Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer the Great With Andrew Jupin

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

"I've never felt so accepted in all my life. These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer J. Simpson Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? Homer finds out when some light stalking leads to his discovery of The Stonecutters: a secret society that exists deep within the underbelly of Springfield. But will this new gang of cloak-wearing, pool-playing drunks eventually become yet another No Homers Club? Our guest: Andrew Jupin from We Hate Movies And be sure to check out We Hate Movies LIVE this August in Las Vegas at ST:LV! Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

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Ahoy, ho, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons where we all get drunk and play ping pong. I'm one of your host, the Egg Council Crete Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today as always. Henry Gilbert and I'm going to stalk Lenny and Carl. And who do we have on the line? I am renowned Oscar night fixer, Andrew Juppen. And this week's episode is Homer the Great. Hey, how come you guys got such great parking places?

It's a secret. Shut up. This week's episode originally aired on January 8, 1995. Welcome to 1995. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical Day in real world history. Happy New Year. House Guest debuts at number three at the box office.

The History Channel launches on cable and the TV series Sybil debuts on CBS. I was viewers of all of these programs and channels and movies. Wow. So the History Channel just turned, what, 30? 31? 31 with the hit. That's crazy. But you know what?

Back then, the classic stuff, real history. It's all fine and good. But whenever this slide into ancient aliens, that was when my history channel viewership really spiked. This was the era of the history channel in which they played programming your stepdad or grandpa would fall asleep too. Exactly.

Anything about the big one or back. Yes, it was officially a spinoff of A&E. I just think of it as its own thing, but it's like from the A&E, it's History Channel. And very quickly they learned, I think, through their ratings that World War II things were the most popular stuff. stuff on there and they were like, God, I wish you could remember the comedian, but a comedian

I remember on late night in the 90s said, like, history channel, or as I call it, the Hitler channel, because he's always on there. But yes, then eventually the things about conspiracies of aliens and whatnot, or even maybe Freemasons, those became much more popular, clearly based on what the channel started airing. I suppose the greatest generation who cared about seeing World War two footage slowly went away. Yeah, they stopped watching for some reason. Or they started supporting Hitler. I didn't care for all that anti-Hitler programming.

One of the other. Yes. The house guest, I know Andrew's familiar with this one too, because May 2013, it was We Hate Movies. Oof, yes. House guest with Sinbad and Phil Hartman, if I'm remembering correctly. And it is, I think that was where you see Steve Sainak on We Hate Movies. dubbed it his walking bag of Doritos, I think. Sinbad just is walking around, or maybe it's just chips.

He's got a family-sized bag of chips that's all for Sinbad in that movie. Wow. Yeah, and this is one of very few starring roles for Phil Hartman, for obvious reasons, but he did not get to star in many movies. Did he ever star in a truly good film? Am I missing something with the Phil Hartman filmography? People have tried to reclaim Jingle all the way, slightly younger people than us.

I guess Small Soldiers is probably as bad. He's got a decent-sized role in small soldiers. I will say this past holiday season, I was on the couch recovering from surgery, so it was a really not great holiday for me. But I was just sitting around. All I could do was watch movies. And I went back to jingle all the way. And I don't know if it was the pills talking or what,

but I had a blast. I found it totally charming. And I feel like if I went back to our episode that we did on it, a thousand and four years ago, I would not even recognize that person's opinion. And hey, as of about a month ago, Simbad has announced his return to stand-up. I believe he suffered a stroke in recent years. And his ticket sold out immediately, so we could be standing upon the Sinbad Renaissance here.

He's been very open about his recovery process and the difficulties of it. I wish him the best. I once was behind him on an airplane. He was traveling coach on Southwest. That's how a man of the people, Sinbad is. Oh, wow. That's fantastic. Yeah, the Sinbad stand-up stuff is interesting.

It's kind of like a dual-bill. him and his daughter and you kind of get the vibe that like she's sort of helping him or whatever i follow him on instagram and he has been posting like videos of himself speaking and stuff and he's really come a long way so i'm just like so thrilled for the dude frankly but just to fill and jingle all the way it's a supporting role but it is brilliantly hysterical him trying to sleep with rita wilson the whole time and being such a total scumbag character but doing like the nice guy's shake it's like perfect heartman it's really beautiful Yeah, I saw that film for the first time last year, I believe, and I was surprised that his come-up

and it's in that movie just is a single punch, and that's it. Yeah, not jail time. Yes. It's pretty crazy to try to cuck Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife. Yeah, it's pretty gutsy. You have to be super confident in your abilities. I saw a house guest on VHS as a kid, and I haven't watched it since. The only two things I remember about it was, well, I think I remember, is that there's scenes in

McDonald's that felt like real aggressive. of product placement, I feel like I remember. And then the only joke I remember is at the very end after everything has been revealed and that Sinbad was, Sinbad pretends to be Phil Hartman's old college or high school buddy. Right. And then the real person shows up at the end. And that guy's white.

And it leads you to go like, Phil, Harvey, why did you assume Sinbad was your old friend this whole time? Sybil, I was a regular viewer over to. My mom was a big fan of the Sybil show. Yeah, I was too, even though I didn't really know who Sybil Shepard was until after the sitcom ended. Yes, that was similarly with me. I watched it, you know, and I was like a kid who had no business

watching a sitcom like Sybil, but I was watching it because the TV was on and what were you going to do? And I had no idea about like her film career or anything like that. But I remember, I think she had a daughter on that show. And I think I had a crush on that daughter, whatever that actress was. Oh, the redhead. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Alicia Witt.

Yes, yes. Good call. Yeah, and she's gone on to be in a bunch of movies here and there. But yeah, no business watching Sybil at my age. And it was an early hit by Chuck Lorry. I think he really peaked, though, with the Teenage Mut Ninja Turtle's theme song, of course. Oh, Daniel, for dinner.

Two and a half men be damned. That Turtle's theme song is the best thing he's ever created. It's funny to think of us all like not even teenagers yet watching this show premiere and just going like, man, it's so hard for women in their 40s as actresses. Like, it's so tough for them. Christine Branski was the real breakout star of it. I loved her in it.

That was how I was introduced to her as an actress, too, and that you want all the details on it. We could go into it, but our pals on The Great Podcast, gayest episode ever did a great history of the civil show, civil shepherds falling out with Christy Bransky. Also, how it was one of the first shows that Alan Ball worked on and that he took that to six feet under. Yeah.

Interesting. And also, there was a great, very gay character out at The Waiter, who, forget that actor, but he was a good actor. So I didn't know there was a rift between her and Branski, So I guess that's why there was never a Sybil reboot, like I love the Murphy Brown reboot, which I also watched a lot of the original run of Murphy Brown as a kid. The sense I got from Sybil Shepard, hearing about Sybil's memoir was that everybody's out to get her. And so if everybody's out together, how can she make a TV show, you know?

It's everybody's against her. I think the problem started when Bransky won an Emmy and Sybil didn't for the show. That'll do it. That'll cook you. But that's all the fun stuff that was happening on TV when the perfect episode of The Simpsons first aired. And joining us once again is Andrew Jupin from We Hate Movies, and Andrew last joined us for Season 5's Bart Gets an Elephant. Welcome back to the show, Andrew. Ooh, thanks for having me back, guys.

Yeah, wow, that was a long time ago. So ready and raring to go to talk about this one. Yes, one of, it's a perfect episode, and it's easily top five, maybe top three even. In this episode, guest stars a little guy named Sir Pat Stu, and very soon, Andrew, you'll be talking trek in Las Vegas, although your podcast is not called Talking Trek. No, I'm sure there's a talking trek out there,

and they do fine work. But we have been doing for the last 10 years a show called The Nexus where we go through two timelines of Star Trek TV at the same time. We're right now in the middle of Star Trek, the animated series from the 70s, which is just hilariously bad. And like the fifth season of the next generation. But yeah, this summer, we were going to be at STLV in Las Vegas, which is the biggest Star Trek convention in the world.

And they're celebrating 60 years of the franchise this year. So we're going out there with 10 years of the Nexus under our belt. and we're going to cover three movies over a three-night stand, August 6th, 7th, and 8th at the De Forest Kelly Theater, which is in the Rio Resort, which is pretty cool. But yeah, we're going to talk about a movie each night, so you don't have to be caught up on the series or anything like that.

Rath of Khan, Night 1, Generations, Night 2, and First Contact Night 3. If you're going to the convention already, you can get tickets and everything, it's totally fine, but the cool thing is you don't have to have a very expensive convention pass to come see our shows. They are separately ticketed. Very nice. And the link.

To all of this is in our show notes. So check that out, everybody. Thank you guys. And now you finally have something in common with Patrick Stewart. I'm jealous because like him, you have been invited to a Star Trek convention. Yes, I'm sure. He's had many more invites than we have. But yeah, I'm raring to go for this.

I was bummed. He doesn't really talk about it much in his autobiography, which I have read. Okay. I was curious about that because I know I'd seen Bob share that he had started it, I think. Oh, hello, everyone. It's me. I'm lifting up the book. By the way, you guys do amazing Patrick Stewart.

Mine always turns into Sean Connery about three words in, so I'm going to be laying off the gas on that a little bit during this recording. It happens to the best of us. But yeah, Bob, strap in, man. That book is really great. It's really cool. Now, here's the thing. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves on Patrick Stewart. This book is amazing.

You've read it, Andrew. And you can vouch for this. If you care about Star Trek, this might not be the book for you. It's 450 pages. Around page 308, it's like, oh, and I got an interview for a show called Star Trek. Yes, no. And that's when the 90s or the late 80s begin for Patrick Stewart. Most of this book is about his time.

in the theater. Yes, precisely right, Bob. That's a good warning for folks, because it is a lot of like, me and my ma'am growing up, we went to the movies a lot when I was a wee lad, but, and then it just goes on and on him in the national theater. It's amazing. And I just, I read the whole thing in his voice. I didn't even need the audiobook for it. But yeah, if you're in it, it's not a book called me and Star Trek. It's like his whole life. So that comes much, much later. But when he does get to it, It is great, and you can tell he doesn't have, like, one lick of embarrassment. He has all the respect. He knows that that show gave him mostly everything that he has.

Like, he's very cool about it. And also, like, there's some Xavier talk, not as much as I would have wanted, but it is there. And then I became an X-Man. So, like, that's toward the back of the book as well. It's funny, he's been Professor Charles Xavier for, like, only 26 years, which is nothing compared to star. It's like, oh, my newer character, Professor Xavier, that's pretty recent. Yes, exactly. And, man, boy, I'm a bit like his final film performance is supposedly in this upcoming Avengers Doomsday.

Hey, aye, aye. We'll see. I'm trying not to judge in advance, but, man. Though, sadly, at that same Star Trek convention, you will not be breathing the same air as Patrick Stewart. He will not be there. Jonathan Frakes is the highest ranking commander who's going to be at the... All right, you know what? I should call him captain.

He made it to captain. Or do you make the admiral? I forget in Picard. And Picard, he is just a captain. Okay, all right. You can at least kidnap Frakes and make him talk to you about first contact when you do that. Oh, absolutely. And yet, Jonathan Frakes, I know huge talking Simpsons fan.

Come talk about first contact with us on the show live in Vegas. You're going to be out there anyway, dude. What are you doing? I'm trying to see who I could bait from the Star Trek world that possibly come on one of their shows. And I might think about trying to send a note to Robert Picardo. He seems like a cool enough down to earth, like not. snooty dude that would maybe debase himself with the four guys from New York City for an hour?

He reportedly had sex with the Gremlin, so I think he would be down for anything. Reportedly, Bob. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen the footage. And this is actually the second time Andrews talked about a Star Trek-related Matt Grading cartoon with us because we had it on Futurama for their TOS tribute episode.

Right, all right. And that is on the free feed. If anyone wants to hear it, we put that on the free feed a while ago. But Andrew joined us. We talked about the episode where no fan has gone before, and it's all about the entire Star Trek cast reuniting except for Scotty to hang out with the Futurama cast. It's a great episode and a very touching tribute to the original series.

Big time. I recall when I first watched this that during the show, and I was a regular viewer of The Next Generation with my mom. I've been telling everybody about this all the time. But I did not know he was in the episode and it was during the show that my mom was like, oh, that's Patrick Stewart. Like, do you guys recall knowing he was in the episode, or that being like a poll for you into it?

I don't know if it was a poll, but I remember watching it, not knowing that he was in it. And the second I heard number one speak, I was like, oh, very cool. They got Captain Picard to be on The Simpsons. I will fully admit, and I feel really bad about this, I only recently came around to fully being on board with Patrick Stewart because I was not a Star Trek fan in the 90s, not a Star Trek viewer in the 90s, totally missed TNG. I was culturally aware of it. But when he was on this episode, I thought, oh, they got the Star Trek guy. That's kind of fun. And I enjoyed his SNL. But I really only thought of him as Picard. And that's what he most feared. If you read his autobiography, he was so afraid of only being typecast as Picard. But now, thanks to the Nexus, Andrew, I have been watching Star Trek for the last decade. And I fully appreciate everything the man has done. I've sought out other things he's done. I recently watched the film Life Force, which he's in for about 10 minutes. Oh, Toby Hooper's Life Force is a motion picture. Holy smokes.

It goes places, it does things, and it's about more than breasts, by the way. People only talk about breasts when it comes to that movie. Breastler, the bookend. Yeah, you wouldn't know it to read most of the letterbox reviews, but there is other stuff going on in Life Force. I have to recommend a Patrick Stewart made for Showtime Motion Picture called Safehouse, where he plays a hitman who has dementia, and it's like him and the woman who played the daughter in the two Father of the Bride movies

as like his aide slash assistant or protege or something like that and it's like he's paranoid because he's got this dementia and he's convinced like people are coming for him fabulous Patrick Stewart performance I think we did an episode on that a thousand years ago too it's amazing and he's never been neuter in a film there are some Patrick Stewart shower scenes in that movie that surprised me it's unfortunately like he's also like kind of crying

in the shower if I'm remembering right so it's kind of like you're like oh Patrick Stewart naked huh and then he's like But I've got dementia. You're like, oh, maybe not. He was also, I'm trying to think of another random one that I liked him in. He was the villain in the Mel Gibson film conspiracy theory, wasn't he? Absolutely. We used to live in Astoria Queens, which the neighboring neighborhood is Long Island City,

where the exterior of his, like, hideout was for the film. And literally, like, every day for several years, I drove past that building on my way to work. And so I have thought about the movie conspiracy theory, like way more than I think anyone who even fucking made conspiracy theory thought of that movie. Certainly Patrick Stewart. Speaking of conspiracy theories, this one has a big one about what if a organization was controlling all of this in society. But ultimately, it was just to get drunk and play ping pong together. And this is back when conspiracies were simple. They were about lizard people or the masons, perhaps.

