really hate Mike Scully and blame him for the downturn of the show, or at least some of them did at one point. So I want to say here that I felt really bad for Homer. Yeah.

And it really brings his kind of life into focus where he had, frankly, an abusive father who treated him like garbage and told him that he was really stupid and really just useless and meanwhile he clearly has no friends because he can't get into the club as far as i can tell his only friend is barney so yeah in a desperate moment and you know when people are telling you you're garbage and worthless and stupid your entire life you start to believe it and yeah we see just earlier that

homer had that very clever trap uh to stalk lenny and carl and it tells you that there are moments where homer when homer lets himself be he can actually be kind of smart but i think that he doesn't let himself be his confidence was kind of shot i would say probably by abe it's a self fulfilling prophecy yeah well it's something too with abe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy yeah well it's something too with abe that we don't think about him as a father that obviously this isn't continuity yet but that abe told him his mother died while he was at the movies and didn't even have a funeral that's right like that was pretty bad pretty pretty bad i'd say and and yeah that he apparently did have no friends and that they all everyone in town purposely had a club to not include him and he got to be the scapegoat

it hurts to watch as anybody who remembers like a childhood of not being around people and i have had that feeling too of like why won't they let me in their crappy club for jerks video games are my friends I teamed up with my only friend to make well they have no girls allowed club we're gonna have a no girls and no

boys allowed club he's like what the fuck are you talking about just us no one can get in but us and like this sounds stupid and this is my only failed attempt

you want to feel exclusive yeah I wanted to feel exclusive like you're a part of it I'm gonna ostracize those who will not accept me and that'll be great.

Though, I also like Bart, speaking of kids being pedantic, like Bart hears Marge and takes that as permission to be cool to Lisa. I choose to take that literally. That is an excellent little sibling moment. Oh, it's a total kid moment. You said no cookies

after 8pm. These are popsicles. Like, doing that all the time. All the time. It's how you learn negotiation. So then we get Grandpa makes an appearance, and I'd say he's gone down a few IQ points from the couple episodes ago. What do they do there, Dad? I'm a member.

What do they do? What don't they do? Oh, they do so many things, they never stop. Oh, the things they do there. My stars. You don't know what they do there, do you? Not as such, no. I'm a stonecutter.

Dad, remember those self-hypnosis classes we took to help us ignore Grandpa? Do I ever. It's five years later and I still think I'm a chicken. I'm a chicken, Marge. I know, I know. Maybe we should be listening to him now. I'm a member. Bart. I know, I know. Maybe we should be listening to him now. I'm a member. Huh?

What? What? You're a member of the Stonecutters, Grandpa? Oh, sure. Let's see. I'm an elk, a mason, a communist. I'm the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance for some reason. Ah, here it is.

The Stonecutters. This is it. My ticket in. They have to let me join The Stonecutters. This is it. My ticket in. They have to let me join if I'm a son of a member. I'll take this communist one, too. What? Homer's a communist now? Well, that Abe was as well.

Everybody cool is, kids. That Abe is officially a Mason, too. He's a member of the real thing that they're making fun of. That's right. I love that Homer didn't give a crap about abe until he's like oh now i can use him and just see him pointing that thing at me elijah just like that that he's just like see see it's my dad he brings his dad there like as a prop yeah it's so great and i also homer gets and it put into the place and he even i love when when he makes fun of, my name is number one.

Like the way Lenny and Carl react, like, what are you doing? I love when he runs out of steam and so forth. And then the idea that somehow Mr. Burns is below Lenny and Carl, which like they can't have. How could he have joined after Lenny and Carl? Unless they inherited numbers from their dads or something. Maybe they were already in it. And they, Mr. Burns found out about it because of them. Maybe, but he seems like a relatively new, like an initiation person because he was going

Patience Monte. I'm going to make up some background fiction. He found out about the club, and he paid for some older man to adopt him and then become his father. It's a very Burns thing to do. Yeah, that does sound like it. And his thank you, sir, may I have another

is what Kevin Bacon says when he is paddled in Animal House, which paddling is quite an important part of this episode. All that movie holds up real well. Yes, it's, oh boy. All the people holds up real well. Yeah, it's, boy. All the people who love that movie are great people. Or really old. Yes, yeah. And I also love when Mo is giving plot-important exposition,

and Homer's like, that's your life story. He has to set up how long, how big the stonecutters are, and the Chosen One thing, and Homer's like, God, shut up. But whenever somebody joins one of these organizations there's always a freaking prophecy that has to be fulfilled by the end of the episode and somebody has to explain it to them so i like that homer's like yeah yeah whatever i don't care yeah i mean the masons have an the masons have an initiation but it's not anything like this as far as i know i i wouldn't think so but there is no consistent rule set for each Mason group.

They each kind of make up their own thing in each territory. Yeah, this initiation feels a lot more like Skull and Bones or just a frat-ish thing. And that's when we get, I dare say, the best non-Kelsey Grammar guest voice they've ever had. Yes, I agree. All stonecutters must take the leap of faith. If you survive

this five-story plunge, your character will be proven. Happy landings! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I think I have to do it again. My blindfold came off.

This ritual is called crossing the desert. And this we call the unblinking eye. Hey, have you ever noticed that the crossing the desert is a lot like the unblinking eye? It's exactly like the wreck of the Hespress. And now, the final ordeal, the paddling of the swollen ass

with paddles. I love how he leans in to say, with paddles. So that is Patrick Stewart, a.k.a. Jean-Luc Picard, a.k.a. Professor Xavier. Only about seven months removed from filming the final episode of Star Trek. I don't know why I bothered researching this. I knew you were coming. It ended in May.

