Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer vs. Patty and Selma With Stephen Sajdak

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

"Oh, okay, Marge. I'll get along with them. Then, I will hug some snakes. Yes, I will hug and kiss some poisonous snakes! ...Now THAT'S sarcasm." - Homer Simpson Homer's failed investment in pumpkin futures causes him to rely on his surprisingly generous sisters-in-law for a financial bailout—but he soon finds out there's some very humiliating strings attached. Meanwhile, Bart discovers his hidden ballet powers and the painful consequences of standing up for what he believes in. Our guest: Stephen Sajdak from We Hate Movies Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon movie podcast, and tons more. Event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons where you can either be a fairy or a queen. I'm one of your host, the gracefully yet masculine Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today as always. Henry Gilbert, as delightful as a Montreal morn.

And who was our special guest on the line? Stephen Sadek always wearing tiths like Batman, for example, or Magellan. And this week's episode is Homer versus Patty and Selma. What's that supposed to mean? It means these two fabulous babes are staying for dinner. Now there's a stink I could have done without. This episode originally aired on February 26, 1995, and hours. as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history.

Christopher Lambert film The Hunted debuts at 5th at the box office. In what would be his final television appearance, George Burns, is presented with the very first SAG Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild. And Pamela Anderson marries Motley crew drummer Tommy Lee in Cancun. And in a way, we all went to the honeymoon. Yes, we all sort of cleared a little too long. Obviously, The Hunted is near and dear to my heart, a Christopher Lambert film we covered on The We Hate in Movies podcast, which that's a really fun movie, just as a casual, like, I want to watch some dog shit after hours. The Hunted is you could do a lot worse than The Hunted. When it came up, I had not seen it before in the box office for this week because it was number five and all the rest at number one through four was stuff we'd talked about before.

So I was like, well, we can't just repeat the Brady bunch thing. And then I realized like, wait a minute, have they cover this The Hunted Plus We Hate Movies podcast? Yes, they did. They covered it in February of this year. Yes. I'm really only familiar with Christopher Lambert's role as Riden and I think I need to branch out. But I believe like he is dining out on that now. He is going to cons, correct?

He has to be. Yeah. It's sort of like, I'm surprised I didn't find a way to, I mean, I guess those movies are more serious in quotation marks. Like to do something with him in one of those newer Mortal Kombat movies, like a winky cameo. I still haven't seen the second one, so there might be a winky cameo, but I doubt that there is. They wink hard in the second one a bit, but not in Lambert's direction. It's really the Carl Urban's character of Johnny Cage is there to, I thought the film was pretty all right, but his character is there to go like, oh, your cosplay, you see the actual, like, the character

raiden in it and says, oh, you're dressed to look, your cosplay as somebody from Big Trouble and Little China, cute, and lines like that. I see. You know what? I pose the question, is Christopher Lambert dining out on this role? And the answer is yes. I went to his website or a website that includes his con schedule. He is at a new convention every 10 days.

That's the way to live, my friends. That is the way to live. Man, what his writer must be at those places. The hunted, I only watched the trailer for it, which there's a great, like, seemingly like a 4K scan from the actual, like, old trailer master of it. But the trailer did look pretty rockin that it's about Christopher Bear is a white guy who pisses off a clan of ninjas in modern day Japan and he witnesses a murder and then the ninjas are hunting him down and he needs to train to fight off the ninjas who are

trying to kill him. Is that right? Yes. And it's also a movie where the movie would be better, like, not even without him, but like if you just removed his storyline from it, it's because like this ancient clans of ninjas that are fighting each other and like he's just the white guy caught in the middle kind of haplessly. And like kind of doesn't. It's, like, kind of doesn't affect the plot too much because I forget who the actor is like a really awesome Japanese actor that like kicks ass in that movie that actually steals the show as the real hero of the movie. And Joan Chan from Twin Peaks is in there too. She sure is. And it was filmed in both Naglia, Japan and Vancouver, British Columbia. Very nice.

Where else would you film the show about ninjas or a movie about ninjas? That's where they filmed Shogun. Really? And they're currently filming season two here. Yeah, George Burns, who would still live for another few months. He appears here. He's not yet 100. He's 99. But yeah, he can't go to the stage. He is very old.

He stands up for his award. And then he says, and now I'm going to do something that is very hard for me. Sit down. He still got it. Even in his final TV appearance, he still got it.

I always wonder, like, I definitely do not want to live to be 100 years old. But once you hit that 90-something, you got to be like, well, I should just push on to get the triple digit, You know? Yeah, yeah. Today's guest in our episode recovering is a hundred-year-old man now.

Yes. We're also pissed when Betty White cashed out before 100. And I think it was all a big prank on us. That's got to be so disappointing for her. You know what I mean? As you're shuffling off the mortal coil, can you give me like a week, dude? Like one more week and I'll hit that number. I think hosting SNL shaved three months off her life.

I think it's all weird to blame for voting her in. And they had already printed the covers of like People magazine that said, Benny White at 100. That jinxed it. Not to jinx other things, but yes, Dick Van Dyke, he made it 100 and still with us at the time of this recording. And the time of this recording. Yes. It's September 7th, please.

Yes. We were nowhere near his body. And yes, Pamela Anderson, like on the beaches of Cancun while she was filming Baywatch, she met Tommy Lee, who was the drummer for Motley Crew, and they had a whirlwind romance. We're married, I think, within four days of meeting each other. And yes, had a honeymoon over the summer. and then in September, as has been shown in an entire docudrama miniseries about it, a angry employee of theirs stole a safe from them that included a personal use-only filming of their honeymoon excursions.

And everybody jacked off to it, and that was rude. Yes. You shouldn't have done it. I never saw it. No, no. I will say Vancouver's own. We can claim her, Pamela Anderson. Oh, wow. And I like her recent Renaissance because I didn't really like the last showgirl, but she is amazing.

naked gun. And she really sold me on her comedy chops in that scene where her character has to attempt to scat for the first time. Yes. It is very, very funny. She was a real surprise in that movie, the most pleasant of ways, like just really letting her go apisht comedy-wise. I hope they get a sequel. Yeah, Liam Neeson, even, I mean, Leslie Nielsen was old. I think Liam Neeson is 10 years older than Leslie Nielsen was when he retired from that role. So there's not a lot of time left for the second Drebben. And Pam Anderson, too, a long. longtime friend of Sam Simons, I believe, right up to his passing in 2013. Both big in the animal rights world.

But that's all the fun stuff that was happening in the week that this classic episode of The Simpsons first aired. And joining us once again is Steven Sadak from We Hate Movies. And Stephen last joined us for Season 15's My Big Fat Geek Wedding. And I just wanted to point out because I was curious, how many times has Steve been on our show? This is Stephen's 10th appearance. So, Stephen, your jacket's in the mail. You will get the Henry Patch. The Bob Patch will arrive when you do your 20th show.

Just hang in there. I'm really excited. No, I didn't know his 10. That's amazing. And you guys have been on our show a couple times now. Probably four to five, I want to say. At least, I would say probably close to four. We did The Simpsons movie with you guys many moons ago.

And now we've been going through the Despicable Miaverse for some reason every year. It's been super fun to have you guys on. Yeah, we do a little movie show called We Hate Movies, and we're out every Tuesday, and we have a fun Patreon. Check us out if you'd like. And, Steve, you recently survived STLV. I did. Speaking of cons, it was my first real, I go to NYCC, New York Comic Con, just about every couple of years.

And I use it as a big old shopping mall. I'm not much on the personal appearance stuff. And we booked three shows at STLV, the world's largest Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. It was 115 degrees the entire time. Pure misery, but it was kind of just cool to walk around and see all, like, speaking of handlers, like any celebrity that you would see in the wild, which was quite a few, were usually buffeted by two people being like, don't look at him, don't look at him, don't look at him, you didn't pay for it, don't look at him, don't look at him. When I worked at one time, I did get to

see at the Star Trek Convention in 2016, I got to see the back tunnels in that convention center for like, this is where they cart around the celebrities so they are not seen by the general public, yes. Yeah, there was a lot of just like people just walking around in hallways, saw Robert Picardo, which was great, he was dressed, I've said multiple times at this point, like an angel for some reason, like all white with a white little hat on. He's become like a Tom Wolfe figure in his old age, I think. Gates of McFadden looking hot as all get out in whatever age she is. God bless her.

I was surprised, like, Franks was just walking. Like, just walking, totally confident. Knowing no one should come up to him. And that was the right move because nobody did. Well, Henry, you're going to be in Vegas in a month, and I'm pleased to report it will be a mild 104. Oh, wonderful. Do not pack a hoodie.

I also was curious if you guys were able to not get COVID from people. being there because I've heard that from like every friend or person I know who goes to Vegas. They mostly end up with COVID. I've had it enough and no, thankfully, no COVID. I wasn't even masking as a bad person, but yeah, I did not get COVID, luckily. I believe most of you got COVID from attending the David way. Sorry, which talk show did you guys all go on? Was it even Colbert? Colbert, yes. Everybody, but actually, I think everybody but me yet again. I mean, I've had it three times got it from a Colbert tape being a friend of ours booked for us, which was fun.