Yeah, it's like, oh, it's. It's all the Freemasons. The Freemasons, as Mr. Burns' germs has said in the season 5, Springfield Money Sign episode, Freemasons run the country. That was fun. Like, they founded America. They've been there, the secret illuminati of it. Like, that's the fun, these old tradesmen, the Freemasons.

That's a fun as conspiracy. Yeah. I mean, we were talking about how the History Channel's audience started dying out. I think the audience or the members of these fraternal organizations like the Masons, the Elks, the odd fellows. I feel like I would see these signs everywhere in old cities, but I would wonder, like, how many of these people still gather

and do their beer hoists or the knights or whatever? Yeah, I would think it's probably more than you realize. Like, the Mason's definitely still around 100%. I know in the town where I'm from in upstate New York, there's definitely an Elks Lodge that is still fully functioning. I mean, I don't know. It's got to be like Vietnam veterans at this point. Like probably not a lot of WW2,000.

guys left, but it's still there. So I don't know, you know. We also have Knights of Columbus up there. Oh, okay. That's also a vaguely cultish organization. We had an Elks Lodge in my area. I remember seeing like a Mason's building or whatever in Jacksonville, Florida. Like it technically existed, but yeah. And I mean, these days, you hear about different like clubs and that it's just called the billionaire club and they all go to the same island. Although the same guy. It all became like streamlined and really less creative and interesting. Like the whole mystique and theatricality of these things, I think, are gone. And they're more just like,

kind of like the Christmas Adventurers Club. E. Anderson, you know what I mean? That wasn't even good enough satire for like, I was like, no, I'm just seeing reality. Exactly. It was fresh for like 12 hours. Then it was a quickly lapped by reality. But yeah, this episode was thought up by David Merkin. At the time,

they were spending a lot of very late nights at the Simpsons, writing until two or three in the morning. And that's how good comedy is made through suffering. That's right. God damn it. He was driving. driving home just trying to find something new on the radio. He turned on an AM station. He heard a religious program that was talking about the evils of the Masonic societies

and how they could secretly control the world. And he thought, that's a good idea for the Simpsons. But also, it'd be funny if Homer was the only man who did not belong. And it could be the story of an outsider because Merkin himself feels like an outsider a lot of time. So it's a high level story, but also gets down to a personal level with Homer feeling like a loser. That Merkin can tap into this like childhood belief of like, everybody's in a club but me.

And Homer learns that, yes, literally every man in Springfield seemingly is a member of this club other than him. Every identifiable male in the show up to this point is a member. And it all ties into just his childhood. But also it is about crazy conspiracy theories that eventually just break down into every little thing that annoys you in life actually is solved, but only for you if you're in a certain club. Like that's the extent of the conspiracy. Exactly. which, you know, that's a pretty personal level conspiracy. I'd feel very affected like that if I was an adult when this came out.

Like, yeah, I am being wrong, and I'm the only one being wrong. Everybody else knows 9-1-2 except me. Then he assigns it to Schwarzwalder and John Schwarzwolder is one of the greatest top three writers on Simpsons. And this is the perfect crazy Homer story to give them about an old-timey fraternity too. And then Jim Reardon, one of the best ever directors, especially for, Homer episodes gets the episode. So like this is a recipe for success right here for sure. Begin the episode after they've reused couch gag of the sign for Stern lecture plumbing with a fantastic logo. I just love the structure of this. First two acts perfect. They have the same three scenes in a row in both acts, but they show you what's changed three in row.

And this sets up all of their consternation so perfectly here. The handyman, like again, this is just what's annoying in your life? when you call a handyman and you're just sure he's lying to you but you can't prove it he's the expert that one of the most that happened to one of them definitely that's no like what if or I heard about from another guy that's like I got fucked by this plumber this one time and now he's going to pay for it so I'm going to criticize him on the Simpsons I was used to landlords never fixing anything but now that I own property and please hold your applause I just naturally assume contractors would be there to help me I could fire money at them and they would fix things in our condo or install things.

And currently, we put down a down payment on air conditioning in February. It is mid-June. And they're still waiting on the parts to come in if they ordered them in. They didn't. So we're waiting on that. And also waiting on some window treatments to be installed where I'm just like sending photos saying like, I can pay you now. Please come over and install them.

And they're just like, well, we won't. But it's nice that you want us to come over. They're getting a lot of low battery messages. Contractors love fucking with you and a psychological torture. That's what I'm saying here. All you contractors out there, please get it together. help me start sending them just photos of like a wad of Canadian cash I really should I need to make it rain in here and I just love the delivery to I believe it's his area doing it saying like that's if I order them today which I won't yes as he's like stuffing the pipe oh I love it their cat snowball too has become aquatic in this episode too it's a fun commentary as well unfortunately the writer and director aren't there for it Swordswell never does commentary and Jim Reardon was busy working on Wally,

co-director of Wally, Oscar-winning guy. This is the beginning of John Lasseter at Pixar, and then when he got in charge of Disney, just ransacking the Simpsons animators. He's like, yeah, they're the best. Somebody should have been offering them films before, but fortunately, I can just take them all. You can hear it on the 2005-ish commentary,

not in this one in particular, but they are starting to get frustrated of like, well, we lost another of our top directors to go to Disney. Yardley Smith is great. We love her, but it is funny her on the commentaries that she seems to not know much about making the show. Here's the thing. I think Yardley Smith was hit in the back of the head with a

hammer and then they led her into this room because she seems just very confused about everything that's happening in a way that doesn't really happen on other commentaries with her. Oh, that's weird. Well, it's a funny one for her to be on, though. There's not a massive Lisa presence in the episode. Sometimes they just do like two in a day

and they're like, well, this one doesn't really fit for you, but can you just hang around or She just wants to hang around. But when she sees the Olmec head, she's like, what's the deal with that, like, totem pole? And then Dan Kesslinita goes, you don't remember the old mech head? Oh, man. Yeah.

Well, we've heard these commentary sessions in the past, at least, used to be very well catered. So I think the idea is, you're Julie Kavanaugh, you want a sandwich. And in order to get that sandwich, you've got to sit down with these guys for 20 minutes and talk about an episode. The time we got to interview Mike Reese, we've mostly asked him about food served at commentary. What are we talking about?

Well, I definitely remember he said that they had great root beer floats. Like they would give you this. Yeah, it sounded like a pretty good deal. Fucking do a commentary on every episode. If I'm getting free root beer floats, come on. I don't think they were getting paid for these commentaries or getting any, like, money for the DVD sales. Oh, well, that's a problem. After Homer leaves a pan floating, we cut him being stuck in traffic.

And I also love that he's just asking like, oh, the traffic report, it'll get me out of this one. Like, he just to be listening to him. As he's stuck on a two-lane road. that appears to be going, like, directly to the power plan. I was like, I don't know how much Arnie Pye's going to help you here. But we find out it was Arnie Pye's fault anyway. Or there's a guy next to him. Do you crash this?

If not for the cut joke in the second act, which we'll get to, there would have been one helicopter crash joke per act in this show. Yeah, I have all five deleted scenes here. And yes, it was supposed to be a runner. I'm fully sure of that. It was supposed to be a runner. And you lose it. This being an hell.

helicopter crash. It happened so long before the in the Act 3 helicopter crash. I never took it in as a runner as them setting up something. Then we get the third joke of Homer Park so far back that he may as well have walked to work. I love this. It's one of my favorite things is messing with the geography to fit a joke. And the fact that all of a sudden in the back of their yard, which you've seen a thousand times and it's the little wall with the shrub and whatever, is just the this huge, like, fucking ice detention center chain link fence with, like, razor wire all over it. You can hear macawaining grumble about this on the commentary. Does not like this joke. Begrudgingly admits it's funny, though. I like him say, like, oh, millions of dollars later, I can laugh at this. Oh, what a guy. I think what else I love about the joke is that Marge and Bart, I think because they are

drawn as background elements or something, are their scales off, Bart looks extra goofy. Like he's drawn wrong in it, which makes it funnier instead of being like, oh, they drew it wrong. It's funnier. There's a great Homer, like, barely speaks an actual word when they're like, hi, honey, or whatever it is. And he's like, nah. Like, he barely even says like, hi as he miserably walks away from the car. That Bart seems to just wait there every day to be like, all right, time to wave a dad and make you feel horrible.

And so that's then where we get to the opening clip I had for us earlier of Homer. Homer noticing for the first time that Lenny and Carl get to park right up front for some reason. What's the deal? That's where Carl tells Lenny to shut up. This is a good three-part joke. When you get to the Homer one, I think it's like one of my favorite parts of the episode. So then Homer goes to his trusty stool that he sits on every episode to monitor the planet. It breaks on him and we see that it's an econo save.

They're ruined and they just made the list. Yeah. One extra joke I discovered in this scene is that it's not only a conno save, but it's labeled Factory Second, which is another term for a regular, meaning the cheap bench did not pass inspection, the cheap stool. That's great. Oh, that's great. There's a lot of funny ones on that list of freeze frame. Stern Lecture Plumbing is on there, for instance, but also deeper into history, H2W is on there, where Homer got stuck in the tube when he was too fat. Oh, wow.

That's a deep pole. I also thought just right towards the bottom is the boy. And I guess also Emmys is there because they were snubbed for a few years before they started winning every year for a very long time. We've told this before, Andrew, but The Simpsons won in the animated section or at least got nominated in the first three years, but they decided to start submitting to regular comedy. And their advantage of being famous in the animated section now was a disadvantage of being animated in the regular. comedy section. And so I don't think they got nominated once in the time they were submitting to just the regular comedy section. Wow. I mean, it's one of those things that's like, it's unsurprising,

but like totally unfair. If you, like, if you tracked it, like, what else was nominated in those years that they submitted it and, you know, get anything? I'd be really curious because like, guaranteed, probably some of those submitted Simpsons episodes are better than whatever episode of whatever one. We've heard them mock the wit and sparkle of Murphy Brown as one of their nemeses. on the show. Oh, and Billy Crystal also on the list. There's something wrong with him. I'm not sure what, but there's many things to be annoyed at Billy Crystal for, for sure. I'm looking at the Emmy winners here, and I think when they were submitting for non-animated comedy show, that was the year when Frazier won four, five seasons in a row for a outstanding comedy program. Yeah. See, the real world side show Bob is killing them every year. Excellent.

So yes, his Homer marks them down on the list. Oh, I also did hear a funny thing about Billy Crystal that he's tragically, like many people, lost a poem in the terrible fires last year in Los Angeles. And he is apparently doing a one-man show about, you know, that experience. And then that's fine. But he's premiering it in New York City, not in Los Angeles. Yes, I saw. Actually, the funny thing is I didn't realize what it was about, but I think they were sort of plugging it at the Tonys this past Sunday. we were watching that because he was there presenting

and he was talking about like coming back to the Broadway community and I was like, uh-oh, he's coming back to town. What has he got going on? But man, that is unfortunate. Like go to like pantages out Los Angeles or something out there. Put it out. That's, come on, Millie. But then how can you talk about the Yankees?

How important they are. That's true. But yes, then in our first clip, this is where Homer finally starts to question what's going on as he sees Lenny and Carl in amazing vibrating chairs. Alrighty, Conno say, you just made the list. Hey, do 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 polling tonight? Nah, we're busy. Yeah, we got things to do. Like what? It's a secret.

Shut up. Yes, I love how Homer is on to the running gag And he decides he needs to finish it That's so great. Oh, my God, it's so absurd. It's perfect. He sees in the look in Carl's eyes of just like, hey, shit up. And also that the way they get free sodas is just

They have their stone cutter ring And they just put it into a very obvious slot on the machine That anybody could figure out. But Homer doesn't get like, huh, that's weird. Okay, anyway. Henry, the chair you got there in your studio kind of looks like the Lenny and Carl chair. It's a gamer chair, though. Sadly, it doesn't vibrate.

Oh, damn it. That'd be very distracting for the listener. Yes, that's true. It's the matching one of the one I sit in. It used to be Bob's chair when we recorded together back when we invested in a pretty good gamer chair. I don't care for the branding of it, I have to say, I'd never endorse the branding of it being. It's like a crusader knight, like a knight in the Crusades that just, Oh, that's weird.

That a certain, you know, I choose to believe it was an apolitical use of a crusader these days. Though I also was just in a similar situation. His father's day, or it's about to be. I wanted to get something for my stepdad. He's a tough guy to shop for a nice guy. I like him. It doesn't vote for not a bad guy. Just need to say these things.

Let's see the record. Well, because my mom said, oh, get him this thing. And it was a print-order shirt of his old Air Force, where he worked in the Air Force, was decommissioned. So it's like, remember this place. Oh, okay. But the websites he brought me to that prints it, that was the only place I could find, it was like opened in 2016, America's

T-shirt place. And it just had all these markers of like, oh, man, I've got to get money to this. Just go to killimmigrants.com in order to T-shirt today. Oh, no. It was just safe enough of like, they didn't have like a, well, I didn't dig deep enough, but they didn't have like a thin blue line thing or like support

ice shirt. But there were so many markings of you could get a red hat there i'll tell you that no that's that's unspurs is it a place where like if you bought like five t-shirts like they'd bundle it and then as a free gift you get like a knife with a problematic handle or something i understand economically why a website that prints shirts for veterans goes like well obviously we need to have maggot things here like that makes sense demographically but i hope by my stepdad enjoys his veteran shirt as a proud veteran who voted for Kamala Harris, listeners. We can't send you a swastika.

We can send you the parts. You can assemble it yourself. Oh, the instructions on these build your own swastikas are always so complicated. What do you mean I need a buddy to put this together with me? Bring your own Alan Wrench. And then there's a fifth arm at the end. And you're like, what? That's a backup in case it falls off your wall.

One side breaks. So Homer takes his problems to family, lets them know that Lenny Carl are always busy every Wednesday, which to me tells me that's their nightly recording of a podcast. That's the night they record their weekly podcast. Bart instantly jumps to conspiracies which Homer is absolutely ready to believe. I do. Now. Now.