Yeah, it ended in May of 1994, which is when I became a Star Trek fan, actually. So they must have been working on Generations at that point. Yeah, they would have been making, because Generations came out in 95. I didn't know, he did that like back to back, like right after he got off set of TNG, he went and did Generations. And this is the most prominent thing Patrick Stewart was in, period,

following the conclusion of Star Trek. And X-Men. Well, X-Men would come later. Wait, like 99? No, 2000. That and just something I went down a rabbit hole of. There's this documentary, this semi-documentary called In Search of Dr. Seuss. Look, if you want nightmare fuel,

it's all live action. Kathy Najimy. Kathy Najimy. Yeah, Peggy Hill stars in it. In this search for more information on Dr. Seuss, Matt Frewer, Max Headroom, is dressed like the cat in the hat. I remember this.

Billy Crystal, Robin Williams. It's the creepiest shit I've ever seen in my entire life. But that's the only other thing Patrick Stewart had done in between. I remember he was also, I think this was during Star Trek, he was in this very gay film, Jeffrey. Oh, I love Jeffrey. I love Jeffrey a lot. That was later in the year. I love that fucking movie.

That movie was hilarious. The wonderful thing about Patrick Stewart is that he has an amazing sense of humor. Yeah. He has kind of a twinkle in his eye. He's kind of a prankster's sense of humor. And so it seems that he really understood the humor of The Simpsons, and he really leaned into it. Of course, Patrick Stewart, as we know, is a classically trained Shakespearean actor.

But he played it straight, and it was great. I mean, he played it straight, but he used the way that he delivered his lines to highlight the absurdity of the character. It was great. He definitely had some very funny moments on Star Trek The Next Generation, too. He got to exercise.

I also like that he's called number one when he always called Jonathan Frakes number one. I think that was intentional, too. I can't imagine being a little Star Trek fan at that time, and this is the first prominent appearance of Picard since your favorite show ended. I definitely

gasped when I heard his voice. I was like, oh my god! We don't know if he's bald, though. He never takes off that damn hat. If I'm not mistaken, when I heard his voice. I was like, oh my god, it's Picard! We don't know if he's bald, though. He never takes off that damn hat. Well, because, if I'm not mistaken, like, when you were a little kid, they didn't always announce who the guest voice was. You were usually surprised. Yeah, I mean, if you read TV guides, you might find out. If you read the trades or something like that.

Actually, I found an interesting thing. I plan to do more with it, but I got some old issues of Simpsons Illustrated. And there's a crazy one where it's like the it's the third or fourth issue and it's right before the third season premieres and it was written by somebody who clearly knew what every episode of season three was and just said and then you're uh Krusty's gonna meet his dad and then this is gonna happen it was like it was every episode synopsis it was so strange the wiki there's there was official art commission for every episode and i guess those were printed in some papers or tv guide i've never seen them

and uh patrick stewart was also uh he'd become an even zanier leader in american dad yeah he's great ahead of the cia stuff and they just draw him to be yeah patrick stewart he's drawn as patrick stewart and then he eventually he eventually, by his third appearance, he's like, he's an insane person who will murder anyone for a cookie. He seems kind of willing to do whatever because, I mean, he did the poop emoji in that horrible emoji movie. And I think probably they just said, you can be the poop emoji. And he's like, I'm in.

Done. It would be two hours. Please enjoy him and Logan, though. He was so goddamn good in Logan. He ruled in that. He really did. and he's like I'm in done please enjoy him and Logan though he was so god damn good in Logan he really did

because he's an amazing actor he's an extremely hard working actor in fact when he first came over to the US he one of the things that really dismayed him

about Star Trek The Next Generation was that he felt that his cast mates weren't working as hard as he was oh shit Jonathan Frakes

let's throw down I also really like his... He's a funny dude on social media. I also like him talking about how I believe he is very openly against spousal abuse because his mother had been abused by his father.

He's head of several charities or non-profits. He's an amazing man. And he's like hetero life mates with Ian McKellen. They're not gay together, but they basically are. They smoke weed together, hang out in tree houses together. He said later, I think my appearance in The Simpsons and an appearance that I did on Sesame Street

in praise of the letter B were perhaps the two most distinguished bits of work that I've done in the U.S. Wow. That's Patrick Stewart right there. I also loved him on Extras. Patrick Stewart's episode was I also loved him on Extras. Oh my, he's,

Patrick Stewart's episode was the best episode in that entire show. So much, so much. I saw everything. I saw it. I see everything.

I see everything. She already puts herself up. He said that so matter-of-factly. I also, he's just like, so you're single

but you've never seen Star Trek, really? The Wreck of the Hesperus, by the way, is a real poem. It is a narrative poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and first published in 1840. It is about a... Swollen ass? It's about a shipwreck caused by too much pride.

Oh, okay. They should have had more paddles. They by too much pride. Oh, okay. They should have had more paddles. They wouldn't have it. That's true. Just like the swollen ass. Just hearing him say swollen ass. With paddles. So there was this, Homer's going through a very fraternity style initiation. I suppose none of you guys went through a similar initiation.

Certainly not. No. We put a younger kid in our neighborhood through something. Nothing that crazy. We just made him run around a construction site. But we were like, yeah, if you want to be friends with us, you've got to ride your bike really fast. So I was in marching band in college. Oh.

