Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer The Smithers With Jack DeVries

Episode Date: May 16, 2018

Internet superstar Jack DeVries joins us as we deal with Homer getting a big promotion and Smithers taking a no-photography vacation with terrible ramifications. We dig into drag racing, Postum, percolators, piano movers, Barney-guarding, and so much more! Cease your ingress and listen now! This podcast is brought to you by VRV, the streaming network full of cartoons, anime and more. sign up for a free 30-day trial at VRV.co/WAC and help support Talking Simpsons! Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons!

Attention Talking Simpsons listeners, would you love to hear us give the same treatment to Futurama? Who would do a thing like that? Who could do a thing like that? Then you'll be delighted to know we're doing just that for Futurama's entire first season. Hey, when you look this good, you don't have to know anything. And it'll only be available for people who donate at the $5 level to the Talking Simpsons Patreon. Oh god, no! And along with 13 episodes of Talking Futurama, you'll get all 23 episodes of Talking Critic,

the entire first season of Talking Simpsons, monthly community podcasts, interviews with Simpsons writers, and so much more! Shut up and take my money! Remember, go to patreon.com slash talking simpsons to get your hands on podcasts from the world of tomorrow! I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody. Welcome to Talking Simpsons, where our breath reeks of beer and pretzeled bread.

I'm your host, improvident, lackwit, Bob Mackie, and this is a chronological exploration of The Simpsons who is here with me today Henry Gilbert in this is a chair right? You're sitting in it and who else jacked of reason I forgot to move my cube Always a problem today's episode is Homer the Smithers Welcome employees Come in The whole night's entertainment is on me. Monty Byrne.

I love how excited he is to recognize his own name. Today's episode aired on February 25th, 1996. As always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in history. Oh my God. Oh boy, Bobby. A Simpsons joke gets rewritten after the death of Hengist Nagore. HBO premiered the miniseries The Late Shift, and Jackie Chan makes an impact in America

with Rumble in the Bronx hitting theaters all this weekend. Yes, we covered the Hengist Nagor thing in Team Homer, I believe, because he was killed in San Francisco. Yes, murdered on the street. Probably killed by leftists in the worst city on earth. I'm being facetious, by the way. That's what assholes say. Yes, but unfortunately that meant in Team Homer,

when they had the joke that Homer had stolen the Oscar of Hengistegor from the killing field, it then read as a joke that Homer murdered him and stole his Oscar. I'm totally in favor of them changing that because it was super bad taste, but it actually made the joke so much better. Like now that we're removed from it, it's like it's dark, but it's like actually like

I feel like they would make that joke now, but within moments of it, they're like this is his family hasn't buried him yet. Maybe in the rerun we believe that does feel like a more family guy joke. Like Peter Griffin did drive to San Francisco and killed this man for an oscar but not not sweet homer on family guy they did a joke not that long after the stabbing of george harrison where the joke

was that peter was the guard who didn't watch the guy you're right about that you're breaking his place uh meanwhile rumble in the bronx i've never seen a jackie chan film before and it blew my mind i think most people hadn't right yeah you said american debut right yeah yeah unless they watch cannibal run to other otherwise and after that it was just a daylage like once it hit then american film producers were like there are dozens of jackie chan films we can all just release right now just a huge glut of them. I remember that late 90s, like, oh, is there a new Jackie Chan film? And you would get it, and you're like, this is some

late 80s, like, poorly translated Hong Kong film that you would just get. Some of the worst was when they would edit out, so look, I'm not saying every Jackie Chan film is hilarious, but there's comedy in it that was his intent, and when you just chop it out to have nothing there

it's like you're kind of ruining the flow of the film as they would do in multiple films but that was uh you know harvey weinstein it did many worse things and just cut out things from jackie that's true and uh like when was his final moment in the sun in america the tuxedo or something like was that the very last real i mean the rush hour movies were huge like so huge that chris tucker quit acting for like 20 years there was rush hour three the comeback movie with them and then i recall he also did a movie where when both were past their primes it was him versus jet lee and uh i forget the name the name of that movie but oh no wait his last draw in america was a karate kid remake oh yeah that's right uh jayden

how to uh do the karate uh but anyway okay jack why are you here what are you what kind of a simpsons fan are you i'm i'm a pretty classic simpsons fan i was born between the years 1950 and 2000 and so i like seasons one through nine ten i'll be honest i went all the way into probably like 12 before i was like i gotta stop but i think i was like i'm a bit younger so it took me until the age of like where liking things stopped being cool right and then i was happy to turn on the simpsons because i was like i was lucky in that the mid-2000s apathy and hate was the early dawn of hipsterism. So you could hate something, but you could also say it used to be cool. So you didn't have to fully commit.

You could be like, yes, I liked this as a child. It had quality back then. It's just that it's bad now. We all got really old at 14. Yeah, I found that that age really never ends though at least yeah and then i discovered the internet and wrote it into my whole career yeah cynicism will never end no i mean yeah it's a it's an unfortunate timing for the simpsons in getting bad i mean i would think you know there was a time when people were like

oh cheers has gone on too long or a ton of shows have gone on too long but for simpsons i mean they even made the character they made up that jaded gen xt and like oh itchy scratchy that's funny yeah do you do you even mean that anymore i don't know like that so they the writers were aware of that as well happening to them like so and what uh made you pick this one out of other ones the this was one of the first moments that i remember my parents laughing at a gay joke and not processing what the joke was and that kind of you know which continued on throughout my life uh but it was just one of those things where i was like why are why are you laughing and they wouldn't tell me and and i understood it i just didn't couldn't figure out how it was a punch line yeah i also as a gay viewer of things had that moment not

really with this episode it was with ambiguously gay duo there was a joke about uh coming on a back like like come on come on my back i like, and my parents laughed at it. I was like, what does that mean? Those are really the jokes that stick with you, though, because you remember your parents laughing, but you don't know why it was funny at the moment. So when you discover why it's funny, like my parents are filthy. Yeah. And they're humans. And this was a rather gay episode.

But just under the surface, though, it's not really about Smither's sexuality. More about Jack, though. People might know you from the Internet. The Internet the internet yeah you're on that thing sometimes i do tend to dabble in it um yeah so his my background is in game journalism the enthusiast press yes the enthusiast press uh so so ign among other things i've been pretty active in gay geek stuff as a background. I'm one of the founders of GamerCon, now GamerX. Oh, yeah. Doing a bunch of stuff with that.

I currently am at a fandom where I talk about DC movies and all these other things that, you know, all the things that Disney owns. That's most of the content. I've never heard of that website. Yeah. It sounds pretty cool. It's new. It's this tiny little thing.

I don't know. We'll see what it does. Well, as a Simpsons viewer, though, I may be misremembering this, but your family, you had kind of a religious upbringing as well, though. How did that intersect with being a Simpsons viewer? Very weirdly. It's a great question. So I grew up as a Jehovah's Witness. So really strict about everything except the Simpsons. Weird. For whatever whatever like i was not allowed to watch king of the hill because it was created by the guy who made beavis and butthead so it was just not allowed in our house and he is of the devil yeah even though like king of the hill is totally like a more temperate show at the time it's quite a christian show if anything um but for whatever

reason and it's not just limited to me because i remember it being odd in our whole congregation is that for whatever reason at least in my area every limited to me because I remember it being odd in our whole congregation, is that for whatever reason, at least in my area, every Jehovah's Witness watched The Simpsons. It was like the edgiest thing we allowed ourselves to watch. Wow.

And you didn't really like, you didn't talk about it at church because that was like, you didn't want to offend other people and kind of like stumble them and stuff. But like everyone watches, so you kind of like talk to all your friends and stuff.

So I stayed cool through elementary school because I got to show up on Monday and still talk about the Simpsons, which was great. It was like the thing. Thank goodness that my parents allowed that because I would have been a loser all through high school. I don't think they took a lot of shots at Jehovah's Witnesses. There was one joke I do remember. Amazing joke. I love that. What is the joke? I might be thinking of a different joke. There's an episode where Marge gets a fancy new doorbell. Yes.

And she is desperate for someone to ring it. Yes. And she's waiting there and Lisa comes up and she's like, there's some Jehovah's Witnesses showing up. And they get all the way up and they like get to the door and they're just like, wait, what if people don't want us to show up at their houses and tell them about God? And they're like, yeah, let's go get real jobs. And they throw their watchtowers

in the air and they walk away. And this is the line that, so all Jehovah's Witnesses love a good Jehovah's Witness joke. Oh, okay, that's good. They love the land shark episode, like, skit about Jehovah's Witnesses too. But the fact that she just goes, mmm, what a feigned interest is like, just like

that, like, busts us up. We all love that. Like, people actually would quote that in church because like feigning interest is all anyone does and it's all you're asking them to do i've only turned them away the one joke that i remember is uh it's a joke on marge being so lonely she tried to get jehovah's witnesses to stay in the house and they wouldn't stay for lemonade or something like that oh yeah man that's that was the one i was thinking yeah me too we forgot that that great doorbell joke of just them quitting right before they could ring a doorbell. They are so screwed out of hearing a doorbell being rung.

I have one final pre-show thing, though. So we've all heard Henry's Tales of the Tapes. It's a classic installment of Talking Simpsons. I have my own Tale of the Tape in that this could be sacrilege to Henry, but I stopped taping The Simpsons when the syndication happened because I was like well I get like two episodes a day I'll see the ones I like eventually and I can live with the cut scenes because the internet exists and I can just read the transcript oh and I know I know that they really happened but this episode was when I recorded in syndication because I love it so much it's not my favorite episode but I think I've

watched it the most because it is such a gag-packed episode and has one of my most important moments in The Simpsons in its moment. We'll get to that. But I really love this episode. And actually, I watched it again because we just did a live show two months ago. We just did it about the best jobs of Homer. And I think this was my favorite job. Yeah, I like him becoming a Smithers. It's pretty great.

And the behind the scenes on this was that i believe it was pitched by mike scully but written by john schwartzwalder and oakley weinstein were surprised that this idea hadn't been done in the classic years of the simpsons because it's such a they do a lot with it but it's a kind of a stock sitcom plot of what if a character had another character's job like the old switcheroo it's an it's an easy way to get a plot in a sitcom and so they were shocked this wasn't done in season three so it's it came from there and it's real grounded in the family except when it isn't and it gets schwarzweldery and crazy it's it's an interesting balance like another episode schwarzwelder

written it's just all crazy is homie the Clown, which I love. It's ridiculous throughout. But this one is more balanced where it's like time for boring stuff at the home. And now a spine is replaced with a steel rod. And we're just accepting that's reality. It's beautiful. So the opening here, it's such an old school moment as well. Bob, I saw you on Twitter pointed out how close it is.