I love Marge's objection to the stocking. It's so illegal. Yes. I also love the joke of, and this is, I feel, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, you guys. But I feel like as the show got older, especially like post-Y2K, you missed these kinds of jokes where they were like, you know what, we are going to make a joke about Homer stalking someone,

who should it be, it should be the fucking old-ass host of CBS Sunday mornings Charles Carault. I feel like those kinds of really esoteric name drops went away for in favor of more like recognizable people and figures and stuff. Yeah, in this episode we

name drop Charles Carrelt and Albert Schweitzer. Yes. Corral died in 97, I guess this most famous thing that he did was this on the road segment as part of the evening news with Walter Cronkite. He would go on the road in a motor home doing these human interest stories. Sorry, Henry. Well, and if Homer had been stalking him, he might have discovered earlier Charles Corralt's secret family that he had. Oh, yes.

While he was on the road, it seems like he was having some fun. A couple of pit stops. He passed away in 1997, and it's not your problem if you're dead. When you die with a second family, that second family stops being so secret and shows up and say, that they get some of your money when you die. Yeah, you need that this Sunday morning money, man. I used to remember him every week, this Sunday morning. We talk about this all the time,

but how easy it was to have a secret family back in the pre-internet age. Oh, totally. I spent it like the back farther, like the Don Draper days? Absolutely. Secret families all over the country they'd never meet. Charles Carold is a great poll. I think you're right, Andrew, that we, you know, we double up with season 16,

and not that they don't do esoteric, like, references is in season 16, but it does feel like they more often go to like, what's a name people of know? Let's not say somebody who's been dead for 50 years. Yeah, exactly. This is where Homer, he understands or is frustrated, but understands Marge's being upset at his stalking. And also is, well, something did is such a great response. Homer, now I favorite ever jokes,

Homer can't think of a good lie. He can't make up a lie while he is talking and as slow as he goes. he eventually gets the end of his sentence and just says what he's going to do without thinking of a lie. And it's Jim Reardon and his team's posing on like, I'm going to stalk.

Every pose is like a new thought on it. And Castle Nett kills it, of course, too. And what's great about these kind of Homer realization jokes is like the quick, like as soon as he's done saying it, he realizes what he did. And so you just get the dough follow up like right away as opposed to a, do you have any idea what you did, like him not getting it?

I love that he just registers immediately. Oh, I did the thing I didn't want to do. Homer devises an actually pretty smart plan by his standards of the Yellow Drip Road. Yeah, good plan, good pun to back it up. Bob, you read tons of classic old detective novels. Is this a thing? Has anybody ever used this to trail somebody in those old detective books? You know, I've never seen this before in my life.

And I'm wondering where Swartzwater got it from. Maybe it's his own invention, but it is ingenious. I was actually wondering if, like, yeah, maybe they saw like an old film noir or something where some gum shoe did that. It is way too clever for Homer Simpson. Well, and Swartzwolder writes his own detective novels as well. You have a stupid character who would do these things. The Frank Burley novels, they're all great.

Well, I read the first five, and those were all great. I'll have to look into this. I never heard of this book series. Oh, yes, if you want pure Swartzweiler of just all. jokes all of the time, every sentence is a joke. They're great. Wow. Okay. I guess what? The first one is the time machine did it. Is that the first one? Yeah, yeah. That's the one that I've read. Now they're a lot more available than they used to be. So check them out. Sweet. Earth versus everybody was another one I really enjoyed too. I remember it's about Martian invaders. And he talks about how the Frank

Burley method of invasion for him when he becomes one of the Martians is that he run in a straight line, don't stop. Even if a tree is in front of you, you climb over that tree down and it confuses your enemies. Frank Burley just is very, him and Homer Simpson would be very good friends. Yeah, I think so. Oh, that's awesome. And also Swartzweiler gets to have his dream that he doesn't have

to write lines for any female characters, as was usually the case. Mike Rees said this before, that he loved Schwarzwalter, a great friend of his, but he said that when they would get in scripts from him, they'd have to remind him of like, Marge and Leachia should say something in these, I think. And they have names drawn.

When Homer discovers a secret brotherhood. It's a weird, iry, godless, evil stuff. No one in. He won't just become a member. You are the chosen one. Woo-hoo! He'll become their leader. Patrick Stewart guest stars on a brand-new Simpsons next.

Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth, and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing, or service, O-D-U gives you one place to manage your business. Visit O-D-O-D-O-O-O-D-O-O-com. Who has a podcast every week, whose research is at its peak, we do, we do. Hey, welcome to the break, everybody.

Henry Gilbert here. And a big thank you to our guests for covering Homer the great, the great guest, Andrew Jupin from We Hate Movies. We Love Having on the We Hate Movies. Guys, I think we really have great chemistry together. And especially for a very Star Trek episode, we had on the top Star Trek guy from We Hate Movies. And Andrew Jupin and his pals are about to do three Star Trek live shows

at the Las Vegas Star Trek LV that is happening in August. We have links to it in the description. so check out to those if you're going to be in the Las Vegas area. Not to mention all the awesome, incredible amount of stuff that they do on the We Hate Movies podcast every week, both on their free feed and the Patreon. And hey, you can even hear me and Bob talk about the 2015 Minions film with the guys this month too. And thanks as always to Andrew for his time. And you know, we're only able to do awesome podcasts like this one

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It's like three extra podcasts a month because we can go on. almost six hours sometimes about an animated feature film. The most recent one you're going to hear us talking about is 2012's Reckit Ralph, which has a ton of Simpsons people who worked on it. Multiple Simpsons directors worked on it, including Jim Bearden, the director of this episode of The Simpsons. And the next one you're going to hear us do is Utopia, also directed by a Simpsons veteran Rich Moore.

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Please consider heading over to patreon.com slash talking simpsons today and subscribing. But Bob referred to it earlier. There's a tiny audio bit from this, but the first deleted scene of five in the episode, a lot of great deleted scenes in this, is during Homer's tracking on the Yellow Drip Road, there is again like a traffic jam. And with a camera pans over,

and we see another crashed helicopter. And we hear this quick line. You okay, Arnie. You and your stupid license plate game. So it was the pilot's fault. And yeah, if they had added Arnie's voice to the third crash, it would have been one Arnie Pie crash per act. Wouldn't it be great to hear Dan Kesslinaz like, like his nasal scream as Arnie from that third crash? Oh, that would be awesome.

This is reminding me of my favorite Arnie Pie thing, which is, tell my wife I love. And it crashes it, the feed goes out or whatever. That is the all-timer pie in the sky joke. The cut to Brockman in that where he's like, all right. Oh, God, I love it. So now Homer sees Lenny and Carl go inside, and their exchange is so perfect here to, like they know they are on a TV show again.

There's our secret meeting place. Let's go inside. That's good. I was curious if they make mention on the commentary at all about the fact that the way that is a setup and nobody like sort of like expands on it at all, But the fact that, like, Lenny and Carl are at the same house and drive to the meeting together in the one car. And it's like, is it a Bert and Ernie roommates thing?

Why is one over? Because you see later, like, Lenny doesn't live with Carl. So it's a funny, like, it must have to compound things for this joke to work. And he's following both of them. So I guess they're just at the same house together. Yeah, you can assume they live together or one of them drove to the other's house and parked in the streets. Right, yeah. They weren't totally sure at this time if they weren't married or weren't.

married, and I don't mean to each other, I mean to women. To their mistresses. They're getting pretty close to just going like, all right, yes, when Lenny and Carl have mistresses right. At this point, they haven't yet decided that Lenny and Carl are just, or that Lenny is in love with Carl. They haven't decided. Lenny, at some point, he was shaving another woman's leg. Yes. And then Carl, I believe, Henry, he was at the Homer marriage course with a woman. Yeah, sitting next to an unnamed woman who I don't think, she maybe got like a line in

like the Walla sounds, like the everybody talking of what sounds. Where Homer's teaching that class, that one? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Homer first has his plan to go inside that he just starts walking up. His task to pretend he didn't mean to walk there and just walks right back.

Classic. I love these kinds of jokes, too, because this is just the Abe Simpson going into the Maison derrier. Is your name Bart? Having a big large guard to get in his way and he just still has to go, Then he makes a real Batman entrance here. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Homer is able to get on the roof.

Instead of just leaning over the skylight, he climbs to the direct center of it and is making a full body shadow on the floor that nobody notices. Doesn't go so great for Homer there. An intruder. He will pay the ultimate price. Yes, the ultimate price.

Get out of here. 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, Humber. 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 stone cutter. Next. Or save the life of a stone cutter. Hey! I saved your life. That egg sandwich could have killed you by cholesterol. Forget it, Homer.

Well, it has been established that eggs contain cholesterol. It's not yet been proven conclusively that they actually raised a level of serum cholesterol in the human bloodstream. So one of those eight counsel creeps got to you, too, huh? You got it all wrong, Homer. It's not like that. You'd better run it. It's always tickled me, but I've always been puzzled why the man in the egg suit sounds like a bunch of rats. Yeah, with the squeakiness of it.

And also it just freaks me out because it reminds me, what was the character's name, Sheldon, on Garfield and Friends? Yes. The little guy who never came out of the egg, it reminds me of that. And every time I watch this episode, I'm like, that's not a human being in a suit. That's a freakish egg monster with legs.

And we've talked about this before, I think, Henry, but we all learned what disappointment was in the one episode in which Sheldon's egg cracked. And underneath was another egg. Oh, the worst. The worst. Yes. They stretch it over two acts. They make you sit through a commercial during the,

US Acres. It was a part one and two, which they never did on US Acres. And normally, as a kid, I didn't hate U.S. Acres, but I'm waiting for Garfield to come back on. I'm counting the minutes to Garf. When it finally hatched and it was just another layer of egg underneath, yeah, it was so painful. It was so painful. That's unsettling. That's something like David Cronenberg shit, honestly. Actually, hey, this, I can bring up a thing my husband just gifted me with, actually, was this action figure Garfellow official in the box. is too good. I don't want to get rid of it. Whoa. So that is the Garfield as Donatello, the Ninja Turtle?

Yes, yes. So this is some amazing both Garfield history and corporate synergy, guys. So back in the early 90s, an official Ninja Turtles magazine, there was a one-page comic drawn well by Jim Davis, but let's just say the official Garfield people. They drew Garfield meets the Ninja Turtles. And he shows

up in this exact costume in this one-page one-page comic as his character Garfellow and wants to be a member of the Ninja Turtles, mainly because he likes to eat pizza with them. And now, more than 30 years later, Nickelode owns both of them, and NECA Toys is like, we will make an action figure of Garfellow

with a bunch of accessories and changeable hands and the pile of pizzas and even the one panel joke of Odie's head being stuck inside of a turtle shell. All of that becomes a toy. So much like the original History Channel audience, all of the original Garfield fans are dying, and they need to strike. If you were 10 in the 90s, we got to get it now while the getting is good.

Also, probably if you're a Garfield fan, you are also not watching your cholesterol like Lenny is. And so they've got to move fast there too. Have we come around on eggs yet? Is that what we're doing now? I think we're back on. I think eggs are fine again. There was a scare in the 90s, wasn't it?

I think, well, yes, there were so many. That's what these egg counsel jokes are about, too. This is the second one. that Matt Grating says he never got this. It was definitely a focus of David Merkin, but in the Bart getting adopted by Mr. Burns episode, Mr. Burns considers leaving his money to the Egg Advisory Council. You know, eggs have gotten a bad rap lately.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, what a grudge. When Homer says that he fears Bartle become somebody who can judge a Mr. type bun's competition as his future job, originally he said he'll be a member of the Egg Council, but they deemed Castellaneta's pronunciation of Egg Council as to like not enunciate enough, like egg ansel or egg axle. That's how it sounded.

I'm reading here that you can safely eat up to two eggs a day if you are healthy. There you go. The Mayo Clinic website said, you know, the average person can eat seven eggs a week and it does not increase a risk of heart disease, the average person. They'll check with your doctor then. And also it suggests which you hear from many people like, hey, if you love eggs, but want less cholesterol, that's all in the yolks. If you want just the protein, just have the whites.

Check with your doctor, aka the fun police. Lenny just throwing out there the commercials for eggs. Well, it's like in the 90s, it was a general just like, it's the ads for beef or the ads for milk or the ads for eggs that we didn't realize we were being propagandized by industries kids. It was like, well, I guess it's just a commercial about why milk is good. Yep, exactly. That whole got milk thing, total scam. I love to say we had a real nice blank once. When there's more layoffs in our old field of the video game press,

I always like to say, as real nice games journalism we had once. So Homer now, they speed through the son of a stone cutter. Homer's next. Well, yeah, I'm not the sound like next, like next thing or save the life of one. But little does Homer know that he's actually closer than he thinks. But this first, though, we learn about the start of a tradition and a title that will live on in the Simpsons forever. as Homer first wonders why the stupid idiots don't let him into their crappy club for jerks.

A great line. I think it's one of Bob's favorites, I think, actually, right. I love the phrase crappy club for jerks. That Homer's asking like, why don't people like me? Marge saying, you know, oh, everybody likes you. And then Homer revealing, well, maybe people don't like you because you call it their crappy club for jerks. Homer then talks about this that's been happening his whole life. We cut back to just like, nope, it's the no homer's club.

A club about excluding you. You know, in all of our childhood memories, I'm sure we think a literal no whatever club was made to not have us in. Sure. But in this case, they even let Homer glump lit because they're allowed to have one. And more importantly, this spawned a real life society. The No Homer's Club still exists. I believe it began in 2001, and it is one of the more notable online Simpsons communities before our current social media age. And they're notable enough that they are talked about on this commentary.

and on multiple commentaries, and I'd like to think if that there were still commentaries, they would be complaining about us now. Oh, definitely. I hope. If only we got that, man. Them talking about No-Omer's Club at Graining, saying like, you know, of course it hurts,

but we do love you guys. And the market has a great one. Yeah, no, we love you guys, we love you. We hope someday you're able to get girlfriends, we hope. They're saying in 2005, they had no clue what kind of like, they wish now that they could just contain conversations about the Simpsons varying quality

to only one or two websites on the internet. I went there the other day just to check in on it. I was a poster there 15 years ago or longer than that even. And it's still like a very frequented message board. The community still exists. Maybe not as fruitful as it used to be now that we've all moved on to like Redits

and discords and everything else, but people are still posting. That kind of dedication to a space on the internet is something I respect and would never do myself. I was a lurker on, I was just a occasional visitor of No Homers Club, not a member. But I will also compliment them as a Simpsons researcher that there are many times where articles that you want to read for Simpson's research are either paywalled or simply no longer exist online, aren't even on the Internet archive.