And marching band is very much a fraternal, sorority kind of organization, like co-ed, obviously. But we did not have to do any of the uh you know real hazing or anything but we did have a paddle yeah you were given a paddle and you had to like decorate it oh and you had to carry it around with you everywhere for a month and also you had somebody in addition to being in band yep because i mean the band was like a club it was really intense the membership was really intense once you were in all the bandmates they were your friends you dated within the band was like a club it was really intense the membership was really intense once you were in all the bandmates they were your friends you dated within the band it was actually a little bit of a cult and i got a little tired of it because it took up a lot of my time i think you were secretly

part of a polyamorous relationship with instruments involved like 50 people but uh the final day they make you wake up at midnight or they make you come out at midnight and you're supposed to be playing for the midnight madness stuff and then you're going marching down the street and everything wow what yeah with the paddle so whenever i see that paddle with paddles but the paddles were never used oh no they was never actually used we just all had to have panels if you were a first year person i see there was no board of education in your school Well Homer makes it through all of these tests And he gets to take the oath And by the sacred parchment I swear that if I reveal the secrets

Of the stonecutters May my stomach become bloated And my head be plucked of all but three hairs Um I think you should have to take a different oath Everyone takes the same oath Welcome to the club Number 908 You have joined the sacred order of the Stonecutters,

who since ancient times have split the rocks of ignorance that obscure the light of knowledge and truth. Now let's all get drunk and play ping pong. Because he's already kind of heavy, you know. Great act break. So Homer does have his old crappy parking space but he's given rollerblades a very mid 90s thing I like how confident he is

despite how shitty he is at rollerblading rollerblade like I said this is great act mirroring it's synchronicity that he all three of his problems from the start of the show are fixed by being a stonecutter it opens with the Stern Lecture plumbing guy returning.

Stern Lecture plumbing guy fixes it because they're both the same thing. Really? Yes. Yes. And then he can avoid traffic because he's in the stonecutters. He then gets rollerblades and he gets a new chair to replace his stool. He gets all four of those things fixed immediately. Like, that's how much it is.

I just love when they hand him his stone-cutter new membership packet, too. It's perfect. Jealous? Well, no, we've got the same chair. You're jealous. Your membership packet. What's this? You put that sticker on your car so you won't get any tickets.

And this other one keeps paramedics from stealing your wallet while they're working on you. Oh, and don't bother calling 911 anymore. Here's the real number. 912. This is the part I love the most of the idea of like, if I were to join the Masons, immediately they would hand me all the secret things and be like, see, now your life's perfect.

And I have seen cars with the Masonason tag on it and i did wonder like what does this do for you yeah i always assume that when i see a car with uh stick figures of a family i'm like what cult is this involved in is that just the new business on board a baby on board no idea but they're confusing i don't know anybody personally who has them on their car but i see them everywhere and uh i also just love that Homer has a book that's called Secret World History. He's just learning. You're just handing that willy-nilly to somebody like, and then Homer through the entire sequence is so cavalierly telling his entire family about the stonecutters, which everybody else

is keeping it a secret. They don't tell anybody. Homer's going to keep this a secret. Come on. He's got to brag to everybody. That's what insecure people do. I want to believe their version of the signing of the Declaration of Independence was real, though. I feel like that is what our country was founded on. It's probably like 1799.

I still don't believe all the founding fathers were stonecutters. That's because you trust your stupid school books. Here's what really happened at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And a nation is born. Now let us party

like to a 1799. Thanks, sir. You're destroying my establishment. We just created the greatest democracy on Earth, you low-life commoner. Get out! You want to see how Davy Crockett really died at the Alamo? You must be 18.

That is one of the most vicious kicks to the face ever animated in the sense of thomas jefferson the thing about politicians like assaulting commoners is still true today i just love how he says like the greatest democracy on earth you low-life commoner and it is also true not just that a lot of the founding fathers were members of the freemasons, but that people believe that Washington, D.C. was designed with a lot of Masonic imagery around it when they made it the capital. If you've ever gone around Washington, D.C., you're like, there are a lot of obelisks. You cannot deny that.

There's quite a lot of them, but honestly, D.C.'s kind of important. Especially in the obelisk district. Crawling with obelisks. And of course, people love to point out the symbol on our money and go, Aha, the symbol of the Masons, which is actually fairly common imagery. Yeah, yeah. I mean.

They control everything, including our money. Well, then the question is like, okay, what if they do? Are you going to do something about it? Are you just going to enjoy your slavery, man? Let's take a break on the greatest song in Simpsons history and then talk about it. Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do.

We do. Who leads Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do. We do. Who holds back the electric car? Who makes

Steve Bloomberg a star? We do. We do. Who robs hayfish of their sight? Who rigs every Oscar night? We do. We do.

We do. Thank you. The Simpsons will be right back. Who keeps the metric system down? Who pays for this podcast? Why, our wonderful listeners who sign up at patreon.com slash talking simpsons. We have this Patreon so that Bob and myself can do this full time and help pay our rent while doing this podcast. And it has given you so many awesome things for just $5 a month you'll get access to every episode of the show week early you'll get access to every episode of talking critic our

patreon exclusive show where we go through the critic episode by episode our monthly community podcast access to the entire first season of talking simpsons only there and there's even more stuff if you sign up at just $10 a month, I know, I know we talk about this all the time, but it is because it is our lifeblood and it helps us be free from the tyranny of conspiracies like the stone cutter. So please consider going to patrion.com slash talking Simpsons today. official stone cutter underwear is nice and it looks even better if you're wearing a talking simpsons t-shirt at the same time but where do you find your own talking simpsons t-shirt that's

only $19.99 and comes in multiple sizes, men's, women's, fitted, all that stuff? Well, you'll find it at shirtsickle.com. If you just go to shirtsickle.com and find the podcast section, you'll find the Talking Simpsons t-shirt right in there. An easier way to see it though is to go to tiny.cc slash talking shirt and it'll take you directly to it it's a wonderful design based on the logo for ion springfield made by awesome friend of the show nina matsumoto it looks great i have one myself i love it wear it outside all the time i'm with pride damn it and again a beautiful sky blue check it out at tiny.cc slash talking shirt. Hey, this is Hank Azaria. You're listening to Talking Simpsons on laser time. I didn't know

that was a thing. Happy Halloween. Yes, Lizzie. T season for halloween spooktaculars and we have launched a brand new series an elm street nightmare no good scream liz it's a brand new limited podcast series all about our favorite horror series a nightmare on elm street every week in october talk with us about our favorite horror villain freddy krueger here's a highlight. You know, I was very young when I watched it. I was also covering my eyes and like, I didn't know what was happening. It was scary. But I didn't really realize 100% that that was Freddy Krueger. Yeah, and that image was burned into my memory for a very long time.