Me and Bob were marveling at footage from that Star Trek convention of like including Gates McFadden dancing the Ferengi Marengue in one video. It was amazing. Yeah, and she is like in her mid-70s and dancing amazingly. Like she has kept it together. Are you guys, because I didn't do this, I'm too sheepish to do it. Are you like, can I get a picture of your cool cosplay kind of people? And I think there's nothing wrong with it. It's a very cool thing to do because people dress up and they want you to do it. But I've never approached anybody even like the more fun. fun cosplays that I saw in SDLV. Yeah, I normally don't because I feel like you have to be a certain type of person. I don't think I'm a threatening person, but if you're just a tall man and you're like, let me get a picture of you. Can I get a picture? They start running and they don't really know what you're going to do with that picture afterwards. So I feel like maybe if you're a small, adorable woman, you can ask whoever you want for their picture.

I had to professionally do it, including at that Star Trek convention of like the obviously, and rule out there, folks, like, just you need to ask. Do not take a photo of somebody at its, a cosplayer in public, even if they're in public, like, just to ask. And everybody who we asked to was very nice and receptive, and nobody was like, no, I don't want that. Like, they appreciate being asked, but it was a discomfort I had to get over. And now it is more just like, and I've also come to know enough cosplayers, too, that I just am like, you're too much like my cousin. I don't want to bother you.

You need to get to wherever you're going in your very fancy Professor Layton outfit, for instance. My cousin does great Professor Layton cosplay. They are very good at that. The episode, though, is an interesting one in that it is, it feels like it's written like a classic regular sitcom, except it's done at the highest quality level of a Simpsons episode. Like, it's not a big idea. And it is written by a new writer, Mr. Brent Forrester.

Let's go over his history right here. So now it's time to talk about Brent Forrester. And no, he is not in the Forestry Department. of our government. He is a comic television writer, and I want to talk about his biography. So, Brett Forrester, he was hired at the beginning of the Merkenera, would leave the show at the end of Oakley and Weinstein's tenure. And alongside this one, the other full episodes he has written are Lemon of Troy and Homer Paloosa, and I believe he was responsible for the Krusty Burger segment of 22 short films about Springfield. Yeah, yeah, he is an underrated writer among

the classic guys. He stretches over the two, you know, Merkians. had a lot of new guys that he hired and not all of them made it to season seven, but Brent Forrester is one of those who did, and he did swimmingly at the sentence. Yes, he fought his way through the Merkin trenches when many of our other soldiers had fallen. Yes, yeah.

Dan McGrath, as he falls, Brent Forrester keeps trudging forward. So I want to point out, as of this recording, Brent Forrester has launched a new YouTube channel called Professor BFO, which includes info about how he wrote episodes like Lemon of Troy and Homer Paloza. There are

entire videos dedicated to the writing of those episodes. There is not one about this episode yet. That could be on the horizon because he's only written three full episodes. So that could potentially be a future Brent Forrester video. But he is stealing our bits. Yes, I think he will follow where the YouTube numbers lead him. And if you go to his page, at least as of this recording, definitely the Simpsons videos so far have gotten him the most views.

Like, that's also why he has a video right now, I think, of what was it like to work with Conan O'Brien on the Simpsons staff too. Right, right. A great resource. So I wish all writers did this that worked on the Simpsons, but he is leading the charge here. But Brent Forrester, stay away from podcasts. We're just saying it. Come on our podcast. Yeah, that's all the podcasts you need. Like, just we'll ask you all the questions about this and other parts of your career, too,

that aren't The Simpsons, but we're definitely interested in. And will we kiss your ass? Absolutely. You'll get a great self-esteem boost. So let's get to his bio. Number one, he did not graduate from Harvard. How did he make it? Well, David Merkin was in charge. He wasn't only hiring Harvard people.

So there's your answer. Yep. He finally didn't have to be an alumnus of the Harvard Lampoon to get on the team. There were other people who weren't to. Some of them were just like the children of famous people like Jake Oaken. Yes. In this case, he went to some two-bit institution called Columbia University. I've never heard of it.

Probably some states college. But its comedy bona fides are still pretty strong, even without the lampoon, right? Yes. Very impressive careers. So he graduates from Columbia. He moves to L.A. to get into the illustrious world of television writing. And while in L.A., it seems that Forrester falls in with the burgeoning alt comedy scene. I really want to know more about him.

I hope more videos are about this period of his life because he ends up being a writer on the very short-lived sketch comedy series, The Ben Stiller Show. His work on this show earns him an Emmy. And if you want to know what the show is, of course, stars Ben Stiller. But it was really about taking the old comedy scene in L.A. And making it presentable for a network television sketch program, mostly through the art of But you can see there are little Mr. Show sketches sprinkled throughout the Ben Stiller Show that will let you know what the future of 90s alt sketch comedy will be, including PGO Putertut. It's probably the most notable sketch from that. I believe that that's probably on YouTube right now, or it's very visible. But it's like proto-Mr. Show. We went super in depth into that on the Mr. Show episode of What a Cartoon Live Action Month that Bob produced about how it was this on-ramp to it. But it was Ben Stiller's show was.

such a great proving ground for people like it being a critically loved and award-winning show that then was canceled too soon that it gave tons of opportunities to people not just Ben Stiller, Gene Garthello and Andy Dick, who were on in the cast on screen, but also the writers that extends to Brent Forrester as well. Yeah, I believe it was Judd Apatow's first big break too. Yes. He did that before the critic. They hired him like yeah. So once the Ben Stiller show is over, then everybody's hiring everybody they can off of it. And like Apatow ended up at the critic, for instance. So I did want to point this out before we continue. Because of his connection to the Mr. Show and Ben Stiller show crew, a few very notable Mr. Show sketches are at least co-written by

Brent Forrester, who at the time, it seems like his writing partner was Dino Stamatopoulos. There have to be so many crazy stories that come out of that because Dino Stamatopoulos, he's a nut, folks. And he knows it. Yes. He seems to be doing okay now, I think. But yeah, you know Stamatopoulos. You know Stamatopoulos? Unless you may know him as Starburns on community, but in the more while the days of podcasting, he put out a lot of stories that were like crazy sex stories that were funny on his part to hear. Usually about him getting humiliated. But based on my research, and it's always very hard to find out who wrote what sketches. I wish this is better documented across all of sketch comedy.

But it seems pretty clear that he co-wrote the sketches pre-tape call-in show and audition for Mr. Show. We all understand what pre-tape call-in show is. Audition is the sketch in which. It seems like David Cross is auditioning for something, but the piece he's using makes it seem like he's talking to the man he's auditioning for, but he's not. And it all starts with, can I use this chair? I believe that's the first line. Yes.

No! Yes. These are all worth checking out, folks. Check out our Mr. Show episode on What a Cartoon, if you have not heard that yet. A great history of Mr. Show and a highlight of one of the best episodes. So somehow during his Simpsons tenure, he ends up also being the writer of the Tom Arnold starring John Landis directed movie The Stupid's from 1996, based on the famous book series. A colossal bomb.

I'm not even sure if it made it to the theaters, but people hated Tom Arnold so much at that time. I believe that is the key to why this movie wasn't even like a meager success. It was just on a list of like box office bombs or things that nobody saw that, yes, Tom Arnold had become box office poisoned by that point and just known for the tabloids and failures. of his career. And it was really, people were sick of Roseanne appearing in things and, or some people were. And then they attacked Tom Arnold as like, well, you're even more talentless than her. Was usually what people felt. Yeah, the story of Tom Arnold is, yeah, he's a talented guy. I think he's proven himself by now. But people thought, oh, now we have to see Roseanne's husband and everything. And he's so untalented. He got his own show. He's a Nepo husband,

is what the thought was. But then he proved himself. He is in true lies. And the director of that film James Cameron had to fight to get Tom Arnold in the movie because he was considered to be poison. It bugged me too as a kid who had read those stupid books as a kid. Then when that movie was coming out, it was used as like an attack on him because it's like, oh, of course he's in a movie called The Stupid's probably because he's so dumb. It's like, no, you don't, you don't even know the books.

It's adapting. The marketing definitely identified people's hatred of Tom Arnold because I saw one of the posters when I googled this. The poster says, Tom Arnold is stupid. and there's a picture of his face. So I imagine most filmgoers shook their heads, yes, and then walked and saw Independence Day or something like that. Yes, yeah.

I wonder how many drafts of that Brent Forrester was responsible for. Yes, I want to know what is Brent Forrester's stupid story because I believe it is the only feature film he's credited on. He could have been the last writer who touched it and maybe the only credited writer. We don't know what this went through. Maybe there will be a video about this on his YouTube channel. So Brent Forrester ends up on King of the Hill for its second season.

And I believe in our interview with John, Vidi, he credits Brent Forrester for being a real great room runner guy when Greg Daniels was busy doing more than show running, just being the beating heart of King of the Hill with Mike Judge. That's right. Yeah, you're right. Viti brought him up one of the good eggs in the room who was good at taking over for when Greg Daniels was busy with something else. Yes, yeah.

And at the time, he was co-executive producer. He would also write the episode Peggy's Turtle song. So I believe if you go back five or six years in the Talking of the Hill archives, you will find our little bio on him, which is probably the same. as this one. So yes, he's on King of the Hill for season two as a co-exec. He comes back for season eight as a consulting producer, season seven and eight of King of the Hill, we'll get to them eventually. Those are a real back to basics, kind of resetting seasons when five and six get very crazy. They bring back Greg Daniels, Mike Judges More Hands-on, they get rid of some folks.

