Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer The Moe With Stuart Wellington

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

Just in time for an episode about running a bar, we welcome on the cohost of The Flop House Podcast/bartender, the awesome Stuart Wellington! He gives us the scoop on this spirited Moe episode, as Homer takes over the bar ahead of it being rebuilt, as well as perhaps the show's darkest joke that's followed by some stuff that hasn't aged well and a random REM appearance. Listen now to learn how to make a cosmo on this week's podcast! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking simpsons head there to check out exclusive podcasts like talking futurama talking of the hill the what a cartoon movie podcast and tons more. I hardly endorse this event or product. exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today in the same room. Hey, it's Henry Gilbert, dutifully cutting lemons as we speak. And who do we have on the line? Who is our special guest today? Hey, it's me, Stuart Wellington. And this week's episode is Homer the Moe. I'm a-walkin' down the street, gonna open Moe's bar. I'm a-singin' what I'm thinkin'.

Hey, look at that dog! This week's episode originally aired on November 18th, 2001. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my God. Oh boy, Bobby. The Xbox and GameCube video game systems are released in the United States. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone tops the box office. And J-Lo featuring Ja Rule's I'm Real tops the Billboard charts.

What a time to be alive. Now, Stuart, I know you're a big tabletop gamer. I forget, are you a console gamer as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. When it comes to video games, I'm strictly not a PC gamer because I don't believe in political correctness. Because I cannot understand how to maintain a gaming PC. But, yeah, you know, I play some video games here and there.

Now, Bob and I are both former games press people. That was our old life. So we were very into the gaming world. I got a GameBeat Cube day one, mainly for a game that would come out two weeks after the system launched, which we'll talk about in the history of the next episode. But I was playing Super Monkey Ball quite a lot that first weekend. And then all of my friends, the cooler friends, were like, why are you playing this baby game about cute monkeys inside of balls when you should be playing Halo about shooting aliens in the face who may or may not be symbolically Muslim people you're shooting in the face. True.

Yeah, I definitely remember playing Halo in my friend's dorm room and being very blown away by its uh storytelling the first day i worked in video game retail i worked in retail for about two years the first day i worked was the launch of the xbox i came in after which which retailer can you say uh it was a gamestop related retailer after before they all like converged into gamestop but i came in the day of the Xbox launch and it was just you know green and black balloons everywhere uh just like a total mess I also I so I ended up working the launch of the GameCube the word unceremonious comes to mind uh nobody cared I had a GameCube and I loved it but it was a big big failure of a system uh for Nintendo and uh yeah this really overlaps with my time in in working in malls that's so funny so

when you were watching this episode when it was new you were freshly off like a shift at the at the old at the old game stop 525 an hour uh that's what a great pay right there i i very briefly worked in a game stop as well but this was only, well, like, it was like almost 10 years ago, I was on a stint of, brief stint of unemployment after being laid off from Games Workshop, which is a different type of game company. And a friend of mine, a friend of mine was managing the GameStop in Sunset Park, and he brought me on as like seasonal help. And I remember at one point, his boss came in and was like, wow, who's this guy behind the register because i had like gone from like being a regional manager of a hobby company to like you know being seasonal help and so i'm like doing all this stuff and yeah

that was fun uh you know the the star wars game that came out with that was really good rogue squadron on the gamecube like that just doing the trench run of the death star and that i was like i'm like playing a movie here it was amazing and well yeah the harry potter movies uh is well you know it debuted this week and number one like we we talked about it in our uh the episode before this about the treehouse that they did a harry potter parody two week before the movie comes out so they have no specifics on the movie and uh this is it set the tone for like the next close to decade of movies uh that that uh all of the pre-marvel movies that conquered cinema was all all harry potter and harry potter adjacent things it made uh so it was the number one movie of 2001 man that's uh but spider man's coming soon to to make way more money than that in 2002 but and uh and yeah that j-lo song

it's fine i think uh she's like not a great singer she's she's great at being a movie as she's great at being like a superstar yeah absolutely yeah it's it's no jenny from the block though no you know okay harsh criticism see uh i'm sure we'll get into it but there's some weird parallels with uh jk rowling in this episode oh oh for sure for sure yes yes there is so we're beating around the bush here let's introduce our guest for today uh stewart wellington of the flop house podcast now i, in your 15th year of being a podcast. Oh, no. Yeah, I think it's close to that.

We started in August 2007. Wow. So we've been doing it consistently for a long time. And in addition to being a podcaster, I also own a few bars in Brooklyn, and I'm a bartender, and I think some of those skills might be applicable to today's episode. Absolutely. I mean, we're big fans of Stuart in the Flophouse, but also you are a ringer for this episode because of your bar expertise. We'll see if it applies. I guess first thing to ask about bar ownership, how manys do you have are they in like at least one per bar i would hope legally you have to tell me if you're a cop when you ask that question

uh yeah it is well of course like that's one thing that mo gets right you know with cheers ted danson started like he put a rag over his shoulder and that is not a bar thing like why would you put your rag on your shoulder? But I know way too many bartenders who picked that up from Ted Danson. Like, it's not like Ted Danson was a bartender before doing Cheers. He just started doing that because he wanted something to do with his hands. And I think, so where that gets things wrong, Mo gets it right by always carrying a shotgun, is what I'm trying to say.

Well, on an SDTV, you couldn't see how filthy Ted Danson's shoulder actually was. It was disgusting. How trendy are your bars compared to the reimagining that Moe's goes through in this as well? I would like to think that my bars are kind of in between Moe's and M, the reimagining of Moe's. We don't have an oxygen machine we don't play sports unless you consider rupaul's drag race a sport in which case we do play sports okay uh and there's a variety i'm sure we'll get into more of the uh specifics but my i run a couple of neighbor we we describe them as neighborhood bars not they're not dive bars but they're not like cocktail bars

or anything like that and uh i guess you know what's your personal history with simpsons i did you have the have the typical american childhood of growing up with it yeah i mean i think yeah it's i mean it's just been around so long right so yeah i mean I grew up during the during the peak period of Simpsons. And then I think I like I fell off when I went away to college. And I you know, when I came back, it wasn't as good as it was before. And I feel like I'm pretty I'm not I wouldn't say I'm a super fan, but I like it. I think that's most people's stories that are around our age. Like you go to college and you forget about the show. But me, I went to a commuter college.

I was still living in my childhood bedroom. So I was still in my old habits of watching The Simpsons every Sunday. So I just I kept watching. Yeah, I mean, I definitely remember going to like like I didn't have network television in my dorm room. But we like I would I would go with some friends to like I went to to a small Quaker, like liberal arts college in Indiana, and we would go to the basement on Sundays to like, we would go and watch The Simpsons sometimes. And I remember like going and watching Simpsons followed by the premiere of Family Guy and being like, well, this isn't going to make it. And it briefly didn't and then

came back to become the defining defining cultural comedy thing who would have known yeah i think they're up to 400 episodes now i think pretty pretty close but yeah it's and this was also the uh the thanksgiving or the setup for the thanksgiving after 9 11 a tough time for america when this when this aired a weird time yeah i didn't even consider that but yeah that's i mean i i pretty quickly i'm like oh yeah this must be the thanksgiving time yeah i didn't even consider that but yeah that's i mean i i pretty quickly i'm like oh yeah this must be the thanksgiving episode but i didn't quite realize until i checked the dates it's kind of secretly a thanksgiving episode yeah and i've i've got theories about that okay that because in the previous season uh homer versus dignity was

also secretly a thanksgiving episode suddenly it's thanksgiving in the last like five minutes yeah that's right it's a thanksgiving parade with the santa throwing the fish guts on everybody yeah it's all of these surprise thanksgiving episodes i guess i mean you know it's november it's sweeps month they're gonna get you know uh they want to make something special for thanksgiving uh but and they need some big guests and and they got them. Oh, did they? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I guess this episode is also a big first for the series. It's the first episode written by Dana Gould, who had joined the series earlier, but it's the first one written by him. And then Bob has a whole history on the guy. That's right. So let's talk about the writer for this episode, Dana Gould.

Henry, I'm sure this is true of you as well. This is probably the writer I know best as a person. Yes. Yeah. We've, I think other than Bill and Josh, they're the only Simpsons writer we have breathed the same air as as well. Yeah. They trusted us enough to be in the same space as them.

Yes. Because, so for me, for eight years, I listened to his podcast the dana gould hour which is not an hour long that's the joke it comes out once a month and it's like five hours long so like us he makes very long podcasts and uh you know as for me i uh really in my mind what put him on the map for me was his uh starring role as gex right yeah because it was like starring tv's data ghoul so gex was a platforming game for the 3do i believe there are ports of it to other you know platforms there are a few sequels gould is the voice of the main character he's writing the quips with his friend rob cohen i remember uh playing at the saturn port of it like a couple after i was a couple years old

and kids you had to be there gex was very impressive to see like wow look at i can see individual scales on this 3d thing but my brother and i would repeat back to each other all the time the one canned quip that happened too many times like come on scoob let's get back to the mystery van i had to hear that so many times and if you know dana gould he loves referencing 60s and 70s TV shows, and he was the perfect guy to be Gex. And of course, Dana Gould, we buried the lead here, Henry, but he was the first guest on our first Sketch Fest live show back in 2018. So the first live show we ever did, Dana Gould was our guest. He was a great guest, friendly guy, lots of great stories.

Yeah, he really appreciated talking about Simpsons stuff with us. He talked about this episode. There's a couple funny stories about this episode because he mentioned it when we chatted with him. And that Mo is his favorite character. And yeah, he was a very nice guy. And it was right after his TV series had been renewed for another season. The Stand Against Evil. Stand Against Evil.

Now canceled but went on for three seasons. We'll talk about that soon. So yeah, I him a lot because of uh things he had been in before the simpsons he was like kind of a name for comedy nerds of the 90s oh yeah i i didn't i didn't know any simpsons writers by names until the commentaries so i knew about dana ghoul before he was a writer on the show because if you were a comedy nerd in the 90s like me you were kind of aware of him by all the things he was attached to. He was a rising standup star. You might've seen him doing standup on TV.

He had an HBO comedy special, which is what Gex credits him with because he had no TV show at the time. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, I knew him. I didn't have HBO then, but definitely I remember seeing clips of him on Comedy Central.

Like I knew him as just, and he's a very memorable looking comic like his delivery was not like everybody else's then he would make dorky references that i as a dork like and plus he had glasses that made him a nerd too like all these things about it and he was on like dr katz and i remember i remember his bit from that about like mistake mistake yes and he was a guy i mean he's been very successful but even he will admit like he never broke like he was one of those guys that people were trying to figure out what to do with him but i think his sense of humor was so dark and and weird that no one he was he couldn't

put him in the box he wasn't like a tim allen or a seinfeld there was no way to market him to a mass audience yeah i mean his very specific style was made for more of a niche. A perfect thing for today's stand-up, well, comedy world where niches are the only thing you go to. Nobody gets to be Tim Allen or Jerry Seinfeld anymore. Not anymore. I want to go over more Simpsons connections. So I mentioned Rob Cohen.

He's a longtime collaborator with Gould. He wrote those Gex comedy clips with Gould as well. And Rob Cohen, I mentioned this before in an earlier episode, he is the brother of Joel H. Cohen, but Rob Cohen is also the freelance writer of Flaming Moes. We'll talk about him and his very interesting career when we get to Flaming Moes. Just a couple months from now.

Yeah. No, even though he's not a Harvard guy, he still had connections into the Simpsons offices. Absolutely. So another connection. From 2000 to guy, he still had connections into the Simpsons offices. Absolutely. So another connection. From 2000 to 2014, he was married to Sue Nagel, the former president of HBO Entertainment. She is the namesake of Lindsay Nagel. I assume she's much nicer.

She was the one person at HBO that believed in Game of Thrones and greenlit it. And yeah, so Sue Nagel seems like a pretty nice gal yeah everybody they call the character sue nagel in the series because she was every she was a lot of the writers agent at the time like they knew her she's one of those people who like if you look in the background of numerous executives in the hollywood world a lot of them are like agents who then had so many connections that went into there's an opening at a giant TV channel. They just go like, well, you want to run it? Do you want to run it?

Brandon Tartikoff or whatever, you know, or Michael Ovitz. And then she's right up. I'll never forget going to his standup in 2014 and in San Francisco and thinking, yep, normal night of Dana Gould. And then I believe it was about five minutes. And he's like, so when do i talk about the divorce and he just goes like guys i'll soon have some really good divorce material but i'm still

workshopping it let me i was like oh this is how i find out he's getting a divorce from the soon angle he brought it up on his podcast in a very funny way he's like oh yeah the summer's been busy it rhymes with shmavors what i've been through lately. So his career goes back to the early 80s. So he's from a town in Massachusetts called Hopedale, which has no hope. And he lived like adjacent to a graveyard. He had a very dark childhood. But at the age of 17, he started his stand-up career performing around Boston. He moves to San Francisco after, you know, doing a lot of stand-up in Boston.

He moves to SF in 1986. By the way, we call it SF in the Bay Area. No calls it San Fran no one says San Francisco we say SF it's very very simple and certainly not Frisco nobody says no way no way so apparently in the 80s San Francisco had a budding comedy scene and he was here for a big chunk of the mid to late 80s in this thing called the comedy condo that a lot of comedy people lived in like alex reed like the head writer of malcolm in the middle and liz winstead co-creator of the daily show or perhaps is she the creator of the daily show she's the creator just the creator okay i mean she didn't stick around long and was certainly gone before john stewart came on but yeah she's

the creator of the daily show but i know like people like greg proops were part of that comedy boom in SF. That's why he's in Nightmare Before Christmas, things like that. He's still around here, I think. And also why he's in The Phantom Menace as well. Yes. He's a San Francisco institution. That's right. I forgot about that.

So, yes, he goes from Boston to San Francisco, but then he moves to Los Angeles in the very early 90s, perhaps very late 80s, to pursue a career in showbiz. In fact, he has posted a picture he took with Jim Henson just a few weeks before he died because Gould was part of a pilot presentation Jim Henson made called Handmade Video, which was a very early stab at reality television. I had no idea that. Wow, I missed that. Damn.