It was like, that was a really scary movie. I think it was Poltergeist or something because, you know, it was like a girl on a TV. Outside of the kill itself the image of her hanging lifeless from her neck, from like a mounted television at the top of the ceiling is a haunting image. I see that very very clearly. Yeah.

This is it, Jennifer. Your big break in TV. Fuck the prime time, bitch. Sucks her head through the television. Your big break in TV. Big break in TV. Very clever, Freddie.

Very clever. But I love that Robert Englund, I have a clip of him. It's one of his most famous lines, if not his most famous. And it's the only one he'll cop to ad-libbing. Most, if not all, of what you see in these movies is written by the writers i think welcome to prime time bitch is the only time i ever completely improvised a line on my own that became a kind of you know i mean i've had to sign that a thousand ten thousand times as an autograph and i've heard it you know i want a signed robert england eight by ten black

and white photo saying it's prime time i think i. I think only Aaron Paul in 2017 can get away with signing autographs. Yeah, bitch. Listen to An Elm Street Nightmare. Every Tuesday. At elmstreetnightmare.com. Or wherever you get your podcasts. Man, I love that song. I think, tied with Monorail, that's my favorite song.

There's one thing that kills it for me, and it's the Steve Guttenberg joke. Yes. Even as a 13-year-old in 1995, I was like, that's a bit hacky. It's Beneath the Simpsons, and I looked it up. It had been five years since Steve Guttenberg had been in a single film. Actually, we just did a Talking Critic from an episode from 1994, and there's also a Steve Guttenberg joke in that. And we looked up the data.

You're right, Chris. It's like early, early, early 90s. It's the last time he had a hit movie. He was in Three Men and a Little Lady and then nothing until 1995. He played an unbuilt dad in the Big Green starring the great Hambino. Now, if they had changed the tense

to who made Steve Guttenberg a star, I'd be on board with this. I'm angry now. Sorry, Kat. Go ahead. Well, they said that they constructed the song in part by throwing in things that annoyed them. And there was clearly somebody who was not a Steve Guttenberg fan. I wonder if they had some.

And he was in Police Academy and movies like that. I think Steve Guttenberg by 1995 had become an, it's easy to be mad at somebody who you think is undeserving of their success. Like Adam Sandler. Yes, but not everybody is a safe target. Steve Guttenberg was absolutely a safe target in 1995. If they wanted to say who made Jim Carrey a star for example then, that'd

be wrong. Because it's equally impossible to love and hate Steve Guttenberg. He's not the greatest. It's inexplicable how he hate Steve Guttenberg. He's not the greatest. It's inexplicable how he had his name in so many movies. He's still working today. He's still working? Seems like a good dude.

He's on Ballers right now. He's been in this entire season of Ballers. I can't believe I'm not caught up on my Ballers. You're a sporto. Have you been watching Ballers, Kat? I am a sporto, but I have not been watching the Vin Diesel vehicle. No, it's the Rock one. The Rock.

Those two guys hate each other. It was something I didn't notice until I watched the very humorous, honest trailer about the most recent Fast and the Furious movie. The Rock and Vin Diesel share no scenes and are not near each other at all because Vin Diesel thinks those movies are real and he treats it like wrestling like he's like i don't lose to nobody and then the rock is like dude come on just it's be cool yeah it's a movie then unlike you i do 10 of these a year that's why there's a line in fast and the furious six where he has to say like it's like a fud with weighted boxing gloves when he loses a car thing he's like his character has to say you like, it's like a fud with weighted boxing gloves. When he loses a car thing, he's like, his character has to say, you cheated. Everybody in the audience needs to know that my character wouldn't lose.

It's very Trumpian. Well, the joke will be on Vin Diesel when President The Rock beats him for the election. Presidents from now on will only be celebrities. And speaking of presidents. While democracy lasts. The metric system. Let's talk about that too the yeah the metric system america hates it because we love our we got our own shit which does the system that doesn't have a name we get four rods to a hog it's the imperial

system is that what it's called it's called the imperial system yeah i mean but it's just all awful and ununiform and every time i'm confused by the metric system but every time i see it like this works so much better this is a much better I mean whenever I cook I'm like Siri how many tablespoons in a pint How many you know this and that Because it doesn't make any sense It's awful do you know why we don't have the metric system Because it's European

It was Reagan who killed it I wish I would have Looked it up but I heard an NPR story A long time ago that I wish I would have corroborated about the pitch for the metric system coming over on a ship that was sieged by pirates. So it never showed up. So the plan never showed up while America was founding itself. Oh, all the way back then. All the way back then, not the Reagan days.

Well, so there was an attempt in the 70s to bring the metric system in here. Not Justin Carter, though. It was kind of like, here comes the metric system. This wussy Carter trying to do it. That socialist Jimmy Carter and his metric system. But Congress had set up a metric system adaptation group in 1975 to try to get us on the metric system. When Reagan came in, he was very clear of like, we don't need this.

Like, this is un-American. It was very anti-Americanism. So he disbanded that council in 1982, forever giving up on the metric system in America. Be a rugged individualist, and always will be. But also remember to vote, individuals. What? God damn it, I hate this question. And also, the electric car stopped being stopped by the stonecutters.

We now do have electric cars. We do, but not... We do. Only now manufactured by American companies who seem to be stalwarts. Didn't want to jump on that bandwagon. Yeah, they held out as long as they could, but now they found a way to make money off it. That's the only reason people... I read about how solar is starting to

be more profitable than diesel, and so people will only start doing it then, only when it's more profitable. I hope Elon Musk comes through with that Puerto Rican rebuild. Using that as a test case for all of solar while they're rebuilding. I just wish he'd make a train instead of a spaceship.