The opening sound we had of Burns reading off of his cue cards. I mean, part of his initial character was based on Ronald Reagan and Ronald Reagan had oatmeal brains. And he would read things off index cards that people would naturally remember, but he couldn't. And that was something they used for Burns. And I think No Disgrace Like Home and Team Homer, where he's reading people's names off index cards as he meets them or as he treats them well and there's the great joke in lady bouvier's lover as well with the uh where smithers gives him the bad fake car that lists the simpsons as the flinsta that's right that's right so i guess it has appeared maybe three times but yeah it is kind of a pull for a characteristic they don't use that much well and the the plant family night

had been previously seen in dancing homer yeah that's where they went to the baseball game though at that one burns could drink an entire 72 ounce tub of beer with homer instead of teaspoons of beer i'm glad you pointed that out and i know we're delaying a lot before we get to the show but i feel like this is the episode that fundamentally infantilized Mr. Burns. I don't know if that's for the better or for the worse, but the jokes about him from now on are like he's weak, he's feeble, and he doesn't know what's happening in the modern world, but what they

lost is his evilness. Like in this episode, he has more of a kind-hearted soul because he cares about Smithers' well-being and he doesn't want to really hurt Homer after Homer helps him become self-reliant. Like the old Burns would just shove Homer out of a window or have him have to have goons like beat him up or something like that. Like he is more likable, but also much more of a baby.

Sorry, Jack. It's also like you say old Burns and old Burns is like three episodes ago when he like called the dogs on Homer. Like it's such a weird tonal shift. That is true. Yeah. on homer like it's such a weird tonal shift that is true yeah but i feel like they like he peaked so much in who shot mr burns that they really couldn't go back to that level of evil so he just they just changed his character a bit and played with that yeah they they he his super villainy went so far that they had to be like we gotta tone this down my theory is that like reagan

getting uh shot like completely changed him and slowed him down so like I feel like that that could be something they did intentionally or just could be me being crazy though in this episode he suffers a wound far worse than one bullet yeah he really should just be a puddle I mean Burns has died would have died many times were this not a cartoon I

love that the episode still has room for cute little mom jokes like this one welcome welcome welcome welcome to an evening of exciting quarter mile action action action our first race is a benefit for daredevil lance murdoch murdoch murdoch who's hospitalized with cirrhosis of the liver liver liver boy it sure would be fun to carpool in one of those huh kids i'd be a real hot rod mama wouldn't i huh huh you missed the race mama i wish i'd pay more attention there are a couple of cruel jokes

at marge's expense in this first act that i kind of like i i like she gets shit on a little bit yeah i've told the story eight million times i I won't tell it too long again. But I have been to the drag races once where it was to see the Bigfoot. And unfortunately, it was preceded by two hours of drag racing, which is the loudest and worst thing ever. It's just so boring. I went to the same deal i went as probably this same year like as like a nine-year-old or so and and went to see grave diggers who i was trying to see but yeah it was drag races at the beginning and all i remember is is me and my friend austin turning to each other and screaming at the top of our lungs every time they went because we couldn't hear each other at all and we thought that was the

coolest thing that like drowned that sound could drown out other sounds so completely that it was like you weren't screaming how many children are injured permanently at those just by being by witnessing it my mom said she got tinnitus from it from going to that it was well this was in a domed thing too so it was like extra wow yeah and when was the last appearance of lance murdoch it was there was one after barth the daredevil i know like another failed stunt uh he was in the commercial for duff gardens right yeah i'm going to duff gardens and he will be seen again in viva ned flanders or the viva ned vegas i forget the name of that one but the uh the one where they get two wives in ve. But I think he's an alcoholic

dealing with the pain of having every bone in his body having been broken. I wouldn't fault him for that. Also, did you notice that Homer had pulled his foam cowboy hat out of story? But no goofy ass look on his face like when he's got that air horn. That shot of him with the air horn.

So great. I did find a 1948 ad for bioculars. It was a term at one time, not for bonoculars. There's a lot of good old timey Burns. Oh, yeah. Like objects. So many. And somehow his mom's vocabulary is even more old timey than his.

Yes. I love. They had to pull out an even older thesaurus to write those jokes. I also love that Burns is command of Burns wants to have fun but he also he's looking for the fun of the common man this night but he also refuses to not be in control and so he's like go go slow down slower it's just the glare between the two racers is they're like there's this interesting fluctuation this whole episode where burns is simultaneously completely helpless and like unaware of his life as a whole and also extremely controlling of everything around him and they just flip-flop like left

and right yeah it's i guess that's the dichotomy of burns though that he needs either smithers he's a he's a baby but he's a destructive baby he's a baby with infinite money but i for the first time i think i think i saw the uh well i know i saw so one of the drag racers is laramie cigarettes the other one is cop stopper brand explosive bullets you can barely read it you have to like read it across two different shots so it's a dark job stopper wow yes uh cop stopper brand explosive bullets so for the first time i noticed that they made they made simpsons change the joke on cop killer bullets in 92 so it's that was when bart bart wanted to join the nRA so he could get cyanide-tipped bullets as well, but originally the line was cop killer bullets.

But Fox is like, you can't use that term. I think it was too close to the LA riots, and I guess cops were good then? I don't know. Were they? Not really. What was that about? But I also love that Burns doesn't understand a foam finger, and that Smithers is somehow able to buy a normal-sized foam finger.

It is rather ostentatious. But this is what Burns has a very scary encounter. I love this so much. Oh, this novelty foam hand is ludicrously oversized. Go swap it for a smaller one. It is a bit ostentatious, sir. I'll be right back. Hey, Burnsie.

This was some swell shindig. Thank you very much. Smithers, what's happening? I'm having a great time. I just want to shake your hand. Doesn't seem as funny to me, but what do I know? Smithers! Oh, my God! You should have seen the murderous glint in his eyes, Smithers. And his breath reeked of beer and pretzeled bread. I'm so sorry, Mr. Burns. This was all my fault. Don't concern yourself. If things had turned ugly, I always had my mace.

I love how he just withers at the sight of a thumbs up he doesn't even know what to do he says smithers what's happening when a man when a man approaches his car and sorry the other thing i really like is you think smithers might hit him or throw him away or like throw him to the ground just like gently like turns him around and like leads him away well because smithers knows he knows the threat level he doesn't misunderstand the burns does it it's smithers one of his many 1800 tasks is to protect burns from reality and so he's just like well i know mr burns thinks this is a scary monster i'm just gonna turn him away and goodbye lenny like i was like the idea that like a couple beers in and lenny is grateful for Mr. Burrs. Like he got dropped down a shaft a while back.

That's true. He had been nearly murdered by a burr. He's trying so hard not to say E and got ruined anyway. He could be like maybe eight beers in when he starts appreciating burns. You have to be pretty, almost like blackout drunk. He's definitely slurring a lot. It's also got maybe like my top five

front-facing simpsons looks because he's also pressed up against the glass it's intentionally cursed that is horrifying but yeah it's it's such a great little turn on the trope too of like getting drunk and telling off your boss that's what you think this scene is going to be but he's just drunkenly complimenting him lightly it's funny i mean i've seen it a thousand times now, so I know what's going to happen. But I guess that was the intent. Like, you think Laney's going to be like, I'm going to tell off that Mr. Burns once and for all. Instead, he's telling him he's great and he had a great night.

And he's aggressive. The sound on the thumbs up is just beautiful. I think of this scene anytime I hear about, like, a rich person confused about being around normal people. I think of this like, oh, he's doing something. This person is talking to me. Go away. But although Burns may be infantilized, but he was this close of smashing Lenny in the face with a mace. That's true.

Or at least he seemed okay with doing it, though. I guess physically Burns certainly couldn't lift that. No, he really couldn't hurt money with that thing but uh but smithers is beside himself for failing burns i love him just smashing his head while driving and and then calling him on the line as well just to let him know he's still smashing himself in the head this is um smithers trying to grovel his way back into burns's heart. Good morning, sir. To make up for my failure last night, I alphabetized your breakfast. You can start with the waffles and work your way up to the swyback.

And to prevent newsprint from rubbing off on your hands, I've laminated today's newspaper. I appreciate the thought, but my pen won't write on this. How am I supposed to do the junior jumble? Oh, I can't even grovel properly. I'm'm a buffoon i don't deserve to live on your planet anymore pull yourself together man i dare say you're in need of a long vacation no don't make me take a vacation without you i'll wither and die. That's a risk I'm willing to take.

Yeah, Burns being this compassionate should seem off, but this episode makes it work. But previously, he wanted Smithers to be buried alive with him. Yes, it's true. I think a David Merkin era episode would be like,

you need to work harder, Smithers, and I'm giving you extra work to do. Yeah, it would be more torturous not forcing him to take a vacation. I guess the vacation is torture for smithers you could read it as burns wanting to hurt smithers more by making him take a vacation and be sad but it's more like it is that burns sort of cares for him or at least thinks he's doing his job worse and wants him to do it better yeah you know you good boss knows

when your employees stopped performing well enough. So it definitely is selfish in nature. It was an embarrassingly long time before I got the Swyback joke. Because just as a kid, that was not a word I knew. I had to look it up. I didn't know it. I didn't process it for years. And I was re-watching this episode and was like, oh, wow, that one just totally lame.

And I never even thought it was a joke worth figuring out i was just like waffles should have come first yeah no i i didn't know you can still buy zybeck crackers they're on amazon right now if you want to try some for yourself folks you can still buy post them we'll get to post them later but i mean it's it's a great joke as it is just like start with the waffles so you're deacon's right you're like wait it starts with the letter w what words like what is he what else is on that blade yeah it's amazing and also speak to that infantilization of burns and he is he does a junior jumble every day which they extra stupid five just like it's the and hog. Like it's three letter words on the jumble.

The jumble was low on my priorities as a comics page reader as a kid. Same here. That and bridge, which I did not understand. Like what is this doing here? How do you do this? Like who is doing this? Yeah. It would be once I got to Family Circus and Dennis the Manus,

if I still had energy for comic strips i might do the junior jumble just to figure out what the gag was in the one panel strip i only ever did the jumbles when i was at my grandparents house and so like there was no cable tv and there was nothing to do so it was like oh i'm doing newspaper things that's how desperate you were like yes i'll do the jumble i have nothing and i I also love Smithers exclamation of, I don't deserve to be on your planet anymore. Oh, okay. He's a space alien almost.

He's like, this is your planet. I don't deserve this. The Simpsons will be right back. Thank you for listening to Talking Simpsons. And you could also hear next week's episode a week early and ad-free if you went to patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. There you'd find all of our episodes for just $5 a month, as well as tons of exclusives like interviews, Talking Futurama, Talking Critic, over 100 podcasts ready and waiting for you at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons.