It was never aired. And unfortunately, the pilot was online online but someone took it down but you can see jim henson's pitch on the jim henson youtube channels like these things called handheld cameras they're going to change the way we view things and you know before when i was coming up cameras were these big heavy things but now you can film anything yay and that's how he pitches to the audience but this thing was going to be an early stab at reality television in which three people in a van drove around and filmed things it was sort of like a jack kerouac style storytelling of course that's

what that old hippie would want to do and uh dana gould was one of the three guys and adam sandler and judd apatow both auditioned to be in this pilot yes holy cow but this is the part of henson's life where you know he was going to die he didn't know that but he was just like i've got all these ideas i have to pitch them everywhere and that's exactly what he did and a lot of those ended up on the jim henson hour which is just like the the home place for all of these like ideas that he couldn't sell to people like dog city was as well and like things that couldn't work for this storyteller yeah yeah by the way henry i think that was a good jim henson and i was working that was. That was really good. I'm asking for applause here, everybody. Yes.

So there you go. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Henry. So moving on. One of his big early roles involved acting in a handful of sketches on the Ben Stiller show. And from there, he went on to do guest appearances on things like Roseanne and Seinfeld and The

Nanny and Ellen and suddenly Susan and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. He was a fun guest actor on like a ton of sitcoms yeah you know that's so hearing all those uh credits at the same time i was like oh at some point the people who ran the sitcom factory were like this guy's got it let's start with it's like how you would see matt leblanc on like seven other shows before finally friends because it's like well do we try them on this show no let's try them on this show like these guys who who keep popping up in one-off things right before they finally get cast in a big show except unlike say joe rogan or andy dick who then ended

up on news radio like dana gould never got the thing you know uh though i guess he almost sort of got the thing with a show that lasted more than a season yeah almost uh and that show would be the adult fred savage sitcom working which uh started in 97 dana gould played a side character for the first season uh it was retooled in the second season and gould was kicked out the joke he makes is it was called working and I wasn't. That's a good one. So that was his one brushed with actually being in a sitcom and being a regular character on a sitcom. I believe I remember hearing him joke about how he also worked on a sitcom in that era with Neil Patrick Harris and that when he was in the closet and he was asked like,

oh, who's your dream girl? And Neil Patrickrick harris name's ariel and then dana ghoul jokes like of course he picked the girl without a vagina that's who he picked that sounds like a dana ghoul joke uh yeah i mean i know dana ghoul was part of several pilots not all of them are listed one of them it seems like one of the first things he made was a pilot called limbo land in which he was like the writer and possibly the star of but it's not online and there were like a million other things called limbo land after that that i couldn't find out what it was hey you know that sounds like the kind of weird thing he'd be into but yeah i think it sounds like that they tried to fit him into like this mainstream thing but he's just too much like of a weird nerd you know and one of the first shows he made was with rob cohen who he mentioned earlier it was called super adventure team it was

a six episode thunderbirds parody for mtv and henry if you look this up like any frame of it you might have watched it because it was very much much uh part of the whole like weird syphilin ollie and like weirdo late 90s mtv programming whoa yep yeah i recognize it right there though it it see all that stuff any of thunderbird stuff i just never never liked thunderbirds it's something that creeped me out as a kid so whenever things were made that parodied it like this or team america they just like skeezed me out i was just like yeah yuck i always found them very very creepy the thunderbirds but hey that was what he made it was the first show he made you know we wouldn't have starfox the video game without thunderbirds that's very very true so yeah after that he's just like well i can't make my own show

so there's a show called the simpsons that's pretty neat so he starts as a consultant on the simpsons with the first production episode of season 12 lisa the tree hugger and then by mid season 12 he is a producer starting with dave the jack and ape so he's writing from the very beginning of season 12 like gould is in the show, in the room pitching stuff. I totally get why Scully would hire him. I mean, I think it's a good hire. And again, like back then, before I listened to the commentaries, I didn't know the names of writers on the show. I didn't really remember them. Like I was one of those more casual fans. But when Dana Gould got hired i did know dana gould was working on the show and yeah and i can totally feel why he fit in there because it's a punchier meaner time in the series and on

top of that like mike scully comes from a stand-up background and i think it was really important to scully like it's why george meyer i think too really moved up in the power structure under scully he just likes having like a funny joke picture in the room like this is just a fun guy to hang out with who then says like hey wouldn't it be funny if this and then they act out an entire wacky thing and mike scully is just you know laughing like all right writer's assistant write that down that's gold it's all going in it's good as gold that's what i say but i feel like they all like respected him there was no like you know struggle to get onto the show because he was a writer and performer on TV for a decade before joining the Simpsons.

It's like, oh, yeah, Dana Gould's hilarious. He wants to write for us. Jesus. Yeah. He's got nothing to prove to them. Yeah. And he's not like in his 20s. He's a very established person.

Yeah. I think he was like 37 when he started writing for the show, maybe 36. But, yeah, he worked on the Simpsons up until production season 18's Husband and Knives towards the end of that order. And he's credited with writing seven total episodes. But he worked on the show for eight years, did not work on the movie, although his time overlapped with the production and release of the movie. Okay.

Yeah, I figured the movie was more for like, even though he would have been, I'm sure, a welcome addition to it. But the movie was really like the all-stars coming back together not the current day people got got as much to do on the film and he's talked a lot about leaving the simpsons he didn't leave because he wasn't having fun he's just one of those guys who is sick in the head and needs to do stand-up constantly and even he would admit it he was like that job was too easy and I'm a weirdo and I need to do stand up. Some stand ups, they need to do it.

Yeah. I mean, look, hey, it being on stage and getting a reaction like once you get that high of it, even being in a writer's room with other funny people and making them laugh, it probably can't can't come close to hearing like the approval and laughter and love like he's always. I mean, especially we know this about gould because it's his routine his childhood sucked and he didn't get much approval like who wouldn't want to be on stage and then just get all that approval like thrown at you you know we talked about the story in which he presented his parents with a framed uh newspaper clipping

of him winning a boston comedy contest he comes back to the uh the place his parents live there's a picture of larry bird in the frame yes there now uh the the other joke he had about how like his father just came to hollywood and uh said like uh you know it's hot today of course all the queers around and then his wife's like you gotta correct it he's like what do you want me to say like he thinks it's hot because gay people exist like what do you want i mean this episode over the mo is also born out of child abuse like would you believe dana gould's dad is still alive of course he's like 90 years old these mean rotten old men live forever like john kriske feluci's dad uh died really really recently and you would think yeah with all the like this mean old drunk will live forever on his anger and me and cruelty.

So he left to pursue more stand-up, as I said before. Other projects, again, he said, like, I can't believe I just walked away from a sure thing. Like, I'm raising children and I left a job. He could still be there now. He never came back, not even to consult. Guys stay forever at the Simpsons now. If you were hired in 1998 or later you're still there unless you or you're greg daniels or something like that yeah unless you actually

unless you sell a show and even then if you sell a show you might still come back two seasons later after that show's not around anymore uh the next thing he did for tv was consulting producer on parks and rec i'm guessing because mike scully was on the show or they just like dana gould and think he's funny i could totally see scully was just like you know if we just bring in bringing gould like one day a week he'll help us with pitching new jokes like and just throw him throw me oh x amount of dollars for one day a week he'll show up like i mean also that i would think scully took that practice from the simpsons writers room where he also is a onea-week kind of guy sometimes. The Simpsons will be right back.

REM rocks The Simpsons. I told them it went to benefit. They think they're saving the rainforest. The Simpsons, all new, 8, 7 central, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub at electricireland.ie. Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Break. I hope you don't think this podcast is weird for the sake of being weird

because we legitimately want to thank our guest this week, Stuart Wellington, a great guy from the podcast, The Flophouse. And be sure to check out that awesome podcast, The Flophouse, if you haven't yet. Also, you should know that me and Bob are only able to do this as our full-time jobs because of the support of people like you at patreon.com slash talking simpsons supporters there get to know that they are supporting me and bob doing this full-time and they also get access to every episode of talking simpsons a week early and ad free without any of this you're hearing right now plus they get a bunch of exclusive podcasts including each month they get a brand

new podcast of talking futurama and of talking of the hill of me and bob doing the talking sims treatment to futurama and king of the hill once a month each plus over 120 previous exclusive podcasts of us covering futurama king of the hill mission hill the critic and 10 of our favorite episodes of batman the animated series there's so much cool stuff there please check it all out five bucks a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons but if you want something as nice as a turkey made out of gluten then you should sign up at the ten dollar level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons

because that premium level of the podcast gets you not only all of the five dollar things i just told you about but also at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you get the monthly what a cartoon movie podcast each month we do a brand new episode of me and bob digging deep into an animated feature film often for over four hours, sometimes even five hours. Last month, we covered Pinocchio, the 1940 Disney classic. The month before that, South Park, bigger, longer, and uncut.

And of course, this month, hoo boy, it's one folks have been wanting to hear us talk about for a long time, and me and Bob have been wanting to do, but it's such a big deal that it could only be done with a lot of planning. And that is who framed roger rabbit and there are over three years of what a cartoon movies before who framed roger

rabbit that you could check out us covering akira a goofy movie lion king spider-man into the spider verse beavis and butthead to america kiki's delivery service batman beyond return of the joker and so so many more head over to patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons today to check it all out. And this history is going on very long let's jump to the present gould recently created a three-season ifc horror comedy show stan against evil which stars a character based on his dad that dana wanted to play himself but they talked him out of it they're like you don't want to be the star of the show you're producing and writing and maybe doing a little directing on that is too much for you to do john c m McGinley is also an amazing actor,

and he's so, I actually got to interview Gould and John C. McGinley about this at New York Comic Con in 2016. And Janet Varney as well, right? Yeah, yeah, and her too, which she's really cool. She's been nice to us too. But yeah, at Stand Against Evil, John C. McGinley is doing a great version of a mean old asshole,

just like Dana Gould's dad. And McGinley is so serious an actor that I also was like, when I interviewed him, I was like, are you being mean to me right now? I'm a scared nerd. I just asked him, there's this great bit in his first episode of Stand Against Evil where he sits in his favorite chair and he's got like one pillow and he keeps moving it back and forth behind him, like really mad, like he can't get it in one place. And when I asked him about that, he's like, well, yeah, this one pillow, it wouldn't get

it right behind you. And it's so annoying. I was like, wow, he just is this guy. I don't know where it's streaming, but I didn't really watch much of it. It was like a really busy time in our lives. It was. Yeah, I really only watch it for our show uh our research purposes but what i watched i really liked it was really crazy that it became it was airing on ifc at the

same time as the new ash versus the evil dead show when they're both very similar yeah it felt like a gift from uh god that i just ignored completely yeah they're both gone and then there's none of it you had two at the same time and we weren't watching it and now they're both over and where there's nothing but we were doing this and working full-time jobs it was very busy there's no time for dana gould in our lives now there's plenty of time yes in 2021 the stand-up comedy documentary joyride came out it's with him and bob goldthwait it's also a story about how they almost died in a car accident and on the stand-up tour okay and i hear that's pretty good and currently he has kick-started a second season of his space ghost coast to coast style talk show hanging with dr z dana gould loves planet of the apes he loves playing dr zeus this character is basically dr zeus as a space ghost

style character yes interviewing funny friends of dana gould's i don't get it but i'm not a dr zeus fan i believe the first i saw one of the first times he did that character live on stage i think it was yeah is that a um john hodgman live show in like i think it was 2013 at the sketch fest and john hodgman just apropos of nothing it was right after the first of the planning apes remakes came out risely planet apes and he can he just introduced like oh and i i have dr zeus here and he comes out and for like a second i was like okay it's a guy doing an impression and then he moved the mannerisms the movement mannerisms of gould come through and i go like oh my god dana gould yeah owns a perfect dr zeus costume dana gould loves

planet of the apes uh yeah this Zaius thing is basically just like he's kind of like a Robert Evans style character in that he lived through all the seedy parts of the 60s and 70s and got all these stories about them. And Dana Gould is like a bottomless well of trivia about that, just as we are for the 80s and 90s. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of kinship with him, we feel,

which was cool. Yeah, it was so funny to think that I saw one of the first times he did it and now it's just like i think he regularly does and i i don't think he does anymore but uh with his wife he lived in roddy mcdowell's mansion right yes i remember the stories that that was very important to him to live there yes i must live in the old house of one of my favorite movie celebrities but i mean that's it is his uh podcast just passed its 10th year it started in like february of 2012 uh he's doing very well i follow him on instagram he just got engaged to his uh second wife that's good wife to be i take it so good for him yeah

things are going well for dana gould and you know uh knowing him so well having listened to him uh for eight years for like three hours a month i can like i can identify a dana gould joke a mile away oh in this show yes yeah dana gould also i stopped listening to his podcast because uh you eventually start hearing the same stories over and over again which is a fear that i have i'm like i know i've said i've said this before but here it is again but it's like i think i've kind of heard everything about dana gould now yes yeah yeah there there's that i i also do think you know and one of my favorite dana gould hour episodes is when he has on a trans comedian who talks to him about his history of having transphobic jokes and i think dana gould reckons with that pretty well in that episode not

not that the episode is about forgiving dana gould or letting him like launder his previous material but it was a good conversation with this person but unfortunately that is something i notice in his simpsons episodes a lot that this is before that happened and yeah this episode alone has two jokes that i'm like really transphobia there not that there weren't transphobic jokes on simpsons before he was employed there but i do see a marked increase in them in his time he could have been a bad influence uh I think he definitely was but it was just like a new fun kind of humor fun in quotes for the early 2000s like we haven't done these kind of jokes before but I can definitely see based on his stand-up based on the kind of

jokes he used to make based on the shock humor he specialized in he definitely made that like part of his routine yeah yeah yeah which you know again it gets a gasp in an audience it gets a reaction i get it and hey if i had been if somebody ever asked me questions in 2008 about these topics i probably wasn't as intelligent about it or as informed as i have been in the last decade either like it's not you know people grow and change over time i don't want to be too mean about but it also would be it would be a lie if we watch these and didn't go like boy that's transphobic by today's standards that's pretty bad why'd they do that yeah we have

to comment on these things because we're just uh we're viewing it through the lens of today yes yeah but uh but yeah it's uh it's an incredible career when you really think about it and that dana gould's career is so big that seven years on the simpsons is this kind of a pit stop for the guy which would be a lot of comedians or comedy writers biggest deal of their whole career is seven years on the simpsons this it's just a pit stop for him and it was weird to go over his career and think he's never starred in anything he's never been like uh the star of like dana with an exclamation point i'm sure there was like i'm sure there were five pilots called dana and he was like you know the main character then they were never seen sure sure and he got paid like 75 000 for it or some ridiculous amount of money yeah but uh yeah