But the No Homers Club post about it from like 2008 will still be alive and well and archived on their forums. That's awesome, though. what a resource. That's very cool. And this Homer Glumplett guy, they knew they loved the slackjod yokel of Cletus, who appeared in Barkett's an elephant that we did with Andrew, but they keep finding other Cletus is. They're like, well, what if we had another guy who like just is Cletus but isn't Cletus?

Which is great, too. I mean, you know just from the sound of his last name what this guy is going to sound like when he sticks his head out of the treehouse. Like, you can hear the yuck before. Or like glumplet, like it's right there. It's such a great. Sometimes you just get a perfect name when you're writing a character like that. Man, that family name tells you everything you need to know about Homer Glumplet.

The credit to Jim Rurton and his team for a great transition in the shots that Kid Homer is sad at this news. And as he slumps down his head, he becomes sad modern day adult Homer who's also sad. Like, what a great transition. That's a nice move, yeah. Marge reflects on that as kids. can be so cruel which Bart reads his permission. We can. This is a great, I don't know, like, what the, I guess because it's like, they want to have

the joke that Bart is walking past the room. This is another geography thing that maybe Graning had a problem with because the bedroom, their door is like what they use for like Lisa's door or Bart's door, like the side hallway, because their bedroom is always at the end of the hall where like Bart can't pass by left to right like that. So they have to change it so that margin Homer's bedroom, the outward view of the door into the hallway is where like Bart and Lisa's doors would be. I think they're just trying to kill Macarena with all these wild changes in geography.

They can blow his top. So it cuts to the next night of dinner and Homer still can't take it anymore. But this is where he gets some important information by finally not listening to his programming. I'd give anything to get into the stone cutters. 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? None of such, no. I'm a stone cutter. 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, March. I know, I know. Maybe we should be listening to him now. I'm a member. Huh? What? What? What?

You're a member of the Stone Cutters, 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 Stone Cutters. 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.

That chicken joke, I always turn it around in my head because I don't think I got it as a kid, But I guess the meaning of it is, if I can unfunily explain a joke here, is that a hypnotist will normally make someone think they're a chicken and they'll make clucking sounds and walk around flapping their wings. But in this case, Homer's self-hypnosis, his chicken personality is just telling people he's a chicken. And that's it. It doesn't really go beyond that. There's no chicken imitations, no flapping of wings, laying eggs, and so on. It is the laziest way you could be hypnotized into being a chicken. So I think that kind of checks with Homer.

Like, what's the, I just say I'm a chicken. And now I'm a chicken. I don't have to dance around. do anything. And Marge's reply of, I know, I know. It's like she's had to hear this for years now. Yes, yes, Kavanaugh gets that so right. There's a later joke where Homer is on stage being hypnotized

and the hypnotist tells him, you are Amelia Earhart and he just says, look at me, everybody, I'm Amelia Earhart and everyone claps. So I think it's a similar joke. And this whole time that they did it to ignore Grandpa, like that's a great and layout too makes a joke even better that like

centered to the frame is Abe and then Bart's head pops into the frame with dad, like finally cut through to Homer like, hey, you should listen to Abe. I'm assuming that Abe, when he had his mental faculties, did not want Homer to be a member of the stone cutter. So he never told him about it. But now he's just senile enough to let it out to Homer that he actually is a stone cutter. I think you're totally right. Because that's like, that's my escape from my stupid son.

And the place I can be totally free of Homer, I think you're right. Yes, he's also an Elkin and Mason. So he's the things that's another person. perfect simpsonism that he's also a member of the things that this is parodying. It's like at the end of the Ritalin episode where Bart is just prescribed Ritalin itself instead of a parody name at the end of it. Right. So Homer proudly takes Abe with him to the stone cutters.

They have to let him in. He's just shoving. He's like, point that thing at me, says Lenny. And then no more Abe throughout the episode. And he drops Abe on the floor. He just drops him on the floor, too, does not care. So Homer then learns that it's not so simple just to become a member And that it's actually

You know there's a number one He's going to have to get initiated and again perfect animation like Ooh my name is number one And so on It is great that he's number one Because of course Patrick Stewart famously had Riker as his number one He was never the number one himself

Until he was a stone cutter and that also that Homer can't get through obvious context clues. Like, number one is not a stupid name. It is clearly the leader of the organization. But we learned that everybody has a number by their rank that this feels like, oh, definitely this would be reversed in more later seasons. Carl is lower ranked than Lenny. Lenny is never ahead of Carl in like status things.

Like this is, well, they're still writing Lenny and Carl as like, equals and they're instead of Carl is annoyed by Lenny and Lenny is undeterred in his love of Carl. And then Mr. Burns is 29 somehow, which is another great joke that as we've

seen in many secret societies, both being this old and evil and rich, you would be very high ranking at it instead. No, Burns for some reason is 29 and can be bullied by Lenny when he's there. The only time you will see Lenny kick Mr. Burns in the butt.

But he's telling himself, climb the ladder, even though there is no ladder. Your number is your number. Exactly. That joke has kind of always bothered me, Bob. You would know that there's no upward mobility here. If that's how the numbers are associated, you're not swapping numbers. I create the head cannon or my own fanfic that Mr. Burns was higher up at one point, but through some evil scheme or mistake was demoted down and is trying to pull his way back up. Let's say that.

So we then Cut to the entrance of number one And Mo briefly throws a bunch of exposition at Homer that's important for later And I love that Homer's like Yeah, that's for your life story Like you don't give a shit about this background

That's important for the episode Yeah stonecutters all over the world Or whatever Mo says there The chosen one that if he said it too much A viewer would definitely go like Well okay that's got to be something But because Homer just cuts him off Like, you just think of it as a joke.

It's so good. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth, and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing, or service,

Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odo.com to do. book a demo. It's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. But yes, why don't we hear the introduction of the guest star? Let the initiation begin. All stone cutters must take the leap of faith. If you survive this five-story plunge, your character will be proven. Happy landings.

Oh, it 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 hesper. And now the final ordeal, the paddling of the swollen ass with paddles. Yes, welcome Patrick Stewart to the show. he's on The Simpsons after 178 episodes of Star Trek TNG, seven seasons, and he's out exploring the world, making many a guest appearance.

Although I think I said earlier, this is not mentioned in his book. But like 50 pages of the book is what happens to him after TNG. So he's got to get through a lot of material in that short amount of pages. Maybe he's saving that for memoir too. Maybe he's thinking about that. Really expand on that. Just a whole book about this one cameo. If you look at the timeline of it, unfortunately,

this is not one of the ones where somebody has uploaded a script to Internet Archive very helpfully so I don't have the exact dates of like when scripts were written. But let's just assume the eight-ish month production on this or maybe he was recorded like seven months earlier. It would have been just after the finale aired. And when this episode comes out, the film generations would probably still be in theaters. It would have debuted mid-November of 1994. So at least at a dollar theater, you can still see generations. Oh, absolutely. We kept stuff in theaters for way longer

back then. It would still probably be in first run houses in some places, depending upon what else, you know, obviously it was coming out, like what, you know, the kind of traffic jam that looked like. But yeah, that's kind of, you know, it was an awesome time, Patrick Stewart on your TV, Patrick Stewart in your movie theater.

Stewart Mania. Yeah, I mean, the biography is over 400 pages. We can't get into his entire life story, but what's fascinating to me, and I'm sure everyone else who knows about him, through learning his history is that he's a working actor for almost all of his adult life, but he does not become a celebrity until he is 47 years old. And that is chapter two of Patrick Stewart, the chapter that we know very well, because we're not seeing stage plays in England. We are sitting in front of the TV and seeing what comes on.

As an American, you maybe would see him. If you were a snooty American watching PBS, maybe you saw him and I, Claudius, but you probably weren't very aware of his work before, or Dune perhaps, right? Yeah, Dune definitely. And there's some stuff in Dune that is fascinating. If I'm remembering this right, he got the role in Dune because David Lynch thought that he was somebody else. Oh. Oh, the story is, Andrew, I thought it was that story.

But actually, somebody saw him in a play. Maybe it was Lynch and he was dressed up very differently. He had longer hair. He had stage makeup on. And I guess the assumption was that is what he will look like. So when Stewart shows up, he is in shape. He is tan. He is virile.

and Lynch is just really mad we are stuck with this guy so Lynch kind of gives him the cold shoulder for the entire shoot of the movie That's what it is Yep, that's exactly what it is Yeah, yeah yeah

Fascinating stuff I'm wearing folks at home Can't see it But I literally have Patrick Stewart On my shirt here It's a Dune shirt I just bought a ticket for Dune 84 and 70 millimeter

At the film at Lincoln Center here July Very excited about all the Dune stuff coming up His rise is incredible though Because Dune and Lifeforce are his two big movies before Star Trek, and they're largely

panned, I think they're both bombs. Yes. And he did not even know about Star Trek before being cast. His kids like Star Trek. He's like, oh, it's a silly show you watch, and his kids kind of had to break him into the world of Star Trek. His kids are the generation who grew up watching reruns in the 70s. So, he's coming in completely fresh.

Entering this world, he has to, like, bone up on as an adult. Yeah, he didn't realize just how big it was or going to a convention or also, like, how much press would there just be, like, from day one of his casting of some bald guy is supposed to be the new Kirk. Like, probably

we would be canceling the people who were judging him for his looks back then now. I'm trying to remember now, Bob, because isn't there another story about him with Gene Roddenberry? And it's a similar, like, Roddenberry was very cold to him for some reason. Was that

the story that I was thinking of? Was Gene Roddenberry thought he was thinking of someone else? I think the producers bully Gene Roddenberry into hiring Patrick Stewart. Yeah, that's right. And he was never happy about it, always very dismissive towards Patrick until the very end of his life. I think he eventually warmed up to Patrick and understood what his gifts were. But yeah, it's just Lynch gave him the cold shoulder.

Roddenberry gave him the cold shorter. But we all know Roddenberry is kind of the worst thing that happened to TNG, the fact that he had so much power early on. You watch some of those real gnarly episodes from when he was still alive and meddling before he was literally like banned from the set. And you're like, man, those aren't your like ideas. for your Utopian 80s show. Those are ideas for your like, very clearly product of the 1960s show that you created. And so many,

I've been watching, we're up to the middle of season four now. And yeah, those early ones, the sexual pathologizing I've done on some of those ones of like, oh, especially the space Irish one

where they just are all like, well, we're going to have to create a colony where the old guys have to like fuck four different girls. They're always in their wild. So it's like, okay, Gene.

All right. Exactamundo. All right, Gene, whatever, buddy. And this role arrives so late in his life. You start to think about how old he is and how long he's been working. He could have been on the original Star Trek. He was 26 years old when that show started. He could have been a young Ensign or something like that or a red shirt.

Oh, I was cast as a red shirt in TOS. I was killed after three minutes of screen time. It's kind of incredible they cast somebody that you watch the first season, especially even just the first episode, they're having Picard do things just to tell you like, this isn't Kirk. He does things differently. They're spending a lot of energy on

just telling you things are different this time. Sometimes I think they work overtime to do that and against a better story just to say like, well, but that's what Kirk would do. Though the fun thing for me, I watched TNG around when it aired, it was my mom's favorite show. I watched it with her.

But I haven't re-watched a lot of these episodes in a long time. and the Blu-rays have some great extras, and I love just keep hearing these stories of Patrick Stewart specifically. The saying is, like, Captain doesn't do enough fighting and fucking, and we need more of that in this show. So get to writing that, Ron. Like, that's what Ron Moore says.

I guess very unfortunately, when they wrote a love story for Picard, that is the woman he cheated on with his first wife. So that kind of broke up a marriage. The one where he lives his entire life and she gives him the flute, that lady? I think it's Andrew, it's the one where he goes to the, I think it's when Picard goes to Riza. Oh, you mean the pleasure planet, Riza, which is printed up my cell phone cover. Yes. Oh, I didn't, see, they didn't say that on the extras.

Oh, man. Yes, season three episode. I don't want to call out, I mean, he is very regretful over cheating on, I guess, two out of three of his wives in his book. He's very upfront about it, I will say. But yes, because of that episode, he fell in love with the guest actor, and they had an affair together. They never went further than that, but he did divorce his. wife, who he was growing distant from, thanks to filming Star Trek in L.A. while she was in England. That's the stuff in the book that you just are so heartbroken about because it's like, yeah,

of course you can't like uplift your whole family to go do this show that you don't know whether or not it's going to get canceled. So like you're not going to, you know, move everybody to California from England and then it's like not picked up. And then it gets picked up and you're super busy and you don't get back as much as you want to. And the way he just, he spells it all out in the book and you're just like, you're right, Bob. You just feel like the regret. and he talks about not being there enough for his kids because of the show and everything like that. It's kind of surprising he does it, like, full-on Aiden Star Trek or at least talking about it, you know. I mean, yeah, he's very gracious. He's very humble.

He's very wistful. He's lost so many people. It's an amazing read. And you can tell even though Star Trek comes at the very end of the book, and I think it's because he's told a lot of these stories before, he respects Star Trek. He knows this is why you're reading the book. The book is called Making It So. If I was just some bald actor who was on stage in London for 60 years, you wouldn't care.

Exactly. Yeah, totally. And he called it like meeting Macbeth or whatever. Like nobody would care. And they're like, oh, all the great stories about the Shakespeare work he's done in his career. It's one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of his generation. Like, no, no, he'd say that. Another thing I knew him from in the 90s, I mean, from TNG was the main thing. But he's at the very end of the Melbrook's Robin Hood movie. Right, right. Oh, men and tights. Yeah, he's the king at the end. I forgot. He's the Sean Connery equivalent in their direct parody. That's right. Because I was trying to think of he was easing into comedy. Now now we're very used to Patrick Stewart doing funny lines like the paddling of the swollen ass with paddles.