So those are interesting seasons for that quality alone. And that is his time on King of the Hill. So this connection with Greg Daniels serves Forrester well because he ends up being a big wheel down at the office. And by the office, I mean the office, the TV show. An American workplace. Yes. Yes. And also Space Force. So this is a big part of both of these shows. And he is also a consulting producer on

the show upload, a show that I am convinced only I have seen all of. If you were one of the few upload completionists, let me know because it was an okay show to watch at the gym while you're doing other stuff. Oh, hey, so that means that Brin Forster worked with Mike Lawrence, who we've had on the podcast too, then, didn't he?

It's possible. Yeah. It's possible. I believe only season one of upload He was consulting producer But he was part of it He is obviously a guy That Greg Daniels trust Going back to his time Being in the room with Greg

On The Simpsons Oh yeah And I mean Brent Forcer was seen as such a funny guy Like Bob did the research on this one I'm just hazily remembering this But wasn't he the one That Merkin had to fight

To get him To make sure he wasn't hired by Conan For Conan's Tonight Show as well It might have been him That does sound likely Yeah I think that came up And he brought it up to, it was in the unauthorized oral history Simpson's book, but also in, I think in Brent Forrester, one of his new videos, he mentions that, yes, Conan tried to hire him, but then Merkin really wanted him to, and partially out of like Brent, it was Brent Forrester, I believe, who then, while he didn't take on the job at Conan, he did already sell the idea of doing the, in the year 2000 sketch and the mouth on the celebrity sketch.

Okay, that was him. Yeah, because Conan would have been hired at the same time as Brent Forrester, and they would have been working in the same room while Conan is getting that job. So Conan might think, I work really well with Brent. He's so funny. Let me get him on my show. Oh, yeah, maybe Conan knew that Brent wasn't fully locked down to like a long-term deal at Simpsons. Maybe he just had a one-season deal.

And that's when Merkin is like saying like, no, no, no, Brent, we want you full-time here. And what's going to be around longer? The Simpsons are Conan O'Brien's show. And actually, he ended up being right anyway. Because Conan's show only lasted like 20 years. Oh, I think it was only 30. Right. Oh, yes. Only 30. Yeah. I think it was like 27 or 20.

If you count the TBS show as part of the run in The Tonight Show as part of the run. I think he was consistently on the air for like 27 years, 28 years. Nothing compared to The Simpsons. Still there today. Pathetic, Conan. 28 years. Now we can be knives out against Conan because Brent Forrester, he stayed out of our business. Conan is all up in our business. I mean, just today he released a Matt Graney interview.

He's really coming for us. Now, how do you get Mac Graney on his show? No one can explain it. The description of the video says, I'm here with my former boss, Mac Greening. Yes, yeah. But yeah, Brent Forster, he's had quite a career, a lot of, you know, that it's interesting that he never seemingly wanted to like,

or sold his own pilot or got too far with it, but in producing his own show, but you can be a highly paid and well-regarded just writer working under these major Greg Daniels projects. And Greg Daniels, compared to a lot of people in the tough industry right now, he can still sell shows and get them made. I can see why you'd stick around with him. Also, his output has stayed pretty consistent to Greg Daniels over the last three decades as well.

I'm thinking because he was an in demand comedy writer in the 90s, he probably wrote a lot of pilots that we never saw. Like Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein did that as well, and I'd love to know what those were about, or at least were part of shows that only got pilots and never went to full series. So he seemed like to kind of disappear between King of the Hill and the Office. So he had to be doing something in that realm. I also really like Factor of his YouTube channel is explaining.

I watch his Levin of Troy one, which I'm sure we'll talk about when we get to Levin of Troy soon enough. But in a lot of his videos, he loves to talk about the mechanics of story. He calls himself the professor on those because I think he is actually interested in the craft of storytelling in a professorial way of explaining like, this is your inciting incident, this is what complicates things, this is what makes an act break. I really like that he has that kind of analytical vision of talking about his comedy team. In more Forster credits, he was also, I guess most recently before Space Force. He was a writer and director, I believe, like, EP on the Netflix show Love, which that was a time in which a lot of people I know had watched this because it was still like interesting when there were original streaming series. That has changed in the past 10 years.

Yes, I watched the whole first season of love and then I fell off on the second season of love. I have to admit, but it was I liked it as a show. It's a Paul Rush show and you'll see a lot of podcast pals in there. You'll see Mike Mitchell in there having sex on the show. he has a sex scene in the show. Maybe he was directed by Brent Forrester, who knows? Maybe. Maybe he told him, like, here's how to cup your balls the funniest way, Mike Mitchell, in the scene. And yes, credits-wise, he seems to have been pretty quiet since Space Force, but he did a lot of writing on very, very popular show, so I'm sure he's doing okay.

And now he is a YouTuber. And I hope he is prolific in that realm because his videos so far have been very good. And I hope he writes one about this episode. But shame on Brent for not doing it before we recorded this podcast. Very unhelpful, Brent. Yes. You better have one ready by the time we get to your crusty burger scene from 22 short films. God, I hope so.

But yes, that is the story of Brent Forrester. Yes, it really feels like this episode is similar to Secrets of a Successful Marriage from the last season because it uses a lot of old sitcom plots. It's very domestic. And we really have a mix of three old sitcom plots. You Have to Be My Slave Plot is a big one for sitcoms. There's also the Secret Talent plot, which The Simpsons has used a lot. And there's also Blankets, a John.

plot, which is the Simpsons domain at this point. But it's mixing like three very basic succumb ideas, but doing it in a very Simpson-style way. Yeah, and I was just sort of surprised. I mean, like, when you asked me to do this episode, it's one that I come back to a lot, but it's also, I was surprised how many of those, like, oh, this is like one of my favorite Simpsons jokes. Oh, this is another one of my favorite Simpsons jokes that exist in this episode, you know,

and just from the beginning on down. Yeah, I think it's easy to underrate this episode because of all the amazing things around it like Bart's Comet and Lisa's wedding and the Stone Cutters episode. This feels very down to earth and maybe like a season two kind of way, although the jokes are elevated to be season six bangers. To hear Brent Forrester, who very helpfully started a YouTube channel recently called Professor BFO or Bifo. He has a lot of writing tips on it. And he did say in one of his videos, he doesn't have video for writing this episode yet, but he did have one for his writing of his next episode Lemon of Troy, in which he mentions that he came up with his pitch because he saw

that he's a brand new writer, he's trying to sell a pitch, and he saw so many episodes are about blank versus blank, two characters versus each other, and he felt that there had never been a real Homer versus Patty and Selma, like that is the main plot of the episode one. So that's what he pitched. And from the sound of it in that YouTube video, to me it sounded more like he even pitched it in like season five, and they only got around to assigning it to him in season six. And this is the second verses in a row because Bart Vars Australia was the last episode in this season, which is kind of interesting how that sometimes evens out. It is sort of interesting.

It's your classic, like, oh, Homer, not the world's greatest husband. But Patty and Selma are made to be pure evil here, like relishing Homer, and almost in a sexualizing way. Let's just say what it is. If you're asking your younger sister's husband to massage your feet to humiliate him, and then Bark, like a dog. Yeah. And then they're moaning kind of post-orgasmically and smoking cigarettes after stamping fail on his test later.

Spoilers, of course. But yeah, I feel like they did not really return to Patty and Selma in the David Merkin era. And when they do, they change the characters a bit so they really have no inner lives. Their entire goal is to mess with Homer. We see Patty is seemingly an introvert, seemingly asexual in this era. Selma is man hungry. She wants a baby.

She wants a life with a man. but here it's like, well, no, their golden life, their ultimate mission is to destroy Homer Simpson and free Mars from this situation. The You're My Slave Now's kind of storyline that from the so classic to sitcoms, like Merkin already played around with this kink style manner in the Get a Life TV series

because in that TV show, the Chris Elliott television show what Merkin is a co-creator of, there's an episode where Chris Elliott's character, Chris, ends up owing something to the evil wife of his best friend and she is bossing him around the entire time and she does kind of fall over them

and they even play like a song called like now it's time to play master and servant like this 80s hit song just to really nail home I think what Merkin is going for there I think we might be playing around with a barely disguised fetish of the writer here I think yes always I think he's admitted he likes women who are mean to him he has said that yes what's he said that yes what's he say

on the parts girlfriend commentary is something like I could never find a woman who's evil enough I think yes exactly It's very revealing. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense for Bart's girlfriend, which is a very psychologically-laden episode. But I also think you need a less, it's damning with faint praise of saying,

like, a less ambitious episode of The Simpsons. But when you have like a standard sitcomy episode that is still full of great jokes, like that earns you the right, if it's always Bart's comet every week, or it's, you know, then it doesn't feel as special if it's always a big gimmick. So you kind of need to enjoy the normal,

episodes too when they come around. And especially, I mean, yeah, I think that that's the thing is this episode is in baseball parlance, like it's shooting for a double, but it hits a triple kind of the thing. You know what I mean? It's like, we just want to get one, a nice and even, fun one and have these fun guest stars in there. I was surprised at this was, is this not a sweeps episode

to have Susan Sarandon and Mel Brooks in one episode? It's kind of heavy hitters, for sure. Are sweeps just November in May? Was it the only time they were happening around this time? Yeah. I think they were, I want to, I want to, I want to say there were some February sweeps as well, not just May and November, but I could be wrong. I could be wrong. You're right, this is two big stars in this episode that they no doubt promoted.