that is the story of dana gould uh but uh but yeah i mean dana gould's a funny uh funny comedian i uh stewart i i don't know your your personal history with the with dana gould or is this comedy like uh if you're you're a fan yeah i mean it's it's honestly it's a name that i'm familiar with and i am sure that i'm familiar with a lot of his work but you know i couldn't specify things that i like specifically you know a lot of this episode is based on his uh his cantankerous dad and the fact that he and his friends opened a quote-unquote hunting and fishing club which was their excuse to open a private bar which was skirting a lot of liquor laws but they were able to do it legally and i guess that was happening a

lot in their neck of the woods of massachusetts yeah i i like hearing scully talk about too that as well mike scully who also grew up in massachusetts saying like oh yeah you realize that when your dad or uncle says we're going up to the lodge like that means just drinking not not hunting or doing anything else it's just drinking with your pals arguably the better choice and uh yeah dana ghoul talks on the commentary a lot about how he spent a lot of his childhood in bars because his dad would say i want to go for a ride? And the kids would be like, yay. And then they would end up sitting inside of a bar with a bunch of sad alcoholics. For me, it was like after soccer practice, we would all go to like a pizzeria that had a bar attached and the dads would sit in the bar for hours, leaving us to like sit,

eat our pizza and then be super bored. That's why they dads pick pizzerias with oh man i didn't realize that that's the secret of those soccer games man let's say hey it's good it's a good deal for the dads uh i guess as long as as long as there's a designated driver but to get the kids home in that soccer van well perhaps not back then i mean it's also a very dating world thing to take a um sad episode from his childhood and ring comedy out of it and that includes that includes being a latchkey child at a bar around your hard drinking father which uh i mean that's that's a lot of his stand-up really absolutely yeah and yeah it feels like uh when people come on the show and their fathers are

notoriously cruel to them, Homer ends up being meaner. I was thinking about this today where it feels like Mike Scully had a really cruel father and so did Dana Gould. So like when they're both on the show together, Homer does get meaner. Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, who ran the show for season seven and eight and were on the show a long time before then, they've never said a bad word about their dads ever. Same with Al Jean and mike reese so i feel like when the the writers dads are mean homer gets meaner on the show it makes perfect sense to me i mean that's my equation al gene uh

loved his father i only heard him say nice things about him for example on commentaries about like i think he mentions his dad ran a hardware store until uh he passed away just a few years ago and he wrote a very like touching uh eulogy for his father online and so yeah it's like i think i i think you're correct bob and that when the showrunner has a better relationship with their father homer lightens up just a little bit you know there's still some meanness there but he's not though meanwhile i think david merkin's mean homer is more just to being a sociopath it's not about father issues it's that he writes over as as a pure monster in general yeah i can see that i mean there's definitely elements of like like he's always a little silly right and and obviously a little

stupid but there is like the there's occasionally the threat yeah yeah that this monster is going to ruin these children's what i mean you know at the root it is like when he was invented in the original olman shorts mac rainy was telling stories about his own homer graining father who was not like you know a horrible monster but who would say you better cut your hair boy i mean like you're growing out too long you're looking like a hippie so it's at the root of homer's character is interrogating a bad father son relationship the director on this one jane camerman again i i wish she's never on the commentary she's such an interesting person i think that you you spot

lit on twitter bob some really interesting like animation bits in here that, you know, season 13 is anything after season nine. People don't talk as much about like great animation moments in Simpsons. But there's some really good stuff in here that like shakes up the normally very strict rules of Simpsons animation. But yes, this episode begins with the the family at the breakfast table homer is first reading the bridge column and then drabble the uh the comic strip i'm glad someone is pointing out the absurdity of the bridge column and uh just as a kid being confused by it like what what am i doing is this like a puzzle who who is south who is north yep yeah my where you're my my parents were really into bridge

and though it has been explained to me and despite the fact that i play games like i'm in the game i cannot remember any of it i don't think anything more complicated than euchre can stick in my brain no my parents did not play bridge and i i tried to look up the rules of bridge for this episode just getting into like what even was this? But even that was too much for me. Yeah, it seems... The rules of bridge and playing competitive bridge was a plot point in the third season of Fargo,

but even then... And I really liked that season of the series, but it still could not make any sense of it, even with people as attractive as Ewan McGregor playing it. I just could not... Though in that season, they make him very unattractive intentionally. But no.

He still managed to, he and Mary Elizabeth Winstead still hit it off that season, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. They both left their other partners to get together. And yeah, I think I always, I remember reading the comic page and i would have a very very well thought out system for reading the comic page as a kid which was i read my favorites first and then if i you know i'm still like well these are still comics even if i think they're not funny

i'll still read them and and then once you're all out okay so i'm gonna need examples here i'm gonna need i'm gonna need top tier mid-tier and then, of course, Garfield and Foxtrot, those are at the top for me. I thought so. Yeah, that makes sense. And then you work down in the mid range, like Luann, high and lowest, starts getting a little lower. Snuffy Smith, real, the bad stuff. Mark Trail, save that for last. Well, that's the thing.

Mary Worth, Mark mark trail that stuff those weren't even funny and and also when i'd read them i go like i know other newspapers have the spider-man comic which also sucks but at least has spider-man in it instead of mary worth yeah we never got uh calvin and hobbes in my local newspaper oh of course calvin hobbes is number one of mine i'm so oh that's so sad i had to buy the i had to buy the manga at the bookstore i at least you bought it and you didn't just pick it up and then sit in the aisle reading it so that i can't buy a pristine copy of the manga exactly i mean bookstores today they still exist they're still littered with teens

just taking up space uh and then of course the last bits would be all right i've read everything on the main page let's read family circus on the other page okay you'll think about doing the junior jumble then decide not to and then right by that junior jumble there's the bridge and i don't understand what it means and it's just for bob i'll tell you what my uh local newspaper didn't have kevin fagan's drabble i did not have drabble in my local comics i i don't know about you stewart did you you have drabble no it's it's you know it's rare to watch some what i would say pretty general pop culture entertainment that has references that i have no idea and it wasn't because i was too old which is most of the references that i don't get nowadays it's i mean i feel like that was a pretty old reference like that was i was too young for something for a change i guess it was a 22 year

old comic when they made the joke it's a 43 year old comic now and and still kevin fagan apparently still draws it according to the wiki he draws it all himself with no assistance and has only missed one week ever in 43 years like due to severe illness the article said and yeah there's still no tip one out for that guy i mean come on he's uh you know the is it worth it is it worth it kevin his name is kevin right oh kevin yes okay yeah i no i think with drabble when i so i paged through some old drabbles on the on the web page and i was like you know what if i i read some 96 drabbles and it would have been a mid-tier for me it wouldn't have been like below it would have been a mid-tier for me. It wouldn't have been like below. It would have been above Snuffy Smith, which was definitely my, and even Beetle Bailey.

I bet I would have been like, you know what? I like this better than Beetle Bailey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess you don't support the troops. Well, with their sergeant beating them to bloody pulps? No, I can't. There's rampant sexual harassment happening on that base too yes yeah yeah that's horrible and more walkers too we've said it before but he's way too horny

that more walker he needs to well he's he's dead now oh okay well yeah it's uh yeah he kicked dirt on his grave i guess uh and uh and the father in drabble his name is ralph he does kind of look like homer or but i i would guess really though that uh i i tried to see if dr if kevin fagan had ever said what is that what's this joke about the simpsons they ripped me off i had a fat balding dad that they then had who's a dumb parent to three kids i just i assume the drabble guy was just happy to be recognized by anything. Yes. Yeah, do you think he just saved a videotape that has just those couple seconds of the episode that he can play for friends when they come over? Yes. You know, he duped it.

He sent it to family members, friends. You know, for all we know, the guy could be a Bill Watterson style of connoisseur who's like just said, like, no, I've been offered a Drabble cartoon once in 1984 and I told him, no, Drabble is pure. I will merchandise Drabble. Classic Alphorn, yeah. I mean, but the plot of Drabble is just this dad doesn't understand his kid's a nagging wife. Man, like, and his mother-in-law. All the

typical things you'd expect from a comic strip from 1979. But then as Homer's complaining about Drabble we in our first clip learn about Bart's new hobby. What are you reading, homie? The bridge column.

Oh, that south. You never know what he'll do next. Oh, look at that dad in drabble. He's like an unfunny version of me. Where's Bart? His Mountain Dew's getting flat. That's odd. He's outside digging. Probably digging for drugs. There's no drugs out there.

No, of course not. It's not a school project. I'd have heard of it i'd better go check it out what are you doing digging why make a hole a hole for what more digging okay then elisa slowly backs away the scully error is a lot of slowly backing out of a joke scene of just someone very troubled puts their hands up and walks backward i mean why is bart this this apparently all comes from uh executive producer george meyer just saying you ever notice how kids just like dig and just go like you know what i'm gonna dig a hole and there's no reason for it there's no plot purpose for it, as we'll see.

It's just meaningless digging. Homer apparently hides drugs out there, we learn in this scene. I mean, when I was a kid, there was like a hole digging day that we all got just really focused on digging a hole and the parents were getting concerned. Like, come on, kids, you can't dig any deeper. I think they were afraid we're going to hit a gas line or something. Yeah. Because we were like, we probably make this hole pretty deep you know if i ever dug as a kid other than like at the beach it probably was thinking but what

if there was treasure you never know like that was probably i saw some rugrats episode of her no a heathcliff episode about fighting fighting treasure in the backyard and thought that that could be me i just assumed i'd find like arrowheads and stuff like cool stuff like that yeah i feel like there's a i grew up in the country so like most of my days would be like spend walking around a creek or something like you give me a creek i will walk around that sucker also drinking mountain dew for breakfast a joke but one many many people i've known live that life as well. They don't, you start first drink of the day. If it's not coffee, Mountain Dew does the same deal. Yeah. Wake and bake. Yep. I get it. Uh, and yeah, I also like that they make Lisa such a nerd that

she knows it's not a school project because she knows all school projects and what they are in the school. It seems like a scene is cut, but there's, there's only one deleted scene episode on the dvd and it's not from this but it just kind of starts with homer saying don't worry marge it feels like marge had a line about being worried and it just it's homer saying don't worry we got to make room for rem yes yeah and uh homer tries to join in digging with bart uh and has a heart attack within like three movements uh it has a home defibrillator which that's a good that's a good joke he's that unhealthy and that you know he uses it enough to justify the expense yeah it's you know it's cheaper it's actually is very similar to a joke in uh it's just them taking it the next step farther and homer's triple bypass

uh after his like third heart attack. He says, why don't I just have one of these? And he zaps himself like so. Kind of a sequel joke there. Then they call in Dr. Kaufman. Call him Bob. And Bart says, thanks, Bob. Which I almost wanted to make that the opening just so Bob could be here.

Thanks, Bob. I want to be recognized, too, just like the Drabble guy. Now, is this a reoccurring character or is this a one-off? I believe he's a one-off. He's not appeared before, and I don't think he's been used since. There's certainly cause for... I don't know why. I mean, the show needs lots of child psychologists.

The children in the show have lots of problems. Bart says, my dad's always yelling that whitey is keeping him down that's a very very odd joke i think for dr kaufman uh much like i would think a therapist with a lot of the simpsons writers very quickly they're like okay and father issue there we go just write it down my god easy easily to deconstruct they only bought one session with this guy then we get a joke about digging China, which of course leads to a joke about Chinese people. All done by the masters of accents, Hank Azaria. Yeah, so we head up to a Chinese satellite.

You know, I don't think it was great in 2001, this Chinese satellite joke. The only real excuse is that we find out there's a reveal later on that this is all being told by homer so we're like maybe it's homer's just right unreliable narrator i suppose it's just homer's racist imagination he does say like well i just assume they would so so fine okay then it's just that homer's racist and imagines a chinese satellite has a pagoda on it. Dana Gould was saying this is him doing a bad John Schwarzwalder impression. And I agree.

Yeah. It's like, what if things were wacky? I mean, it's a different flavor of that. Yeah. We know that from other writers who say like, well, once you start, you're just like, I'll just try to be, I'll write as funny as John Schwarzwalder on this. I'll have something wacky, but it's a tough, tough line. But I do like,

not I want to do the accent, but I do like how great the great humongous says, well, I'm just saying and then the response of, oh, you're always just saying like that funny exchange. Really sick of his ego here. And yes, Lord Humongous

will appear in the next episode where they go to Chinatown, which also is full of jokes that aren't so great about Chinese people, though you'll have to enjoy it good luck yeah really sticking it to the chinese in season 13 but anyway yes uh it is then uh you know what i'm gonna play our jingle for it because it's all revealed that this strange act one is meaningless and has no point so first first let's hear hear the classic sound effect. I bet you didn't see that coming.

And yes, as our next clip reveals, it was all a fake story by Homer. Those inscrutable Americans. What are they up to now? I will stop them. I am strong. I am the great humongous. We strong. I am the great humongous. We all know you're the great humongous. Well, I'm just saying.

Oh, you're always just saying. Homer, is this story going anywhere? Yes, eventually I become king of the Morlocks. But Morlocks are from the future. You calling me a liar? Wait a minute, Homer. If it's true, what about all the stuff you weren't around for? Yeah.

How'd you know the Chinese were spying on you? Oh, I just naturally assumed. That is the stupidest story I ever heard, and I've read the entire Sweet Valley High series. Ha! I am sick of you drunks and your shaggy dog stories. Sorry, Shaggy! Oh, now I gotta go home to that!

Thanks a lot! Oh, quit your bellyaching, coffee boy. You're lucky I got to go home to that. Thanks a lot. Oh, quit your belly aching, coffee boy. You're lucky I let you in here. Jeez, Moe, you've been a real crank lately. Take that back. Now, you see, that's what I'm talking about. You're always pointing that shotgun at us. And calling us dumbasses.