That spaceship thing sounds cute, but it's like, can we just have trains? I'm never going to ride it. I want trains. I'm never going to ride it. You're not wrong. I wouldn't mind a bullet train. I want a bullet train at Disneyland right now.

And did you guys spot that the egg of the egg council is a member of them as well? Isn't Hitler on there too? I missed Hitler. I didn't see Hitler. The Martian is there. But noticing that the Martian

is there the whole time. Yeah. And he's just focused on that one part of the song. And they're like, oh, okay, so we're accepting in the world of the Simpsons there's a little green man. It's canon now. There are aliens in the Simpsons. And that Atlantis exists. Atlantis does exist, but it's south of New Orleans.

And that city is definitely underwater. There was some talk of cave fish as well. Yes. Definitely underwater. There was some talk of cave fish as well. Yes, who robs cave fish of their sight, which they are blind fish that live in brackish waters. Really? There's an Illumina organization that took the sight away from fish? It's part of a conspiracy. I guess it's just to rhyme with who rigs every Oscar night, which I guess isn't tied to the Marissa Tomei didn't deserve an Oscar fear. I think it's more that Goodfellas had just lost to Dancing with Wolves. That's true. That was five years ago, though. I think the Tomei thing't deserve an Oscar fear. I think it's more that Goodfellas had just lost to Dancing with Wolves.

That's true. That was five years ago, though. I think the Tomei thing was more recent. Well, I mean, everybody's always mad about the best picture in Oscars, so of course every Oscar night is rigged. So I did want to share with you guys from the game of Virtual Springfield. The Stonecutters

Society is in the game, and you can visit it. It actually even has a gameplay function thing in there. You find Monty Burns' secret key that gets you into another area at the Stonecutters Club. But in it, Dan Castellaneta does an original a cappella version of the Stonecutters theme. I want to play it for you guys here. Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down?

We do. We do. Who leaves Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do. We do. Who holds back the electric car? Who made Steve Guttenberg a star?

We do. We do. Who robs cave fish of their sight? Who rigs every Oscar night? We do. We do. Yeah, he really belted that out. Recorded on an Edison cylinder. That whole scene

was as static as just that rendition of the song. The scene is acapella How it moves. The only thing the anime is Homer moving is Bierstein A tiny Homer sprite It's reminiscent of the opening shot of the song. Yeah, they drew in everybody there. You can see if you look squint in there,

final fight meat log. Yes. And there's, there's not many other jokes in there other than Homer apparently sleeps at the lodge and you can have him say like three different jokes. If you snuff out a candle, but it's just, it was just a cute scene from that game,

virtual Springfield, which if you are a subscriber to Patreon, you can listen to our interview with one of the executive producers of the game, Paul Provenzano, who tells us a ton of things, including that Dan Castellaneta was very giving compared to other actors on it. And I think that's an example of it. He's just like, yeah, I'll sing the song. No backing track, though.

Like, just get this, this like write your own version but i bet i bet they would add it some pay money out blossom yeah so here's the funny thing about this song i heard the song before i saw the episode for some reason so when around the time that i started getting into the simpsons i bought i i came in very late and i but i bought uh the cd songs in the key of springfield and i listened to it a lot because the songs were extremely catchy and i really liked uh the stonecutter song but of course i couldn't just buy the dvds or watch them on netflix so i was totally at the mercy of syndication but of course eventually this came up but i heard this on the cd way more

than i saw i listened to cd a million times it includes the uh the prior c with march like about the secret wink wink at the you know what yes yes whenever i hear that line like i immediately flash back to the cd because that's how it starts that's true yeah i uh the the mixing on that i think they needed a few lines in there just so it would be like a 50 minute cd otherwise if it was just the songs would be like 20 minutes long at best and that's with them sneaking in some of the soundtrack you know or something like closing arrangements closing arrangements yeah then in honor of the 1500 years of the stonecutters they're having ribs i do love homer just destroying it's it's so crazy

how much he doesn't get that he's destroying the parchment and why everybody's mad at him how no one dives in to take it from him and he just keeps making it worse picking up on no social cues at all it's so great he's that stupid i mean it's really great slapstick uh like it's pretty amazing when he starts cleaning his ears with it oh here too is it are you guys saying I'm super dirty what the I've had that feeling at parties too like am I doing everything wrong is it do I have a thing on my face

what's wrong stop literally everything you're doing Homer and just freeze yes and then he he then destroys the parchment some more just smashes it and just so you know the ghosts leaving his underwear is a Raiders of the Lost Ark And he then destroys the parchment some more, just smashes it. And just so you know, the ghosts leaving his underwear is a Raiders of the Lost Ark reference. Oh, right, right.

Just to be clear. And it's also great that Leopold is a member, that he's menacing number one behind him when they're throwing on Homer. I did want to ask, when Homer is in the gear for the first time and wanders out into the satin sheet. I'm pretty sure that's a reference to something specific. Oh, it's The Last Emperor. Yeah. It's The Last Emperor, right? The Little Child Emperor. The movie from 1987. I looked it up.

Is it Little Buddha? It's not Khundun? I thought The Golden Child at first, but it's all about smirking Eddie Murphy. I saw that movie in social studies when I was 14. What a lazy teacher. Yeah, I did watch it. Here's what we'll be doing for the next two weeks. But it was a memorable film. It was really good.

So I always, yeah. We also talked about The Last Emperor when Homer was revealed to be eating flowers because that was taken from The Last Emperor as well. So yeah, Homer is punished and is left nude in front of all of his friends.