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tiny.cc slash tshulu if you'd like to get a month free to try it out. Super appreciate Oren the, like, when he goes to drown himself in the water cooler, just the calmness of just, just like depressing the cold water thing to remove the excess water in the tub is just like such an excellent little like non-joke in there you get the feeling this has happened before like the way you just matter of factly goes over there and hits hits the lever yeah burns is just like oh boy again with this drowning himself in the thing i mean this is extreme for smithers well smithers did become like a fall down drunk when he got fired by burns the last time so actually compared to this he's not drunk he's not watching comedy central he didn't buy a gun like he's smithers is slightly

better off in this one it's weird to see burns belch by the way too like he gives a barney belch it's it's very weird to see it was weird that they reused the belch just the belch, by the way, too. Like, he gives a Barney belch. It's very weird to see. It was weird that they reused the belch, just the belch sound. That's how every person in Springfield belches like. The one belch on file. I wonder if Shearer also is like, I'm not belching. Just get one of Dan's out of the cupboard. Point it out on the commentary, but I love the meta the madness of this scene of how smithers

finds his replacement there are like three or four meta jokes in this episode which might be why i like it so much i've got to find a replacement who won't outshine me perhaps if i search the employee evaluations for the word incompetent 714 names better be more specific lazy clumsy dim-witted monstrously ugly oh nuts to this i'll just go get homer simpson and just like that homer is made the smithers i mean he realizes he's in a tv show and he has to have homer involved in some way they say it on the commentary too. They're just like, well, yeah, we all know. We just say like, fuck this. Let's just get Homer. Duh, it's Homer.

It wasn't throwing up their hands like, we don't need to find a way to get Homer into the situation. He just needs to be there and we don't want to kill time with this justification. It's a TV show. Homer is going to have to be the, it's obviously going to be Homer. It's not going to be Carl or Lenny or any other, or Charlie. No, it's going to be homer it's the show and smithers realizes that so i love i love that

lies and i think i think the next scene at the dinner table exists just to shit on marge again it exists for no other reason other than for homer to tell the family what he's doing but the real point of that scene is like let's make fun of marge again for for things that are not her fault yeah she didn't know she missed the exposition and was saying it again. I think it also is sort of an anti-sitcom joke where it's a character would not do that in a sitcom, say the same thing on accident, you know, while coming into the room. But The Simpsons did it. Simpsons did it.

No, I think there's like three scenes at home with the family that almost feel tacked on, not tacked on, but intentionally put there because after the first script they're like well this isn't the smithers show it's the simpsons so why don't we show how the family reflects on this or how this is touching the family even though really this is just about smithers life honestly it's not homer is the the rest of the family has almost nothing to do with this which is kind of great and it makes it stand out from other episodes that you're just like, wait, I haven't heard from Lisa in a while, or Flanders, or anyone that I'm expecting to hear from. What does Lisa think of Mr. Smithers?

He's been nice to her in the past. He betrayed her at the end of the Malibu Stacy episode. That's true. I feel like they're kind of enemies. I blame capitalism. It was not Smithers' fault. Who can resist that? But also she knows his secret.

She's not really like spilling it. That is secret. Well, as an eight-year-old, I mean, I guess she does know it, but she maybe doesn't understand the weight of it, though. It seems like everyone in Springfield should know it and yet doesn't uh whenever i've had a new job i think i definitely and had it explained to me i've had a this is the chair moment as well um is this the chair i'll be sitting on yeah now i realize caring for mr burns seems like a big job but actually it's just 2800 small jobs uh-huh but this is the chair right

your new duties will include answering Mr. Burns' phone, preparing his tax return, moistening his eyeballs, assisting with his chewing and swallowing, lying to Congress, and some light typing. Montgomery Burns' office. Oh, hello, Mrs. Burns. I'll see if your son is available. Mr. Burns has a mother? She must be 100 million years old. She has limited capacities.

All she can do is dial and yell. I'm sorry. Mon mighty can't come to the phone right now he's in a very important meeting and can't be disturbed uh-huh okay i'll give him the message mr burns can't stand talking to his mother he never forgave her for having that affair with President Taft. Heh heh heh. Taft, you old dog. Now, I think the joke about Taft is he, at one point in history, was the world's fattest president. I'm not trying to fat shame anybody, but I think Trump,

he's gotta have the record by now. I mean, you see what he's wearing now. He's like, he's wearing like, like he's a sultan or something. That's the clothes he's wearing. Like, the clothes are nine times too big. So you don't know. I mean, Taft was heavy in a 1900 type of way, not

America now. That's true. But also, I guess I'm thinking of what are probably drawings of Taft and not photographs but he always seemed much more rotund. I think of him as nearly spherical.

He ate Wonka gum. He was the Kirby of presidents. Yeah, right? The story was they had to install a new bathtub in the White House for a unit his size. Though also, another fact about him, oh, I only know that stuff about Taft because it was a very dumb joke on Capital Critters. Oh, wow. Capital Critters.

I know, no one watched that. You remember something from Capital Critters? Is that the next What a Cartoon? Down the line, I think. I'd be interested in doing one just to revisit how misguided it is. So the street smart rat voiced by Charlie Adler. I'm sorry. I like Charlie Adler, but not that Charlie Adler. I'm sorry. I like Charlie Adler, but not that Charlie Adler.

No. So Capital Critters, in case you don't know, is about the many vermin that live inside the White House. Ha ha, get it? But in one of the plots, the painting of Taft falls on the Charlie Adler guy, and then he constantly just makes fat jokes about Taft falls on the Charlie Adler guy. And then he constantly just makes fat jokes about Taft of like, he's the heaviest president and he fell on me,

which like, it's such a dumb joke because the heaviness of the person does not make it a heavier painting, but it was just like every fat Taft joke you could fit in a, in a sitcom for no reason. Very topical. Wasn't Grover Cleveland also notable for being fat? He was a big boy, I think.

I think so, yeah. I gotta think, Trump is the oldest and the heaviest president ever. I think those are both just facts. Like, I don't think we should rank people by weight, but I really want to know yeah where all the presidents rank starting and ending i mean they they're doctor visit well you remember he released his official weight they're like no no he's 239 he's uh 17 feet tall yeah so you've got no that's about as

real as weights in pro wrestling it's not though another fact about Taft people don't know is that after his presidency, from 1921 until his death in 1930, he was a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He had become that after almost nothing happens with ex-presidents now other than they go into obscurity and do a bunch of speeches and eventually die. Like I said, you don't do more in public office after that. But I remember after, as Obama's administration was nearing the end, some people were like, what about him to the Supreme Court, huh? Or Michelle to the Supreme Court? But Barack Obama can do a lot of things. He maybe doesn't want to be a Supreme Court justice for the rest of his life. He may want to take a break.

Yeah. Well, I mean, he is taking a break. he's having a pretty nice time that bastard i want to i want to wind surf in hawaii too uh well become friends with richard branson maybe no deal uh monty's mother is amazing i love that she's still alive she's 122 meaning that she was born if this is 96 you're doing it that she was born in 1874 yeah and we get a definitive age for burns later which was very important to me as a young simpsons nerd like the lore like that i love the lore in these in season seven and eight they love building on simpsons lore and also like drawing back into simpsons lore and like you know building from there too and his mother still being

alive is no real discontinuity but it does imply that she came back into his life after he abandoned her and bobo at the beginning of rosebud if you recall when he leaves them uh both his mother and father in the past they i mean she may have just come back into his life maybe he feels some uh sort of responsibility after almost killing her he did pull a plug on her 50 years in 1946 yeah uh but the i don't know it's cute the humanizing of burns too of just like like things like his falling asleep yeah that's just a real like we i think we've all had that our job at an office job is just like gotta stay awake no i didn't fall sleep and even he has a relatable fear like a uh an oppressive an oppressive parent in his life that's still in his life despite him being 100 years old. This is like the first and maybe only time that you can even classify Burns as cute.

There are multiple moments in here where he is like cute. And it's weird. Yeah, they'd only do so many jokes about his disgusting body. Like there's not too many in this. They get those out of the way pretty quick, like in one scene. In one scene, yeah. And this episode kills a running gag in The Simpsons,

but I gotta say they at least get one last good one out of it. I love it. Really, Smithers? I'll be fine. I'm sure your replacement will be able to handle everything. Who is he anyway? Uh, Homer Simpson, sir. One of your organ banks from Sector 7G. All the recent events

of your life have revolved around him in some way. Simpson, eh? I still love that. But they play with that later, so after Smithers leaves, he mistakes Homer for Smithers. Smithers, you look awful! And then at the end of the episode,

it's like, did you, you know, get that brute who attacked me in my office? Like, he still doesn't know who Homer is, even after Homer worked with him and went to his house. Like, he still forgets who Homer is at the end. That's true. I'm going to blame brain injury for that at the end. But I do think this is the last time they do a Burns doesn't remember Homer joke. Like, I don't, at least the the good years i watched anyway yeah i mean the last real version of this joke was in who shot mr burns part one where they're looking at the uh

the picture at in the chocolate box and smithers is uh he's actually burns is recognizing the simpsons all except for homer so he does remember the family but just not homer yeah and then we get a cute little joke about fire which is more visual but i just love that he's the smithers the smithers just runs away as he asks about fire i'm just gone and the it's one of the best gif moments in simpsons history of homer turning to see burns his office full of fire it's just such a beautiful shot how that started he's not smoking or anything i mean i think burns just lights things on fire all the time around him and smithers just immediately puts them out

every day like maybe it was the power drill he keeps up plugged in by his desk at all times just he's high on ether he needs to get lucky charms or something god i so then another there's there's many jokes in this episode of just like that remind me of office work and be like trying to impress a boss or do the right thing even at a job you're underqualified for. And I think of this too anytime I'm given a list of things to do that I do not remember. Good Lord, Smithers, you look atrocious. I thought I told you to take a vacation. Smithers already left, sir. I'm his replacement, Homer Simpson.

Aye, Simpson. I'll have my lunch now. A single pillow of shredded wheat, some steamed toast, and a dodo egg. But I think the dodo went extinct. Get going and answer those phones, install a computer system, and rotate my office so the window faces the hills. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay.

Can you repeat the part of the stuff where you said all about the things? The things? I was thinking a lot about steamed toast after watching this again. Like, what is it? It kind of defeats the point of toast because toast is dry and then you're steaming it afterwards. Yeah. Is it just damp bread? Is that all it is?

I mean, the other two things are real. One is extinct, but steamed toast is just like a Burns invention. Yeah, I think it's... It must be even below melbified toast. It's just the gooiest of toast. Well, I don't think Burns can eat things like he... It's true. When I hear a single pillow of shredded wheat i

think like one piece of cereal from a box of shredded wheat like that's what i think oh i think the the big one so like in my house like another another like grandma thing like she had the big shredded wheat and they were like like it's like a brick yeah it's like a brick size and that's why that's why it was mini shredded wheats. Yeah, that's right. It was an innovation. It's like, finally, I don't have to cut up my shredded wheat myself. Innovation is happening in America.