All right. Listeners, you'll hear the vintage ad in here. I haven't picked it out yet at the time of this recording. But you got to think they're saying with Mel Brooks and Susan Sarandon. From priority marketing, there were four distinct sweeps periods each year, February, May, July, and November. So maybe this was a sweeps episode. Well, there you go. This episode, after a Star Trek telemark.

Porter Couch Gag, perfectly fitting for having our Star Trek pal here. This is when Star Trek was very hot, like TNG had just ended, but the movies had begun, and the Deep Space Nine doing very well, and there's already talk of Voyager coming together in 95, I think. Somewhere, some moron is pitching Enterprise, you know, just to ruin everything. I can imagine, what if a Star Trek series had a really bad theme song that nobody likes? Let's take the fun out of it. I was surprised. I think it was like the 20th anniversary of Enterprise.

It was a 60th anniversary of Star Trek proper. That was like the big deal. And it was like maybe the 20th anniversary or 30th anniversary of Enterprise. And there was so much enterprise love. And I was like, really? Okay, I'll be wrong on this one. Prove me wrong. Actually, I guess Voyager started about a month before this episode aired.

It started January of 95. Holy cow. Wow. Man. We're meeting all of our friends like Janeway and Tuvok and the rest. That's all I can think of. I've seen a lot of, at least headlines of saying, like, No, Voyager is like everybody's falling in love with Voyager now as the new one to watch,

which even to me, yes, Voyager was like, I gave it the first season of chance and then I fell off. That was when I fell off. I was still doing Deep Space Nine. And I was lucky enough to have UPN in my area to watch it too. Yeah, Voyager was never my deal. Everyone, of course, was like, they're dressing her like, what, with seven of nine? And everybody came back to Voyager at a certain point. But it was a cool concept that I,

I do enjoy Janeway's insane Catherine Hepburning all around. It's very... Also, thanks to that Enterprise show. That's how I got at the Star Trek Convention. My biggest fan moment was meeting Emo Phillips, who at the time was married to an actress who was in a recurring role on Enterprise. Oh, that's cool. It's the ex-wife he jokes about hating now, apparently.

Either way, I got to bother Emo Phillips by telling him I remembered him from childhood. Which they, I mean, people love being told that you've known them since you. you were 10. Like from 40-year-old men, they love hearing that. I'm like, wow, when I was a child, I knew who you are. You're that old. You know what? I'm on the Emo Phillips Wikipedia page.

It claims he's still married to Kipley Brown. Really? Okay. Yeah. Married 2011. Well, okay. Well, good for them. Good for them.

He must have been talking about an old ex-wife. Sunday. It's shocking. It's unbelievable. It's the bar you thought you'd never see. I'm doing that way. And I love it. On a brand new Simpsons.

Tomorrow, beginning at 8, on Fox 5. When Homer goes broke, he'll do anything for cash. Hello, Vegas. Give me a hundred bucks on red. Don't! I'll send you a check. The Simpsons coming up next. Yes, this projection is accurate. Henry Gilbert here to say,

welcome to the break. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Steve and Sadek from the We Hate Movies podcast. It's always awesome to have Steve on. He's been on so many times, and this is just the most recent one. And we've had on all the We Hate Movies guys. They do awesome stuff. Check out not just what they do on the We Hate Movies free feed every week,

but also all of the many, many bonuses they do on their Patreon, plus all the live shows they do around the country. There's so many awesome things. Steve does on We Hate Movies, and you should definitely be checking it out. And as always, thank you very much, Steve, for coming on the podcast this week. And you may not know this, but Talking Simpsons is also brought to you by Patreon,

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And that's just the most recent one out of eight full years of what a cartoon movie that you get access to all of that as soon as you sign up for $10 a month. We've covered every Disney Renaissance film. We've covered dozens of other Disney movies, Pixar movies, Studio Jibble movies, other anime, other live action adaptations, so much we even did Who Framed Roger Rabbit for six and a half hours. And that's all yours, ad free bonuses you get access to for 10 bucks a month. Sign up today one more time at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. And if you

sign up for an annual subscription, you get 10% off. So check it all out for yourself. One last time, patreon.com slash Talking Simpson. So we then go into the episode proper with Homer in a celebratory mood. They're all smoking cigars. Now, Steve, you seem to be a man who enjoys a cigar now and then. I'm a cigar aficionado, I guess. Yeah, I'll always try and find a good one. I actually smoked one yesterday. I can't imagine, I mean, like, there's a lot of smoking in this episode. Obviously, because Patty and Selmer in this episode, and you start, it's very funny. This place is going to stink for a week, which again, let's open some windows, Mo.

If we're going to start cracking cigars and we don't have the right ventilation system. But I was curious about Patty and Selma, like, when do you think it was legally, not even legally, but like, beyond socially unacceptable to smoke in someone else's house, to come into someone else's house and light your own cigarette. No one else is smoking. I would say that's a post-9-11 thing, Steve, because growing up, every adult smoked. Yeah. Like a chimney. Every family member, every friend of a family member would come in and fill your house with smoke. There were ashtrays in every room. And I feel like, yeah, it wasn't until the early aught, at least in my neck of the woods, that.

there were laws written about you can't smoke in restaurants anymore, you can't smoke in bars anymore. I feel like that 21st century is really the crackdown on public smoking and worrying more about secondhand smoke. Yeah, neither of my parents smoked when we were growing up. I think they had smoked before we were born, and every one of their friends would just come in and just not even have a, you know, do the old coffee cup,

ashtray because we didn't have ashtrays, but like, yeah, I'm smoking in your house. Like, I'm coming into your house and it's going to smell like smoke no matter what. My dad gave up smoking around when I was born, or a little after I was born, but then I went straight to chew in tobacco, much more disgusting. Much more gross.

So, Steve, final question on this. Is it like smoking five cigarettes at once? It can be. You haven't eaten and you're just like, and maybe you might have a drink with it. And it'll get you like 10 times drunker than you should be because the cigar can go right to your head, especially if you're doing it too quick. And Homer is celebrating by passing them out to all his friends. Even the barflies get in on it.

Barfly one and two actually get to smoke. of these cigars. And you notice from the beginning that Barney's cigar does look different than everybody else's. That is key animation work there. That is them making sure they know the joke's coming. His cigar needs to look different for the joke that's coming. Also, great animation on Homer, seemingly lighting a one on fire that, like he doesn't care, and then quickly putting it out because he actually does still need it. Taking a lot of time to put it back in his wallet. How do you have money to burn, Homer, or money to singe, anyway? I think That's a car line.

Let's hear our first clip of the episode here as Homer explains why he's throwing around the dough. Hey, Homer, how come you got money to burn or sins anyway? Yeah, Homer, what's your secret investment? Take a guess. Pumpkins? Yeah, that's right, Barney. This year I invested in pumpkins. They've been going up the whole month of October.

And I got a feeling they're going to peak right around January. And bang, that's what I'll cash in. To Homer. and the sergeant pepper was growing out of the middle of your back. Uh, Bon, you gotta unwrap the plastic before you smoke these. Oh, hey to go, Homer. Homey a knuckle beak, I told you a hundred times. You gotta sell your pumpkin futures before Halloween, before.

All right, let's not panic. I'll make the money back by selling one of my livers. I can get by with one. Even up front, this seems like an odd scheme for Homer, but the reveal of the Happy Halloween Banner a little too late in the scene is great, because they're hiding it the entire time. The rotting pumpkins is such a great. Oh, that time cut on the pumpkin, yes.

This is an example of how animation makes a scene funnier. I wish I'd had had the original script in front of me for this to see if it was indicated in a scene direction. But if it wasn't, it was the animators who decided like, bang. And then it's like on the word bang, it's a fast zoom out to show that they have a happy Halloween banner up in Mose for some reason, just to show why pumpkins are going so up. And just that he says, I think they're going to peak right around January is such a great line too. And I really like Hank Azaria's work as two separate high-status business guys giving Homer the business with two very different voices, very funny cadences, all their own, both very living. Knucklebeak I've never heard before, but it's like this, it sounds like a real like Dean Martin-esque roast kind of thing to yell at somebody.

And this is similar to Krusty betting against the Harlem Globe Trotters. We're not too far from Homey the Clown, so they've got that in common. I love his emphasis on before, before. And also a great joke on the sign for it, it is that A1 discount broker,

meaning that Homer went to the very first broker he saw in the yellow pages. That's why it's A1, it's listed alphabetically to make sure it's number one. So yeah, Homer wasn't even spending money he had. It was he knew he had a windfall coming from his investment. So now it's all gone to crap and he's just out of money. He's lost their savings for maybe the second time in the series out of the 700 times that's happened since

that. Yeah. seemingly this was the mortgage money for that month or perhaps several months. Yeah. When your broker tells you to sell, I do not have a broker. If I had one, I would listen to him, especially if I was Homer. There's multiple times in this episode where Homer has to go to a person to do a thing that now we just all do on our phones all the time, starting with checking with a broker. I would assume these things only fleece people with investing in stock market just through an AI chatbot in an app that gets stocks for Q. Robin Hood told me to invest in pumpkins. Why would they steer me wrong? You're right, Homer. Pumpkins are a great thing to invest in in January. Go right ahead. And you might want to kill yourself. Probably kill yourself.