Homer Simpson, for your continuing and baffling desecration of our beloved sacred parchment, you are hereby banished from the Stonecutters forever. And as a final humiliation, you must walk home naked, dragging behind you the stone of shame. The mark! Oh, that. It's just a birthmark, and I'll thank you not to stare. He's the chosen one. You are the chosen one whom the sacred parchment prophesied would lead us to glory. Now to the top of Mount Springfield for the coronation. Remove the stone of shame. Woo-hoo!

Attach the stone of triumph. Boo! That's the Just Stamp the Ticket guy attaching the stone. Oh, I missed that. I didn't see that was him. And I think Leopold approaching. Yes, yeah, in the background. Homer is violently naked, dragging the stone away. His dick should be all over the place.

They do a great job of hiding it. Waving around like a windsock. Yes. Yeah, in all that effort, it should be flapping about quite a lot. All the times we've seen Homer naked, never seen that birth mode since. Or before. The birth. But I do love the animation of just his, like, pulling the stone of triumph.

It's got to pull up a damn mountain. And so, yeah, then we reveal Homer as the chosen one, and we get the last emperor stuff. And I love that Homer resists the idea. Like, him just saying everything lasts forever so great i always wondered if there was a god and now i know there is and it's me you're not a god homer remember dad all glory is fleeting so beware the eyes of march no dad i know you think you're happy now but it's not gonna to last forever. Everything lasts forever. Don't you see?

Getting what you want all the time will ultimately leave you unfulfilled and joyless. Remove the girl. Dad, you're not with your stonecutters now. There are no lackeys around to carry out your every... When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. We care about you.

Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Care, care. Did I mention that we care? Bart is trying to score points with the stonecutters my favorite line everything lasts forever all right son of a stonecutter let's give it best line then that's the joke i didn't even have to i didn't have to vote for it

everything lasts forever everything lasts forever everything lasts forever not yes actually that scene made me think about it in retrospect, that Bart ends up pretty bad at this, because he's never going to get to join the No Homers Club unless he saves the life of a member. That's the only way. Like, his dad will prevent him from ever being a part of the No Homers Club. So, as usual, Homer Simpson ruins everything for everybody.

Usually his family. I like that immediately Homer finds out that getting everything he wants all the time is unfulfilling. I just love the acting on everybody. Yeah. Because they can't say he's imperfect. It's just so great. I'm out. No, no, no, no, no.

Homer, you have the royal sampler. Oh, I win no, no, no, Homer. You have the royal, um, sampler. Oh, I win again, don't I? Woo-hoo. Good one. Nice game. You know, I think you guys are letting me win. No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! Honest with me. I mean, I'm not perfect, right? Run. That's great stammering from everybody.

Yes, and a great Wiggum scream at the end. Yeah, I just like when they're ready to run. They're like, run! That's always the answer. Homer then goes to Lisa and asks for help. It's underrated. I missed it in so many viewings until about now. But just the way Skinner backs out of the room without lifting his head. Yeah, and he stands at attention when Homer comes in.

He straightens up. And then has to grovel and leave. I also like that miss hoover just go is also excited that this class is yay yay in the typical miss hoover fashion yes yeah that she's extremely jaded yeah they don't get as much out of her as they could i then they took him forever to do a blowjob joke with her it was a very long time it was in a flash forward where bart has sex with her in some season. I guess I did want to point that out.

Like, this happened in the first six seasons, but this is a batshit crazy episode. It's pretty crazy. This is a world, a Springfield world-changing event. Yes. There are aliens.

There are aliens. It's not even a Halloween episode, and it's like, but everybody loves it. Everybody's in the cult. I mean, John Swartzwalter's last season six episode was a chain scratchy, where they fought evil robots at the end. It's true.

It just seems like one of those things people would rag on if it came out in season 27. Well, just think about season six. That was six years. Think about what shows are doing when usually season six is really late for a TV show. No, most people who worked on season six were like, well, this is, the steam engine is coming into the station. This is almost over. He was like, well, we all thought

that it was going to end soon, so we just threw everything we had at the wall, you know? The Poochie episodes basically ends with them saying, and this is the end of the show. Yeah. Like, it's not,

everybody's going to turn it off. We'll never see the year 2000. And then Homer pitches all those monkeys reenacting the Civil War. I just love it. He goes like, let's say Sir Hart started hurting people

which they almost certainly would. And somehow Lisa convinces him to give to charity which I love that that disgusts every stonecutter. They can't imagine doing charity. Especially Mo. Brothers! Brothers!

Brothers! Brothers! I've learned a wonderful lesson. Helping others makes our own lives better and makes us better people. So instead of just shooting pool and drinking beer, let us stonecutters use what we have to help the less fortunate. He's gone mad with power, like that Albert Schweitzerweitzer guy mo is the secret mvp of this episode in my opinion he has so many great lines he's kind of true he's reacting to so many

different things but i've done albert schweitzer research yes i know you're all screaming for albert schweitzer info but he was just a famous humanitarian he won the nobel priest prize for the i believe it was an essay called reverence for life and i can read you his basic mission statement ethics is nothing other than reverence for life reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality namely that good consistent maintaining assisting and enhancing life and to destroy or harm or hinder life is evil so it's all about respecting life i don't know bob if the market says somebody shouldn't have health care, I think they should just starve.

I mean, that's... You know what? You're right. Yeah. I can make a rich person's life worse by asking them for food, so... So here's the funny thing about everybody freaking out

about Homer's proclamation. In real life, the Masons are actually an extremely charitable organization. They are. Multiple hospitals are always giving the charity a lot. And you're promised

they're not the Shriners. I mean, the Shriners are part of them, right? They have little cars, though. I do know that Jack Chick hated the Shriners. He hated everybody. He did hate every,

he hated every Christian. He hated even, he's just like, well, these other Catholics, they're not real Catholics like me. No, they're not that, like, so you hate all but like 700 people on Earth, maybe?