And it came in frosted, too. You can get a giant frosted thing. How could you eat that without frosting? I don't even know. It's just like eating a tumbleweed or something. It's gross. It's grandma food. It's great. And perfect for burns for burns yeah it's right there next to the grape nuts well clearly it's not keeping burns regular with his multiple needs of boweling yes yeah that was unpleasant

uh but okay so homer this is the point they bring up multiple times on the commentary and it it is important that homer's bad at his job but it's not for lack of trying like homer's not lazy in this he's actually trying very hard but he's also bad like homer's not good at his job and oakley and weinstein who ran seven and eight they really wanted to soften homer and make him less of a horrible murderous food monster and the fact that he cares about his job is interesting and it makes you kind of root for him you know he could just not care and shirk it and just do a bad job because he's lazy but he actually wants to do a good job but he's stupid he's waking up at 4 30 a.m

lousy two-legged pants oh It's 4.30 in the morning. Little Rascals isn't on till 6. I know. I'm taping it. I want to get to Mr. Burns' house bright and early to make his breakfast. Poor homie. Poor, poor. That Little Rascals joke is very observational because I remember the only time I would see

the Little Rascals is when I would be sick and like up at 430 in the morning and just feverish. And there was like, here's filler TV. Here's three stooges. Here's little rascals. Here's like old black and white shorts. Yeah, it was back in that time before like when when every station stopped going off air before there was ever programming for it. Yeah. And so it was just like, yeah, like old black and white stuff would just be

on at like super early times of the day it was cheap or free the public domain things yeah i only recall watching them on the rare times that either we were going on like a family vacation and we had an early flight or or if it was like a school trip it's like well you got to be at the school at 6 a.m so get up at like 5 or 4 30 and that's when that is the only time you'd see little rascals on like tnt or something oh yeah actually tnt was built on reruns no one really asked for i mean uh they sort of uh when they launched they're like we got the muppet show we got little rascals uh that's all we got well then homer loves the little rascals which is that's perfect perfect for Homer's like taste level being awful.

Like the Little Rascal sucks beyond just like the dated racisms and stereotype in it. They just were boring. Like I hated if I saw Little Rascals in place of a cartoon on something I was watching, I was like, come the fuck on here. They were made for an audience experiencing the Great Depression. So they didn't need much to be entertained. That's true. Fun anecdote. When I was in daycare as a small kid, or like, well, kind of like the after school one.

So like, stay at this woman's house until I'm ready to come pick you up because my parents worked. But it was like also a daycare, so there'd be like babies and toddlers and stuff, too. The woman's adult son who lived there had all the little rascals on tape. Oh, that's a red flag. Yeah, that's a super red flag. And I remember like, kind of like looking at them and being like, oh, I like that character. And he had serious opinions

about the quality of little rascals by era. Oh my God. And so I was like, I want to watch this one. Who's Froggy? And he'd be like, Froggy's one of the worst additions to the cast. These things. He also taught me how to download ROMs and emulators though.

So like, that was pretty cool. Yeah, I agree. Also, that dude's probably in prison. That guy's got to be in prison. He's editing the Wikipedia from prison. Probably. Boy, I do agree with him. Froggy is a one note character.

Who's the best little rascal uh spanky sure he's awesome so wait that's the the rounder one wait yeah I by the way I was that guy okay no no I'm just kidding no yeah spanky's like the chubby boy okay he's the second banana to alfalfa yeah I always considered him first banana alfalfa always felt like the sidekick to me spanky was the leader he punched things alfalfa was really. I always considered him first banana. Alfalfa always felt like the sidekick to me. Spanky was the leader. He punched things. Alfalfa was really the Doug of the show.

Yeah. I only know Alfalfa because he was the star of the movie, where they tried to modernize Little Rascals in the post-Home Alone world. They're like, well, the Home Alone generation is ready for the new Little Rascals, and Buckwheat will be the same. Like, we're going to... And Whoopi Goldberg will be there to tell you it's okay now yeah that i oh also that scene there the acting on julia the snoring is so good like she's really good at that that's the second time we've seen marge disinterested in someone having to get up early the other time when bart had to go help uh skinner look for the uh the star. Yeah. She was telling him to wash off a stuffed pepper in the garbage.

That was the trash from last night. Rinse it off. So Homer gets there, and he has somehow never made breakfast in his life. And that's another great just series of clips of Homer lighting things on fire and then just is like, hmm. He's eaten breakfast before, but his idea of breakfast is a kebab, which is not traditionally a breakfast item in America. Well, you know what?

Even when he made his out-of-this-world patented moon waffles, that was on a stick. Like, he put the butter through a stick as well. That's his go-to thing. It's almost a cheap Family Guy-esque gag, but I do love the cornflakes going on fire. There's no reason they should, other than that Homer is just so bad at it. And then he just gives up and goes to Quickie Mart to buy breakfast, the usual breakfast

trash. And obviously, the joke is that donuts are not an ethnic food, or he's so old that he sees them as new and ethnic. But what? Is there a root to that joke, you guys? So donuts are Dutch by definition I'm but like again I wouldn't say that

Dutch is an ethnic food but if you were born in 1880 yeah he could have old-timey racism or just he only remembers donuts from when they were new and like what is this crap yeah if you hear of bangers and mash he's just like this ethnic food new like let alone

something from a non-european country but i i do like the joke about i mean it's a very cheap uh vaudeville style joke but uh how are my stocks doing they all won oh yes donuts i told you i don't like ethnic food here tell me how my stocks did yesterday uh the old one what about my options well you can either get up or go back to sleep I believe I'll get up scrub hardy got to get that layer of dead skin off I think

the fangs today yeah it is sort of it's a joke about Homer being stupid I think the fangs today. Yeah, it's a joke about Homer being stupid, but when I look at the stock page in a newspaper, which I never do, it's just like, what does any of this mean? Especially if you're watching the news, which I don't do anymore.

It's like all the stocks scrolling across the screen. What does this mean to anybody? That stuff breaks your brain. Well, my dad was super into it because as i would learn later like stocks are a form of gambling it's just more gambling so he loved it oh yeah and uh and he would always have cnbc before fox news really entered into his life and made things even better for him uh he he always had on cnbc and was watching the stock ticker and the most confusing thing to me watching him watch it was they had the top

one that was white that would go a little faster than the bottom one that was blue that had different types of stocks and they just went so fast the only time i ever looked at that stock market page was when in the early 90s my dad had marvel comics stock and i was like oh my gosh it's like i I have Marvel Comics stock, and I'm going to look for MRV on this page and see where they're at today. And just like hunting over the page. I know our, I hate to bring this up again,

but our very relatable to the common man president is always like, the stock market is this number today. I'm like, I don't know what this means. Is that a good number? Yeah, I mean, I guess. It's ultimately meaningless. Yeah. Because the numbers can fluctuate and can tank.

And honestly, we decide what happens then. Yeah. It's like maybe we have an economic crash or maybe we all go, no, this one's fine. And we just don't. We decided the money is worth more now. We refuse to accept this. I love the Marx Brothers style pacing of that joke too. Burns goes along with the joke, which that's why it kind of reminds me of marx brothers one of my

favorite marx brothers jokes or scenes in any marx brothers film i'm a big marx brothers fan i like them way more little rascals uh that it's when it's groucho versus chico because they both are they both have to have comedic personalities usually Usually you're used to like, oh, Groucho is making fun of this square. Or Chico is making fun of this square. But when it's the two of them having joking barbs to each other, that's even funnier to me. Like that's where the classic, and this is right here is the sanity clause. Ah, there ain't no sanity clause. Okay, you're right.

I'll just pull it out here. That is good. And that's kind of how Burns, he goes with it too it too he's like i think i'll get out of bed like he doesn't say like wait what what are you talking about i think like jack was saying that's another like that is a cute burns moment where he just he's friendly and pleasant it's about it's like i believe i'll get up he just takes it he's just like okay those are my options he reflects so like they're working so hard to make homer lovable oaf versus violent oaf versus later in the episode. And then he just kind of like reflects it back to him is kind of endearing.

Yeah, it's a cute, it's cute to see him have the exchange there. This also is another follow up on a classic Simpsons moment, which is Smithers bathes Burns. Like that was in Ringo Starr. For the greatness. Yes. Yeah. Which, as Burns said, Smithers ises Burns. Like that was in Ringo Starr. For the greatness. Yes. Yeah. Which, as Burns said, Smithers is like a doctor. He's fine with Smithers being there and seeing him naked.

And I guess Homer, too. He's fine with it, too. Was that also in Dollar Sign Springfield, the casino one? He had his near-death experience, right? Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. When Bart was... No, that's Burns' air.

Oh, okay. It's also when he's scrubbing him with a four-corner sponge and it's cutting him up. He needed a rounded sponge. And he puts the sponge on his top hat he wears when he's in the bathtub. While eating extra fancy chips. And I also love the running gag in this episode that Burns needs his mouth closed for him. He can't close his own mouth. And then we get some more quick jokes.

But Homer's terrible report on Mr. Johnston or John Stone. Yeah, he's trying. And I like the idea that his idea of a report is based on like a grade school. Like what a grade school would think. Like, here are the facts about this department that you wanted. It was on the third floor. And the way Burns crumples it up while staring at him. Also, the look on Homer's face when he's just staring at the wall

while Burns is like, Simpson, Simpson. It's beautiful. And then Burns gets messages here. Is this line of the show? It is, and it's also very vaudeville. That's the joke. Here are your messages. You have 30 minutes to move your car.

You have 10 minutes. Your car has been impounded. Your car has been crushed into a cube. You have 30 minutes to move your cube. Hello, Mr. Burns' office. Is it about my cube? It's Mr. Smithers. He's calling for you. How's everything going there sir

well i have a lot of free time on my hands if you fedex me your mail i'd be happy to open it and return it to you everything's fine smithers this simpson fellow seems to be getting dumber by the minute i've never seen anything quite like it anywho you just enjoy your vacation i do like uh smithers standing awkwardly on the beach with a briefcase like while people are having fun around him and so there there are three scenes with smithers at awkwardly on the beach with a briefcase while people are having fun around him. And so there are three scenes with Smithers at this resort. And the first scene, you could be like, well, he's just having fun on the beach. But there are only men there.