It was relatively new. I saw that he did Saturday Night Live, the only time he did it, the famous salt and pepper. Salt and pepper. But also I remember the only sketch from that that I can recall is that, oh, here's my store with the erotic cakes. I love the erotic cakes. Like the gay couple comes in and like, no, we wanted like, two guys like, but I think this is far more erotic. Now we're just remembering Patrick Stewart roles in sketches,

but the one sketch I remember from that episode, he is the devil and his two minions are not taking him seriously and making fun of how over the top he is with all of his threats. And one of them is Norm McDonald. It's a pairing of Norm MacDonald and Patrick Stewart, which is never going to happen again in history. No, it's, oh, wow, that's amazing. I don't remember that bit.

I have to look that up. I think I've read this as a headline. I don't know. you guys have read the memoir. I read a headline about the memoir. I think in the memoir, he says that he appreciated everybody who worked on the Saturday Night Live, but he thought it went very poorly, and he thought he did a poor job

on it, I think. That's what the headline I read. He was very, very nervous about the entire situation and not quite used to playing comedy. He did not like the opening monologue, especially. He thought it was very lame. You know, I watched that opening monologue. The joke is that he's misquoting Star Trek facts while acting

like he's a big fan of it. He's having a little trouble with it. I think he's just shaking it doing a monologue or the audience. Yeah. It's a big stage that you're on doing that live monologue, you know. Now, IMDB has a quote about him working on The Simpsons that I could find source

nowhere else and I choose to not believe an IMDB quote. So... That's fair. I did, though, find a quote from him from a BBC interview in 2000 where he mentions The Simpsons directly. He says, actually, I think by 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 United States. Hmm, okay. Wow. Meanwhile, when this aired on TV, a 21-year-old Seth MacFarlane in senior year in college said, I should steal this and put it in every TV show I make. Yeah, and I guess we can close the book on Patrick Stewart's biography for now. His most recurring role, I'm guessing, is Bullock on American Dad.

He's now played that role for three times the amount of time. that he played Picard, at least within the TV show. Is that right? So it's like seven years of TNG, 21 years of American Dad. How recurring is he on that show? Like, what's the episode count? He's fairly regular.

He is sort of like almost more than Mr. Burns in terms of a boss having a presence on the show. Oh, is he the dad's boss? Yes, yeah. Okay. I've seen very little American Dad. All right. It's fine.

Well, I mean, Seth MacFarlane is like, I hate him because I hate her who is his waiter at the table of life. Yes, no. Yeah. that he does all these things. Like, oh, of course I love it. And one of those is, if I got in charge of a TV show, I'd hire every person who worked on the next generation I could

and make them be my friends. And that's what he does. Like, he puts Michael Dorn in the second Ted movie. He hires the writers and, say, Jonathan Frakes and other directors to make his show that is next generation. Oh, yes. The Orville.

Like all these things, he lives for this stuff. After I watched with my husband for his first time, part one of best of both worlds, the Borg, first major Borg two-parter. Hell yeah. And the ending of fire, and the music just getting bigger and bigger. That's when it clicked for me, and I pulled it up to show my husband, like, this two-parter on family guy, the end of part one, did the exact ending of Best of Both Worlds as a clear reference

because Seth McFarlane is that big of a nerd. By the way, I'm doing the math on this. Patrick Stewart is on about 40% of the episodes of American Dad that have been produced so far. He's on 123 episodes of 397. Okay. Though in pure minutes, he must have played Picard more on television, I'd say. Just due to longer episode, like, yeah. But you're right, the breaks, too, in the times of him as Picard.

And then, meanwhile, we've seen him end his career as Charles Xavier. I think this is the fourth time soon. It's just, it really bothers me, you know, only because I really love the movie Logan. And I think that's kind of like, it's a great signoff to both of those characters in that movie. And man, just like, where the heck did he pull up first as, oh, in the Sam Ramey, Dr. Strange, where he's just in that alternate. That's the council of what I was like, oh, no. And now it's just going to happen a fucking second time. They drove a dump truck full of money up to his house.

He's not made a stone. Absolutely. I have my young wife, Sunny, to take care of you. Oh, Sonny helped me through so much. I was reading Sunny, oh, the Shakespeare love sonnets, you see, which you can now buy an audio recording of me reciting them all,

which I'm definitely going to do, because, hot damn, just listen to that guy do recorded Shakespeare? Fuck yeah. He loves Sunny. That's one thing that he makes clear throughout his book. Yes, big time. It is funny to read any memoir of a person who, they're more famous for having a different

spouse through much of their life, but they have a new spouse, so they can't remember their old spouse the way you'd want them to or talk about them. Okay, enough of our love fest at Patrick Stewart. We love him. We love him, folks. He is the best. He is the standout of the show. It's why he became a gigantic...

He thought he'd be on one season of Star Trek, but it was, and it'd be canceled, and he would have just gotten a good payday and then moved back home. But he ended up becoming like a mega star of television and then into a pretty good movie career. And I guess, okay, we can give out one last fact. In fact, I will. He was supposed to be on six years of TNG, they did seven.

And I guess they could have done more, but he wanted to bow out because he was terrified that he could not do anything else for the rest of his life outside of B. Picard. And I mean, choosing to do Simpsons, that is another, like, moment of C. I'm different. I think in 94's or 95, I should look this up.

He played gay in a film, which was like risky at the time of that movie Jeffrey. Yes. Which that comes up in the book, and he's very proud of that movie. It's also funny to hear all the stories of him being extremely heterosexual, but to a lot of Americans, a British man that, like,

well-read and fancy must be gay. Like, you just read him as gay. Yes. But all right. So, yes, number one is torturing Homer. You can hear in the clip, Homer does fall through five floors. So the thing they said it was going to happen as a joke

actually did happen. So good. I think I have to do it over because the blindfolds fell off. Like, just like him trying to be honest about the initiation. Hibbert with his hat, nobody ever talks about it. I always assume that Hibbert's hat means that he is high rank, like he's number two or three.

Like he's on a high level with his special helmet. Oh, okay. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure. This is where Homer takes the oath that everyone takes. And by the sacred parchment, I swear that if I reveal the secrets of the stone cutters, may my stomach become bloated, and my head be plucked of all but three hairs.

I think he 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.

Just that, like, I love the structure of this because it's just like Mo sitting on this thing, like this callback, and you think like they've moved on from the joke and everyone in the scene has except for Mo, God, darn it, that's funny. The joke is so evident of why Homer shouldn't have to do this,

but he's just like kind of pretty heavy, you know? And they reveal the reality of these fraternal organizations is just essentially frat life outside of college. You get together with guys in drink and corrals and play pool and darts, and that's essentially it. So if you walked into an Elks Club meeting 40 years ago, it'd be like walking into a VFW. They'd all be plastered and like watching like Matlock on TV or something.

Yep, absolutely. Playing poker with pornographic playing cards. It is another very sportsweiler and murking kind of style that another show would have used this as a turn of like, now here's what the secret society is really about and have like some crazy thing happen. It's your on ramp to a one. wild story turn. Instead, they super grounded

and make it more like, no, it's to get drunk and play ping pong. It's just, it's a bunch of of pop and circumstance for dudes to be dudes. Like, that's all that it is. Exactly. And I love too how, like, they have a, it's a very like animal house kind of vibe.

It's like, it's so tame versus like today's Greek life, whatever. Like Homer doesn't have to stick a pickle up his ass and run across a field. No one's boofing at any point, although I don't think you probably get boofing on The Simpsons on a Fox Sunday. The censors probably wouldn't allow that. But it's just so, like, quaintly tame, getting your butt paddled.

Ha, ha, ha, ha. It's great. And so this is where we start Act two with just a reenactment of all of his problems in Acts 1. He reveals that he knows the secret handshake to the plumber who's like, oh, I don't know. You remember two turns of a wrench, done, just turns of water off. I love that they both have t-shirts on that say stone cutter is under their shirts

and it's like, is that just like a constant? That's just your undershirt all the time. So when you want to acknowledge a fellow brother, just in case you're out in public, you stumble across a fellow stone cutter, you got your t-shirt on. I guess in case you get pulled over, you can just lift your shirts.

If they don't see your sticker. Right, sir, what do you do with your hands? I'm just lifting up my t-shirt. Then we see that Homer is stuck in traffic again, but it turns out behind a boulder is a secret tunnel. You just press your stone cutter button on and you can drive through peacefully surrounded by the greatest art and music of history. And he's still kind of getting screwed on parking, but he's being given rollerblades. And he's very bad at using them. I just like

how he thinks he's won. Ha, ha, ha, sweet. He's kind of edging along these cars. Totally. It's going to take him longer to get there than it would just walking. And then Homer gets his own special chair delivered to as he compares chairs with his buddies. Well, no, we've got the same chair. You're jealous. Your membership pack. 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 we're working on you. Oh, and don't bother call 911 anymore. Here's the real number. Ooh. I still don't believe all the founding fathers were stone cutters. 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. You're destroying my establishment. We just created the greatest democracy on earth, you low-life commoner. You want to see how Davy Crockett really died at the Alamo? You must be 18. I forget we get that little fantasy snuck into this episode as well. It's so good. I think it's perfectly fitting for Patrick Stewart to be on this episode because the founding fathers start like fighting like Klingons, basically. Yes. Now, in real life, at least four major founding fathers were Freemasons.

George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and Johncock. Though it's a fun thing like, oh, this has all been like a Freemason secret plot to build America. But in Homer's book of secret world history, they just hand to you when you become a stone cutter, they're like, no, it is true. And what did it mean? It means they get drunk and cause a bunch of. trouble. They chant quaff instead of chug, an old-ty-y word for chugging, basically. You got to bring quaff back. How about that? I don't find myself in a lot of the situations where I'm yelling at people to chug these days, but maybe if I do, try to see if I can get quaff going again. Yeah, I think too many people cutely say imbibe. I want to shift the quaff. I think that'd be better.

We transition to quaff. I like that. I think it rolls off the tongue better than imbib. Yeah, I like... But I like saying, you know, like we say in our W. H.M. After Dark Show will be vibe and imbibing. That rides good. Scoffing and quaffing. Oh, I didn't mean to call you guys out like that. No, no, no, not at all, Bob. No, but now I think it's just think about squawful. Scoffing and quaffing. Yes. That could be something. Get a guy.

Workshop it. That Homer thinks they're jealous of him having the same chair is also great. You're jealous. And it does feel like in real life you're behind somebody in a car and you see they have like a Freemason sticker on it and you wonder what it gets you and it turns out like, oh, it's so, you don't get pulled over. And the idea that at baseline,

a paramedic does steal your wallet if he's helping you, but unless they see the stone cutter sign. I love that joke so much. That's a great, like, Eric Siski himself, if we hate movies, is very untrusting of medical professionals.

I feel that joke maybe speaks to him a little bit. And potlucks. Oh, well. He all heard his potluck theories. I share a lighter version of those theories, but yes. And this is where there's another good deleted scene where Homer gets an extra little thing from Burns to his fellow stone cutter.

You'll notice a little something extra in your pay envelope this week. Fellow stone cutty. A walnut! Yes. It is a whole-shelled walnut, and I think they should have kept that joke in. I think they cut it because the animation is kind of weird. Yeah. Oh, is it?

Okay. But Homer. Sometimes you do see that it becomes a more likely than quality, just a, well, if we want to keep this, it takes reanimating and that's a certain part of the budget we don't want to spend. Right. Okay. I don't want it explained, but like it is just so funny, the Davy Crockett, you have to be 18. Like, what is that?

Is it autoerotic asphyxiation? I can't tell what else you would have to be 18 plus to hear about. Yeah, something involving sex was involved in his downfall. It's cute, too, the posing on it that Homer wants to keep bragging about all the secret history he has over at least now, but he's like, oh, wait, you're too young to learn this. He pulls the book back too, as he says. This next segment, though, if you grew up with the songs in the key of Springfield CD, like I did, the entire, the preceding bit and the song are etched into your brain because both are on the CD as one track.

I've had to pull mine off the shelf again to remember where it was. The second track, you hear the Simpsons theme song, the Vanilla Simpson's theme song, and then boom, straight to the scene of like Homer, a man came to the door. Like, that's where it just starts. That's the first thing you hear. Unless you're hitting it on random on your Walkman. I'd never do that. Disc man, I should say.

How extensive is that music collection? Like, what's the end point of songs that they're including? There are two. I mean, there are a total of three CDs, but you really want the first two. And that songs in the Key of Springfield and Go Simsonic with the Simpsons. That collects everything from like 1989 to 1999. And then there's one more they put out in 2007. There's some extra songs on there, but then they stopped 20 years ago collecting these things on CDs.

Because nobody buys CDs anymore. But, hey, since you mentioned it, Bob, I forgot. I believe at some point soon in this year, there will be a new vinyl boutique reprint of songs in the Key of Springfield. Oh, just throw my fucking money in the toilet. Let's go, baby. Come on. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth, and not enough time.

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didn't do anything on the show. He was always there adding ideas, pitching ideas. He pitched this song. It is based on the song that is sung in the Flare. cartoon Bimbo's Initiation. Oh. A very cool, surreal cartoon about Bimbo,

the little dog character trying to join the secret club who is actively trying to kill him because he refuses to join. It is a perfect, it is such a Matt Graney thing that he remembers a crazy song from an old cartoon as a kid and says, we should have something like

this in the show. And he pitched it and Merkin was like, oh, that is a great idea. And they just wrote it in the room with just, and also songs are easy to fill up in an episode, but the We Do is like one of the best songs in the whole series, like such a perfect song. You just want to hum along with and let's drop it in right 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 makes Steve Gutenberg A star? We do. We do. Who rocks a fish of their sight? Who rigged every Oscar night? We do.

Thank you. So I have some newly discovered facts because let's talk about Steve Gutenberg. This joke was a little dated in 1990. because Steve Gutenberg had really transitioned to children's movies, but I think these writers were haunted by his reign of mediocrity in the box office with things like Police Academy and three men and a baby and so on. But he was actually asked about this in an interview with the rap in 2017, so I'll quote him on this.

He says, I thought it was fairly funny. There's some truth to it. Who made me a star? All the people who went to see Police Academy, that's who. Then again, in reality, it's the same people who saw my similar projects like Diner or the day after or even family that it years ago, a serious television show. Even though it's a funny thing, I think that plenty of people made me a star, but it's a very funny line.

So he's willing to admit that, yes, I was in garbage, but also look at Diner and the other things. Totally. It's not just cocoon. Yeah. And if you guys have ever watched the show Party Down, the first season has an episode about Steve Gutenberg that is all about how Steve Gutenberg is actually the coolest guy ever and you want to party with him.