Which we're so not. I like that very Chandler delivery by Carl there, which we're so not. He knows he's on a sitcom. And you know what uh i think they were trying to troll people like you henry who were mad about the unrelated first acts yes yeah i mean homer did it in tennis the menace which is where that clip comes from but you didn't see that coming but i kind of like the meta the deconstruction of the unrelated first act where it's like where is this going well it's just to get homer into the bar so we can talk to mo and set up that mo is unhappy i i like that it's just a pointless story poorly told by by an idiot but but i do like that homer that makes it why it's pointless because homer's telling a pointless story that there really is no

good resolution of like well what happens how long does bart dig does bart find anything interesting if he digs like does anything happen and so better to just cut to actually homer is bad at telling stories and i guess too it turns into kind of just the writer's room of other writers shitting on each other's story pitches like oh this story doesn't even have a fucking point as carl points out more locks are from hg wells's time machine they're the the future monsters that's a good that's a good joke uh it's uh it shows that carl is a well well informed guy but no so now that we're in most bar and we learned that mo is a well-read uh he's a well-read connoisseur of the sweet valley high books he's read dozens upon dozens of tween literature i've i i took account of that up to 1998 there

were 143 sweet valley high books and 38 side series which based on their titling i believe was them chasing the goosebumps craze they're like ah by the late 90s they realized sweet valley high was losing to the scary books so it was like chilling tales sweet valley high series so isn't being a teenager scary enough, guys? I don't need Fear Street to put ideas in my head. Thank you. Yes. So, Stuart, now we're in Moe's Bar, and I need to ask you, as a bar proprietor, how important is the dank? Oh, I mean, I think it's kind of essential, actually.

I mean, there is, you know, there's that certain old beer smell. When, you know, the idea of the dank, I feel like is that smell of like spilled and spoiled beer that you get in very specific dive bars. You know, when you walk in and that like it just kind of hits you like it's been there has been beer sitting in this wood for way too long. Yeah. To me, the dank is not just the darkness. It's also, you're right, the general aged atmosphere the the stains the spills the smells it all contributes to a good bar experience like if i spill my drink i won't be uh ruining the place yeah that's inviting to know that yeah it's like our what about peanuts on the floor kind of smell is that how how good or bad is that the peanut shell i mean that's a little texas roadhouse for me honestly uh it shows my southern roots here see

i don't know i've always been suspicious of any of places that leave like that have like peanuts or any other like free salty stuff on the bar just because i'm like who else has been sticking their hands on that i'm not talking about like garnish although i've definitely seen people patrons like try and reach into the olive bin in the garnish tub and i'm like what are you doing uh but yeah like there's something about like communal snack bowls that i'm not i'm not into what about you guys yeah i don't think any bar i've been to uh has served peanuts there was one bar in college that would have just like giant garbage bags full of peanuts hanging off the walls. And when I was drunk enough, I would eat out of those. But I now regret it, knowing like whose hands were in those.

You know, with the peanuts, though, you're shelling it. So it's not like other people's hands were on the inside of the peanuts you're eating. Compelling point. were on the inside of the peanuts you're eating you know i compelling point well in my though meanwhile and uh yeah i i was never much of a peanut eater at bars but also i'm not like a snack on like if you have free peanuts i wouldn't like i'd be like sure okay munch i'll munch on a couple but it was popcorn loose popcorn was at a lot of my early 20s bars and i would enjoy it but yes now i i guess the last uh two years have recalibrated my thoughts i'm like why did i put my fingers through all of this other food that other people were doing in a bar together yeah as long as you rinse the popcorn i've worked i've worked in

places that do popcorn and i would come home after an eight hour shift stinking of popcorn for good or ill, depending on my company. Oh, well, look, I worked in a movie theater and yes, that was the popcorn stink. Never has gone away from me. I wouldn't I would not. It's rare. I order popcorn ever. If my husband wants popcorn at the movie, they'll be like, all right, let's do it. But I am kind of a rare popcorn order myself

but sure now now what about calling uh patrons dumbasses or putting guns in their faces that probably not done too much in your bar it's not done very much we're we're generally fairly nice although they're i mean you'll get those bar regulars who who will see any attention as good or ill attention is still attention. So there are those customers that like when they're being a dumbass, we have to tell them they're being dumbass. That's deserving. That's a good policy. Yeah, that's that's part of that's that's part of it. Luckily, there's you know, there's the good patrons who are like, I one of my favorite uh customers who's now a friend of mine the first time he came in he tipped me an extra 20 on top of his normal 20 tip because he's like look at some point i'm gonna be an asshole i'm like thank you for

understanding this wow so you are the opposite of mo it's never been an asshole though oh wow so this is very opposite of mo's empty barren tip jar yeah that's the wild thing is i'm like these are blue collar dudes in my experience they're the best tippers hands down not rich dudes but like the money pie blue collar guys who just put 20s down and like they're the best hands down no question they buy drinks for each other. They generally, you know, stick to bottle beers and shots. They're the best. No question. Yeah, that's good to know.

This shotgun thing in Homer's face, this they were really into Mo pulling out his gun. Like in in the parent rap, which was a few episodes ago mo literally robs homer at gunpoint and says that's right i rob people now and then also in worst episode ever when homer and comic book guy enter the bar bought uh mo blasts a guy like just actually shoots him on screen uh for what i forget why he even did like he oh he brought in sack of jewia dollars that's why he shot the guy like on screen so he's got a history with guns he turned seven guns in the one gun or whatever that joke was that's true and shot that robber in the spine yeah as well yeah so i mean there's there's a fair amount of guns in this episode

yeah which uh i mean that the like rifle at the end mo getting shot at the end from from the tales of dana gould's childhood it's the gun ownership was a normal thing then and yeah so but uh but yeah and uh mo also has a hideous smile even grosser than the one that he had in pygmalion uh for his big uh photograph the sound of it stretching back in his face is wonderful. And then also the great line of like, I ain't smiled for real since I nailed that rat with that ice pick. I would guess not many rats in your establishment. It's not enough.

And you wouldn't dirty up an ice pick with it, with killing. I mean, well, we don't have an ice pick. We're not that fancy of a place that uses old-timey instruments to prepare their ice. But the, yeah, I mean, we're a bar in New York, so I'm assuming there's rats, but I don't see them. And we have an exterminator and we don't have a rodent problem. We did, during the middle of the pandemic, we had, I think it was a mouse. And we have an exterminator and we don't have a rodent problem. We did during the middle of the pandemic. We had I think it was I think it was a mouse. It might have been a rat.

Like in the middle of the afternoon, we had the door open. We only were allowed to have people in the backyard and in front of the bar, not inside because it was, you know, still COVID protocols. And this I think it was a rat ran inside and I like shoot it out with a with a inside. And I, like, shoot it out with an umbrella, I think. I, like, scared it out. Ran outside, scared some other customers, ran back inside, jumped over the bar, and then ran behind a fridge. And it took me, from there, I had to, like, move all, pull everything out of the fridge to move the fridge, scare it out. And then, like, I chased this thing the fridge scare it out and then like i

chased this thing i think it took me like two hours wow uh and eventually it we we managed to capture it and get it outside and it ran away very wet but very much alive but it was it was two hours in the middle of a saturday afternoon uh that's the kind of adventures when you're running a bar i think that rat was ready for a ratatouille situation just get in your hair help you make drinks i think it was honestly like it was i feel like i'd be a much better bartender if i had a ratatouille although i don't know if i want a hat i mean i guess i'm gonna have to try you have to wear hats all the time people i feel like your friends would

probably be distrustful of that like what's why is he always got a hat on now it doesn't make sense i've known like old school bartenders who were really weird about bartenders wearing hats behind the bar because they claimed that in the old days if the cops saw a guy with a hat on behind the bar it meant that somebody was robbing the place because no bartender would wear a hat but a robber would wear a hat like that is a wild reason to be mad about hats but okay that is a that is a crazy uh cop that's crazy and uh so mo is has lost his mojo and he's he's thinking about finding it he remembers his old swigmore college which a great line about like oh i just put it up recently and it's a good thing too because i did because it

really illustrates my point swigmore is apparently based on the uh the new york college skidmore uh which i think is a liberal arts place the most famous alums are uh recent stars like zazzy beats of atlanta and john burnthal of the punisher and walking dead fame wow very attractive people yes yeah there's there look there was there's some unattractive people too or like the president of like a credit card company or whatever but i i stick i stuck to the movie gross what an uggo i also really i do really love the light of Lenny and Carl and Mo all searching for words like, oh. What's the word I'm looking for? Yeah. That's really great.

So then it's time to decide who is going to run the bar in our next clip. Who am I kidding? I ain't smiled for real since I nailed that rat with the ice pick. Remember that? That was an amazing throw. How did I lose my passion for the job? When I was in bartending school, I thought I had the world by the jigger. Hey, where'd that painting come from? Yeah, I put this up recently, and it's a good thing I did, because it really illustrates my point. Yeah, good old Swigmore you. Gee, when you talk about that school, your voice fills with, uh, what do you call it? Human you. Gee, when you talk about that school, your voice fills with, what do you call it, human feeling.

Yeah, maybe you should, what's the expression, go back there. What's the word I'm searching for? Yeah, a trip to the alma mater might really rekindle my love of getting people loaded. But who'll run the bar while you're gone? Ooh, ooh, pick me. Pick me, Lenny. Pick me, I'm an urban Lenny. Look, I don't want to start a tinkling contest here.

Or do I? Woohoo! Oh, don't look so proud. That was wind assisted. I could not say the word pissing. Yes, yeah. It had to be the censors made it be tinkling. Oh, okay. They all competitively pissed in a back

alley. That's what Homer's up to now in season 13, competitively pissing with Lenny, Carl, and Barney. I guess now that Barney's sober, there is no Barney guarding job at Moe's. That's true. For the duff delivery. When did Barney get sober? I think it was season 10 or season 11.

It won't last more than another year or so i think al gene's gonna have him relapse soon because as shown in this episode they're actually like surly to like we want to write him drunk this is boring to write a sober guy like it was like got his hair combed properly i i guess though actually him being sober makes it more disconcerting that he seemingly has a relationship with this dog uh like you know like a romantic sense seems odd it could be emotional support animal you know getting him through his uh addiction do you allow emotional support animals in your bar steward uh yeah i mean that's i feel like that's kind of the only way we can allow animals in the bar is if people

if people bring a dog uh it has to be a because because of new york laws the only way we can allow animals in the bar is if people if people bring a dog uh it has to be a because because of new york laws the only time you can bring an animal in is if it is a uh you know a working animal right it's on the clock oh yeah and we're not allowed to like we can't be like oh what's your disability like so if somebody says that it's a it's a like you know it's a support animal we have to allow it it's the only way we can get around i like that line about it's how people talked back then and i think probably even now in casting of calling the lady having carl say urban lenny which is like that was the code word in casting of like we're going a little more urban or we you know this is a little too urban for us

we that that was the hollywood code word back then after this homer wins via i guess the wind blew his piss slightly farther than the other guy's face that's a great description of that plot point i kind of wish i think this would have been a more interesting obviously like homer's the main character he's the guy who's gonna get put in charge of the bar but i think this would have been a more interesting, obviously, like Homer's the main character. He's the guy who's going to get put in charge of the bar. But I think it would have been a funnier plot, perhaps, if Lenny or Carl were put in charge of the bar and Homer has to sit in the background going like, I should be in charge of the bar, me, the main character. I think it would have been an unexpected and more interesting twist in this case.

You know, Lenny did a good job running the plant. Yeah, that's true he told everyone to work harder and then just put his feet up instead they leave it to homer which also the the end gag in this act is like oh this is why mo should never have done this like homer will explode your bar and waste all your beer the second you leave like i love it like no mo you've got it all wrong people buy beer from you what a great yeah the idea that he's pouring the beer out and that that is costing mo money which is not unlike i have definitely known uh bartenders and other patrons who were like if if i pour myself a drink at the

bar they're like yeah you can drink here for free and i'm like well it's not free i'm still paying for it is uh is your stance to tell people to go to hell if they want to buy potato chips or something like that at the bar uh absolutely that's the first thing i say is i say go to hell and then i provide them with a roadmap which is stenciled on the side of a shotgun i point in their face uh no i mean we carry i think we we had to expand our food program significantly uh when COVID hit because of rules from the governor. You weren't allowed to serve alcohol unless you served a meal, which did not include chicken wings. Chicken wings were not a meal.

I mean, we weren't selling chicken wings anyway. So we had to expand significantly, but it's still kind of a learning process for us because my wife and I, who own the bar, do not have a restaurant background. At the very least, you can open a bag of potato chips and it's like, here you go. But Mo, I like that Mo doesn't seem to understand you'd make more money that way if you were to sell people potato chips instead of refusing to do that. That's why I think it's funny that later Mo will learn the lesson is that it's not that he's bad at running a bar. It's that he lost his passion. It's like, no, I think he is very bad at running a bar. This is a misdiagnosis of Mo's problem here. Yeah, he's just a mean old creep.

So act two begins with Mo driving back to swigmore and uh there's two things like uh uh jane camerman and jen camerman and her team uh they were very smart in their reusing of old assets and also of continuity uh mo he's driving in his broke down pickup truck which he calls betsy last seen in homer's phobia so it is the the correct pickup truck they remembered mo's hat that's what mo drives and uh i i do like the gag that squigmore college is not just a place where you learn to run a bar but also is a bar in all ways of like it is saloon door gates and that it has a gag clock that it's always five it's time for drinking i like that and it's a

party school but it's also right out of the paper chase yes yeah which so i've never seen the paper chase i only know it from references and like tons of comedies like mr show has probably the perfect paper chase parody of look to your left look to your right and just all the commandments of like when yeah he will jump out a window three of them will commit suicide meanwhile cuts back to the bar homer's doing a bit better this second time he he cleans the black and white tv into a color one which that's a great joke i really like that that originally mo just had a black and white tv because you know in 1990 it was like yeah that's kind of an old thing in a bar but i can

see in 1990 there's maybe a bar that hasn't upgraded to a color tv by 2001 feels a little weird to not have a color tv yet like would it even play what do you even play the channels you know and uh and so yeah the uh the carl carl is ordering bottled duff which it seems like most everybody else is a tap guy but homer's opening up the bottles with his stomach a pretty impressive trick i don't know how how easy that one is to do if that's a classic bartending trick uh i've known enough uh bartender i've known bartenders who open you know with their bicep and i've known people who've gotten belt buckles that have a bottle opener, but I've never seen somebody use their stomach to do it. I don't know if I'd want the beer afterwards.

No, yeah. Carl has no notes on it. He's like, yep, this isn't gross. I'm going to eat and drink this. Put this right to my lips now, Homer. I also love that Homer, he's going to allow an outside food. First, he looks at the photo of Moe with a shotgun. And I love that he's like, oh, he's not here now.