So then the second scene is like he is in a gay club. The third scene is like, no, he is in a very gay-friendly place. They escalate the level of gayness every time. I read it as fire island the classic resort of the uh ever since the 70s off of i guess it's off of new york like it's that's where it's next to but though there's i mean there's there's newer and hipper places for gays to go on vacations i don't know i'm not a rich gay i have not gone on the gay vacation yet uh i guess what there's mykonos and greece i've heard of that one anyway this it feels like classic Fire Island to me in that it's like, you know, it's kind of sandy, but like an Atlantic island, too. Yeah, I can see that.

And I also love the circular logic of that Smithers wants to open his mail for him, so he needs to be mailed his mail. So then he can open it and mail it back to Burns. But Burns would then have to open that mail to get his opened mail, defeating the purpose of opening mail. Well, maybe Smithers thinks Homer is not too stupid to mail an item, like Homer will do it. Well, he did fail to do that in Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1. That's true.

So I think Smithers should know he's too stupid. I also love Homer's excited, like, he's calling for you. Of course he is. It's on Burns' phone. And, like, he's calling for you. Of course he is. It's on Pertz's phone. And yes, it's his car. It's such a great exchange of like, your car has been crushed into a cube. And just burns his facial expressions throughout all of it as it's changing. Like, I'm shocked.

I'm angry. I've given up. I'd like to know about my cube. Where is it? I do like the logic of that. Like, they didn't take his car somewhere to be crushed they crushed it wherever it was parked and they left the cube there i never oh my god that's even better yeah uh also with regards to smithers portrayal as being gay on the show too

i think this they definitely said before like in sideshow bob roberts smithers said he couldn't support bob's platform because it clashed with his choice of lifestyle was his term so in that episode they definitely were making it clear of like Smithers is gay he is not just attracted to Burns he is a gay he is gay but they still kind of played around I know Al Jean said in his version his viewpoint at the time was Smithers is a Burns-osexual if burns was a frog he'd be attracted to frogs that's how gene put it but this makes it very clear like now smithers is gay and among the men he's attracted to is mr burns yeah he's number one yeah burns is number

one with a bullet but he also i mean like they'll they'll make it extra clear in homers phobia episode not that this doesn't make it 100 clear but he's i i also love in that episode that they make sure that smithers like is not just pining away for mr burns and not leading not having dates of his own with with folks like he does with john in home homer's phobia he's having fun as best he can but he still has to check in every time we see him having some sort of fun that would probably prevent him from having a long-term relationship with even another man who did let alone the the uh failed marriage he had with i guess uh elizabeth taylor that flashback in secrets of successful marriage was that a mix of two uh different tennessee williams things it was

cat on a hot tin roof and then it became street that's right that's right man they love those references uh but yeah so poor homer being told he's getting done by the minute you can just see the look on his face like oh like he's really it's really hurting his feelings and it's also really sad to see him get ordered around by the kids but i also this is a scene that feels more like a mike scully scene than schwartz welder to me of just like, this isn't silly extremes. This isn't old timey stuff. It's the kids goofing on Homer of just like, hey, dad, help us out here. Like, or do this. Simpson, do this.

Like, it's cute that they're ordering him around. Reminds me a lot of the very tired Homer from Lisa's Pony when he's having to work at the Quickie Mart and just a zombie at home. Yeah. And like how Bart ordered him around at the quickie mart too i wonder too how much the writers were drawing from uh being exhausted at working many late nights on the simpsons i think they were all childless at this point except for like oh yeah his five daughters were crying at home as the family is messing with him that like you expect bart to be like do my homework but lisa's just like drive me to the library like to her sleep deprived father who's like about to pass out i love that that's her like

rebellious act like your dad can't refuse what are you gonna ask it's different levels of cruelty like a a more at first do you think lisa is just being her like truly good self is just being her truly good self. It's just like, Bart, don't abuse Dad. But instead she's like, well, a small thing like a trip to the library. That's not cruel. It's abusive, but the request is wholesome. And then Marge is being more of like the lawful good of just still ordering home around, but just to make him sleep. And I feel so bad for him that he gets to close his eyes for like two seconds before having to go back to work it's such a ridiculous joke of the super megaphone yeah I wish it was more than 48 rings though because I feel like it would take like a couple hundred

rings for Homer to get to Mr. Burns's place unless they like are blocks away from each other by my calculations oh no 48 rings if you say it takes five seconds per ring yeah then it's basically five minutes yeah and that i guess if homer homer drove straight there at like 100 miles an hour i guess it depends on how far burns his mansion is from homer which changes from day to day yeah everything is just outside their backyard when they need it to be. Yes, yeah. They almost make it seem like Cobra just ran from his house straight to Burns' even, not even driving.

But yes, the phone has been ringing for quite a while. The telephone has been ringing for some time. Answer it. Yellow. It's for you. Mr. Barnes, 48 rings, are you all right? answer it yellow it's for you mr. Barnes 48 rings are you all right what did Simpson do to you do nothing other than drive me to distraction with his incompetent boobery terrible at everything a complete moron but I'm not really free to talk right now no look

stop calling me and start enjoying your vacation remember I want to see lots of pictures when you get back. Ah, actually, sir, picture taking is not allowed at this particular resort. Oop, I gotta go now. There's a line forming behind me. So younger me was not processing that scene. Yeah. Like, I remember my parents. I distinctly remember my dad going, oh.

And, like, kind of laughing. And my mom laughing and being like, what? And then dad going, oh. And kind of laughing, and my mom laughing, and being like, what? And then being like, nothing. Hearing Relax immediately is sort of the gut-punch joke they were going for. It's like, if you weren't sure what's happening, here is a huge cue for you. Hearing Frankie Goes to Hollywood, you couldn't broadcast it any louder. Just like, this is a gay bar. No one in 1996 other than gays were listening to that song anymore at least in america as a as a teen it was like a 13 or 14 year old watching

this i i first assumed that the thing smithers said about not not taking pictures meant there was like salacious things happening at the club and that was actually true but watching it like as i'm done like no he just doesn't want to be out and these pictures any pictures would show that he is out like yeah anyone else it's pretty common practice and places like on fire island back then that just it was there were no photos and stuff and it was pre smartphones yeah so easy to enforce it was much easier to be in the closet back then yeah no the uh well even just a tame photo it would just be like well this is all men like there's no it wouldn't it wouldn't need to be a photo of sex and i the frankie goes to hollywood let me say as somebody who has uh

karaoke uh relax you it is it is very shocking how long how many times they say come at the end of that like come they just say it over and over and over again frankie getting up getting to here it's it's shocking that on on MTV they just played that straight. No pun intended. But they just played that on the air with nobody getting it. Or not enough people getting it, I guess. The t-shirt was Frankie Says Relax. It should have been Frankie Says Come.

Yeah, he says it so much. He says it a lot. I also like how, despite the fact that conga music is playing, Smithers says there's a line forming behind me as if to be like it's just a lot people want to use the phone so he's lying on top of that even though there's obvious conga line music happening that burns has to hear i like that when he finally lets go of that phone then he gets into the day yeah it's just to see smithers relax he's let go he has like a bit he's he's he's put on his hawaiian shirt and again yeah another softening

of burns where burns actually cares about smithers vacation and wants to see like i want to see you having fun smithers so yeah yeah it's clearly just a setup for the joke but it was a weird little like additional like burns is caring there's also a lot of uh original characters in the background one scene it was like i was like one of the first times I was like, I don't recognize any of these people who are all these characters. My favorite of the random people in the background is there's a guy who's like kind of making like an ooh face as he's dancing, like two arms up in the air, like ooh. He's really getting into Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

I think all of those characters would appear in the gay steel mill next year. No, but though I would say, say you know this is a little stereotypical i guess the joke is like oh it's gay guys in a club but i would say especially if you compared these characters to any sitcom plot about being gay in the 1990s like this is i would say nicer for sure than i i think half of the episodes of friends were about like what if they think i'm gay oh that was that was half of what happened to chandler on that show yeah and i might have to go to the gym with them in the shower oh i i didn't mean for oh you thought i was i thought you were gay oh man oh aside from an episode dedicated entirely to gay panic the simpsons has generally avoided it

well i liked on that episode that the homers phobia they hired a gay they hired a gay icon to do it and that john waters is like it's actually one of the few times he's just played a gay man on the show too usually his movies are not gay i mean mean, they are gay, but they do not feature gay characters pretty much at all. They're about straight people and how fucked up they are. Especially in Baltimore. It's true. Homer's getting it every which way from Burns. He can't take it anymore.

This entire run against him is great in it. And it crescendos like perfectly. 60 watts? What do you think this is a tanning salon i asked for light starch on my nightcap you call this postin you call this a tax return you call this a supercomputer you're a travesty of a joke of an assistant like i said in the beginning of this episode that that's like one of the most important moments in the simpsons is uh homer punching out mr burns yeah i feel like they they went there is what i'll say like you never thought that would happen I think on the Simpsons it's a major moment and in real life Homer's in jail now like he is he has assaulted a rich man you're done

yeah you're never getting out and uh watching this in podcaster research mode I was like they sort of justified in that Burns is kind of physically attacking Homer he throws a book at his head and throws pencils at him and like Burns is getting physical first I don't think Homer should have punched him as much as I would like to see that happen, but he was within his rights to fight back in some way. It's interesting how upon re-watching it, when the punch happened, I was like,

oh yeah, fuck that dude. And then when we get to the next scenes, all of a sudden I'm like, oh no, that was so wrong what you did. And it was weird to feel that way. Definitely didn't feel that way at the time because it was Burns. And honestly, I'm like, and I'm removed from it. Cause also like, I didn't watch,

like I haven't gone through everything by then when you're like, no, seriously, screw that guy and everything he does. He stole Homer's trophy. He tried to steal Maggie's candy. Like he's awful. But yeah, it was, it was weird. It's a weirdly sympathetic burns episode in a way that i wasn't expecting they make you sit in the moment of the punch for a very long

time it's it's it almost becomes like in a dramatic film when you see like a shocking moment of like that guy killed that other guy like i didn't think that lead character would be killed you just are sitting with the character for a long time of just like oh my god oh no like it's hyper dramatic yeah I do love Homer running out the door and like a smash cut to him running inside of his own house and slamming the door behind him but another thing is like I was thinking about the plotting of this episode

I always forget like my brain wants to think that the punching of Mr. Burns is like the second act break and then the third act break is what happens after the punch it's like no there's still a lot that happens and the third act is is what happens after the punch it's like no there's still a lot that happens and the the uh the third act is all about burns being self-reliant and smithers trying to find his place in the world yeah it's it's like the middle of the episode but instead of the second act break which you think something that major would have been saved for that but that also lets you take more time and live in it too if if it had been homer punching and then

running out and then commercial break i think i would have made it even less dramatic and it would have sucked out more of the feeling of the moment too i think and that in real life if you punch a 104 year old person in the face they are likely dead his head would have flown off yes yeah their skull would have caved in i right before that in just all all those things, the animation, I'm like poking Homer with his overstarched nightcap. It's beautiful. And Postum, which, Bob, did you do the Postum research? Yes, I did.