Oh, wow. Bob, I haven't thought about that in a while, but yeah, that's a great episode of that show. So I think that was him trying to reclaim to back away from the idea that he was like poison in his era. In the tens, he's in one of the late episodes of community playing a guy who's kind of a joke about him, but he's a failed Hollywood producer who has moved to Colorado and can help things to a drug problem,

but can help the character sell a movie. He's not playing Steve Gutenberg, but he is playing a Steve Gutenberg type as well. Bob, did you happen to pop into his IMDB to see his last few things? because I saw one that could end up being a We Hate Movies sometime. Uh-oh. Do tell, do tell.

I believe he has been in at least one Lifetime Original last year, if not more. Oh, he's getting into that racket? Yes, I watched the trailer for it, and it is a Lifetime Original based on a True Story. It is called Kidnapped by a Killer, the Heather Robinson Story. Yes. Oh, I just found it on Letterbox, too. Oh, yeah. And Steve Gutenberg plays that killer who kidnapped you.

I see. So he's not a doctor stalker. No, apparently, I don't know how exactly it is based on a true story, but yes, that he plays a guy who is accused of having murdered a family. Heather Robinson as a baby was found by this guy that Steve Gutenberg plays, and he then, his brother adopted her. But then Heather begins to realize, wait, did my uncle actually murder my birth parents and steal me? And so Gutenberg is playing that murderer, that serial killer. I got to tell you, we do not have the next once-in-a-lifetime title queued up yet. Literally just today, we released an episode of Once in a Lifetime about Sidney Sweeney in The Wrong Daughter. Hmm.

Guys, I am looking at the poster for this kidnapped by a killer. Steve Gutenberg, real big glasses, awesome mustache looking like a total creep. I need to see this immediately. streaming on Prime Video and Tooby. Now we are talking. Oh, man. Tube is the place to watch that. That's where it belongs, yes.

Oh, by the way, I also wanted to mention Bimbo's initiation, which I did log on Letterbox, because you can watch a really nice transfer of it on YouTube. And I guess I don't really remember the short as well as I thought I did, just the review really quickly. I don't want to hold this up. But five stars in where our hero risks at all because he got horny for Betty Boop,

who, based on the year of this film, invented twerking at least 80 years before its more recent cultural obsession. What a picture. Oh, so revisiting the short immediately afterwards. Yeah, hell yeah, there you go. I think at this point she was still a dog woman. I think, yeah, at least we're avoiding the big bee beast reality.

I wonder if that was remastered by our buddy Thad, who has remastered professionally a lot of Fleischer shorts. Is that right? Oh, cool. Yeah, and they put all the 4K restorations on YouTube for everyone to check out. It must have been, because I tagged my reviews seeing it on YouTube. Oh, that's awesome. The other bits in the song as a kid,

Skinner enunciates it well, but I never until like either commentary or putting a close caption on the DVD, who robs Cave Fish, like Cave Fish? I don't know what I thought it was, but I didn't think it was Cave Fish as a kid. It really feels like a choice to have Skinner, his voice rise above to sing that line

because he makes it more clear than a chorus would, I feel. Which, according to Wikipedia, cave fish is a generic term for fresh and brackish water fish adapted to life in caves and other underground habitats. Oh. And I guess they're blind? They can't see, yes. Or at least they're used to being in the dark. It's actually the stone cutters who do it. The design of the Martian who's a member is great. I would bet grading, I wonder, even though he wanted this song, did he like seeing the Martian there in the episode? I think it's so great. I appreciate that it's not a Kang and Kodos look. dude. It is just a

1950s little Martian guy and he's adorable. And the egg guy is there too very briefly just one little cut. Oh shit, I never even noticed it. Blinking you'll miss him. He's part of it. And if you're a gamer back then or a little after this aired, the virtual Springfield PC game

has a ton of you can go to the Stonecutter Hall in it. It has a lot of cute bits in it and you can hear Dan Castleneta probably with no tracking vocals to match up to just like riffing acapella, you can hear him sing it in wonderful MIDI audio quality. Oh, wow, that's something. Now, we talked about the Emmys.

This was nominated for an Emmy but did not win that year. Despite being the perfect song, a dang Emmy voters. Homer's right to put him on a list. Do we have what one that year? Oh, yes. This also bugs me too. It wasn't just a song written for like another episode of TV. basically Barbara Streisand, a great actress and singer, no attacking her, but she just did Barbara Streisand, the concert was this team special.

Oh, the concert. Oh my God, that was massive. It was a big deal. And she sang an original or at least one original song in there. The song is called Ordinary Miracles. And it is, it actually is sort of about the reason Homer wants to do charity. It's about how you know when you do little things in life. Those are the ordinary miracles that happen every day. Well, actually, I do have a tiny clip of it. Let's hear it. Ordinary miracle happen all the round. Just by giving and receive comes belonging. Okay. Hell yeah. I could have gone that whole thing.

They really love giving Emmys to performers just doing their bits because previously Trisha Yearwood won this category. And then before that, Liza Minnelli. It seems like back then it wasn't for this was before every TV show had to contractually have one musical episode. So that's why it just was the musical special winning section. But don't worry, in 97 and 98, The Simpsons will win twice in a row with we put the spring in Springfield and checking in. Oh, two marvelous songs in their own right. Are we still doing song awards at the Emmys?

Is that still a thing? Yes, I believe so. Is that right? scrolling, scrolling, scrolling to see what won recently. And it was a song from the boys. And that song is called, Let's Put the Christ Back in Christmas, not a boys viewer. Henry, Andrew. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, the boys? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't remember the tune, but. I believe that's a firecracker song in it. Oh, okay. The show, yeah, I say this, as somebody who watched every episode of the boys and enjoy the finale and final season well enough. But yes, their problem was they started making a satire at the beginning of the Donald

Trump administration. And they could never have guessed that, it would be impossible to do satire. And that's the strange. I actually, I like, you know, on paper, I like the story of season five. And I really, really like the finale. But when you're sitting there, so many episodes, you're like, man, am I watching the news or am I watching the boys? You're kind of like, what are we even doing here at this point?

Yeah. In the season premiere of season five, they do like a, what a crazy White House press conference. I was like, nope, this is more normal. This is why I don't watch clips from the White House press conference. anymore. Yeah, the character on the boys that's the vice president who's got a talking version of herself stuck to the back of her head more grounded

and professional than shit you see out of the actual. Yes, I think the Simpsons realized they had a chance with Emmys in that category though because this was their second nomination after who needs a quickie mart the previous season. Oh, God, another classic. Yes. Oh, I'm getting this vinyl so

hardcore. Oh, my God, I can't wait. You got a date on that, by the way? Did they announce it? No, I do think I actually pre-ordered it, I forgot the day. Ooh, well, if it's pre-order, that's all I need to know. I know what I'm doing right after we get off the air. Yes, after the song, we see that just happens to be the 1500th anniversary of their wonderful club. 1500.

I watch this with headphones on, maybe for the first time, and I definitely noticed Stewart said we're having ribs. Not having. Haven. Oh, nice. We're having ribs. I think I have the clip here. Let's see. Tonight, we are here to commemorate our glorious society.

his 1500th anniversary, and in honor of this momentous occasion, we're having ribs. Yeah! Oh, uh-oh, I need a bib. If I slap any on my shirt, I could lose the respect of my beloved brethren. So let us rejoice and enjoy our meal in the shadow of the hallowed, sacred parchment. Oh, my... Oh, yeah. Thanks, Lenny. This is just appalling and outrageous.

What? Did I miss something? Oh, God! Oh, Hon. Oh, Honour, no. She's outrageous. You can't do that. No! You really are stupid.

And the official stonecutter underwear, too. Oh. Also, just like feeling excluded from things, it is an identifiable, relatable thing of like, oh, no, I need to actually try to fit in more. And your attempt to do that actually ruins everything. The Homer is so incredibly stupid, not catch on after the first. first time he puts it on his mouth. This is like almost for me like too stupid for Homer because it then goes into, I mean, I guess you could argue he's so desperate to be polite. He doesn't, you know, even though

he reads what the, you know, the parchment is, he doesn't care. But like for this to work, you have to sort of assume that Homer stops understanding how to read. Otherwise, like, why would he take that off the wall and use it as a napkin, you know? There's a tablecloth on the table. Just is that. I really love how the grossness escalates. He's wiping his mouth, then he's digging in his ears with it, then he's blowing his nose in it. They're just like, please stop. And when they cut to where the parchment was, it's been ripped off of it. So Homer did not even careful. He just ran up to him like, rip, like, and then shoved it in his collar. Also, I'm pretty certain that in real life, Patrick Stewart's never had ribs.

I'm going to say he's a guy that probably has not chowed down on ribs. Wasn't there that viral video from years back of him like, this is my first time having pizza. Oh, yes. He talks about that in the book and how it was a scandal and he needed to clarify, that was the first time he ever had a New York slice that he folded. He's like, I have had pizza before. Yes. At the very least, he had to have like real Italy pizza.

It means American garbage pizza, right? Yeah, but it was the first time his beloved wife, Sunny, taught him how to fold a piece of pizza. That's right. It was, yes, it was a recent-ish Instagram scandal, Twitter scandal. It was just my first fold. Bob, you called it. You can hear that apostrophe in heaven. You can.

Or having ribs. So Homer is having to give up everything, including the official stone cutter underwear, which when he drops it into the Ark of the Covenant, a bunch of ghosts fly out of it. God, I love that. It really is drawn to be like from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The spirit's coming out of the box, yeah.

Oh, my God. And as Homer says he learned his lesson, he then smashes it more, the parchment with his hand the way number one says baffling desecration He's just admitting how long this joke has gone on

with Homer completely being unaware of just the outrage erupting around him And all the ADR is amazing Everybody is saying a different funny thing Shameful liar Appalling outrageous So Homer is kicked out

But everybody makes a surprising And I mean but when I say it there Everybody makes a surprising discovery Homer Simpson, for your continuing and baffling desecration of our beloved secret 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. It's just a birth mark, and I'll thank you not to stare.

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. Attatch the stone of triumph. Oh! And Homer's going to have to take that stone of triumph all the way up a mountain, as we hear there for his coronation. He's so naked here.

Yeah, for all of his posing, they have to show him fully on screen, moving his legs around and pulling something without his genitals conceivably being exposed in the shot. The attachment of the stone of triumph than it being much worse than the stone of shame, that is a perfect Swartzweiler joke. God, man. And also that Homer has a birthmark he never had before or since just for this one scene. You know, Henry, I was waiting for you to say something about, but then in like 2021, when they revisited the stone cutters.

I'm not saying they've never done it ever again, but I don't think they've ever referenced this birthmark again. I don't think so, no. Yeah, I guess the stone cutters do disband, but there's never been a second Patrick Stewart appearance, and I feel like they should get on that. There was, actually, Patrick Stewart does appear in a 2013 episode. Oh.

Playing a coworker at the plant of homers for like a one-off joke. Oh, weird. Okay. But not as number one. No, no, number one never returns. No, it's, I mean, this is like, again, and this is just a pot shot at like, Simpsons is worse now.

And when I say now, I mean 2013. But they bring him in just for the joke of, what if this random co-worker who talks to Homer, what if he sounded like Patrick Stewart, instead of an actual full character like number one? Interesting. Unlike Krusty's Cattle Skull birthmark that they often, at least at this time, we're remembering to draw,

Homer never has that birthmark again. And we see his butt quite a lot after this episode, too. They add chances. So we come back from the commercial. break. Homer is in a scene from The Last Emperor of Film. I only know from references. Still haven't seen that film. Oh, great movie, you guys. It's a beautiful movie, Bertolucci, I think. Well, best picture way to write. I don't know about that. Yeah, it's a Bernardo Bertolucci movie. It's absolutely great. And the criterion, there's some interesting things because

you'll see who was floating around on the set, a very young Jonathan Demi tooling around for a little bit. It's a beautiful movie. And again, like, the Simpsons parroting Bernardo Bertolucci. Like, has an equivalent thing happened you know since the George W. Bush administration I don't know just for Homer's giggling, running under not blankets or scar like ribbons I guess yes yeah yeah yeah yeah

I guess the joke here is that in that film the emperor is a child and Homer is not yes there's a very similar like he's very tickled when he walks out and they kneel down and everything I don't believe he messes with them the way Homer does but it is like the child wonder

but like, you know, you're the emperor now, little boy. Beautiful movie. But in this case, Homer is just making them go up and down, up and down over and over again in his chosen one outfit. And then we cut to Homer at home. He's being painted beautifully. And then we see that he's just robe open, underpants, and then just beer on his gut, which, hey, it's fun.

If you got the gut, you know, balance stuff on it sometimes. It's fun. I won't pretend I've never been there. but not with a beer or a liquid is too hard a plate, a chip bag, that bowl of popcorn, that can rest comfortably. I'm missing out. Nothing can be balanced on me.

I need to buy all these tables. Yeah, Bob, I'm just living over here. Totally tableless with my bowl of food on my gut. I've been so much money. I saw a buddy in mine one summer sit in the same easy chair on like four separate occasions eating a bowl of Taco Bell something or other, just not holding it.

It's just sitting on a, his gut and he had the fork in one hand just feeding himself. I assume he'd be doing the pie-eating contest maneuver, just like lowering his head onto his stomach and pulling up whatever he can. By the way, yeah, in from the internet ticker. Last time, Brad did win Best Picture in 1980. I only knew it, and again, I didn't watch it, but I knew it because I worked at a video store in Berkeley, California that had a wall, like right by the register, the wall of just

every best picture winner. Like you can rent every best picture winner, at least all the ones that we had in print. So I always remember can still close my eyes in my head. I can walk through mentally that video store and place DVDs on the rack where they used to be. And I remember where I put

Last Emperor. I just recalled something, Henry, heartbreaking. So Henry and I lived in Berkeley, California for a very long time. We met there. We started the podcast there, etc. In Stewart's autobiography, I'm reading. He was in Berkeley in 2013 doing a show for four months with Ian McKellen. Henry, where were we?