Here's how. One. Homer is so sad that when he gets home and sees smoke coming out of his house, he thinks it must be on fire. And on that subject to, like, my friends who were smokers up into the aughts, they would smoke all the time in their own homes when people were guests. Yeah. But by the 2010s, they would usually at least respect their roommates or guests enough to like, all right, I'll smoke outside in my own home if I have to. At least with several of the smokers I remember. It's a fair move. Just to take a smoking on the road is a bit of a real bold gamble, I think.

Though then the vaping came in and that was like vape everywhere. Oh, yes. Yes, yeah. That never stopped. So Homer comes in and he sees a Patty and Selmer over. And it has been a minute since we've seen them, especially as the like, oh, no, Paddy and Selmer here. So this is a very like season one kind of deal. Yeah, yeah.

I feel like Oakley and Weinstein would lean more into these characters. But I think Merkin just only use them as background jokes. Like if somebody in the crowd is going to comment on it. something, that's where they're usually appear. They're not getting stories. They're not really being featured too often. Yeah, Springfeld, the Seinfeld, suggestion, those kinds of things. And I do think it's

obviously, again, to your point, like taking that, like, you know, season 1-2 trope and putting into that season 6 diamond lens of now Homer doesn't just ask them to leave. He physically launches them out of the house in a, like footballs,

basically. Yes. This is when, sorry, I guess it's later when he pushes them not on the couch? No, the couch is first, then Marge is, oh, yes. Yeah. I like that Homer apparently made some deal for them not to be allowed to come over after six, but it's because he lied that he has not been eating her lipstick, which he has been doing, like I assume a dog or cat maybe does, like some pets eat lipstick, right? Again, it's your Homer being a huge liar. Yes, not only is he eating her lipstick, but he's also going to lie a lot in this episode. And Marge doesn't have much to do in this episode other than just like feel bad for everybody in it.

She either feels bad for his sisters or for Homer or being stuck in the middle of it. He doesn't have much agency, though. This also is an interesting episode where Kavner is kind of stuck or she has to do so much voice work she normally doesn't have to do, including for Patty and Selma, who are really indistinct from one another in this episode. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In Marge, I guess her role in this is to give Homer somebody to suffer for. I'm going through all this because of March

because I don't want to tell her and I'm trying to at some point be nice to Patty and Selma because it means something to her. Oh, and remind our listeners, that Patty and Selma, based on Sam Simon's real-life sister-in-laws, which means one of these, either Patty or Selma, is Meg Tilly.

They're based on Jennifer Tilly's sisters. Quite a departure in terms of just sort of general cadence and attractiveness to the Tilly sisters to go from them to Patty and Selma, I guess. Maybe they were hip with it, hip with the joke. I guess Sam Simon got a cold shoulder from one of the Tillies. Yeah, I mean, him and Jennifer Tilley is still happy even after they're divorced. Still friendly.

And I mean, what Jennifer Tilley ended up with after that divorce, I'd be very happy too. Yes, in fact, on a trip or like at a bar, they were showing some high stakes poker game and she was there spending Simpsons Bunny, no doubt. It's her right. God damn right. This bid here again, another great delivery of Homer saying, you know, it's time to take out the trash, which he'd means legitimately. He's actually pulling up his pants because he's excited to take out the trash. But first, he's going to ask them to leave. So he tosses him out, and there is a slightly different scene. I can see why they changed it. In the first deleted scene, it is mostly animated,

but Patty and Selma are thrown out together, and when they are thrown out together, originally, they kind of float on the air and land gracefully down uninjured, and they say this line. Nice form. I try to bring a little grace to everything I do. It was all right, but in execution, the animation, I think, didn't make it as funny as it could be as opposed to like Homer, throwing them out on the couch and then pulling the couch back in. And so after tossing them out, Marge is trying to apologize for Homer and they are not having it. I'm sorry. Homer doesn't mean to be rude.

He's just a very complicated man. Run! When are you going? going to wake up and smell your husband, Marge. Granted, you got some kids out of him. But when the seeds have been planted, you throw away the envelope. I wish you wouldn't put Homer down like that. He may not be a big success like you, but I can always count on him to provide for the family.

Sweet, trusting, Marge, I can't let you down. I'll get some money somehow. This is when he calls Vegas and puts $100 on red and immediately says he's going to send them a check, which I do wonder if he has to do that. legally. That's another thing where I was like, oh, you just do that on the phone instantly. Can't do that now with whatever app you do that with. What are they called? Oh, I mean, there's Cal She for one, that's for sure, where you can bet on like... Just a giant red button and a giant black button. Just drain your bank account.

Well, now with Calci he would bet on who will, like, will win an election or will someone die in a bombing or something? You can do that now, too, with Calci. I guess you can do one of those Harlem Globetrotter style bets on Cal She. I also love just the reveal of Homer just in the window. smashing the plate on his head is one of the best like timing gags in the whole show too. I love that bit. He actually makes, when he says wrong in this

smash, I was like, why are you doing that? You're insane, Homer. Insane. And upon hearing that clip, I think Marge is also in the story to remind you that there's someone in Homer's corner. It's important that you know, like someone believes in Homer. Apparently there are some virtues we're not seeing that. It emerged much later in the episode.

Yeah, and I think that, I guess I'd never got the throwaway the envelope joke until my wife started doing gardening and seeds coming in a little. little envelope and when you plant them you throw that away. That is funny, yes. They're making clear of like, you got the kids out of them. Get out of here. Like, so you're done.

You know, more kids. Like, they reveal also the like needing money thing. Like that is a key. James L. I wonder if that came down from Brooks a little bit of like, because I remember when Gene and Reese were showrunners on the show. They talked about how they were told, including by Brooks of like, make it clear that Homer needs money.

and that's what is driving him in. And in that episode, Lisa's Pony, Homer just starts saying as a mantra, need money, need money. Yes. Though this time it sends Homer to his planning stages. He gets on his half glasses. Always cute to see.

Love when Homer's got his half glasses on. But he instantly falls asleep. I think we've all, as men in our middle ages, have had this too, of just like, I mean, I have so many plans for tonight. And then you're just out. One and a half beers in. That's it.

Watching a movie and you're like, I don't remember half of this. but I'm still, well, the real question is, am I allowed to log this on letterboxed? How much of this have I actually consumed? That if it's over 80%, that's going with a star rating. I think the rule is like, if your wife is watching it

and you're playing on your phone, you're not allowed to log it. Yeah. This is where Homer has a very frustrating dream, which is very well done here by Mark Kirkland, his team did a great job. And I think Merkin takes some credit for coming up with this idea of just like, you have this dream of like the perfect idea. It's right there.

if I can only see it. Let's hear what taunts Homer. Congratulations, Mr. Simpson. This invention of yours has made us all rich, especially you. It's simple yet ingenious, and it fits right in the palm of your hand. Every person in America now owns one of these, and in many cases, three or four. Could I just get a look at that? Now, why would you need to see it? You're the genius who invented the product in question. But could I just... Now, don't worry, you'll get to see it just as soon as we unveil our new ad campaign.

Let me see, let me see. Out of the way. Homer, Homer, wake up. There's still a few minutes till our usual bedtime. No, my invention. All my money problems could have...

My problems? Homer, are we in some sort of fiduciary trouble? March, my loyal wife. Of course not. And Lisa, my little princess. And who could forget, dear rat boy? Rat boy. I resent that.

Bard, I told you before. Stop gnawing on the drywall. I love Rat Boy I love Rat Boy so much I feel like Rat Boy has been memed but not nearly enough Anytime I see Rat Boy I'm thrilled It's an incredible design

And this is just like back to back So many incredible jokes The Dream is funny Marge's wake-up line to Homer Is also completely underrated It's a few minutes before our normal bedtime wake up Yes And then we get all of Homer's visions

Marge is a queen At least as a princess And Bart is a Rat Boy Only because he's actually chewing on the drywall It is that sort of thing It's such a great joke about dream logic of like you're trying to find something in your own dream, but you're not smart enough to create it. So it's just this amalgus thing.

Or maybe it was the greatest invention ever that Marge ruined by waking him up. We'll never know. I know if Homer did see it, he would just write it down and then wake up the next morning and see it was just a bunch of words that mean nothing. And my more frustrating dreams, I don't have like, oh, this is a great idea. It's more like, I'm constantly late for an appointment of just like, Or like a flight or a meeting somebody somewhere. And then my dream is just like, oh, no, I'm late.

But okay, I'm finally getting in the car. I'll only be 10 minutes late. Why is the car driving backwards? No, no. Yeah, a lot of that. Everyone's mad at me all the time. That's always good. And yes, the design, I love how Homer just reflects on his like,

who could forget dear rat boy? Like, he loves him. He loves rat boy. He just, that's how he does not view Bart as a prince. If you don't want to be called Rat Boy, you shouldn't be gnawing on the drywall to begin with, which apparently is something Bart likes to do. And I learned two fun things about Rat Boy seeing here. One is that a sell of this of Bart is Rat Boy went for $2,300 on Heritage Auctions.