It's a caffeine-free alternative to coffee, which is very popular amongst the Mormon people. It was developed in 1895, but the instant version, which is what I guess everyone uses these days, came out in 1912. So it is a very of the era Mr. Burns. He would be familiar with this new product, Postum. I also was researching Postum to look it up. And I was surprised to learn that that's the product that made Post. Really? No Post.

Post is called Post because of post because of post them and that's why it's a company that is successful like post them made them post them just sounds gross i wouldn't want to put that in my body i don't know why just it sounds vile it was discontinued in 2007 by post and then post sold it off to eliza quest's food corporation and they then put it back in print, or however you'd say it. They started manufacturing it again. You can buy Post-Em on Amazon, right,

with your Zweibach crackers, and you can eat just like Mr. Burns and see how it feels. I'm curious what it tastes like. I mean, it's just you put powder in hot water, like it's coffee, probably not very good. It tastes like brown, yeah. You have to chase it with some

steamed toast but i will say listeners pay attention because as burns becomes more self-reliant and he helps his caffeine intake so he's coffee's too intense for him at this old man level but he goes from coffee from post them to coffee to cappuccino throughout this episode oh i didn't think of that yeah i also do blame burns like he's used to smithers doing everything for him but hom Homer does not know how to do taxes or build a computer. That tax return was huge, by the way. Yes. I mean, Burns does have

a lot of holdings. I get that. I like the idea that Smithers ditched him right before tax season. Yeah, it's true. God. I mean, Smithers didn't want to, but it's true. This is February. They've got some time. And that the accounting department that he did a report on doesn't handle that.

Yeah, I just hand it to them. I think a Mr. Johnson or John Stone was passing the buck to Homer. So, yeah, but Homer runs home. And this is another of those moments that you could take this out and the episode would work the same. But I like checking in with the family and them reflecting on what this means for him is there something wrong homie no except except i killed mr page what happened dad i punched burns right in his 104 year old face are you sure he's dead maybe he just really really hurt okay maybe everything's all right. Maybe if you go apologize, he won't even fire you.

If he's alive. Even Marge understands this. She can't be that optimistic. I just love when he says, maybe he's really, really hurt. Yeah. That is the brightest side of this equation. So Burns' age actually had been said one time before this in Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1. By Skinner

he says, well, it would be foolish that I wouldn't recognize the city's most prominent 104-year-old businessman. I forgot that is the time that I should know this. That's the time they defined it as 104. Previously in Simpson and Delilah he said he was 81. 81 years old. But

saying it a second time makes it extra true in the Simpsons verse that he's 104 and I also think in Simpson and Delilah um Burns is like do you know how old I am Homer and Homer's like I don't know 102 so he's actually older than the exaggerated guess Homer gave five years ago so Burns lied about being 82 that's how I have to imagine it happened but I mean I like that they give him a actual number like these no Burns is 104 that's how i have to imagine it happened but i mean i like that they give him a actual number like these no burns is 104 that's how old he is he's conceivably i mean nobody should live to be 104 but someone can be propped up and be the ceo of something for a while oh yeah what was the i mean the owner of the oakland raiders for the longest time who is now dead like he was a mr

burns figure like into into his 90s he was like i'm running this like you can't stop me like as long as long as he had like a minimum ability to reply and say words and prove he was competent they're like you can't get rid of him that's kind of kind of where burns is at too and so homer goes back to burns and you really do feel bad for old Mr. Burns in this shot here. I'm really sorry I hit you, Mr. Burns. Here, let me put some salt on that eye. No, please. I can't bear another thrashing.

Just leave me be. Yes, sir. Must call Smithers and protect me from this beast. I've seen people activate this machine a thousand times. Doesn't seem to be any trick to it. Let's see, Smithers. S-M-I-T-H-E-R-S. Success! It's ringing!

Most haven't. I'm looking for a Mr. Smithers, first name Waylon. Oh, so you're looking for a Mr. Smithers, eh? First name Whelan, is it? Listen to me, you. When I catch you, I'm going to pull out your eyes and shove them down your pants so you can watch me kick the crap out of you, okay? Then I'm going to use your tongue to paint my boat.

I love that joke, but it's so distracting how Hank Azaria is in a different room with a different microphone forever. Yeah,. Clearly re-recorded it. In audio only, it's quite obvious it was re-recorded. One of those two. It's really distracting every time. But I do like the joke that Moe is not being pranked. He's being asked for a real name. He's so damaged from Bart, he doesn't know how to respond.

But they found a way to make that joke again. Like they couldn't make that joke after New Kid on the Block. Yeah, they had really dropped the crank call stuff. And the only times they bring it back are for side. Yeah. Like it'll be brought back again, kind of soon in Bart on the road where Homer gives him a reverse call style too.

It's, but Bart never does those calls anymore. And this also would mean, so I took this to mean that the phone number for most tavern is 764-8437 that's right because if you started with the letter s the last s will not be taken because if you do seven numbers it just starts calling so that's uh so if you want to call the your most tavern call 764-8437, no matter the area code. Don't do that.

Ask for Wayland Smithers. I wonder what the original line was there. The mouth movements aren't really off. They're not that different. Yeah, I really wonder. They don't put it out on the commentary. I mean, maybe it was dirtier. I like how they changed ass for butt in him saying he was going to.

He threatened Ned by saying the next word you say will be muffled by your own butt yeah instead of ass burns successfully telepathically communicates with smithers i feel bad for all those hunks that fall on his boat those poor hunks those hunks are all injured or something it's painful another great visual like the reveal the the shocking reveal of homer's happy face in the mirror is so beautiful like yeah it's it's like an old horror film except just like the lightning joke in the beginning it's like a friendly face is the most terrifying thing in burns's life it's a very uh complicated shot in terms of drawing it just like getting all the angles right how the mirror tilts you know they had to work all of that out too and that's one of my favorite uses of the dud in Simpsons Me Marie as well.

When the dud replaces Homer in that. And then the dud replaces Burns when he reacts to it. But Burns is broken. He can't even leave his office. I think the thug has finally gone home for the day. Now I can make my escape. Hi, Mr. Burns. You want your coffee now?

No, I'm making it myself. Hear that? The percolations are imminent. No need to come in. Cease your ingress. Stay back, Homer. Approach no further. Coffee's already made. I stomped the beans myself. Well, can I at least drive you home, Mr. Burns? It's five o'clock. No, I thought I'd chauffeur myself this evening. Yes, that's what I thought. How difficult can it be? I'm sure the manual will indicate which lever is the velocitator and which the deceleratrix.

I can't believe it. All my life I've avoided doing things for myself. But I'm actually enjoying this. I'm making believe it. All my life I've avoided doing things for myself. But I'm actually enjoying this. I'm making incredible time. Beep, beep. Out of my way. I am a motorist. That's some nice reckless driving, Mr. B. Despite the fact that he's killing people, that is also very cute.

How into it and how proud of himself he is. It kind of reminds me of Mr. Toad on his wild ride. Yeah, that's true. It's just like, I'm a motorist. I'm more important than you. I love that this episode, the entire time, they don't waste time leading the gag. Like, you instantly know that he is driving terribly.

They have a stop sign, smash his windshield, like second one, and you're just like, oh, he's doing a really bad job of this you know he's doing it poorly but also when i see mr burns driving on the street with no problem that defines the one percent to me i'm just like yeah no one there's nothing the cops are fine yeah that wiggum i especially i love that wiggum falls back into his college nickname for when he worked for mr burns back when he was in the college. This is all in Harry Shearer, too. His line reading of chauffeur myself.

To Mr. Burns, I can see the logic of this. That's still a fancy foreign loan word that's new. You don't say chauffeur. It's chauffeur myself. Using it as a verb, too, instead of a noun. That makes it extra fancy. I guess before we play the clip,

Bob, ahoy hoy is a very important word to this series. That's right. It's the opening to our podcast. So if you go on Google, there's a very, very, very complex article about this. Just Google ahoy hoy versus hello New York Times. You'll get an article from 1992 that explains this all. Basically, there were competing ways to greet people on the telephone. One was hello, and one was

ahoy hoy. And I believe on the commentary, they said ahoy hoy was taken from shipboard communications. When you would call somebody on a ship, you would say ahoy, and they would say ahoy hoy. And I believe the logic of that on a telephone was that the phone

was always on, and you weren't calling people. you were directly you were directly connected to them so you wanted to make sure switchboard ladies were connecting you to it but you wanted to make sure that they were there and listening so ahoy hoy was a better way to get someone's attention to like i'm ready to talk to you on this telephone now oh wow yeah but uh it's way more complicated than that and i don't want to go into all of it but like i said google those search terms and you'll find it maybe we'll link to it at some point but yeah it's pretty interesting if you if you're into old-timey uh stuff like that this is like an alexander graham bell versus uh

edison like and i was thinking like who did edison steal that from because that was not his idea couldn't be yeah graham bell graham bell's favorite thing was ahoy Ahoy but it was all taken by Edison won again. He can't stop this guy. Was the Assassin's Creed games? Let us know. He's one of the Knights Templar. Oh really? It's alright then. You know it's bad?

I don't know about those games anymore. Well I mean you know that's as a Templar would say it's just shades of gray like it's chaos versus order man and so the Templar. But no, he's one of the evil Templars in history. But you had to solve a stupid riddle to find out a scene of that. That's one of my favorite things in Assassin's Creed. Well, if you can solve Da Vinci Code style riddles, then you'll get to unlock the secret history of America.

But also the Templar. One of the Templars is on the supreme court it's the justice who was the swing vote in deciding corporations or people from about a decade or so ago that's also in the plot of the world of assassins those games got really stupid didn't yeah they did a really dumb thing where they let you look ahead in one of the games and started talking about like templars all the way up into like the 60s to 70s and you're like this is like those people are alive

you should be sued for this couldn't you well that's why in the game they kept it as a vague thing of like one of the justices look we're not saying which one like that's like the Simpsons cover of like oh yeah he was gay

they don't say who was gay on Leave it to be like one of them was Homer says this is Tony Plough uh but yeah let's hear let's hear the introduction of ahoy hoy to millions of nerds ahoy hoy no you have the wrong number this is 5246. I suspect you need more practice working your telephone machine. Not at all. Ahoy. Mr. Burns, is there anything at all I can do for you? No, Homer. You've already done more for me than any man. Your brutal attack forced me to fend for myself. I realize now that being weighted on hand and foot is okay for your average Joe.

But it's not for me. I want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, my God. I knew I shouldn't have left. Ah, welcome back, Smithers. Say, do you know Homer Simpson?