What did what was wrong with it? Oh my God. What the hell? Yes, where were we? He was probably doing a show like three blocks from where you lived. Jesus, yeah. I lived right. I really did live three blocks from the theater,

like multiple theaters in Berkeley, like the Berkeley rep. Oh my God. What the hell? I probably like walked by the Walgreens, his assistant shopped at for him. Man, that is crazy. Well, I'll tell you what we were probably doing,

working all night on unpaid overtime for reviewing video games, I would guess. I think so. I'm heartbroken having read that. I could have just walked 10 minutes and saw a play with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. That's pretty awesome. The only time I had a star siding like that I can remember in that same area at the CVS that was like literally on the same block as my old apartment was Michael Showalter was standing outside of it who was directing something.

and I did not say hi to him even though I could have been a big nerd about it because he did an entire stand-up bit about how he only wants cute girls to talk to him and recognizing from things. So I was like, well, since I know that stand-up bit, I really don't want to annoy him. That's why he and Michael Liam Blacker root to me after a show. Yes, he said. Oh, that's too bad. The bid he had goes, just look it up, but it's the one where he's outside smoking,

and then comedy nerd guy came up to him and said, hey, I know you, and he's like, and I didn't reply to him because he wasn't a cute. girl and then the guy's like no no i know you he's like what he's like you're screech right and he's like you said the meanest thing to me you possibly could have more than fuck you you said i was screech yeah my stella DVD has the most non-committed signature from michael leon black and michael show walter it looks like they just were told to draw an x on it but david wayne mr nice guy he wasn't there he would have been nice to me so yes homer is homer is is so excited about what's going to happen, especially because everything will always be good.

But Lisa doesn't think so. 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 aides of March.

No. Dad, I know you think you're happy now, but it's not going 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 stone cutters now. There are no lackeys around to carry out your every...

Bart planned for the future there, as he expects like, oh, as a son of the chosen one, I've got it pretty sweet in the future stone cutters. Oh, man, that Lisa pointing out all the things that happen in all of these stories, and Homer's like, everything lasts forever. That is my favorite deep in denial comeback. You know what, Lisa, warning of the aides of March, literally everybody is going to turn on him and plan to kill him. him like she's right there too.

I do love him just tossing that. No. No. Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says good luck. O-Doo brings your business together on a single platform. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, visit O-D-com to book a demo.

It's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. So he's cuts to Homer first enjoying it. He's bowling. He gets nine out of ten and Wiggum shoots the other one down and everybody's cheering. him. Even though it's a secret society, his ball says the chosen one. So, again, not keeping it too secret. Then we see they're playing pool together. Another great, I wonder if this was in the script or discovered in the animation, but it is just a top-down shot. It looks like Homer

just has an incredibly successful break where all of them fall to one specific hole in the corner. But then camera angle changes. And yes, it was all lifted up like on a carjack, on a platform. It's a great reveal. But Homer still takes it as like, woo-hoo. Yes. And then they're playing poker, not unlike the crew of the enterprise. That's right. They did love sitting around playing poker. Just not with Captain Picard until the series finale. I don't want to spoil anything for my husband as we're watching it. I keep saying like, oh, do you notice how that I just say like, well, yeah, the captain doesn't play the poker with the crew. That would be improper. Just to lay, I hope he's not listening to me right now.

his podcast later. I'm laying the groundwork for the final scene. That's what I'm doing there. When you guys finish TNG, Henry, do you think you'll go to season three of Picard? We're watching the movies because he also never saw the movies. Oh, okay. Then, yeah, season three of Picard, which even I actually stayed relatively spoiler-free on because I heard it was actually good on like the other two seasons. Oh, you haven't seen it yet? No, I haven't. I was saving it. Oh, dude, just get ready. Oh, it's a thing of beauty. Oh, man. Though also occasionally that happens where my husband, Darren, he asks, we watched Great Episode Family.

That's the recovering from the Borg episode. And we meet Picard's nephew, who is an adorable little guy. And then my husband goes like, did they do stuff with him later? And I just never go like, yeah, yeah, they sure do. Yep. Google it, folks. If you don't know, I don't want to spoil it for you. It is something that we have quoted Picard's line about it.

so many times over the years and I will not spoil it here either but man, yeah, they do something all right. Yes, but okay, so then Homer's finally starting to see there's negative things to it as he keeps winning at poker, even told about the Royal Sampler and everybody's playing with their

cards backwards towards him. God. That and then like the Homer's still folding and it's like, oh no, you've got like making up a fake hand for him. And then he says, like, I'm not perfect, am I?

And just, it's three Hank Azaria sounds in a row, is it. But Wiggums is my favorite. Yeah, just like, yeah. Everyone has to make a different noncommittal sound, and it's every one is amazing. They have to run because they can't admit he's fallible. They just simply can't. And so Homer is now feeling bad, and he's ready to go back to Lisa to ask for advice. The Grand Exalted Leader requests a moment of your time.

Glass dismissed. Yay! Lisa, you are right. My happiness is fading. You're experiencing spiritual emptiness because your power has isolated you from other human beings. What do you mean isolated? Aided, hated, hated.

Well, maybe you could reach out to the community and help other people. Hmm, I could help others. I'll get a bunch of monkeys, dress them up, and make them reenact a civil war. Dad, that doesn't help people. Couldn't hurt unless the monkey started hurting people, which they almost certainly would. There's something about the way Homer, I think I also took that just into my way of speaking, like, which they almost certainly would.

Like just that the way he goes like, admittedly, they probably would. Like, okay, yes. I don't know. I feel like there's eight million lines from The Simpsons that I'm like, well, that just taught me how to say a thing or say a phrase. And it's funny because that cadence is the same as Grandpa going as was the style at the time. Yes, yes. Very similar, yeah. You know what? These days, there's a lot of very powerful people who do their own monkey civil wars all of the time instead of helping people.

I think it's a good... Now it's just a build an AI company and tell that. Generate for me monkey civil war, please. I thought you meant they just get monkeys and electrocute them with chips in their heads. Okay, that too, yes, yeah. These monkeys are all fighting private battles. That one Musk hasn't talked about as much these days as opposed to like, Though I guess what? We're talking on the week that like the IPO open for his thing.

And now he's like now officially a trillionaire some shit. That thing's, I mean, obviously, we all want to redact him. Yes. But in general, when they say these guys are the richest guys in the world, I was spoiled by ducktails. These guys don't have piles of money. It just means they have stocks that are said to be worth a lot. They have numbers on a computer. You can't dive into that.

Yeah, boring. I think that most rich guys now, it's a space shuttle. it's a social media service, it's CBS News, it's all of these things. That's their monkey civil wars reenactments that don't actually help anybody. Though in this case, this next deleted scene,

I believe, would have changed. Homer seems to actually take a lesson from Lisa here. But have they kept in this deleted scene, then it would mean that Homer got no lesson from Lisa and learned it from helping Lenny instead. Yeah, I kind of like this deleted scene, I'm sure we'll play it. It's like basically Homer follows Lisa's advice and he helps someone and that links to the next scene.

So I feel like they never bothered me before, but this feels necessary now that I know it exists. Lenny is having trouble with his ring at the vending machine in this next deleted scene. Somebody jammed a Canadian ring in here. Here, Lenny, let me help you. There's a little trick with that machine. Just take it and... R! You don't have a machine! For the help, chosen one?

Thanks for the help. I like that. I like that fine. Somebody jammed a Canadian ring and dare. That is great. That's so good. Also speaking again to the global footprint of the stone cutters. Oh, yeah.

The Canadian equivalent, we didn't get to meet them at this, but yeah, then Homer basically just breaks the machine to get all the stuff out of it. And there is a Butterfinger Bar in there. Oh, that's perfect. I miss that. That's perfect. And so that then leads Homer to decide that he is going to start helping people.

And it's such a beautiful moment of Homer learns the right, like, you know, morally, ethically, spiritually, you know, right choice of we have all this power. Why are we helping ourselves all the time when we could be helping others? And the cut to the very devoted people to him is the chosen one are just like, he's gone, he's insane. Like this man has gone, he's gone mad with power like that Albert Schweitzer guy. And I guess I only know about this guy because of. of this reference and because we covered this earlier

like nine years ago, he's a famous humanitarian. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 for developing a universal concept of ethics. So ultimately the last person who would have ever gone mad with power. Exactly. Yeah. An enemy of Mo. Bob, that is like a joke that

takes like Wikipedia research to crack. You know what I mean? It's so fantastic. They head into a playground first to help people and there's two great scenes back to back here of two characters being horribly injured by children. Wee!

Oh, for the love of God! Somebody get the joys of life! I'll give you hire, my filthy little urchin. Oh! You've won this round. For instance, like about to say another line, and the kid comes back right again and smash. his head. That's so good.

And in the deleted scenes, this would have been the classic three jokes structures, but they cut one of them. Although, also, I've been haunted forever by just trying to imagine how twisted Mo's spine must be in that too. All of his limbs. Yeah. But here's the deleted scene as Apu is reading to children.

The blades of the squishy machine must be cleaned twice a day to avoid botulism and trench mouth cross-reference liability. Yeah. Again. Oh, again. He's recruiting the next generation of Quicmart employees. It's a cute scene.

Nice joke about very boring material. But you know what? It's a sex exclusionary one of just like it's only dudes, but it's a very diverse group in the stone cutters. That's very true. You got a poo in there, Krusty the clown is a stone cutter, which is very surprising in these kinds of organizations.

One of their global leaders is Mr. T. That's right. Oh, right. He's one of the international representatives. Then the scene ends with them painting an orphanage, a beautiful sky blue, and it is instantly hit by helicopter. If only it was piloted by Arnie Pye, right?

Yeah. It's a very great joke that all the graffiti is just the word graffiti. Yes, that is good. That's great. Also, I love the animation of everybody just, like, they hate doing this. You can tell everybody, all the stone cut is your painting. It's my old day. Watching people volunteer, but they're real salty about it, it's very funny.

In real life, the Masons have charities as well. They talk about that a little on the commentary while also saying like, we're not referring to the Masons. I don't know why you're saying this is like the Masons. I think of the Shriners in parades, but Masons, I mean, you'll see like the Masons sponsor this highway or whatever, right? You see that. There's a lot of Adopt-a-H Highway program.

things of that nature. It's probably like a, you know, just another way groups like that avoid taxes. Oh, sure. Sure. And then in a classic David Merkin style, it seems like a happy sitcom ending as Homer has learned all of the right lessons is happy doing it. And it's like, okay, and this is the happy ending of the episode. But actually, it's about to be Homer's downfall. Oh, thank you, Mr. Simpson. It looks so much better. A beautiful sky blue. You were right, Lisa.

I've never felt so spiritually fulfilled. And with my brothers, the stonecutters behind me, this is the beginning of a better world for all of us. We gotta kill him. Take it easy, Mo. Let's hear from the stonecutter world council before we act too rashly. Kill him.

Kill him. Kill the food. I'm afraid I have to disagree with Orville, Jack, and Mr. Can 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.

It's a fantastic line reading when Patrick Stewart is trying to rain in Mo. Yes. Take it easy, Mo. Because it's one of those things that get, just like hearing Patrick Stewart say we're eating ribs, hearing Patrick Stewart say the word mo. Your ear isn't quite ready for it. A great random assemblage of guys who would be in charge of the World Council, Orville Jack and Mr.

It's such a great one. Yeah, Orville Redenbocker, he lived just long enough to have seen this, hopefully, because he passed away in September of 1995, the popcorn magnate. Oh, yeah, that's right. He's a notable nerd. That's right. Along with David Byrne and Chief Justice Souter. Not Souter, right. And also I love the H.W. Bush, that he is a top stone cutter, kind of a joke about how he is a, was a big CIA guy and had a lot of secrets.

Famously, he has no, he can't tell you what he did on the day JFK was assassinated. He had no answer for him. He just starts laughing. Yep. Man, that's a weird thing to see. Also, he was reportedly in skull and bones. Yes. Sometimes I think of their jokes about skull and bones or Yale is just classic Harvard versus Yale stuff coming in. into the show too. Yep, you got that straight. Just nerds being mad at other nerds. And maybe they were worried about legal action or something, but you know what? H.W. Bush

only wants to do something to his voice box. He doesn't want to kill Homer. Now, this is where there's the last deleted scene, and I think it's the only one I would cut because it over-explains a joke in it. So basically this continues right after

Mo says, maybe we don't want to be stone cutters no more. Well, now wait a moment. I made DC Cab to protect this organization. Now, now, hear me out. Hear me out, T. The society is only 1,500 years old, so it's not like we'll be giving up that much tradition.

We can just start a new secret organization and the abandoned Baskin Robbins across the street. It is funny to hear he made DC Cab only as a way to save the organization at some point. That's so funny. Surprisingly, directed by Joel Schumacher. I just discovered this. Oh, wow.

What, Schumacher also did car wash, right? Isn't that another of his random ones? Or he wrote it? Man, I think he was involved. Maybe I'm wrong on that one. Oh, interesting. I could be giving my Schumacher biography wrong here. He wrote it.

Yeah, you're right. All right. Hey, there we go. Directed by Michael Schultz. Joel Schumacher, much more interesting than just like a bad movie director. Oh, yeah. He lived a crazy cocaine-filled life, as he loved to talk about in his later years, too. Yeah, that dude rocked the Hollywood dream like nobody's business.

that's for sure. Also by the way, yeah, the director Michael Schultz on top of Harwatch, of course, Cooley High, Crushed Rove, and The Last Dragon, which is a really fun movie. Oh, fuck, I love that. I have a 4K of that one. Dude, I got that 4K too, yes. And I don't have a 4K of anything.

I have my own 4Ks. I'm sorry. Despite living in a very white southern area, it was on HBO and we taped it off HBO in the 80s and just, I thought it was a hit film. I watched it eight million times as a kid. I saw no other kung fu movies. So I got to hear all of these like lesser 80s Motown songs as they're struggling

in the 80s along with like a riff on a Bruce Lee movie in Harlem. It's insane that I watched it so many times. Oh yeah. That's a big recommend for sure. I got to see it. They did a screening of it at the Castro Theater. Oh nice. 35 millimeter print. It was pretty pretty awesome. A vintage print. The DeBarge song Rhythm of the Night. That's the one. Oh my God. classic, classic song. It's right up there with Who's Johnny. No, it's a better song than Who's Johnny. Take that back.

So, yes, by having that line in there, it over explains the cut to the, it hurts the joke of cutting to the basket of Robbins by having Mo say it, but I do like also Moe saying, it's 1500 years, so it's not like we're losing anything special. That part of it is pretty funny, but it is better having Patrick's, again, another thing you don't hear the man say too often,

Baskin Robbins. You know, it's better to give him the acknowledgement of the location than Mo. Cuts to the sign switching from Baskin 31 to Abandon Store as the first meeting begins.