I missed out on it. But again, when it gets into four digits, they cannot justify Simpson's cell. But now that was five years ago, so I bet it would go for double that. Yeah, for sure. And also the wiki page for this one, directed me to an article that in Latin American gaming spaces, like Mexico and other Spanish language gamers, that this joke has become a meme unto itself

for Spanish-speaking Simpsons fans who also are gamers, like Niño Rata, this is from the article, the phrase is now popularized as a colloquial means of describing an irate, inexperienced, an underage fan of video games such as Minecraft, Call of Duty and Fortnite. So you call someone a Nina Rata from this episode

to say like, oh, you're like a bad inexperienced player of this game. I mean, it's better than the hobophobic slurs that are always going on in America. So yeah, Nina Rata is pretty great. I'm going to mention that there is a YouTube creator. They've been around for about 15 years. Their YouTube name is Rap Boy Genius.

And they make a lot of very, very strange videos that are better seen than described. So I know if I don't say that here, someone will say, I can't believe. So there you have it. And hey, any of our Spanish-speaking listeners out there, tell me if you've encountered this Niño Rata stuff. I did find a Reddit page as well with the cell from this episode used to start a conversation about like, oh, Nina Rata. And then they're just like us in the Spanish-speaking Reddit.

They then, each Redditor replies in the comments the rest of the lines in Spanish that are said in that scene. So yes, Homer is trying to make up his mind. then we cut to the next day at school. Bart and Millhouse are remarking how the nice of the air is there. They're really making a meal out of talking about what a nice day it is. Marvelous even. Bart confused about what sex is, and I like that. He's taking birds and the bees literally.

I really like the idea of, it's so late in the episode already that we're just introducing this bee plot that is, and it's really taking its time to unfurl, because both this and the limousine driver plot are just such sliver. in this larger episode. Both are kind of, they're more interested in the setup to get to either of those

that it shows, it feels like it was a pitch of, oh, Homer has a limo driver, that'd be funny. Bart is a ballet dancer. That'd be funny. And when they stretch out the things that set those up,

that tells you that they've realized it's not as funny as they thought it was and it's more fun to waste time to get to there. Yes. I think with Mel Brooks, it was more like David Merkin met Mel Brooks when he came in

with Anne Bancroft to record. And he thought, okay, what episode has room for Mel Brooks? Yes. Yes. And this is, again, Merkin says, from his own childhood, too, of just daring each other to see who can walk the slowest to school

and end up being late. Like, ooh, can I walk slower than you? And I just love how Millhouse says, like, fun is fun. And then Bark goes like, you're right, Milhouse. Fun is fun. And we cut to the school where this is much more Merkin's vision of Skinner, which is always interesting to me because, especially in seasons five and six,

because Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein, they have a great vision of Seymour Skinner, which is he is an incredibly boring but lovable loser who could get his life together, but has a lot of personal problems. Meanwhile, Merkin's vision of Skinner is he is just like an incredibly dry, boring authority figure who actually ends up causing more problems

through his stupid rules than he would if he didn't have them. as in this scene where by telling me kids, let's all walk there in orderly fashion, though, of course, as you know, the other ones fill out fast. And in particular, he seems to have a vendetta against Bart as this strict authoritarian. Bart is not always the aggressor, I guess. Yeah, though he's only, well, I guess he's rightly assuming here that Bart is late. He knows that part is late. I love just the T.

Yes, into tethered swimming is such a classic, a very bizarre cutaway jab of of his T.S. meaning tough shit. And then it'll be T.S. for them, but it's Tethered swimming. And it's Ralph doing that exact moment saying, I don't feel right. Did not realize this is a real thing until about 20 years after this episode aired, by the way, the idea of tethered swimming. Now we have endless pools, which are those pools you get in that you can swim against the current that pushes you back. Oh, I didn't know that I didn't know that until right the second that there was actually tethered swimming. It's sort of a fun joke.

Yeah, I mean, it seems like a form of suicide, but it's actually a way to exercise in a pool. I think the Simpsons needs its own version of the Bechdel test called the Richard and Lewis test. Is there an episode in which Richard and Lewis share a scene of dialogue where they talk to one another? And this is it. This is the only episode that passes the Richard Lewis test. And I know another episode will have Richard Lewis the comedian in it. That doesn't matter. Yeah, even in season one or two where Richard and Lewis occasionally got some lines,

it's usually like Richard said something to Lewis and then Bart says something to Richard. They've got a real, what do you call it there, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern thing here going on, where they're just, they're outside the story commenting on it. And I feel like they even forgot what their voices were, I think. This is not how they sound in season one. And then we get to season nine's Dost Bus, and there's joke about Bart not knowing which one is Richard and which one is Lewis. Tell Lewis, I said goodbye, which is very funny.

At least Wendell has like, we remember Wendell's name. He's the queasy kid. If you're remembering a season one kid, you at least remember the one who might puke. Richard's the one with a cool jacket. Is that how that works? I think so, yes. Yeah, and the gray hair, prematurely gray hair. He's got a Steve Martin vibe going on here.

I think Richard is supposed to be Asian too. I think it was to give Bart diverse friends, as in, you know, Lewis is black and Richard is Asian. And I also assume that Richard is the Asian one because he could be named after Richard Sakai, longtime producer of the show in Japanese American. But that is an assumption I am jumping to when thinking about Richard the character. The T.S for me flew completely over my head as a kid. Like, did not get it at all.

It was many, many years later. I think for this podcast, maybe even it finally hit me like, oh, it's tough shit. And now it means talking Simpsons. Yes. Meaning has changed. More 1095. Which one is more torture? Yeah, we then see that Millhouse also is terrified of being called Truant.

Trueet, they'll say. Truant. Now, electives for Jim. to take the least difficult gym you could, which in my school in high school was the bowling class, because we were across the street from a bowling alley, so you could take bowling class. We didn't have, like, it was it a sports elective situation, but you did have an elective that you could do bowling. It was like every, you know, 14 periods you would be able to do one thing that you liked, which I did the newspaper once and then nothing ever came of it.

Like, I went there and we never produced anything. Like, it was a real student-run. newspaper that went nowhere and then I wound up doing the board game club instead. That was much more of my speed of doing jackass shit in high school. I took summer gym, which sounds like something you take when you fail gym, but it was actually a way to get gym out of the way during the summer so you'd have to take it during the year. So one month of the summer, you went to gym five days a week and then no gym during the year, which was great. Fascinating. And Bart has to entertain himself once Millhouse runs away and is true and fierce because Bart is written by old men who love comedy, he does the senior winces.

gag, which I only know from people doing it on TV shows. And we were growing up in this era when they were showing, oh, 50 years of the Ed Sullivan show. And they would be showing clips of this and the Beatles and other things. I remember definitely getting this joke the first time I saw it from one of those whatever's. You know what I mean? Oh, it's like that old comedian that did this great joke, which is just this weird, like, cultural osmosis. And I'm always curious about how that works in terms of like how long cultural alizmosis stretches for, you know, our generation versus, say, like, another generation or a new, you know what I mean? Like just because you would be sitting down watching television that was from, I don't even know what, almost 60 years prior, you know.

Yeah, there was no choice. You had to watch all of the Andy Griffith show or else not watch television. So I feel like this is our job now is to explain all of these things. We were the last generation to have like summers without the internet. So you're going to watch like the Nick at Night or Nick at Night style programming that will teach you that stuff during the daytime. I was thinking about it recently because on the Blank Check podcast they just covered Alice doesn't live here anymore. And it reminded me that for a summer, I watched Alice like every day the reruns of the Alice sitcom on E. Like E. Entertainment News had that and Rhoda, which I watched most of Rhoda in one summer and memorized it too.

And I do think kids today, like they couldn't watch anything or even kids 20 years ago now. They can watch anything at any time. So why would they watch Rota or Alice at that point? You'll just find, I watched a ton of bosom buddies, which was a show that I didn't even enjoy. But I watched a lot of it because it was on. Yeah, that was me and the facts of life. Yes. Oh, man, like you'd even watch like, oh, well, USA's showing just the 10 of us.

I guess that's better than like the news, I suppose. That's sort of funny. It's weird. I guess you would develop a weird preference for certain eras of a bad show. Like, oh, these are the bad facts of life. So I don't like these. But I'm not going to not watch it. It's just a preference.

Anything that pairs well with orange soda, it was kind of whatever. In television, it just pairs well with orange soda in general. I mean, I like Molly Ringwall, but her era of facts of life, not great. Oh, man, it's one of the Tory episodes of Save by the Bell. Hey, I was extra into those, so make of that what you was. You're pro tour. Back to our other comment conversation. Saved by the Bell was one of those things where I could tell by,

and usually the episode would start with a banner in the locker room, a hallway there that explained what the episode was, but like for a while I could get it within three seconds. Like, oh, this is the episode where Screech is going to dress like a girl for some reason. You don't even, whatever that was. Or like, yeah, in syndication, there would be an intro from Zach saying, we had a lot of fun in our old high school in Indiana for some reason. Right.

Here's one of those episodes that you don't care about, but we had to get to 100 episodes for syndication. You guys know how it is. That's basically how it works. So Bart is skipping school pretty slowly. So then we go to Homer, try and ask for money for Mo. And Mo is a very upfront loan shark that he's going to break Homer's legs in advance because he knows he already is going to be bad on this.

And the way he pulls out of that sledgehammer says, let's do this. Like, Mo's getting darker by the second in the show here. And also just do you know how finance works is a great retort to, I don't know if I want to do this. Like, this is literally how I make money is by breaking your legs somehow. I also love Homer implying. his legs but not his head. Like, oh, I use my legs all the time. Can you just bash my head in?