Turns it over and it's Homer with a thumbs up in reverse. That's a good joke. I like that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I like that he has that North Star in the bar of Moe with a shotgun. And in Outside Food or Drinks, you know, know they see why mo actually was right to ban it because lenny is such a cartoonish klutz he hits it into the ceiling fan and it blasts everybody which uh that's probably one of the biggest dangers of outside food in a bar right stewart

well what i will say is that when like if a large party shows up with outside food, I would say easily nine times out of ten, they make a big fucking mess. And they leave, like, birthday cake all over the place. Yeah. So maybe, maybe Simpsons is on to something. And then they finish the meal and then do a Coyote Ugly parody. And it just makes the bar even dirtier. It just makes it dirtier. I'm like, stop it, stop it.

You don't even work here it's still a good reference uh yeah the coyote ugly movie uh yeah it's it's about hot girls that dance on bars but they but they are not strippers they just dance in provocative ways i believe is the the story of a coyote ugly bar and that which i it got franchised not long after the movie that just feels to me like you're on the subway and it's showtime and it was sorry stewart go ahead and also i mean it was i'm just saying it was inspired by a couple of bars in the village that my friend i have friends that worked at those places and yeah it was it was like that uh you know dancing on the bar but not and getting hammered uh but not you know everything and uh like doc holidays

and oh man there was a couple others but yeah and those of you're not you're not baby bird shotting people anymore and in the yeah not as many belly shots i would guess either i mean it's it's uncommon you yeah you have to put a dental dam on somebody's stomach before you can do that. That takes all the fun out of it. You know, my first thought was that it was a Full Monty parody. I think you too, Bob. Just a bunch of ugly guys dancing. Oh, Full Monty.

Then I realized, oh wait, Coyote Ugly. Another movie that's kind of forgotten. Yeah. And I think the Full monty thing too when i associated with dancing in bars it's because the drew carrey show in their parody of full monty danced on a bar that was mainly where they danced in the full monty or the drew carrey parody of it then i it's a it's a cute little joke that they are playing woolly bully at first and then it changes over to chicago's color my world which they then start

slow dancing with each other they're just like they understand it means it's time to slow down if you pull up the real version of that song they cut out there's a minute long instrumental before lyrics kick in and then chicago song like it's very i was when i pulled it up like okay let's hear this song i never listened to it i was like man when's these lyrics kick in already it's crazy every song from that era was just building space for a dj to talk about you know the weather upcoming concerts uh contests they were trying to help the radio industry yeah yeah low fade ins long fade outs yeah then the record skips which uh i again compliments to the animators first all of their dancing is very well choreographed like

you you might not think of it like choreographing four people dancing at the same time and then drawing it is actually very hard to do you just like well you just draw it four times and then when homer acts like fonzie i think i remember it every time and then every time i see it i'm like wow there's so much more blood than i remember it's so characters don't in a non in a non treehouse. Characters do not bleed that much. Like that's that's shocking. Yeah. Unfortunately, Henry Jamundo did not become Homer's new catchphrase.

It's so it's so good, though. I do love his blood dripping left hand goes. Hey, it just passes out. Yeah, it kind of kind of pred uh a similar joke in that movie the nice guys by a few years right where ryan gosling like tries to punch through a glass uh window and uh just ends up cutting himself really bad that's right uh and uh and so yes then it turns into the paper chase as mo briefly goes into his bar and and yeah i you know what i couldn't name what a cosmos made out of even though uh it's a very simple cocktail from the description of it vodka

triple sec cranberry juice and a freshly squeezed or sweden lime juice according to uh to the iba uh listing on it yeah yeah just a just a splash of cranberry juice for color okay see i am a very simple girl drink drunk type guy as as we've said on this podcast before so it's just like cranberry what's your go-to cocktail well cranberry plus vodka is usually it or or uh or or orange juice plus vodka that's a lot a lot of a lot of driver yeah yeah it's uh easy well drinks too what's your what's your what's your cocktail choice? Are you a teetotaler? I'm not.

I normally don't drink cocktails. I kind of just like stuff on the rocks straight. But if I do get a cocktail, it's usually like citrusy, like a Paloma or something like that. Oh, sure. Or a Hemingway. Okay. Yeah. I used to be a big beer drinker, like a big IPA guy.

And then I realized that they were not making me feel good so i switched i drink a lot of like tequila and mezcal on the rocks but for cocktails man i just love a negroni like very simple nice and bitter because you know i'm sweet enough guys it's true uh but bob is uh bob has helped me in the more straight whiskey and a tumbler kind of style like as including with a birthday gift of of my own shock shot glass for measurement on it oh that's great yeah i'm more of a straight whiskey guy it's called an enabler henry that's what i'm doing i appreciate it yeah i'm a professional enabler it's okay uh but yes i mean boy you get all the way to Swigmore College

and you don't know that there's no grenadine in a Cosmopolitan. Like, these kids all should get out of there. Get out. But yes, we do a quick cutaway to Bart doing his first crank call in a very long time. Like, they dropped it for Bart doing it. He stopped it in season four other people will call calmo with it but they very actively ended it in uh you kid on the block yes sorry yes bob yeah

though other people have called him but i think of if they're having to make up a new thing a kid for bart to do ollie to booger that's not a bad one you know that's not that's not quite a huge as but uh you know these are hard to write which is why they got rid of them that makes sense and it you know it gets in the scatological zone instead of like the homophobic or or sexual zone of like oliver close off or homosexual like it's just amanda and Kiss. Yes, Amanda Hug and Kiss. Yep. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there.

You're looking up. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub at electricireland.ie.

I like the joke that home doesn't get it and it makes it no fun. Like, that's good. He immediately, unlike Mo, he immediately recognizes Bart. That's true. That's really great. He's like, oh, Bart, thanks. Like, yeah. So then we cut back to Moe talking with his old professor. He references a film I had to look up, Iron Weed.

I've never seen it. Same here. It is a film about depressing drunks. Meryl Streep and Jack nicholson play a pair of drunks and jack nicholson is a a man who's drinking to avoid his past where uh while drunk he um accidentally killed a child and he's trying to he's also a homeless guy he got a bunch of acting uh nominations in 87 for ironweed but but so that's the joke mo watched a very depressing film about alcoholics and he's like i want to become i want to become a bartender that's the life of me yes

i can't think of that many movies about like bartenders that aren't also depressing too like even cocktail like brian brown drinks himself to death spoiler alert uh you know i've heard that barfly movie's pretty it's got to be fun right yeah uh but what's with this anti-bar sentiment in hollywood yeah what the hell i don't know i mean it's you know it's just an like i don't know as speaking as a bartender i don't only want to be uh depicted and uh fictionalized through trauma so if you could avoid that hollywood please you know the the shawn of the dead and and worlds and like those those make pubs bars they look fun they look like great places to just you know hang out and drink at the the end of times that they make them look nice okay yeah i i actually i i'll get i'll give you partial credit there because i

think while they i think bars and drinking in the in drinking in Edgar Wright movies do kind of symbolize like, you know, regressive, almost like male behavior. Yeah. I mean, I still think that there's a there's still a positive experience. They look like good hang zones, I guess, is what I'm saying. You know, it's where. And also, you know, good for barricading yourself against you know the zombies so it's it's useful too yeah and and as well a good hang zone might be my uh my next bar that i open all this title like the good hangs out and you know what in shawn of the dead they count on there being a shotgun there you know that's actually very important for them like i i said before the fancy professor his love

of mo and his misdiagnosis of like no it's your crap hole bar like you're you're uh you're not ugly and hate-filled it's that your bar is bad it makes you worse like but though the saying of nice hole nice soul that's a good that's good i like that but but then comes quite a moment for the series, which I've got the clip right here. Describe your tavern in one word. Is crap hole one word? Yes, if it's hyphenated. Then I'll stick with crap hole.

Well, no wonder you're depressed. Working in that environment, if you want my advice, beautify your hole and you'll beautify your soul. Nice hole, nice soul. Hmm. Look at that pond. Why does the water sparkle so?

I'm dying, Moe. Is there anything I can do? No. Unless you have a cure for cancer. Do you have a cure for cancer do you have a cure for cancer cuz that would be great I'm sorry professor goodbye mo bye professor hey don't you want to take your shoes off before you go swimming Professor? Oh. Oh. Um. Hmm.

I forgot that we hear the last air escaping his lungs. And we had Dana Gould on as our first interview for our first live show we did four years ago. And he said after this episode aired, or perhaps before, James L. Brooks, one of the big founders of the show, came up to and said you know 13 years never an on-screen suicide until now but it's it's a great escalation it's a great escalation of a uh like sincere dramatic scene that immediately goes into crazy town where the man is desperately begging for a cure for cancer and then just saying well i guess i'll just walk into this pond oh god that's so i mean also the exchange of like you know in a movie scene like this a character would jokingly say like or you know in dark humor not unless you got a cure for cancer but then he's like do you have a cure for cancer because that would be great that's so good but yeah it's uh they it was a real turning point for the series

to have an on-screen suicide in a non-treehouse episode which gould on the commentary says he always takes credit for it but it's actually george byers joke he admits to on the commentary but watching a man walk into the water and not come out it's like it's just so so very dark and it works even better because the animators drew the pod to look beautiful like naturally beautiful for the show like the reflection is so great yeah and then the ghost shows up later in the episode so clearly he didn't yeah he's he just he chose drowning in his beloved college's pod rather than the waiting out the cancer the it's very horrible yeah that's why i wondered like hey wait this is a a mo episode where he doesn't uh attempt suicide

because they did they did self-harm jokes quite a lot with mo in this era but clearly they can't do it because they do their big suicide joke with his teacher right instead of him maybe this scared him straight for a bit yeah yeah and uh and also that same thing uh ghoul told us like yeah mo's his favorite character like he loves we we had asked him like okay who's the most pathetic man in springfield he's like it's got to be mo and he's my favorite guy to write in the show that's why my first my first episode is a mo episode which we should also note the title of it homer the mo yes it is a gay joke it's saying homer the mo meaning homosexual calling him a mo that's the that's oh no yeah yeah yeah it's i didn't know had two meanings until you pointed that out uh but hey speaking of homosexuals we head to the bar and

mo's getting it re for redone by Formico. I do love that. Stuart, how often do you sing your way to work? That happened a lot in the bar business. Sure. I mean, it makes sense because Homer's pretty new. But once he's been bartending a little bit, he stops singing. I love Homer singing what he's thinking.

And yes, he thinks teens are destroying the bar uh and i do think it's pretty cavalier of for maiko and mo as they read they change up the look of the bar he is throwing things out the window towards the streets like it's pretty pretty aggressive i i homer's not wrong to make an assumption and i love that and they're removing those uh those like stained glass windows and i love those. You don't see those enough, and they're so great. The stained glass windows, the diamond pattern ones. Oh, man, those are great. It makes it even sadder to see it destroyed along with his old TV.

Homer. Again, great animation on Homer beating the shit out of Moe. Like his Q-turn-y teen. It's so great. Just going like, hey, Homer, smash, smash, smash, smash. Homer has to realize that it's Moe breaking Moe's bar, and he can't understand it. And it's revealed that it's being reformatted by Formico, which I really like the George Meyer on the commentary.

He's like, yes yes this is a very broad gay stereotype for even 2001 we we weren't winning any awards for this guy uh ghoul directly compares him to alan seuss's characters from laugh-in who who was a gay performer on laugh-in at the time who did very broad characters that's why he's got his neckerchief on, which no gay man in 2001, I don't think was wearing a neckerchief. Probably not. I don't think so. I do always enjoy Homer's stage whisper.

He seems nice. That feels like a Dana Gould statement as well, that he just says that to other people. We cut to the dinner table and Homer's feeling sad. He's no longer in charge of a bar he misses the power i love bart saying like just leave the bottle that's a great line about milk i like i mean stewart you'll agree with me you can't trust a patron with an entire bottle right you're not that trusting that's one of my favorite like movie or tv things when uh somebody's sitting at

the bar and just asks to leave the bottle because i'm like how the fuck would i calculate that how am i going to charge you dude nobody nobody does i guess that you well if someone says that you just say okay i'll just sell you this bottle then i guess if that's what you want like you you own this bottle now but then i have to do the math of it like what am i going to charge for like this percentage of this bottle and like considering the markup etc etc like it's just too complicated it's like hey look i'll pour you a double that's what you say like i can't i can't leave yeah of course uh if they're asking me to leave the bottle i would pour them a single and then keep an eye on them the whole night uh and bob you on Twitter showed what a great smear it is

as Homer like rushes over to like the animation smear on Homer like rushing to Fresh and Bart's drink. That's really great. And I also love the big hacking cough they animate on Lisa with a cigarette in her mouth. It is pretty shocking to see Lisa with a lit cigarette in her mouth. I kind of want that animation sell out of context. That's great great you know in this era it's about being cruel to lisa as we'll learn later in the episode and uh and also stewart yes have you have you told people you can't sleep

here have have you been given that instruction yeah of course i mean i feel like night as a nighttime bartender especially in like a neighborhood spot or any spot, you have to deal with people falling asleep at the bar all the time. And you got to say, can't sleep here. Although I've known bartenders who had like a regular who would be like a big dude and they would they'd be OK if that regular like if it was late and the regular like kind of fell asleep at the bar. If as long as his back's toward the window so that people think like, oh, no, that's a big security guy in there rather than like a big teddy bear. And in that case, that's kind of fine because it's like, you know, it adds a little bit of, you know, false security.

But no, of course, he can't let people sleep there. This is a wacky story. We once had a bartender. We went in to check in on a bartender. It was nine o'clock at night and the bartender was asleep in the bar. Whoa. What the? And when my wife would wake the bartender up, she was like, she's like, my wife asked,

taking a nap? And the bartender's like, I'm trying to, but you're bugging me. And she clearly was like, I'm acting her children were waking her up from a nap. It was a crazy experience. Wow. Do you have the standard pot of coffee brewing behind the bar like most bars do? Yeah, of course. Yeah.