But yes, Albert Schweitzer, for the record, never went mad with power. He was a great humanitarian. That's who he was. So speaking of a great Mo line, this is another awesome one. Yeah. Wee! Wee! Oh, for the love of God god somebody get the jaws of life followed by a great

i'll give you higher my filthy little urchin you've won this round he's in the middle of threatening the child and he gets smashed again but the most screaming You've won this round. He's in the middle of threatening the child and he gets smashed again. I love Moe screaming so much. Just the sound of it. You know that he's like, you think that he's crippled. Like, he's like, his back has been broken and you just hear him pounding on his side. Get me out!

I know very little about voice acting. It is really hard to scream. As Moe. In that voice and have it consistent with the character and the jaws of life is like an electric biting thing to cut through any metal like it's like a giant like scissors almost the way it works i just saw it used on wwe programming recently where uh best use of it i think a character decides to basically murder another wrestler by backing his ambulance into a wall and smashing him in it.

But don't worry, the other wrestler is fine because he's that tough, man. But yes, just Moe's wee, him going from wee to crippling pain is so hilarious. And they cause another helicopter crash in this episode by painting a building sky blue. They're painting over the graffiti graffiti. Which, when I talk about the color of the Talking Simpsons t-shirt at tiny.cc slash talking shirt, I describe it as a beautiful sky blue because of this. You will not get attacked by helicopters. I won't promise that. Oh, will you?

Not legally binding. Just don't jump too high in the air with that thing on. But it's just beautiful that they, any time they try to do something nice, it hurts people. And the stonecutters can't stand it. Yeah, and the World Council steps in, and there are four people on this World Council.

Orville Redenbacher, Popcorn Magnate. Do we need to explain who this guy is? He was on TV for about a decade. He's a real guy. Was he the real guy on TV? He was the real guy. That was the real Orville. The person playing his grandson I believe was an actor. And there's a great Mystery Science Theater 3000 sketch about their

animosity towards each other called Look Up Orville Popcorn on YouTube. You'll find it. I think this might be a reference to the fact that Colonel Sanders was a mason. Oh, okay. Interesting. That was the first thing that popped into my mind. The Orville, they tried to raise him from the dead, not unlike they have done with the Colonel.

In this case of raising him from the dead, they put a plastic mask on a dude and just like, See, I'm Orville Rundbacker. I'm back like like this is gross at the very least when they have comedians playing the colonel it's obvious you know they're a comedian you're like okay you're not you're not trying to fool me a dead man is walking around like and then part of their apology tour for the orville redenbacher corpse was that they're like okay we'll just air old commercials with a real orville and we still respect him like it's good popcorn i'm more of a uh well more of a movie theater

butter pop secret guy that's that's my brand of pop or the one that was different colors it's pop quiz i'm sorry it's definitely not a jiffy pop person i'm more of a store brand guy i'm surprised that you eat eat movie popcorn after working there. Well, movie theater butter popcorn is not. Sorry, I mean the brand movie theater butter. Actually, if somebody else buys popcorn, I will eat their popcorn at a movie theater. But I will never pay for popcorn again after working in a concession stand. Fair enough.

I have to. It's just a thing I need to do while I watch a movie in a theater. I just need to shovel things in my mouth. I don't know if you're joking, but that really helps calm me down and focus on the film. Yeah, yeah. Orville Redenbacher, Mr. T, George A. Chubbybush. Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson. I gotta pull my

hair back. Jack. Oh, you should have been an 80s stand-up. But yeah, what does the council have to say? We gotta kill him! Take it easy, Moe. Let's hear from the Stonecutter World Council before we act too rashly. Kill him. Kill him.

Kill the fool! I'm afraid I have to disagree with Orville, Jack, and Mister. Can't we just do something to his voice box? We might as well face the truth. As long as we're Stonecutters, he will control our lives. Maybe. But maybe we don't want to be stone cutters no more.

Silence! I now call to order the first meeting of the ancient mystic society of No Homers. Hey, fellas, can I join? Sorry? No homers. Yeah, they take over a Baskin-Robbins for their new secret hideout.

To make it vacant store. Yes. Again, Mo again, he really is the MVP of this episode. That he's the one who says, maybe we don't want to be stone cut. He has all the best ideas. Yeah. Meanwhile, Barney, another classic Barney in the mix of... Of course Barney is a stonecutter.

I think Bush has about maybe doing something to his voice box. I'm thinking of how Bush was in the CIA, and that's something he probably would think of. That seems too deliberate of a reference. I don't understand what that means. I wondered if it was a late change i wonder if he agreed to kill him and then they're like no this is too far we can't say that a former living president would want to murder homer that probably would cause some controversy in 1995 it might have yeah in 95 he was still well he definitely wasn't liked even by george bush's side show a side show about it. In Laser Time,

an episode about the finest musical moments of Freddy Krueger, people pitched a fit because Freddy Krueger threatened to kill a George Bush puppet on DC Follies. Wow. It implied he was going to murder him. Geez, a puppet. A puppet. He was held back by Fred Willard. Did he mention a thousand points of fright, perhaps?

Anybody? I got it. a thousand points of fright, perhaps? Anybody? I got it. A thousand points of light. The moral of this episode is that everyone seeks authoritarian rule.

We crave it. Not just everybody in Springfield. To rule you like a king. I like to imagine that, meanwhile, in every stonecutter

hall around America, that they were abandoned and filled with Civil War monkeys. I want to imagine it was a national thing. Probably the monkeys that Mr. Burns was using previously to write the book. Oh, that's right. Homer freed them from their servitude.

Civil War monkeys instead. And I like that Marge is saying that they will give each other parasites. Homer might give them parasites just as She identifies them as Colobus monkeys. I looked up Colobus monkeys. They look nothing like the monkeys in this drawing, in this animation, rather. Well, it's more specific than just saying monkey, I suppose.