Homer backs away knowing that nope, he can't get money, any good money from Mo either. Then we see that Bart finally arrives at school, and this is where it sees that everybody has taken it, which Lisa reminds him like, how could you forget? The signs posted up all over the library.

You see, the bully's got football. Lisa is going back to her old love of hockey. She hasn't forgotten her secret skill, like Bart does with ballet after this episode, And Millhouse, he's wearing the padding of a catcher's mitt, but that still doesn't stop him from being hurt by Nelson's Taekwondo kick, taking him out. I like some of the things getting closed up,

one of which is gender issues in sports, which is very funny as a little cutaway. The common everyday topic of 2026. I think they're more talking about Title IX, if I had to guess. It's not the Fox News segments of people complaining today, like in Ivy League, all ever people learn is gender issues.

And, yeah, it's not the Trojan horse of everything. I also like how it's a simple gag, but one of them, it could say pull-ups or it could say push-ups. It's just pee and ups at the end with a block down. It's a good, a good little gag. Still very popular. But nobody wants ballet. Obviously, it's for cissies and girls. Which Skinner is celebrating that Bart is having to sign up for it.

And his line, I wish I could have found a script out there for it because his line is very ADR. Yes, I noticed that too. Just the, oh, should have got here earlier. But it's like something else. And I wonder if it was more, because I feel like also going back to the sissy language is literally, it was a room full of people being like, what is the one we can get away with the most? And like we're going to say, it's sissy. Okay, we'll use sissy. That's it.

It's good. Yeah, I could tell you in 1995 in grade school, it was not sissy. No. It was a lot harder. But yeah, yeah, yeah, this line is very, I mean, for season six especially, it's very odd because every joke is, you know, the seventh draft is what you're hearing when it hits the air. And this one is replacing something and it's just very expository. It's not even funny in any way. Yeah, they would not let a scene end with a line of just like,

should have got here earlier. That's it. But also, like, you wouldn't think, I'm just trying to figure out what it could have been instead. You wouldn't think Skinner would make a, you're a sissy joke at Bart, because that's not usually. He would think it's a good class to take because he's so lame, right? So Bart is left with that. We then cut to another joke, flew over my head as a kid,

that the first bank of Springfield is BS as well. It was too innocent, too innocent a child to catch that. This is where Homer is asking for an extension. Uh, I need another extension on my mortgage payments. Understand that, Mr. Simpson, but according to our computer, your credit history is not good. It says here that you've been pre-declined for every major credit card. It also says that you once grabbed the dog by the hind legs

and pushed them around like a vacuum cleaner. That was in the third grade. Well, it all goes on your permanent record. I'm sorry, but if you don't come up with that money by tomorrow, The bank is going to take your house. Well, good luck finding it because I'm going to take the numbers off tonight. Well, we'll look for the house with no numbers. And I'll take off the numbers on my neighbor's house.

So then we'll look for the house next to the house with no numbers. All right, you'll get your money. You're my last, last chance. Bottom of the barrel, Hail Mary Longshot. Wish you would do it, but probably won't final resort to lend me money. We'll take care of you. Yes, care. I'm a ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Cut him a check and get him the hell out of here. Great act break. I like how much he upsets them. Yes. Yes. I was like, this is bizarre and I'm annoyed. I don't have the lineage of it. Pat joke of like we're talking about villains laughing maniacally.

Like where could we find new ground on this? I just loved the idea of laughing along. Yeah. Actually quite stupidly. And it's also like it's such a Dan Kasten, Lennon at a like home run of just like the way that that laughter continues and his commitment to it is so fucking funny. Yeah, I think by this point we had seen the idea of,

oh, characters are laughing too long and it gets awkward. And things like Austin Powers, they would do that and have kind of like the come down from the laugh and everyone's kind of like just breathing and wiping their eyes and you stick with that for too long. This might be the first time we've seen the victim of the laughter joining in on the laughter. And the pacing, they could just end it with

kind of been checking them the hell out of here. That could just, they cut to black on that. But the fact that them even saying that Homer can't stop laughing, like it's still like another few seconds of his excited laughter over that. In a different world, I feel like next to the house with no numbers would be as, quoted as a routine as steamed hams. It's so fucking funny to me.

Yeah, yeah. If it went on just a little bit longer, maybe. Yeah. And again, Azaria starts with this very, like, New York guy, and now we're doing a very midwesterny. Oh, yeah, Mr. Schimson, the numbers on the house there, you know, it's just, it's such a great pitch for him to hit. And David Merkin also is very interested.

He does a lot of jokes about permanent records in his time because he remembered being threatened with that a lot as a kid. And then as an adult, he learns, oh, that's bullshit. They don't actually look at your permanent record. anything. But here, in this reality, actually, yes, if you walked around with a dog like he was a wheelbarrow once,

that's in your permanent record, it never goes away. That little pause on the looks to the house, next house with no numbers. Homer pauses like he's thinking, should I say the house next to the house next to the house? And he goes like, no, I give up. This guy's one step ahead. He's dealt with guys like Homer before.

So after the commercial break comeback, Homer is feeling great. He wants a picture of his arm around his stake. I love that posing. I love that posing. that. And also he wants to tilt back his chair. That's how, m slanty, like, just that great feeling of self-satisfaction comes in. You know, I just came back for a nice vacation, though I was worried about ever since I fell and broke my wrist. I don't want to tilt back in chairs as much anymore. So instead,

I laid in the hotel's hot tub, and that also felt I was kind of like, you know, slanting myself in a way like I was in a chair. That sounds more dangerous. What would the slip and fall risk, Henry? Now, I'm just floating in the water. It was great. drowning. I can sweat. I'll be fine. Possible heart attacks? I started to overheat in there, actually. Yeah, that will happen. Botulism? I can go on.

So this is where Homer's happiness is quickly interrupted by Patty and Selma arriving unannounced. And this is where Homer realizes what he should have realized when they laugh so heartily at him, which is they are now going to make his life a living hell by hanging this over his head. And I love that Marge, for no reason, gives them the best, like their necks are. brittle. Nothing's broke except Homer like she gives them the perfect setup. It's so good. A couple of 50-pound bags ought to do it. And Homer shoves their faces into his pits as well, which is a pretty disgusting thing to do. We played the clip up front, but I love referring to Paddy and Selma as fabulous babes. Yes, they're staying for dinner. And is this when one of my favorite jokes in this episode

is a great Marge line of I want to bring out the best coffee we have and the most international coffee we have, Montreal Morn. I only have Nescafe. I'm very sorry. I'm very, very sorry. We do cut to that scene where Homer just has a blank expression on his face, just a rictus grin plastered on, staring into the middle of distance. Amazing drawing, not even a crazy drawing, just very well observed. Yeah, and I feel like, well, Nescafe, it has to still exist. I think I think of this joke whenever I see Nescafe in the grocery store.

That was instant coffee. I think the 2026 reference would be, I only have K-Rig. I'm so sorry. Take your K-cup. This shows you that what a joke can do. Like, I'm not even a coffee drinker. I don't make my own coffee or drink you regularly at home. I never have a reason to buy Nescafay,

but it has burned the brand forever in my mind. Like, I just like, oh, Nescafay, Marge, apologize for it. It must be bad. Must be that bad. I assume that this is a reference to the General Foods International Coffees brand of coffee that was advertised by. Celebrate the moments of your life. Yes, exactly. And you're, oh, God, I haven't thought about that in 20 years.

Look at that. Was that the commercial where it's two women having a conversation about their time in Paris? And what was that waiter's name? John Luke. Yeah, that's the one. I think Mystery Science Theater referenced out about 300 times in various riffs.

It's not as sticky in our 90s child brains as the Gray Poupon ads, but it's close. It's close. Or is that Taster's choice with the actor who played Rupert Giles, Anthony Head, the sexy, like they're people

having coffee and flirting with each other. That's another great of your coffee commercials. And of course, the incest coffee commercial, which looms heavily over all of these. I'm sure my gift this year, which is something every Christmas, you have to think about it. It's really important. I feel like if you are drinking instant coffee, it's a disaster scenario.

You're covered with a blanket. There's fires all around you. This is the only reason you should be drinking instant coffee. It's so funny. Here it is showing Marge is like she wants to recreate those commercials she's seen of like, oh, I want to celebrate the moments of my life with this international coffee, which is French vanilla cafe in that Jean-Luc ad. Though, yeah, I think flavor coffee is like it was to even make that instantly in 1995.

That was seen as like fancy to the middle class of America back then. My family, a Folgers Brick family, a freeze-dried, brozer, you know, the Folgers brick, you take out of the fridge and scoop into the instant machine. That was my house. 95, I think that was maybe, it could be the next year. That was when we first got Starbucks and we were like, oh, this is what coffee is. Okay, I get it. Well, Steve, you're from New York where that's the makers of the great. coffee, right?

That's all the, was that just 70s great coffee? The blue cup with the cart coffee? Oh, boy, those are, they're still around. Sometimes I'll prefer a cart coffee as opposed to a more, you know, just certain brands are absolutely disgusting. I think Joe and the juice is disgusting if you ever had it or I'm not going to go to an anti-coffee rant. I can't do it, but I'm very picky when it comes to it.

Now, Zimmers are going to think that that blue coffee cup was created for the Spider-Man movies. Oh, yes. I miss this. Yeah, Bob, based on box office record. You're the one person in North America who's not seen yet, Spider-Man brand new day. It's incredible.