Silence. I now call to order the first meeting of the ancient mystic society of No homers. Hey, fellas, can I join? Sorry, no homas. Loyal stonecutters.

Let us begin our reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. Homer, you can't just keep hanging out with these colobus monkeys. Somebody's going to get parasites. Somebody, she won't say which side. Somebody, Homer gives it to them, maybe even. It's so funny. And Julie Kavanaugh, just like, she says it as if, like, Marge doesn't eat, like, she's grossed out by saying the word parasites. You know, she's like hesitant to even, somebody's going to get parasites. Oh, my God. I've loved that delivery for so long.

And she identifies colobus monkeys, although these are more like chimps. But I like the word colobis. It's a funny thing for March to say. Seeing inside abandoned store that they're having their first meeting without even getting rid of the ice cream. display counters. They're just standing behind it, all three of them. Well, hey, maybe they left ice cream intact. You got some catering for your meeting. And then they do all of this work. This is, you know, the prestige of the entire thing that they set up the no homers club as a just a great sad memory for a homer in the beginning to now all of a sudden it's like, what is this club? It's the no homers club. And to just have

Patrick Stewart's last line in the episode to be, sorry, no homers. And then Homer Globlet just pops his head out again to let Homer know he's defeated once more. I love that. Like it's like a laugh-in. Like he's just opening the thing to stick his head out like laughing. Oh my God. It's good. Also, appreciate the Barney ADR in there too.

Yeah. That's right. He says this is better than our old stone cutter hall, which is very funny. So yes, Homer is defeated. He's lost. It looks like he did get to keep the building. though I assume that he just left it to the monkeys to take over and that's why nobody can go back.

Yes. They're in there today this very day, still breeding, still fighting. They're this close away from learning how to talk, so get ready for that in Springfield. They have to find a happy ending in all of this, which the commentary Merkin is even like joking about like, well, if we tricked you with this ending, then we're off to the race.

But it's a happy ending as Homer joins a new club. Oh, Marge, kids, I miss my club. You know, you are a member of a very exclusive club. The Black Panthers? No. The family Simpson, which has just five members, and only two of those members have special rings. Yeah.

I meant our wedding rings. You know, March, you're right. The Simpson family is the best possible club I could belong to. Oh! This club better be worth it. All right, all right, it's Lisa's turn. There's so much to enjoy about this, but I especially love the very stupid drawing of Bart and Lisa

blowing into their little stupid rings. Yes, they look very silly and stupid, which is great. And it plays two emotions. They first have to play a yeah, excitement. And then when they tell like, we're wedding rings, they have to get to play. like, who,

there's a happy and a sad whistle somehow. And those rings must have been a staple of boomer childhoods because in our

other podcast, what a cartoon that Bob produced that one. We covered a married with children episode, his pick

that had a joke about the same ring whistle in it. Right. Al Bundy was given one of those rings and he was told if aliens

show up blow into it and someone will come and help him. The episode had aliens in it by the way.

Oh, was that later married with children then? That show got wacky. Season four, I think. That show, yeah, we love it, but it's like Family Matters, what goes from normal sitcom to Crazy Town.

Oh, big time. Yeah, yeah. They really, it's one of those like, man, you are on the air too long. By the 100th episode, he basically becomes Wiley Coyote for Al Bundy for any needed necessary joke. The bit of, it could just stand of like, yeah, this is the best club I could belong to, hug. And then, no, they're all getting to spank. Homer into the club too.

You think Marge is stopping, but it's like, no, it's because Lisa's turn. Lisa is raring to go. She's right. That is so, I love those turns where it's like, for the sake of the joke, they are uncharacteristic in them as a character, right? So it's like, Marge shouldn't stand for that. Lisa shouldn't

want to be involved, you know, but they're so in it in this moment for the purpose of the joke. And having your episode, the Blackout Gang is just the parent being physically abused by his own children while his wife watches and laughs. is just, hmm,

perfect. And if you wait for the Gracie Films logo, you'll hear Carl say, shut up. Ah, with the shush. Oh, fuck, that's good. Man, that's good.

And you get to hear the bass track of We-Doo with none of the specific characters singing their parts more up front in the audio. You can hear both versions of We-Doo. Fortunately, they have that version so they could play that one at Universal Studios, Springfield, where they can't have any Harry Shearer audio,

playing there. Oh, because he wasn't cool with all that? He didn't sign off on it for whatever reason. Harry Sherer did not sign off on it. We can't say who knows. It wouldn't be because he's like unhappy or a jerk or anything. That would be Harry Shearer. Not the Harry Shear, I know. Dude just despises

theme parks, it turns out. You'll hear us talk about this more. Our listeners or just did. But like every nine months there's a Harry Shear interview usually with the British publication because he lives in the UK most of the year. And they are talking about something that is not the Simpsons and then

they're like, okay, my one Simpsons question, do you like being on the Simpsons? And he just goes like, whatever, jerk off hand motion. Yeah, it's fine. He really says the check still show up. That's basically his dismissive response. Sure. And you know, there's a charming way to do that. That's a John Carpenter's

got that nailed down. That guy's got a really good, like, fuck you pay me kind of bit that he does. And you're like, yeah, yeah, like you get on board with it. But that, not as much. I don't think so, Mr. Shears. Sorry. Yeah. I mean,

going back to Sir Patrick Stewart, he realizes you will only know me as Picard and that's fine. I'm going to lean into it,

but here's some other facts about me. Yeah. Harry Sheer despises the fact that you love him the most for this. Yeah.

It really bothers him, it seems like. I mean, does it want it to be... Well, he writes and direct so many things. Like, we just don't watch them. Fair enough. Or like if he wants it

to be like spinal tap or something. It's like his main. Well, honestly, that most recent interview I read, I don't think he does want it to be spinal tap. Like he said the reason there wasn't a Spital Tap for so long

is because I'm paraphrasing, they say, you know, the interpersonal problems with the characters in Spinal Tap, that kind of is us and we have those problems. I haven't been able to bring myself to watch that second movie just because it was out right after the tragedy. And I don't know that I ever, it's going to be a long time, I think, before I'm like, you know what? Yeah, let's watch Spinal Tap too.

To wrap up this year, talk, too, I did feel for him that he revealed in that, like, he seems to be on demand, but he has been struggling with long COVID for a while and was trying to film that film with long COVID. At his age, in the early 80s, long COVID, like, I don't, you know, I feel, I hope he's in much better health now and stays that way. I feel for him that and made me feel a little bad of making fun of how bad his Burns sounds. He sounds a lot better now in his roles, and I think it's because he is over the long COVID, but he was sounding much older than Mr. Burns when doing. the voice of Mr. Burns. Jesus. For a while. That's too bad.

They should do like that Chevy Chase doc they did about Chevy Chase. They could get one of those out of Harry Sure too, I think, and he would be around his grumpy and talking about his couple years on Saturday Night Live as negatively as well, I think. That I would gladly listen to, sure. Just, you know, don't shit talk this show, man. Come on. Anyway, yes. A perfect episode of The Simpsons is what we just, Homer the Great, Homer the Great episode. If we're doing wrap-ups here, I feel like there's a lot.

nothing for me to add. We've already described like how perfect this is in terms of writing direction, Patrick Stewart's appearance. I do want to focus on Stewart though because I want to say this folks, he turns 86 very soon after this goes live. Let's appreciate him. It took me a very long time to appreciate him and to get into Star Trek TNG and all of his other roles. I really took him for granted for a very long time. So let us appreciate Patrick Stewart for as long as he's on this earth and definitely check out making it so if you want to know what means the most to him and that is stage work. And I learned so much about stage work

and his roles on stage through that autobiography. It's amazing. And I want volume two, Pat. Stop resting on your ass. 400 more pages on my desk. And by the way, really good in the sheep detectives.

He's great in that movie. Oh, yeah. Mostly doing voice stuff lately. So I think he's taking it easier. I forgot. Yeah, I would bet his voice acting, I hope continues even as he, you know, make him record the character of Avery

on American Dad on his deathbed. I want that. And when I say that, I mean 20 years from now on his deathbed, that's what I mean. Just a truly perfect episode full of countless unforgettable things in it. A wonderful premise executed in classic fashion by Swartzwelder Jim Ruden, one of the best directors. Every scene on unforgettable scene. And Andrew, anything's you'd add? No.

You know, like I said, it's seriously like top five or maybe even top three Simpsons episodes for me. And yeah, Bob, I really appreciate that about Patrick's. Stewart because like the guy is so much he's given us so much and you know the day's coming at some point you don't want to think about it but yeah make it so his book it's just a beautiful thing and check out the TNG if you haven't it's a really really great show man I just the most recent I watch data's day I forgot how much I love that episode that is such a great episode they do a lot of good data stuff you know it's funny this thing you're saying about voice acting I mean when you see when you get to that third season of Picard,

he is noticeably older. And he's not, I wouldn't say frail. And he's definitely like holding his own. But you can hear it, especially if you go from like the movies right into Picard, like the voice is much weaker and, and whatever. So I'm glad he's taking it easy. I hope he didn't, you know, have to even leave his house for this marvel stuff.

You know, I hope they just put a green screen up in his house and brought a fucking wheelchair in for him. I mean, in the book, he says he and his wife have a cocktail every night, and that's the way to live when you're in your 80s. God damn, I mean, well, I'm living like I'm in my 80s right now. Well, Ian McKellen is like a year or two older than him, right? And so it's elder abuse on both of them if they had a bad time on Doomsday. I hope the Russo Brothers treated them well.

Well, thank you, Andrew, for coming back to the show. Please let us know more about We Hate Movies. We were just on talking about minions. And, of course, you're going to be at STLV in Las Vegas talking about some Star Trek films. Yeah, no, that's right. We will be at STLV. August the 6th through the 8th. We're doing a three-night residency, talking about three of our favorite Star Trek movies. So that's the other thing, too. It's like, I feel for the uninitiated, you know,

Star Trek fans out there, if you don't know what we hate movies is, are, you know, I guess now sort of ironically titled show sort of lets people like raise an eyebrow a little bit. We're not coming out there to slam Star Trek in any way. We absolutely love the franchise. And this is three of our favorite movies. And we're just stoked to talk about it in a sea of Star Trek fans. This is our first convention appearance for anything. So we're very excited. about all that. And then otherwise, yeah, the regular show drops every Tuesday. There's a new episode. You guys were just on helping us cover minions, which was a lot of fun. Speaking of little yellow things with bulbous yellow butts, just like Homer Simpson. So every Tuesday,

wherever you get podcasts and also, much like you guys here on Talking Simpsons, we have a whole family of shows, side shows over on our Patreon, patreon.com slash we ate movies, shows. Syncable commentary tracks. We just released a sinkable commentary. You can sync up watching Jackass Number Two with us, which was a lot of fun. Here the four of us. to stifle literally throwing up watching the movie. It's very fun and a real challenge. But we cover shows like Melro 2102.0 where we talk about Beverly Hills 902 and Melrose Place. It's sort of a similarly formatted show to the Nexus. I've mentioned once in a lifetime. Every other month, we talk about a different crazy lifetime movie. So there's that and so much more. We

Talk about cartoon a little bit on animation damnation. So yeah, patreon.com slash we hate movies. You can find it all there. It's a lot of fun every month. Now, you guys produce so much great, great, great stuff. The Our count between our two groups. It's hard to who's more per month, but we both, you guys are so productive, with so many things to offer on your Patreon. Yeah, I mean, you guys similarly, and I feel like that's the way you do it. Give the people

more of what they love, just kind of slightly differently, slightly repackaged. Well, thank you so much, Andrew. Thanks a lot, guys. Thank you, once again, to Andrew. Thank you, once again, to Andrew Jupe and for being on the show. Please check out We Hate Movies and everything they do. But as for us, if you want to support our show and get all the podcast, add-free, and also access a huge back catalog

of exclusive podcast, almost a decades worth, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up for five bucks. When you do, you get all the stuff I just mentioned, ad-free podcasts. They come to you in advance, and you also access a vast back catalog of shows about, let's say, King of the Hill,

Futurama, Batman the Animated Series, The Critic in Mission Hill. And you also get a new episode of both Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill every month, and that is all happening at the $5 level. Again, immediately, nine years worth of Patreon content up front at Patreon.com. slash Talking Simpsons and Henry, what is happening at that $10 level?

If you enjoy all of the movie stuff we talked about, Bob is referring to our What a Cartoon Movie Podcast, where we cover an animated feature film, Crazy in Depth, just like an episode of The Simpsons. If you like the talk about Jim Reardon here and his work on Disney films, well, Jim Reardon, the director of this episode was Story Supervisor on Recit Ralph, the 2012 film, and we dive deep into the many Simpsons connections to that movie, as well as we, we explain a lot of the trivia in history, especially related to the video game characters in there. It is one of our bigger podcasts we've done lately, and that's just our most recent one. In this summer, we are doing 2010 Disney films, and we started with 2011's Winnie the Pooh.

This last month, you just got to hear a record Ralph. At the end of this month, we're doing Zootopia, and then Big Hero 6. It's a great summer to sign up for patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons at the premium level to hear it all. and a gigantic back catalog, hundreds and hundreds of hours there. Disney, Pixar, Warner, Sony, Ghibli, all that great stuff. Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Blue Sky Letterbox and many other places as Bob Servo

and my other podcast is called Retronauts, and that is a classic gaming podcast about old video games. You can find that where you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and sign up there for a bunch of bonus stuff. and Henry, what about you? I'm on Blue Sky and Instagram as Talking Henry. You can follow me there and keep up on all the cool stuff I'm

doing. And if you want to follow along with updates from this podcast, you need to follow the official social media of those. Blue Sky and Instagram that is at Talk Simpsons Pod. At Talk Simpsons Pod keeps you in the loop when new stuff comes out on the Patreon, on the

free feeds, when we have cool announcements, all that stuff is on at Talk Simpsons Pod. So please follow that. And if you'd like a list of all of our previously released free podcasts of Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon, head over to Talking Simpsons.com. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for season 16's Goo Goo Guy Pan, and we'll see you then. Why don't people like me, Marge? Everyone likes you. You're a wonderful person.

Why don't those stupid idiots let me in her 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. 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.