He pitched in around the office while you were away. Bang up job, Simpson, but I guess it's back to your trusty post in Sector 7G. Ah. You heard the man, Simpson. Ah, and my dear, dear Smithers, you're no longer needed at all. You're fired. You shouldn't have gone away on vacation.

I think the subtle thing I've noticed upon rewatching this again and again is that Smithers is actually very bad for Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns is still an evil rich man, but without Smithers, with the ability to be confident and have some agency, he's pleasant and he's also grateful to people, which he would never be before. He's hugging Homer and crying. I forgot that moment. Thank you. Thank you so much. The point that the show is making that were you to beat the rich, it would make them better people, apparently. Let's try it.

Coming for you, Bezos. But yeah, Burns, so that does kill the running joke. Burns says, do you know Homer Simpson? He works in Sector 7G. Like, Burns has taken the joke out of smithers mouths like he knows it now oh that's right okay that's that's so great again they're playing with that again and it's also funny that he's still a million years old it's like no uh you were introduced to homer earlier yes so that he's yeah it is great too he's introducing him to smithers

like smithers doesn't know homer so he has forgotten that Smithers has introduced him to Homer eight million times before. And I think, too, I have definitely had Smithers fear that a vacation will make your job disappear when you go away. Like, well, if I leave, my job won't be here when I come back. They'll all learn they don't need me. Like, I shouldn't have. I think very much about the, like,

you shouldn't have gone on vacation and reply from Homer. It's hard. You fall into this kind of workaholism that's hard to escape. And I put off vacation so many times that at my, like in my old job at GamesRadar,

just I was like, well, I can't take a vacation. The sun won't rise without me. This company needs me until it suddenly won't suddenly will happen but uh you're fired henry oh no i like that it comes back on the family wondering what's going to happen to smithers like him and also the gag that marge needs to bake homer cake very quickly to prove why she should still have her job but that they care about smithers though i also have to say when you see every smithers job he is really undervaluing

himself like he is i mean he's he is he is a college educated man with 20 years at the same job like he he could get any job i would think well not any job but many jobs he didn't look hard enough speaks to the like lack of any thing of value in the town right like that's true i guess really it's a one factory town like you either work at the power plant or you have a menial job like there's no executive positions i have i also think he's on a real downswing and he thinks he's nothing now that he has been does not have mr burns. Burns like, well, what good am I? I'll just take a job shoving things around. That also happens when you're fired. You definitely

think, I'll take whatever. I'll deliver newspapers. Or work at AT&T. Make your new piano mover. Now we're going to have to put a steel rod where your spine was. Will I ever move a piano again?

Oh my goodness gracious, no. Now we're going to have to put a steel rod where your spine was. Will I ever move a piano again? Oh my goodness gracious, no. Get ready for exciting quarter mile action at the Springfield Drag Strip. It'll be motorized mayhem, mayhem, mayhem. Do we need all those mayhems? We do. All right, fair enough. Suppose you're doing your business.

Get ready for fun, fun, fun. People are already here. We don't need to keep hustling them like this, do we? Let go of me. Where are you throwing me? I do love so much about that, even though there's no animation. One, Smithers' nasal voice as your typical, I don't know, stock car or drag race announcer. Fun, fun, fun.

But also the unnecessary line, where are you throwing me? Where are you throwing? He's got to be in a small booth somewhere where else could he be going instead of uh it's an extra spin on just saying like please no or just the violence in it it's just he doesn't know where he's being thrown do they put a blindfold on him before throwing him somewhere and then also that they're so violent at the drag race place, they don't even want to shuffle him away quietly and hurt him later. They have

to throw him out of the window of the booth. It's so beautiful. And just remember, from now on, Smithers has a steel rod in place of his spine from this scene onward. Medically impossible. There are things in your spine you need to, like, move around and walk and feel things.

You just can't slide it out and put a steel. I do love the delivery of, oh, my goodness gracious, no. Smithers has hit his rock bottom. You got a help wanted sign in the window? Yeah, I need someone to help me with the midnight beer delivery. Your job is to distract Barney until it's safely off the truck. I'll just wait out back until then. I look forward to working with you.

Mr. Smithers, wait. You can't let yourself end up in a place like this. You've got two choices. You can give up on yourself and take the Barney guarding job, like so many of us have contemplated in our darkest moments. Or you can admit to yourself there's only one person that can make you happy and do whatever it takes to get them back! You're right.

But I'm gonna need your help. Oh my gosh! We're delivering your sign here. Oh. No, it's you! Oh boy! Give it back! oh no it's you just like the smithers scene at the racetrack there was no animation on that joke it's all sound and i love uh mo just like listening in terror and eventually having to like weep at the end of the scene silently he's just like up. He's just like, oh, God, no, again.

And then he's, also, this is midnight. Homer's just drinking at Moe's at midnight. Pretty dark. And saying, you don't want to end up in a place like this. While he's gladly hanging out there. I don't, the animators are great in this episode, but I like how much they just hang back like, let's just let the sound do this.

The sound is funnier. Definitely a funnier scene than that. I just like let the sound do this it's fun the sound is funnier definitely definitely a funnier scene that i just like that like the sounds was really good because you don't get a sense at all whether barney even drank beer like did he eat it all like yeah i guess the lack of visuals makes you imagine something much more horrible is happening like there's no like trademark like gulping sounds or anything that like actually fits with what you think is going on it's crashing and then a burp he's just laughing madly yeah he's just yeah that mad laughing that's also they could have put in guzzling sounds but instead it's like maniacal laughter like i finally am

back in the somebody didn't guard me i all i love love how the enunciation that Dan Kesslin asked you on the Barney gardening job. It's very memorable. And I wanted to point out, I forgot that when the family's eating dinner earlier in this act, they're all eating spaghetti and Moe balls with spoons, including Lisa. So Lisa's eating meats. I mean, they could be tofu balls. They just fucked up. Yeah, maybe so.

It was. I also love in both that scene and at the bar, Homer, no matter what is whatever Waylon Smithers position is, Homer will always call him Mr. Smithers. Come on, Mr. Smithers. It's very cute. I like that. Sorry I did this, Mr. Smithers.

It reminds me too in Sideshow Bob Roberts where he said like, Hello, Mr. Smithers. It reminds me too in Sideshow Bob Roberts where he said like, hello Mr. Smithers! He likes Smithers way more than Smithers likes him. I think he's always deferential to him because he views Smithers as a superior even though he's not employed at the plant anymore too. So what is

their great plan? Mr. Burns may have mastered 2799 of my 28,800 duties, but I'll wager dollars to Donuts he still can't handle a call from his mother. Get on! What? Hello, Mrs. Burns? This is Waylon Smithers. I have your son Montgomery on the line.

That improvident lackwit. Always too busy striding about his animal to call his own mother. I'll give him what for till he cries brassafrax. Perfect. When I give the signal, you transfer the call to Mr. Burns. After she tears into him, I'll rush in and save the day. Got it.

I mean, Trace McNeil as Mater Burns is so good. She sounds extra old. She talks like somebody from a Tennessee Williams novel or something. It's so great. The frat-crass-ass-a-frax. It's actually brass-a-frax. Oh, brass-a-frax. Which I believe the Simpsons invented as a fake old-timey word.

Oh, that's great. Because I looked it up and it was all Simpsons results. Well, speaking of old-timey phrases, dollars to donuts. That is also an old-time phrase. It implies that donuts are worth less than dollars, which at least in San Francisco, you can find some donuts that are way more than a dollar. It's true. I believe that phrase was invented in the 30s, though, when donuts were far less than a dollar.

Yes. Apparently, a competing phrase for it at the time was dollars to cobwebs, but it was dollars to donuts. Honestly, if you're wanting something that's worthless, cobwebs I think works even better than donuts. Homer takes the bet seriously. Yes.

Homer wants those donuts. He'll put down dollars against any bet of donuts. The drawing of Mrs. Burns or whatever you want to call her is so great. She's barely moving, but it's just such a realistically drawn like desiccated woman she's got like whiskers on her chin and everything it's true she's just falling apart there's no way she can even move at all and i just like her way of answering the phone's like what yeah i i do like uh so this is this episode taught me the word desiccated, which is the perfect adjective for her, just like a dried out husk.

And then as something I would learn as an adult but wouldn't get at first, transferring calls on a phone line in business is way harder than it should be and very easy. I have hung up on many people on a conference call and then I had to like oops sorry hey or like send them an email like i'm gonna call you again sorry yeah i mean homer just pushes disconnect though there's no real confusion but i mean smithers should have done the transfer he should know homer is so stupid he couldn't transfer a call there's it should have been smart enough to not leave it to that that is true though that's also what i love in this scene here that homer just goes straight to the sitcom plot of well I'll pretend to be her

and Smithers is like this isn't a sitcom stop it I'm transferring a call into you Mr. Burns no problemo hello Mr. Burns. This is your mother. No. Oh, hello, Mater.

Sorry about pulling the plug on you and all. Who could have known you'd pull through and live for another five decades? Oh, is my face red? Mrs. Burns is 122 years old, so try to sound more desiccated and she doesn't call her son mr burns son this is mrs burns i just called to say i don't love you you are a bad son montel so i i think it's implied that mr Burns has actually never spoken to his mom after that tragic event because I feel like Smithers keeps putting it off and making excuses because why would he apologize for this time, this one time he talks to her?

I mean, if I tried to kill my mom 50 years ago, I don't think I would have wanted to talk to her either. I would have been quite embarrassed of killing her at one point uh but the and obviously she's strong so this was a woman who 50 years ago was so sick they could pull the plug on her in 1946 in 1946 right after the burl right after the hitler's died she is unplug, and she still keeps living. A 1946, like, healthcare, even. It's insane. I think the only thing that keeps her going is her hatred of Monty.

Yeah, that could be it. And I love Homer. I love through the gritted teeth acting, I'm like, she doesn't call her son Mr. Burns. It does make sense. All she can do is dial and yell. And that Homer tries his best of like Montel. Not only is it the falsetto voice,

he's got to get into like a sassy pose too. Like move his hips back and forth. This is how a woman moves and talks. We don't love you anymore. Oh God, it's so. You are a bad son. But also that Burns, so when Burns gets mad mad he still isn't

gonna fire homer he just immediately is like oh you put him up to this you're extra fired smithers i mean homer changed burns life i feel like he's got like the advantage there that's true and then then homer makes another pronouncement of like you're really screwed up this time and then smithers just snaps like the second time someone has snapped into violence in this episode this fight is great too by the way it's beautifully animated it it's it's full of comedy but also just like there's a joke to homer's fat catching a punch yeah there's not really a joke to punching the ground instead of someone's face and your hand is like ow this hurts i think there's an implied joke to smith, a gay man saying you fight like a girl.