I mean, we sell coffee, but it's for the staff. Right, right. You've got to have coffee. Sorry, buddy. You can't sleep here was also used a lot in the simpsons writers room by george meyer that in the late rewrite nights of uh shows people start falling asleep and you just gotta tell like hey sorry buddy you can't sleep here as dana gill told us scully didn't keep them as late i think because he was the first showrunner with a child so he actually did want to get home at like seven with an entire family

yes with actually a lot of children yeah adult uh like teen girls even yes he he didn't he didn't want to miss their lives just to rewrite the same joke 800 times i think while the complaints generated uh his reasoning was probably like no one's gonna pour over every single joke of an episode over the course of a podcast no one's gonna make their living complaining about us and how he could have improved so yes the uh the bar has been redesigned uh homer and his pals head over there just uh the m on it looks to be the m from the m&m's bags as well for some nice serifs apparently the space on the W Hotel in New York and I know there's one in San Francisco I've been there for a few events and Dana Gould based it on this because he didn't know if he was in the bathroom or not because it was just basically

a waterfall coming down the wall he had to wait for someone to actually start peeing before he knew it was safe that he could start peeing as well but yeah I've been in that place I felt very out of place as I go to my my old video game appointments when I was back in the Games Press. W Hotel. Yeah, I mean, you don't know you're staying in a fancy hotel unless you cannot figure out how to use the bathroom fixtures. It has to be like three seashells level demolition man shit for me to know that i'm staying in a fancy place and apparently the cartoon eyeball thing or the the eyeball stuff is like based on a the the saint martin's hotel in england that they had stayed at as well for like some events so these these are all like very chichi bar things like that they're they're putting in this here but i i like homer

again he's trying to do there's a lot of jokes in here about trying to pitch ideas for stories that are rejected by other people which i feel is the writers uh like homer just putting out there like oh couldn't you just see aliens running the bar couldn't you and everybody just leaves them ignoring ignoring the premise he's throwing out there but i definitely think there's a thing that dana ghoul loves to do and he's very good at which is um he feels like you know he's from boston he feels like the regular guy in hollywood and definitely a lot of his comedy is driven by being surrounded by the opulence of hollywood and thinking these people are dumb like this is stupid like look at all these people in their trendy clothes and certainly all the jokes inside

this bar are what comedy nerds who write on the simpsons feel like at a fancy hollywood party i'm certain of that i think so i've i've felt tangential feelings like that at fancy parties myself people complaining about their very specific micro niche diets that they're on they're their botox problems but uh and also uh gould probably did a favor for a pal here with this bouncer design yeah based on uh greg nicotero he's been on a bunch of episodes of dana gould's podcast but he's a special effects guy a director writer i believe he's acted in a few things as well yeah yeah he's he's a student of tom savini got his start on day of the Dead on Romero.

Yeah, if you look at his credits, it's like, oh, yeah, he does great gore and zombie special effects. He's basically worked on The Walking Dead for a decade at this point and directed multiple episodes. And also, in a lot of the Tarantino films that have the best blood effects, he usually was the the special effects guy on that like in death proof or uh hateful eight which is like all blood the not to spoil the movie but the third act or the last third of the film is just blood everywhere explosive blood everywhere not to spoil this uh quentin tarantino movie but it gets violent yeah the way that one head explodes in that movie has haunted me ever since it should have been called blood everywhere me and bob saw that in 70 millimeter together it was quite a

treat yeah with the intermission and everything i watch it on netflix you know that four hour version of it's pretty uh it's nice i keep waiting for the i think that's the version i saw i think that was the one that went up on netflix yeah yeah yes yes i think they have the regular version on there too but like it's like yeah just like basically four episodes of a tv show on netflix i think they were threatening to do that with once upon a time in hollywood but i haven't heard it uh like when it when the movie was new but i haven't heard of that actually happening yet with the uh with for the expanded version because the tarantino i also this tarantino talk time i i think after tarantino talk sure but i think after his his editor uh his his great editor passed away uh sally benke like he his movies get way longer and i'm not even saying like i think they're not good not as good because i i did

really like hateful aid and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But they're like so long and just like I feel like a more aggressive editor could get them under two hours if Tarantino wanted to. But at his age, I don't think he does. I think he's like, nah, this should be four hours. Like this two hour, 40 minute long version, that is the edited version of it. But yes, Greg Nicotero, the bass is for Cecil, which Cecil is a girl's name. It's one that lets him know. So yes, we head inside and Moe welcomes them to the new bar in our next clip.

Welcome to M. So what do you think of the new joint? This place looks like it's from the not too distant future. You like it, Homer? Um, the rabbits are cute. Eh, that one ain't moving. Uh, change number seven. I don't get all this eyeball stuff.

What are they supposed to represent? Eyeballs? It's pomo. Post-modern. Yeah, all right, weird for the sake of weird. Oh. Where are the bar stools? Up there.

Ain't it trippy? Uh, whatever. Just give me a duff. Oh, we don't serve duff no more. We got a Malaysian beer that's better than duff. It's made out of soy sauce. Uh, whatever. Just give me a duff.

Homer does not understand that there's no duff to be had. Though then after he says that, there's an animation error that instantly makes the beard is a duff. It's a green duff bottle in Moe's hand. You know, this is much better than Uncle Moe's family feedback because Moe has a staff. Yeah, you know, and he needs the staff backing him up here. That's true. Man, you know what? One thing that hurts this very ritzy bar is that there's a freaking NRBQ song playing in the background here. Oh, I couldn't place it. I assumed it was NRBQ.

It's a song called Everybody's Smoking. That's the secret I learned now. I'm stealing the techniques Bob learned for discovering other deep, hidden NRBQ songs in here. Mike Scully, who is a big fan of the honestly obscure band in rbq who put them in many episodes he often picks the line in the song that's the name of the song so they have the character the line in the background is everybody's smoking and the song is everybody smoking okay so another hidden nrbq song yes yeah another another payday for an rbq now another bar question for stewart uh the bars around here even the divey ones they don't have like budweiser or miller lights or you're you're just you know your common midwestern grocery store

beers so people come in and say i just want a bud and they don't really know how to help them they say well you can we have a lager we have a pilsner do you have a do you have a solution for that do you carry the the normie beers for people uh yeah i mean we're we're a neighborhood bar and there's i mean i think there's a trend and a business practice for like gentrifying establishments that intentionally don't carry products that they don't want to cater to a specific crowd whether it's specific brands of liquor or in the case of beer, like maybe people are like they're trying to drive people to buy more draft beers as opposed to like package stuff, because there's a better markup on on draft beers. But our places we carry, you know, we carry Miller High Life.

We carry Bud and Budweiser. I don't carry some of those on draft because I don't agree with the business practices of AB InBev, the Anheuser-Busch company, and a couple of the other big distributors. But we still carry the bottled stuff so that we can have shot and beer specials. Cool. Okay. That's nice. What about nothing soy sauce based, I would guess, you're selling? That does sound kind of gross. I mean, I feel like that's the sort of thing that I would probably buy a case of and try and slowly sell.

But I try and buy, I like weirdo beers and I like to have a couple oddball sours available or triple IPAs that the beer snobs can have uh in in my i'm sure somebody would buy that soy sauce beer i'm sure i try it actually in my in my research of alcohol meat soy sauce i did learn two things one there's apparently i mean there's a cocktail recipe for everything but the official like kick them on soy sauce website has a cocktail recipe for like make but basically it sounded like kind of a mule and then you put soy sauce in it and also i found out that naturally brewed soy sauce actually is two percent ish alcohol like or below the limit that makes it you know that you you don't need a liquor license to sell it uh but but in a naturally brewed soy sauce is actually in some dry countries is illegal.

Like you can't have it because it's like even that small amount of soy sauce. I have to get the non-natural soy sauce there. So alcohol based on soy sauce, not as silly as this joke would lead you to believe. Yeah, yeah. Let's squeeze a bunch of packets into our mouths and get fucked. If I, you know, if I had 17 year old friends, if they had known that information, they probably would have done it. They would have all died. You know, they're 17.

They can take all that sodium at that age. You know what? But honestly, why would you do that when the cough syrup is readily available back then? It's like, why? The good stuff. You can just soak a rag in gasoline and put it on your face although nowadays that's pretty explosive inflation uh but uh but yeah this this definitely is you know how some of i've i've felt at a party of being put in a dark corner just like oh i like for michael turning like unscrewing the bulb under them and putting a velvet rope around them

that's a great joke uh yeah then of course uh yes russian models are ugly and mannish what a funny gag what a great joke very very good 2001 everybody yep yeah it's uh i i don't like these jokes they turn they've they've they weren good then. They've turned even worse now. Mo not understanding, I did laugh at, though. And penis is Russian for? Look, that line is a funny line. If you separate it from the transphobicness of it, yes. It's just blank is Russian for?

Because he doesn't want to believe she has a penis, which would, of course, be disgusting and worth hating as Mo. I hate that joke. Yes, but the delivery. And is this the first appearance of the Mo St. Cool character, the Mo St. Cool version of Mo? Oh, yes. Yeah, this is his first reinvention.

It only lasts for about an act and a half and this i mean i mean too this definitely comes from like i've seen ghoul do good jokes about that too about just like oh yeah when your friend turns into a hollywood phony like this is what that's about just like oh now they're getting set up with supermodels but only russian super models who are of course not attractive enough. So mean. The oxygen bar stuff, that was a real trend, along with smart drinks of the 90s. How I'm not as up in the scene,

I would think oxygen bars aren't probably around all that much these days. I saw them in Vegas, but I haven't seen them outside of Las Vegas. Yeah, they're pretty rare. This was the boom time for them. But now, I mean, they still exist. You can still do this if you want, but it's kind of like pseudoscience. outside of las vegas yeah they're pretty rare this was the boom time for them uh but now i mean they still exist you can still do this if you want but uh you know it's it's kind of like pseudoscience and when they when they said that woody harrelson was an owner of one back then it reminded me of like that and hookah bars both just seemed like a wink from like you know stoners

i'm just like yeah it's an oxygen bar wink like i'm just like if you if you go there you'll find a person who will give you pot like you like that that's what i always felt it was really about i do i do like the animation of carl getting the bends on a beanbag chair that's very funny yeah and also creative design run amok that's a good line too as lenny is stuck in that uh in the hamster wheel that's a great one meanwhile Homer seems to actually need to be on oxygen at all times he's that unhealthy yeah makes me think back to the opening where Homer digs for you know three strokes and then starts to have a heart attack so that even in his stories he is uh he is horribly out of shape on that store you know maybe that story's true now actually

since omer was telling you that even uh lord humongous or whatever he's real uh but yes uh in our next clip the boys get thrown out of the bar after chernobyl my penis is falling off and penis is rushing for well we want our bar back. Yeah, this place is crazy. All these beautiful people make us feel like losers. You'd be having a great time if you'd stayed in your dark spot. Oh, so you're ashamed of us. Well, you've turned into a big phony.

Hey, nobody calls Mo St. Cool a phony. All this yelling is taking away my horny. Is it? Oh, that's it. That's Dagmar, Julian. Throw this bum out. I'll throw myself out, thank you. I believe I

had a hat. Suckers! Overstealing that hat's pretty great. Somebody brought an old-fashioned fedora to Em. I can see it ironically being put there. It makes sense, yeah. I do like Moe's disappointment that she's losing her horny. He's like, you are?

Oh, all right, that's it. He's like, that's a last straw for him. Actually, now that I think about it, this is the third Moe bar makeover uh there's flaming mo's there's a family feed bag there's this there will be more in the future believe it or not oh man it's a well they return to uh where's he getting all this money for this you know is he just good yeah i'd like to john taffer show up or some shit oh i wonder if there was a bar rescue episode there has to there has to have been a bar rescue i well i know gordon ramsey's been on the show i'm i'm pretty sure that and the aftermath of the famous feedback episode the they go over like what about all that money you spent mo

i'll never get that back that was your problem in the first place man now i gotta i'm double checking my memory that gordon ramsey was on the simpsons yes yes he was uh he was in a 2011 episode along with uh anthony bourdain and mario batali that's that's sad for two different reasons that's a depressing yeah anyway it is one of those things where you'll be watching an old episode of the you'll watch an episode of the simpsons on reruns and then all of a sudden you're like wait elon musk is on here oh fuck i don't want to see that guy yeah yeah and it was a loving tribute to him too he's he's a great genius and lisa looks up to yep yeah i'd like to think they know better now at least in

that one specific instance of elon musk perhaps but sure though then again i mean this episode uh in its third act you know the word star fucker gets thrown around a lot these days but i do think simpsons they open up the door if you're famous enough i would say hey if rem uh comes up to me i'm being much friendlier to them than uh than elon musk that's for sure yeah i like that much more yeah but they even admit on the commentary they're like oh yeah this pitch came out of a hunting club it's basically uh 90 seconds of the actual plot of act three is this hunting club thing yeah but ws homer is going to build his own bar out of spite which i agree with you know running businesses based on

spite is is an important thing to do it's got us as far yep yeah it's a huge motivator uh and also i love homer hanging up a urinal plumbing free on the wall with one nail that's pretty great basically a fancy bucket for people to uh to pee one thing that i've learned a significant amount about has been plumbing. I feel like plumbing is one of those things that I'm now fascinated by. And I feel like if things had been slightly different, I should have gone to plumbing school because plumbers always got work. Basic concepts of plumbing are not going to change very much. You're always going to need them.

You've got to set your own price people will always flush paper towels no matter how many signs you hang up i wish i could tell i had time to tell you all of the horrible plumbing stories i have but i do not have enough time uh i also love marge pointing out and normally they give these kind of lines to lisa but it's marge pointing out running a bar is a full-time job. And you don't even do your full-time job. Yeah, we don't see Homer at the plant in this episode. Nope, he just descended up. You know, Stuart, I was curious, how is it to balance, you know, a podcast job with running a bar, as Marge points out?