It's cute that Marge identifies the specific kind of monkey, though. I wonder if that's, as a comedy writer, saying, like, it's funny to say monkey, but be more specific. More specific is funny bart and lisa and their rings is one of my favorite animation moments in this whole episode i love it so by the way jim reardon directed this episode great great job superstar you know you are a member of a very exclusive club black panthers no the family sim, which has just five members. And only two of those members have special rings. Yeah! I meant their wedding rings.

You know, Marge, you're right. The Simpson family is the best possible club I could belong to. Ow! Ow! club I could belong to. This club better be worth it. Alright, alright, it's Lisa's turn. Great ending. Homer's pose there is the Kevin Bacon pose when he is getting spanked in Animal House, which he already

was in that pose at the end credit sequence of Homer Goes to College, by the way, except in that one he was nude. Right, right. Upon this viewing, I lost my shit at the kids blowing in the rings. That was so fucking funny. It'll be funny forever. How frustrated Marge gets. She's trying to talk

to Homer and talk him down, and they just interrupt with this annoying whistle sound. You had one of those whistles. I didn't have one in a ring, but you can suck it back in and slow it down. I love their disappointment. It's a great pose. It's an awesome pose.

It's just like, oh yeah. The only slight criticism I have of this episode is that the final, I suppose, moral or the speech that Marge gives

is a little schmaltzy, but it's made up for by the final joke at the end yeah they needed a paddling to undercut it's it is very rare they end a show on the sweetness instead of a joke the next episode is the rare time they don't end on a joke and then they normally they're afraid to get too cute they're like all right we've been cute enough time to smack over in the butt yeah next show is one of the most poignant moments. I think they earned it for sure. I did want to know, you had a list of

major Simpsons characters who are not members of the Stonecutters. Jasper's in there, we don't really talk about it. Krusty is in there. Smithers is in there, even though they don't have legs. The guy without an arm is in there. Herman is in there. Did you say you took a list of who's not in there?

Yeah, I was like, who is not in there? So here are just a few. One is Ned Flanders. That makes so much sense, though. It's too godless for him, I'd say. Ned Flanders is not in it. Reverend Lovejoy. No heathen shit for them.

Apu. Praises, sure. Snake. He's probably too busy being in prison. I was locked in jail. Well, he's low class, also. Otto is definitely not a stonecutter. Snake. Well, yeah. He's probably too busy being in prison. I was locked in jail. Well, he's low class also. Otto is definitely

not a stonecutter. No. Too young. And Lionel Hutz, surprisingly, is not a stonecutter. He's too inept. I don't think you would

know about stonecutters. I never noticed those dudes were not there. So, they kind of used every, I think that's, They used like every model. Yeah.

I think that it's funny that Dr. Hibbert is second in command. That's true. His hat shows he is number two, I would guess. I think it shows you too just how full Springfield is getting with known characters. That they can have everybody be a known character instead of just have to make up dudes. A few years ago, they would have just had a whole bunch of generic characters and like the random babysitter that they reused a whole bunch of times and also most of them would have hair over their eyes so they don't have to draw eyeballs like god that is a great great episode it's an all-timer it's an all-timer great from beginning to end

the jokes about just all the shit you get from being in a secret society is great and then homer uh homer is is awesome throughout all of this, too. Yeah, all the jokes land except for the Steve Guttenberg one, but I'll forgive them for that because this is a great episode. And they sing it, so it's easier to forget. I'm A-plusing this up. It's such an A-plus episode. And I think that everybody can identify with the frustration of not being into the club, even if you were the popular kid. At some point, you were probably left out,

so you can totally identify with what Homer's going through. And let's be honest, the no-Homers club joke is just, it's a classic. There are so many classic gags in this one. Launched a thousand shitposts. Yes, of course. Have you been in any game events recently, Ken? Any game events? Yeah. No, I haven't.

Why do you ask? Well, did you see me there? That's how I feel every day every single day I'm not at the place where all my friends are at the no antistas club so thank you so much for listening oh well who needs it I say thanks for listening

folks I've been your host Bob Mack you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo my other podcast is Retronauts every Monday at retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast device. That's a classic gaming podcast been going on for 11 years. So if you haven't heard of us, what's your problem?

That's my question for you, the listener. How'd you get this far? Yes, exactly. You should know who I am. Anyone else jump in. Hi, I'm Kat Bailey and you can find me on Twitter at the underscore KatBot.

And by the way, if you like me podcasting about things and being nerdy, you should listen to my rpg podcast acts of the blood god where i get very very nerdy about role-playing games alongside my co-host nadia oxford right in the middle of a deep dive episode by episode of final fantasy 9 so think of that as the talking simpsons of jrpgs i'm h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g on twitter and you can follow me there for any updates when new episodes go live also if you heard this with ads well did you know you'd hear it without ads

and a week early that's right it's on patreon.com slash talking simpsons along with the first season of the show every episode of talking critic three exclusive interviews four exclusive videos and our monthly community podcast and tons more stuff coming after that well you got it all in one breath that's impressive just starting at five dollars a month get you all those things it's totally worth it if you like this podcast and it helps me and bob live this is our main full-time job chris yeah well if you like patreons you'll love patreon.com slash laser time it's time to make a better pitch than that but for free for nothing

you can go to laser time podcast.com or check out our other fine shows anywhere you listen to your podcast 30 2010 looking back 30 20 and 10 years ago and that week in history usually pop culture history laser time the topic based show we just recently did a show about the origins of Rick and Morty and South Park

and the finest musical moments of Freddy Krueger in honor of Halloween. And we also have a limited series, An Elm Street Nightmare, every single Tuesday. Me and Lizzie Quavis talking about every single thing Freddy Krueger has ever done in eight short episodes. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week with Anne Maggie Makes Three, and we'll see you then. Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do. We do. Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?

Who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do. We do. Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? We do. We do. Who robs gay fish of their sight? Who rigs every Oscar night?

We do. We do. Shut up.