There is a joke to that. Yeah, it's for you. Yeah, it's for you. And how long it takes her. Homer doesn't get what he's doing with the safe door. And then the animation of Homer just going like, he's almost unconscious. And there are very impotent ways Burns is trying to stop the fight, like popping a paper bag behind them.

Yeah, the water. And also the very like, the kind of bullying way Homer just shoves at Smithers face. It's very realistic. Just like smashing his face with his palm. On the commentary, Groening says that he felt the sounds were too harsh in their first edit.

And it, he said that it taught them a lot about sound mixing and choices on sound for futurama the futurama is like famous for like ow sound effects i'm like geez i can hear i can hear hermy's spine crunch as he falls down i just edited uh my three sons with the giant beaning at the end oh yes it hurts it hurts to hear but so burns tries his best to stop it but the uh the whole the whole fight really escalates i'll teach you how to use a phone you'll blow it's for you i'll kill you oh my the first time we've seen that bear put to any use in his office that big useless bear it actually served a purpose the bear has been there since the first time we saw the inside

of burns's office in homer's odyssey when the office was way different yeah so even when they redesigned the office they kept the giant bear and so it was great that they finally found a plot purpose for the bear that feels like another of the simpsons nerds are running the show type thing where they finally realized like we should do something with that bear like burns could fall out of that window anyway like they don't he doesn't need to be on his giant polar bear to do it. I just love that extra bit to it. And him having a giant stuffed polar bear in his office is just one of those classic oldie time rich guy things, like an Uncle Scrooge type thing. thing yeah i guess they still i mean old rich men uh go kill beautiful animals oh yeah they still love that to show how cool they were like see i killed this elephant or i killed this giraffe

like uh this this man this man pointed at the elephant and i shot it yeah i liked the season was great for that in like basically turning all these props that you just had stopped seeing into these like chekhov's guns yeah that they That they just were like, this is important. It matters now. Like, and I was like, oh, I didn't even think that thing was a thing you animated. I just thought it was a background. You know, that is a great Chekhov's gun of just like, it's been, it's been a Chekhov's gun for six, seven years at this point to then finally be used by the show.

And I'm sure it shows up again, right? Despite falling out of the window. And this is not the last time Burns will fall from that height either you're right the next time he falls from it he is lit on fire and by by his uh well not his special k the giant b the fireworks yes the fireworks and it's worth pointing out that this is very intentionally the same ending as the film clockwork orange and a little bit i mean the book too but then the book has a extra final chapter thematically it works too so in at least the film clockwork orange the lead character played by malcolm mcdowell he has been changed he is a different person than he was before just like

burns he is then he then well in his case he throws himself out of a window alex does and the injury causes him great harm but he does not die and when he wakes back up and is being fed he has then reverted to his old ways just as burns has as well i didn't catch that so it's it's it's not just like visually similar the fall out of a window smash cut to him in a hospital bed being fed it's also the same thing happens to each of them plot wise too this is the first time i recognize the plot similarities as well oh cool i didn't even realize that yeah but so here we here we have the ending here comes the endangered condor into the power lines i've got bobo hot from the dryer careful not to burn yourself on his eye I don't need you to do any of this

I'm totally self-reliant now what I would like though is a Spanish peanut skin it's a remarkable thing in the short time you were gone I learned to be completely self-reliant and oh and as for that brutish fellow

who knocked me out the window, see that he gets what's coming to him. I already have, sir. What'd you get that for? For knocking Mr. Burns out of a third-story window. Makes sense to me. Did he die? What am I, a doctor?

Oh, that's such a great ending. Who cares? That's so beautiful. It's a fun shrugging of shoulders, not like an audience-hating shrugging of shoulders. Like, yes, this doesn't make any sense. Homer should be in prison, or there should be some sort of trial happening. After punching him in the face, now he has also almost killed Mr. Burns. Homer's disregard for the lives and well-being of everyone around him is

weirdly one of his more endearing traits. Yeah. I do love his what am I, a doctor? Like, that's such a great reply. Well, he was given food. That's all he cares about. Yeah. I love the choice of a Spanish peanut as the item Burns needs help with because you just have to, like, rub it with your fingers for that skin to fall off. Not even, like, just

very gently. You can brush by it and the skin would fall off. Spanish peanuts are not my favorites would fall off literally the only thing that makes a spanish peanut yeah it that is easier than unshelling a regular peanut i haven't had those in a while but i just eat the skin i guess you're supposed to yeah the skin's kind of the appeal that's what makes it a spanish peanut is it flavor or something or according to the internet they've also been called quote red skins that used to be the names of Spanish Peanuts as well. I remember seeing that, like, planters

tins with that back in the day and I don't think they call it that anymore. I won't go anymore into this, but plenty of nuts have racist nicknames. Oh, yes. And I will say nothing else. Also, another great nerdy callback, Bobo the Bear, back, like like he's still got him and uh

calling out the one eye it's beautiful i it touched me as a dork watching the show like they remembered bobo so a bear hurts him but also a bear makes him feel better yeah it's it's poetry it rhymes and it's such a great it is a great sweet Simpsony ending of like, oh, but then immediately undercut by Homer. Like, I don't know. He might be dead. Like maybe I did kill him. Callously shoving away Lisa's honest question. Yeah.

And then boom, right to the ending. It's, this was a, to me, this was a really good episode. I think it also, to me though, for season seven, it feels average. Like it's. I agree. It's like them at their average output of Season 7. It's not one of my favorite Season 7 ones, but I think its quality of an average one like this

shows you how they were firing on all cylinders this season. I think it feels like it's missing a B-plot. Not when you're watching it, but kind of like on retrospect, you're just like, oh, that was like, we were just sticking around for this whole thing. There was never a moment where it was like what's marge doing um and i remember like at the time starting to kind of like notice that and having it be weird that it was like homer was like one of my least favorite characters as a kid oh i liked the kids

and i liked all the side characters and stuff because they were interesting and so like having an episode that was like ah it's a homer episode the whole time and not getting to to check in with everyone else felt weird it's tight it's like i think because of that the writing in it is is really strong because they do stick with one plot line the whole way through yeah like i said before i love it and i agree with henry also it's very average for season seven but i think it's just that's just because it's all about gags but i love mr burns and this episode would kind of change him forever in a way but i i do like this different side of him we see the more helpless side of him which is it shows up a lot in episodes but this episode really focuses on that side which is interesting and it's also fun to see homer and smithers role and smithers get to have some fun

and be free you know for once live outside of the world of Burns. Yes. So, yeah, that was a great episode. But let's move on to other stuff. Jack, you're our special guest. Where can we find you online? And by the way, I was being coy. I know the website Jack works at. In case you people think I would just like, I've never heard of that crappy website. No, I know.

I know. We used to work together. I think we didn't even say that. We all used to work together. We used to work together. And then before that, we used to work near each other that's true but we were bitter enemies actually i barely talked to you or those sides didn't cross it was a civil war at that office it was and then they just were like never mind it doesn't matter that never happened it never happened um you can find me

on twitter uh at jack drat d-r-a-t d-T Drat Drat Everyone pronounces it differently I don't know why I still have that name I thought it was Jack D-Rat Like middle initials D Yeah I mean my last initials D So maybe that was just like a bad choice of things I don't It's one of those things that doesn't mean anything

And I wish it did Because everyone asks what it means And it's like nothing It means nothing And then fandom.com is where you'll see my face on videos talking about today it was about jason momoa in the new aquaman movie it looks not terrible that's what i've heard that's that's the news you do streams and stuff too right i do i i stream things on my um on my twitch accounts and my youtube jack cat tv is the twitch channel if

you head there it's not that active i'll be honest so but if you're like hey i want to see someone dick around and god of war you can see that i'll probably be drunk and i'll have things to say but they won't be interesting things to say because i'm not actually interesting when i'm drunk i'm just loud and a little bit too gay. That'll get you far in the streaming world, I think, right? Yeah, kind of. I'm not quite racist enough. I just got to be a little bit. I got to be like, I don't know why we can't all just be friends, but I don't want to put

any of the work into actually recognizing the problems facing other people. Fair enough. Let's talk about our Patreon now. So this entire network of shows is supported by Patreon If you go to patreon.com TalkingSimpsons And give it the $5 level it will make you a much better person People will respect you more

You will be more sexually attractive These are all facts But also you'll get lots of content Including so you'll get TalkingSimpsons a week ahead of time And ad free And you'll also get our other podcast What a Cartoon A week ahead of time and ad free And if you don't know get our other podcast, What a Cartoon, a week ahead of time and ad-free. And if you don't know what that is, please subscribe to it. It's

us talking about other cartoons with the same format. And there's so much more on that Patreon at the $5 level. We have all of Talking Futurama. We're currently going through it now. We might be done with all of Season 1 by the time this podcast goes live. We also have all of Talking Critic, all 23 episodes

of that. We went through all of The Critic. Interviews with Simpsons writers. We also have all of talking critic all 23 episodes of that we went through all the critic uh interviews with simpsons writers we also have things like community podcasts every month we respond to your questions and comments we also talk about what's been going on in the world of the simpsons henry like commenting on apu yeah and thoughts on that though we had just missed new events in apu right after the episode was posted. I mean, you know, look, that's true. What you get for trying to be topical. Hank Azaria did the right thing. Good on you, Hank.

At the $10 level, you can get access to our premium videos each month where Bob and I go through a different Simpsony thing in video form, such as our exploration of every one of the Simpsons shorts so now we are truly complete in the simpsons we didn't just start with season one which is exclusive to the patreon too

by the way we go all the way back to 1987 and the tracy ullman shorts and which we go into in depth in our most recent interview with david silverman So exciting. He is one of the founding fathers of Simpsons, I would say. Like, he's right up there with Matt Groening, for sure. Jeez, tons more things. There are season wrap-ups. Yeah, what a cartoon every... You know it. Yeah, there's so much we can barely describe it.

That should tell you it's a value. $5 a month. For sure. And as for me, personally, you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I tell a lot of jokes, and I'm cranky on twitter uh so look for me there and my other podcast is retronauts every monday go to retronauts.com or just look for retronauts in any podcast device or machine or app it's a classic gaming podcast we've been doing it for almost almost 12 years jesus christ and uh i say find a topic that interests you and if you find that episode uh we've probably done

it and you might enjoy it so give us a try uh retronauts interests you and if you find that episode, we've probably done it and you might enjoy it. So give us a try Retronauts. Thank you, Henry. You are currently defending yourself from Sonic fans. I'm brutally assaulting them for an entire month. I think I just might do it for the rest of my life now. It's been a lot of fun. I'm H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter and if you follow

me there, you'll also see my salty thoughts but also updates on these podcasts when they go out so you'll find out all about them uh so check it out there h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g thanks thank you so much for joining us this week we'll see you next week for the day the violence died see you then Wow. Infotainment.