Well, I think it's ups and downs honestly like it requires a certain amount of flexibility like before the pandemic uh it was i was doing a lot and then during the pandemic especially once we reopened i was there all the time and it was a little easier because we weren't like traveling at all for the show but now we have enough staff and things have kind of settled down that i'm able to do guest spots on podcasts my show luckily my show is uh you know all i have to do is watch a bad movie every other week and then we talk about it so it's you know it's simple for this joke about the robot uh begging for legs from his father i feel like that therapist

at the start of this episode would have a lot of notes on that, I think. Having a robot say, father, give me legs, and then Homer shaking his head back at him. I was like, I think that therapist would have some questions about that joke. Homer learned from Itchy and Scratchy Land how to make his robots work. This robot can't at least talk, you know. He built a smarter robot than linguo that lisa also builds it's the robot building season of the show here i do and i do love the like nine volt batteries trailing out the bottom of this uh robot and just

him looking back for some kind of sympathy yeah and homer and homer has nothing nothing for him so uh so yes hom Homer's building his bar. We cut back to Moe's bar. It's just full of jerk-ass phonies who are just talking about their diets. And also, I think this phony is a real super phony. I mean, this is such surface-level, like comparing Curacao with a Herzog. It's like that is the most like surface level like film nerdery there is not even going beyond the criterion collection for these references

yeah no that sucks that's the kind of that's the kind of stuff all over here while at the bar listening to tinder dates on their first date and uh and uh while kira kurosawa had passed away warner herzog would later be a guest on The Simpsons more than once. So I'm forever jealous. We were so lucky that me and Bob, we got to go to a Simpsons table read. We did? I've never heard about this on our podcast. But I'm very jealous of an acquaintance of ours who also went to a Simpsons table read. And Werner Herzog wasn't there it's like

that it was hey we got to meet kevin pollack we did get to meet kevin pollack yes oh kevin pollack and he was very nice what a nice guy yeah i'm sure but uh and though kevin michael richardson the nicest guy if we're and yardley smith second nicest if we're ranking niceness of celebrities we met who were all nice and great no one cabner was very rude to me i didn't say anything no she was no she was actually very nice uh uh yeah but but anyway yes and then great i uh i also think that uh very adr line of that guy talking about his diet i wonder if it was a the guy's drawn very gay i wonder if it was another gay joke that was there instead, but Botox jokes very new at the time in 2001, I think so,

you know, and cell phone jokes. Cause there's a cell phone joke coming up. Yeah. That I think it's very accurate acting on the way that guy points at his cell phone. Like, I think that's very good.

Like that is how a person being rude on their cell phone at a bar, being more rude to the person who's trying at his cell phone like i think that's very good like that is how a person being rude on their cell phone at a bar being more rude to the person who's trying to end their phone call very good acting of that like it was once a faux pas to be on your phone in a public space not anymore no no no i've heard people blame the kardashians for taking it to the next level of like well you're on your phone and your phone's on speaker in in public not just not just a loud phone call but the but it's on speakerphone as well i just don't understand people that want to be on the phone me too like people that are like waiting in line at a store and they're on the phone like oh this sounds like two of the worst things yeah people that will just facetime uh like you're just at a cafe getting a coffee and someone is just sitting down and FaceTiming.

Not even like a business meeting because I'm listening to everything they're saying. And in line. Yeah, that too. I was on a beach in Puerto Rico and I watched a woman FaceTime for an hour. And I was like, first off, awards to your arm strength. And second off, what battery do you use? Man, yeah. An hour of FaceTime?

That is crazy. Yeah. And then Mo tries to turn on the game. I do love the line, unless you're being ironic, turn that off now. That's a great line. Okay, I'm a nerd. I'm a huge nerd. That's why I'm doing this.

Too many bars play sports. My favorite bar recently closed in December. They play Turner Classic movies on their tvs in there and i loved it i i have watched so many movies in that bar uh it was great great great choice i think what did they play them with sound uh close captions were on okay yeah okay that's cool yeah what uh yeah what is your bar programming of choice uh stewart well we uh we have a projector in the back room of both of our bars that we don't pull down very often, and we also

have TVs that are covered with chalkboards, and we kind of only pull it out for special occasions or, as again, for RuPaul's Drag Race, which we show at the bar regularly. I find televisions to be very distracting when I'm at the bar, and we televisions uh to be very distracting when i'm at the bar

and we try to provide a space for people to not have a television to look at basically uh you know as a patron at bars i uh you mentioned that projector one i really loved it one that would be playing um godzilla films it was playing 70s godzilla films but it actually made it was a bad thing in the end because I literally could not carry on conversations with people I was like yeah yep and just turning away from them or or just saying oh let me explain the end of this battle against Mechagodzilla here you see this actually is a recut of the previous one uh that they they're doing this here like I not that I'm Mr. Godzilla expert but I did do know some trivia and

uh i think it would probably be better if there was no godzilla playing i probably would have you know made more human connections with the with my friends there stewart is trying to help nerds find new things to talk about yeah yeah you make me think of the time i was at a bachelor party at the brooklyn strip club pumps which is, but I spent a large chunk of it watching Kingsman II, The Golden Circle, without sound. It was playing behind the stage. I feel like for the makers of Kingsman, that's the ideal way to watch.

That's high praise for Kingsman II. Better than naked women dancing for you. But yes, Mo is losing faith in his new bar in our next clip. Hey, game's on. Hey, we're watching that. Come on. Unless you're being ironic, turn that off now. I'm glad you ain't around to see what a mess I made.

Oh, but I am. What? You've discarded your loyal regulars for a mob of soulless snobs. Well, at least the tips are good. Are they, Moe? Take a look. Oh! Why are you mocking me? We're friends. Oh, right. Sorry.

I won't drink at Bo's. Homer's old garage is all I need. I won't drink at Bo's. Because Bo's a big jerk and a she-male, too. That calls for another beer. I'll keep. I thought this was going to be your bar. It's a family bar, right, kids?

Can we go to bed now? As soon as you finish cutting up those lemons. But you're not even using them. She's so sleepy. She doesn't know what she's saying. Aww. So we're supposed to like Homer, right?

I guess so. You know, the lipstick is so off on their I Love Rock and Roll parody, it feels like it was something else yeah and i don't think it was worth the change which means like the quote unquote she-male joke was like that was their goosing it or like oh let's improve it and add that to it like that's man it's just shocking to hear that word just said like there's there's yeah trying to tap into the harry potter fandom yeah yeah yeah i mean like hey we all love joan jett it's a good song but yeah i don't think uh and also homer is so jerk ass here he's making he's torturing his family with this like you said

bob it's it is a parody of abusive fathers of writers of the show so that's why over becomes like an asshole making making people cut lemons for no reason that are not put in beers like they're just opening beer cans together that's all it is yeah and also like we cut way more limes than lemons i don't know what they're yeah yeah yeah wait a minute and that's uh last night i i made some nice uh tilapia and as i was cutting lemons as i was thinking like you know what this this isn't so hard lisa shouldn't be crying about this well she's eight and she has school in the morning yes yeah no i i but but okay here is where the big deleted scene comes in uh oh wait no sorry that previous scene i did want to say mo's big

wah is so great. I love a big wah. And then I was going to ask you about it, Stuart, but you already said it. Like, trendy, jerk-ass hipsters like these guys, they are bad tippers, apparently. I mean, you know, it's a mixture. But, yeah, I mean, I would say blue collar is definitely the best when it comes to tipping. Maybe not. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener.

At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new net zero hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener your home cozier and your world brighter find our net zero hub at electricireland.ie for a limited time switch to shopify point of sale and you could save up to 20 and improve your bottom line we're so serious about savings we've made this ad 20 shorter shorter. That means you get six seconds back. Just enough time to visit Shopify.com slash POS20.

Now that's an efficient ad. Eligibility requirements apply. See Shopify.com slash POS20 for details. Apologetics conversations. Exactly. But at least I'll put a five in the jar you know at least yeah well i like my i mean moses is empty when homer gives him a dollar at the end of this i was like i know i know prices have changed since 2001 but even then a dollar is a pretty low tip for for your bartender then yeah everybody who's listening tip your bartenders well it's a it's a lot of work absolutely but

yeah so there's a big deleted scene here in the background is the devil's advocate uh pinball machine first seen in season 12's insane clown poppy uh which is one of my favorite jokes of that era of homer saying if i can play devil's advocate for a minute and it cuts to homer playing a pinball machine called devil's advocate a good joke um uh so the deleted scene is in the original version of this episode when mo loses his faith uh and is going to reformat the bar he goes to homer's place and they're just drinking together lenny is playing devil's advocate mo interrupts and and tells him this bar can't be this like that's illegal and the hunting club thing is all brought up all of that is there and what there isn't is any rem they aren't there at all and this is full color animation which means

rem came in like two months or something before they say on the commentary rem came in like two months or something before. They say on the commentary, REM came in late, but if they have full color animation for this entire sequence, they really came in late. That means they made a big, very expensive decision to include REM in this episode, not a different episode, which- Well, there's such an organic part of this plot.

I know, it's so ridiculous that that rem just shows up but just to it's including it as the deleted scene really lets you know like no there's a version of this episode that could have been broadcast without rem in it and it will work the same which that is not normal for an animated show which usually plans things out much more in advance than that and they didn't let rem play any of their new material they had a new album out in may of 2001 with some big hits on it that i don't recognize at all but they were there instead they go they go with the obvious i mean you know what's your first guess on a joke oh homer's bad at singing the lyrics to the end of the world which we're all bad at singing the lyrics to nobody knows the words to it it's it was all going around

back then yeah but yeah i mean hey i love rem they they are a great band with good music i like hearing their songs i like michael steip i like the other guys in it they're they're fun guys yeah better than elon musk absolutely uh they make a funny note too that they did not draw in their old drummer bill berry who was famous for his giant eyebrows that's the uh the guy did but he he uh in the late 90s he had been out of the band since 97 he had a brain hemorrhage on stage that he recovered from but uh led led to his retirement believe it or not and so uh every time after that they just went with session drummers usually or like you know they had their touring drummer but they didn't fully replace him in the band they make a point of saying that they did not they're

like oh you know we could draw him into the scene and rem turned that down they didn't want to wow uh but you know since then uh animation is for people who don't have brain hemorrhages you know since then they made up enough that they that he was present for their 2007 hall of fame induction uh and at a 2018 benefit concert rem reformed except for michael stipe like it was everybody but stipe in the band was uh at some benefit concert and played together so you know they're friendly enough that bill berry guy like but especially like yeah if i had a brain hemorrhage and i was already making you know money off of rem's hits from the last like 10 years i think i would just become a farmer in uh in rural georgia as bill berry has done uh stewart would you allow rem to play at your bar especially on on no notice and they just showed up uh well uh i mean it would go against our lease agreements

but i mean it is rem so that's uh i mean i would probably direct him to like a friend's bar that can have live music but who knows i mean i remember when my wife was uh used to be behind the bar over at her bar charlene's jimmy fallon would come in uh with his staff all the time and he would always beg to be allowed to plug his uh his ipod and they would always be like okay fine just don't come behind the bar and he would always end up coming behind the bar and they're like stop it i would agree to it if rem at least said they'd help me pay the fines i was like if you agree legally to pay the fines later then you can do it that's okay well see you're a better better businessman than me but yes rem very unnaturally impossibly

is playing in homer's bar homer lied to them and said it was a benefit i do like uh them saying like come on would a poor person have a bar in his garage like that's good and i did have a friend who would take the lenny line so gotta pee huh like that uh he he wouldn't do it standing next to you in the bathroom but if you were if you announced you were like hey i have to stop playing this video game to use the bathroom so gotta pee huh that that would be used occasionally i think of the three members of the band who get to speak in here i think the blonde mike mills is the best actor of them i that that's my you know michael stipes may be the funniest but i think mike mills he i think he has a funny uh the best delivery of being sick of uh lenny talking to him yeah i would like to i would like to hear a i'd like to hear you guys give a

full breakdown of all of the non-actors who do simpsons appearances which ones are the best well tom kite was pretty bad i'll say that he's Yeah, he was real bad. Yeah, but, you know, John Updike, I liked his laughter. John Updike, he only had to laugh a little bit. You know, Stephen King had a funny delivery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought he was good, you know? Is Stephen Tyler an actor? He didn't do good.

I mean, pretty good. Oh, yeah, he didn't do good. Oh, no, wait, what am I saying? Peter Frampton, he was the best. Yeah, yeah. Like, do you feel? Do you feel? That was...

Meanwhile, Billy Corgan, the worst actor in that episode i'd say yeah yeah also a bad person also a bad person yes yeah meanwhile michael stipe these jokes are about how michael stipe was was was mocked often for caring about things you know daring to uh wear you know aids foundation stuff and being said like oh oh, does he have AIDS? Like, he had to go through that publicly. Like, he is a big-time vegetarian, as will come up much later in the episode. So at least Lisa, who gets mocked all the time and treated horribly here, at the very least she gets to hang out with famous vegetarians. At least she gets to meet them.

As they're mocked. Yes. But yes, REM, they aren't so happy about Homer's ruse here. What's his name? Herman Munster, Motorcade, Birthday Party, Cheetos, Pogo 6 and Lemonade. You symbiotic stupid jerks. That's right, Flanders. I am talking about you.

How'd you get R.E.M. to play in your garage? I told him it was a benefit. They think they're saving the rainforest! Ha ha ha! Suckers! Yeah! Yeah! Woo!

Yeah, baby! Michael, are you sure these guys are millionaires? Come on, would a poor person have a bar in his garage? Hey, guys, stand around me. I can't go with Lenny watching. So, gotta pee, huh? Oh, forget it. What the... You can't open your own bar.

Seems to me I already did. But it's illegal. You can't run a bar in a private residence. Bar? I see no bar. This is a hunting club, which is permitted by state law to serve beverages of a refreshing nature hunting club you lied to us michael no that's not the rem way you're right let's recycle those shards and get out of here c.s michael stipe recycles the i i do like that the gentle soul of michael stipe is about to stab homer to death like that's kind of my hand's fine but but but to show how tacked on this is mo actually like clears his throat of like

anyways i would say like it because the rem is so unnecessary here in the original scene you showed me henry uh homer is the one who takes out the book to show he's the you know doing the hunting and fishing club. And then Mo grabs the book from him and points out, you know, the stipulations and stuff. In this finished episode, Mo pulls his book out of nowhere. Yes. Yeah. He somehow just has the book with him.

Just to let the lines resume. Yeah. But yes, also there. That's when Lisa learns Homer is also going to to kill animals which she does not like uh which is of course when homer commands her like lemons like with with an implicit threat of violence i see from homer there honestly which again pretty mean of homer but you know it's also as as they mock her for caring about animals and not wanting people to go hunting of course that calls for another jingle we don't play we have these jingles that don't often play but stewart you're in a real uh jingle uh episode

here so here's let's hear that jingle take that lisa's beliefs so lisa's just on this hunting trip now yes yeah because she doesn't want homer to kill something because she's uh uh obviously as the episode points out later if you care about not killing animals for food you of course are crazy and you eat bad food and you suck and and you may you may as well be a girl which is disgusting if you're a man of course uh but yes the then it just becomes the Thanksgiving turkey is being hunted, which again, I wonder if because they reanimated all the stuff for REM, since they did it late, they're like, you know what? This could just come out in November, this episode.

And why don't we just add into the Thanksgiving stuff? And we're going to reanimate. We're going to reanimate two minutes of this. Let's also make it the Thanksgiving episode. It doesn't feel like it was planned to be Thanksgiving. There's nothing until the end, right? Yes, yeah. There's no decorations.

There's no, I got to buy stuffing from Marge. It just comes out of nowhere. It's like, oh, it happens to be Thanksgiving. Yeah, but that Thanksgiving tray Homer lays out for the turkey looks pretty tasty, got to say. And this commentary is where I learned the inside gag of simpsons which is the word cranberries which is when they make fun of other writers being bad at writing so the joke uh stewart is that if you're in the writer's room and there's somebody who never pitches a joke and never like tries to riff or anything but when it's like okay what's on a thanksgiving dinner table that's when

that uncreative writer jumps up and goes, cranberries, cranberries. So that's the joke there. It's all about bullying in the writer's room. Yes, it's born out of bullying. Oh, yeah, pulling back the kimono on this one. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, as I've learned many times on your podcast from your co-hosts, yes, writer's rooms are very mean and about people who are think

they're better than everybody else that's what comedy writer rooms are about yeah that's all that's all that dan ever talks about is how uh working in a writer's room has taught him to be meaner to other people not sweet dan yeah yeah and yes you know speaking of uh homer's phobia again homer is wearing the same hunting outfit he wore in that episode which that's a smart reuse on the animators why design a whole new design of homer hunting when you've already got a perfectly good one right here yeah speaking of which uh it's another hunting trip that mo uh is on as well yes yeah though in disguise which is a great idea if someone is hunting it's to camouflage yourself it's great i love that joke camouflage during a

hunting trip so funny the well and i love the he's got camouflage paint on his face but he also has he's wearing a camouflaged apron that is that's that's a nice touch yeah oh yeah what do you what do you think of mo's apron uh fashion sense stewart i mean i i have never been an apron behind the bar person but i think i could get behind it like i've the problem with for me is that a lot of aprons uh loop around the back of your neck and that pulls on my neck and hurts my back i have a bad back uh but if i bought one of those like shockingly expensive aprons that don't do that, maybe that'll be my new thing, guys. Maybe I'll be like Moe. And that also probably explains why Moe's in a bad mood all the time is because his back hurts because he's got that apron pulling down.

He does have horrible back pain in a lot of other episodes. It's true. I always think it's from the time he went down that slide and they needed the jaws of life to remove him from it. True. But yes, Moe and Lisa have a little scene together. They rarely share scenes. And I don't believe Moe. I think Moe doesn't like Lisa.

But we have a quick clip here. Psst, Lisa. Moe? Listen, I don't like you and you don't like me. But we both want to stop Homer from shooting a turkey. You don't like me? I like you. You do? Then I like you too. Here, have a towelette.

Here, turkey, turkey, turkey. Turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey, turkey. Nobody's gonna kill you. From now on, no talking. You want to signal me? Use this bird call. Oh! Oh! Not the face!

Ooh! Ooh! Okay, the face! Oh! Oh, that actually feels good after the crotch. That's a fun... I like it. That actually feels good. Apparently that was Hank Azaria ad lib just like i rob now that's good he's good at mo ad libs yeah he's great as uh you know he's a master

of accents and ad libs that's that's our mo and lisa are going to work together to prevent a turkey death i do love homer saying turkey is the only animal smarter than man that exchange between mo and lisa is great it's hilarious yeah where he's like we don't like each other and she's like you don't like me i like you and his peace offering is a towel that's great too like a little package towel that's great it's just what he had on him mo has to prevent homer from successfully killing a turkey which would thus make it an official hunting club though i would feel like you don't have to kill something to be a hunter hunters go out and not kill stuff all the time like but by the very action of going hunting i feel like homer has fulfilled the legal requirement by being outside with a gun and a vest yeah i mean

we don't have the small print here so we can't say whether or not it also requires him to kill something that's true you know i would a Springfield law definitely could require blood for this. Yes, that an animal must die. But fortunately, a turkey is not harmed. Only Moe in our next little clip here. Dad's going to slaughter that poor turkey. Not if I scare it away with this cougar call. You did it, Mo!

A cougar! Die, cougar! My leg! Oh, jeez! Got that cat right in the leg. Dad, you shot Mo! Oh, no. This time I really am gonna faint. Son of a... How'd they get your bar back to normal so quickly mo it's a snap

when you use certified contractors like the ones found in your local yellow pages exactly so weird i had to keep that in that's such a great that it's all just on a reused establishing shot just to explain look his bar's back to normal immediately. He hired contractors. Homer, first mistakes Mo for a dirty teen and then a cougar. Yes, yeah. And the way Mo's silhouette is shot, it looks like he's shot in the chest. It does, yeah. It really does. Well, I love that Homer hears him scream, ah, my leg.

Got that cat right in the leg. That's a great line to do. Though I would actually think Homer getting his head in a bear trap might cause more permanent injury than the uh the leg getting shot i would say but stewart how important are certified contractors in bar ownership i would think they're probably pretty important oh my god well the because the thing is that you always in order to get things through the department of buildings you need to have certified contractors but the problem is most of them aren't actually certified they're operating under the license of someone else who is certified so

there's like all these stages like all these shells and that you have to go through but i will say that when we opened when we built hinterlands it was like a full build and our contractors were terrible and we did everything wrong and we had to do it over and we're still like fixing things but it was a it was a good learning experience you know if you just seen this joke or remember this joke you remember it's a snap if you just local yellow pages also i found if anytime anybody ever is like oh yeah i'm gonna do you a favor do not work with that person if you have a friend who's like yeah i do this sort of thing i can i can do it for you i'm like no do not hire somebody i would much rather give some money for something than a favor that's a

lesson we all learn it's a minute you know it's tax season right now as we're doing this and that's a lesson you learn around tax time as well that Some people can do you a favor with that, but maybe an accountant's better. So, yes, it's Thanksgiving randomly here, and I have one last clip here of the very inexplicable Thanksgiving ending that also brings back REM one more time to also mock vegetarianism. I'm sorry I shot you, Mo. Ah, that's okay. It's like my dad always said. Eventually, everybody gets shot.

Oh, I'm glad you two are friends again so we can all have Thanksgiving dinner together in this bar. Hey, who invited the hippies? I did. You owe R.E.M. an apology

for eco-fraud. All right, I'm sorry. But I will not save the rainforest. Good enough. Let's eat. And we should all be thankful to Michael, Peter, and Mike for supplying this beautiful turkey, made entirely of tofu. Tofu and gluten.

I'm thankful I ate before I came. Oh, come on, Bart. Smell those curds. Mmm. Tofu and gluten. I'm thankful I ate before I came. Oh, come on, Bart. Smell those curds. Mmm, curds. And I'm thankful I get to spend Thanksgiving with my family, these alternative rockers, and my favorite bartender.

Ah, here you go, pal. And here you go. Yeah, it's too heartfelt an ending. For all the cruelty, including Mo getting shot and saying eventually, his father said eventually everybody gets shot. You're just supposed to have a warm heart to there. And Homer finally gave him the tip and they ring the bell. It's a little too sweet, especially for such a cruel episode as this one with with an on-screen suicide let's not forget that is true that was act one yeah or act two maybe yeah

so i will say that the world of fake turkey products has vastly improved in fact no none of these products would tell you uh we would boast about their soy or gluten content most of them are like no soy no gluten yeah it's some weird chemical or mushroom protein or something. But I don't eat meat, so fake turkey, it's only improved over the years.

There are so many varieties of it. And frankly, Thanksgiving's about the side dishes, folks. Yeah, yeah. Let's not lie to ourselves. The turkey is just

a vehicle for it, yeah. It's the reason you're like, you come to the table for the turkey, but you're actually there for the side. Yeah, yeah. Well, and especially

all these jokes about imitation meat. Sure, in in 2001 you could joke like yeah it all sucks or it doesn't taste like it or whatever but especially i would say at the very least fast food chains now are putting out fake meats that are getting very popular and people actually really like the impossible whopper for example or like i got i'll say the company name, Raised and Rooted. They do a fake McNugget that is, I mean, McNuggets are so processed that if you're having a fake one, it is indistinguishable. Like, it's just like, oh, this is, I'm just, much like without turkey is just a vehicle for the sides. McNuggets are just a vehicle for the fried breading on the outside.

And the dip-ins. the outside and the dip ins yeah and the dip ins yeah the dip ins so yeah these uh if only they could have known how much better vegetarian meat replacements would be by the by the time we do this podcast i also i chuckle enough at michael steip saying curds that's all right but but but of course the joke is if you're crazy to eat vegetarian food and it's disgusting and a normal person like barter homer a straight man would hate would hate it and and only a crazy queer rocker like michael stipe would enjoy this disgusting food but but yes uh but and i i was not insulting you that's michael stipe is identifies as queer so

that is not me i was not using that as an insult. I'm learning so much. Yeah. Yeah. But this episode, uh, my final thoughts though, it's a big, huge mess.

Uh, but I'm a big sucker for Mo and the, uh, I think I'm dying. Mo is, uh, I think about that a lot. And that joke is very well executed.

Uh, REM is out of place as we said, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's full of fun jokes,

but the plot is basically irrelevant and that those are my final thoughts on this one yeah I think you know if they had REM just do a full REM episode but perhaps REM's management was like you can only get them if it comes out before that album in the fall and so it could it could have been that but yeah they they disrupt this entire episode especially for one that is built around mo meaning it's very mean and cruel and awful and that it's the last three minutes that it becomes a heartfelt thanksgiving thing they could have even made it funny by it being so against the message of the rest of the episode but they actually want you to feel kind of emotion at the very end which kind of

goes against it but yeah there's there's some good jokes in here also jokes that definitely are 20 years old and not good uh but but yeah it's uh there's there's some good stuff in it and cruelty towards mo and mo getting shot that'll always get a chuckle out of me any final thoughts stewart yeah i mean i think you guys kind of summed it all up uh like i'm a big fan of mo there's good mo stuff. I always like seeing bartending represented on screen. I love the sequence with his teacher committing suicide. Yeah, and it was kind of

wild that REM showed up. Do you think they're just big Moe fans? Do you think they're like to be in an episode, but only if it's a Moe-focused one that doesn't make any sense? I think they were on it because the writers heard they were lobbying to be on the show and they just stuck them into the i guess the closest episode that was in production to their request that's what it feels like i will compliment my last thing i want to say is i do i meant to compliment the animation team again when they have to animate

like rem performing very energetically and moving around and like they really get kind of like michael stipe does do a lot of like moving his hand over his head kind of motions while singing and they they captured well like it actually is well done uh animation so so compliments to the animation staff on this one so stewart thanks so much for being on the show please uh please plug the flop house your podcast the flop house going on for quite a long time i'm'm a huge fan of it. I saw you guys live in San Francisco, I think back in 2015, 2016. And your bars as well. I'm sure you love talking to podcast listeners

while you're trying to work. I mean, I do actually. I mean, it's nice. It's always nice to have listeners come out. We're a little bit out of the way, but yeah, you can come check us out over at Hinterlands Bar, which is in Kensington, Brooklyn,

or at Minnie's Bar. Although I don't tend bar there. I just usually go there to celebrate. I think this episode is going to come out after it, but we're about to celebrate our three-year anniversary at Minnie's, which we're all pretty excited about.

Oh, congrats. Our one-year anniversary was on March 16th, 2020, which was the exact day all bars and restaurants had to shut down because of COVID. Ouch. So hopefully this one is better than that one. Knock it on wood here, Corey Stewart.

Thank you. Yeah, check out The Flophouse. We've been doing it a long time. We review bad movies and we tell jokes. And yeah. I have to say, you guys are are institution and when i started listening to podcasts it feels like you were the only bad movie podcast it was you and mark maron and maybe some npr thing were the three podcasts you could you could find online uh yeah it is one of those weird things where like uh i was just talking to dan not just my co-host dan mccoy we're just talking

about it but we're being interviewed about like the start of the show and it is like a heat we just happen to start it and then just not stop that's the trick the podcasting those celebrities they do one season they're gone we do this forever oh six whole months and you need a break oh hiatus what is that honestly come on but thanks so much this life but thanks so much for being on the show Stuart thank you Stuart so much thanks guys this is great thanks again to Stuart for being on the show please check out the flop house it's available wherever you find podcasts ask for us if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these episodes one week at a time and at free please go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons sign up there for five

bucks a month you get just that but also access to everything behind the five dollar paywall that includes over 100 bonus podcasts and that also includes monthly access to our monthly patreon exclusive mini-series talking futurama and talk king of the hill that's only available for five dollar patrons and we have a ten dollar level as well when you sign up for that you get access to all of the five dollar stuff plus access to one mega long podcast once month, only for patrons of that level or higher. And what is that, Henry? Bob, it's talking about the What a Cartoon Movie podcast. You know that we do every month our What a Cartoon podcast, where we cover an animated series, super in-depth, just like we do The Simpsons.

And that extends as well to an animated feature film once a month on What a cartoon movie we go super in depth often over four hours even five hours long on animated feature films like two months ago we did south park bigger longer and uncut we did disney's pinocchio a golden age classic and this month i wonder if we might write do our longest one ever because we are doing childhood favorite in animation uh celebration who framed roger rabbit give that a listen, but only if you're at that premium level and get access to an entire back catalog of over three years worth

of What A Cartoon Movie podcasts. In addition to all the $5 things Bob just mentioned, you can learn so much more if you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. As for me, I've been one of your hosts, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. And my other podcast, by the way, is Retronronauts it's a classic gaming podcast about old video games

find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts sign up there for two full-length bonus episodes every month and henry what about you follow me on twitter at h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g i'm always tweeting up a storm there and if you're following us on twitter you really should be following the official twitter account of this podcast at TalkSimpsonsPod, because if you did follow that on Twitter, you'd stay in the loop whenever new things go up on the free feed or on the Patreon, or if there's news going on in our world. Also, don't forget, if you want an easy to explore back catalog of all of our free episodes, go to TalkingSimpsonsPodcast.com for such a list.

Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for Season 3's When Flanders F fancy, tell them to go to hell. Can do. Now, don't you worry about a thing. Hey, what are you doing? I gotta pay for that. No, Moe. You've got it all wrong. People buy beer from you. Yeah. Uh, look, I-I gotta go. Ha! Ha! I thought you said you had to go. Ugh.