My wife and I have seen every movie this summer except for Spider-Man in The Odyssey. Not even intentionally. You just refuse to give money to these big juggernauts. I get it, dude. I've seen the car that Christopher Nolan drives around in. He's fine. Meanwhile, while in San Francisco,

I contemplated spending four whole hours of my vacation in San Francisco at the Metri-on. They do have real IMAX and real 70-millimeter which is only in so many cities, like a handful of cities in the North America. And so it's not in Seattle where I live. I was like, I just can't. Not for a second time. I enjoy The Odyssey, but I can't watch it a second time,

even if it's in the most premium of formats. So yes, Homer also learns that they own him like Ziegfried owns Roy, which is a great little line too. So, yeah, I guess Patty and Selma have established, like, who is the more dominant of that magical duo, who are now dead, by the way. We covered them in Springfield with a dollar sign, correct? Yes.

It's Ginter and Ernst in those guys. Yeah, Gunter and Ernst. It must be fun to live at the casino. One brief aside here about Siegfried and Roy, I recently discovered because I brought this up on an earlier show, but when I record, I put my parrot in our bedroom and I load up a tablet with cartoons, it gets to watch cartoons,

and they're usually like, oh, here's four hours of 1996 cartoons. And there was a four-episode Sigfried and Roy cartoon that has like a fantasy theme to it. Steve, did you guys cover this on animation? I don't think we have, but it's always like, do we do it this month kind of a thing? Because it's always in my brain. It's such a bizarre fantasy cartoons in the 90s never worked. If you remember the Pirates of Dark Water, that sucked and failed miserably.

There was a Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. This also failed. Like, everybody was trying to crack the fantasy nut. And Siegfried and Roy was not the right vehicle, I guess. I've like walked in on my bird watching this, disapproving by the way, clucking my tongue. And I noticed, wow, the. animation is too good for this. And one of the principal actors in the show is Tony Jay.

Zig Fried and Roy masters the impossible, by the way. That's it, yes. That's also so funny that you can even say like, yeah, you know, there was Zig Fried and Roy cartoon, not Father of the Pride, the other one. And yeah, that drawing, Brad Bird loves, they say he loved the drawing of Homer just with his frozen grin on it because it came back for the overseas, like, honestly, it looks slightly off, but that makes it more funny. It's like he's drawn kind of wrong there.

And so, yes, it's a pretty stock humiliate. Like, this would be married with children of like, oh, Al has to rub Peggy's feet now. Or Marcy, actually. That would be the more. Yes. Yeah. We were very big into, you must rub my disgusting feet thing. Yeah, and of course there's Bunyan country.

You know, we're subsidence of, we're finding humor there. But it is, it's very stock. And again, it's incredibly weird. Like, I think Marge should be like, oh, he's not being helpful to my sisters. My sisters have it for my husband and he's sort of into them. Like, I've never rubbed in my wife's feet. My wife's sister's feet. There you go.

And I never will. If I do, I think my wife would be fairly upset. Yes, if my sister-in-law did that, the night would be over. We would just, he still have to leave. Marge doesn't have much to say about how Homer and them interact. And also, as we'll see later, like, Marge would have just been fine with it from the beginning and not be ashamed. Homer only feels like a manly shame for meaning of it. borrow money. I also love the

introduction of the IOU as a legal document, which is, and it gets play, it's a great moment with the lamp later, but it just always reminds me of the end of Dumb and Dumber, which is the briefcase full of IOUs and which we are told is better than real money. That's a promise

for real money right there. And it's just one mortgage payment, so we don't need to know what Homer's mortgage payment was. We can't know that. Later we'll learn he makes, what, 400 a week, I think, in the past. Yeah, if this is 1995, based on where they live, I bet his mortgage payment is like $300 or less. Yes.

So now we go to a plot line that the B plot really kicks into gear here for Bart. And in my notes I wrote down like, boy, this feels like a kind of old sitcom plot like a Mr. Belvedere idea. And then I was like, oh, I thought that because the third episode ever of Mr. Belvedere is, Wesley wants to do ballet instead of football and his father doesn't approve. Like that's how standard a plot it is of like a boy does ballet in a sitcom. and I do think that they again they get away with it with I think Sarandon is so fucking funny here

and it is really game to do this you know what I mean like Mel Brooks is obviously funny in game in his own way later but like she finds a very weird character that I almost wish had one or two more scenes I feel like she does the Obi-Wan bit at the end but it's not a good enough ending for that character

yeah I wish we got a little more of this character including a name she is a ballet teacher and yes welcome Susan Sarandon to the show if you have ever posted anything on Blue Sky that included the phrase but her emails, she is your sworn enemy. Yes. You despise her.

She ruined everything. We're still waking up mad at Susan Sarandon after all these years. She's like the Hanoi Jane for Democrats. Yes. Let's hear her in happier times of 1995. Okay. Steady Bart. Taking ballet doesn't make you any less of a man.

All right, girls. Today we learn the dance off the fairy queens. You can either be a fairy or a queen. It's wide open. Ah, and what have we here? A young man maybe who thinks he can be the next Baryshnikov? I don't want to be the next anything. I'm only taking the stupid class because they made me.

So he has fire in the belly, but it will take more than belly fire to be the next Baryshnikov. Look, Boris. I think ballets were sissies. Ballet is for the strong, the fierce, the determined, but for the ceases. Never. Now, put on this foothia tart.

You are a fairy. You are a fairy. Like, God, it's so fun. You're either a fairy or a queen. Such a great, great lines. And hey, if you license Sarandon in an animated role, doing this Russian accent, check out the following years,

James and the Giant Peach, where she plays Miss Spider. Oh, right. That's right. I underrated it. We covered it on what a cartoon movie, I think, this year. And I grew to like it a lot more.

It's like one of three Henry Seleck animated movies you can watch. Susan Sarandon was one of many great actors that they like getting on the show then, especially though David Merkin liked when those great actors are also pretty ladies that he gets to spend time with like Michelle Pfeiffer before her. But yeah, Susan Sarandon was game for it and he does say it was because partially helped by her kids loving the show and it lets her show off. And those kids are all like actors who appear in things now or at least two of them are. And there are ages.

There's Ava Amori, who's 41 now. and sons Jack Henry 37 and Miles Robbins, 34, children with Tim Robbins, who now is a kook. I was sad to see him that he had stayed as cool as Susan Sarandon had stayed. And then I saw clips of him talking about no need to Vax anymore on Joe Rogan. So that sucked. That's not the greatest. I always laugh at and roll my eyes when someone like is like, oh, you know, I did that new X-Men movie because my kids love it. You know what I mean?

And also the dump truck full of money. But when someone says it here, for a Simpsons guest spot, I do believe it, because, like, I got to know how much money could it be. And it's more, it was a hip, you know, rotating couch. And like, if your kids are like, this is the hip thing to do, it's very funny, do this for me as opposed to again, I don't know, being Dumbled or because your kids love it so much or whatever. I think you just want money. I've heard it too with recently. Kristen Ritter, she did interviews about why she was in, like, the most recent Sonic the Hedgehog movie. And I do believe her when she says, like, well, you know, my kid, Kay and.

watch any of the stuff I'm normally in and I'm now a mom and he's like five so he loves Sonic so I did Sonic and while I do think that's true also being into Sonic money movie probably a good paycheck for Christian Ritter who's getting up there in age as far as Hollywood is concerned for actresses yeah Susan Sarandon known for a lot of things activism acting but also known for wearing her Simpson's crew jacket that she received in 1995 and it's paywalled now but in 2022 there was a GQ article about Susan Sarandon in her amazing jacket. You can see many pictures of her wearing the jacket. And this is back when you would get the jacket if you guessed it on the Simpsons. And every year they would send you the new patch for like every year there was a new character

patch. I think eventually they phase that out because Fox is getting cheaper and cheaper. And then they would just give you like gifts, usually edible gifts. I guess I'm now just realizing you might have been joking you're not going to send me a jacket. Oh, I'm sorry. Unless T. Public can make you a nice jacket for $22. By the way, we have a T-Public store, right? Yes, yes, still do. Check it out, guys. She was making all these headlines of appearing in public in her jacket. She was joining in in protests in New York City for the fairly reprehensible, you know,

house arrest of the environmental lawyer, Stephen Donzinger. You can read about it a lot, but yes, he was a good guy put in jail or house arrest because an oil company just could demand him to be there. And she showed up along with many other people to it. but there's like pictures of her standing next to Donzinger with her Simpson's jacket on and I forget about all the injustice that is upset me I'm just like oh man a season six crew jacket

that's so cool yeah there's only so many of these in existence and as celebrities get old and God forbid die they do go up for auction I believe one I saw recently was Michael Yorks he's still alive but he's also 84 probably not going to wear a Simpson's jacket out on the town anymore I pulled up that old article too well old 22 article you were mentioning about the GQ1.

One of the reason she said she always wears the jacket is because she doesn't like having purses anymore and she just like, it's one of her favorite jackets and she just stuffs all the stuff in the pockets and goes walking around Manhattan in it. Hey, you know what? I'm actually looking at the listing for Michael York Simpson's jacket

and it has not been purchased yet. It's one of those listings that is just you buy it or you just walk away from it. There's no timed auction. It is still a buy-it-now price of $4,000. which is less than I was expecting. The Ratboy sells $2,300, a fine

jacket with stitching like that. $4,000. Yeah. Well, and we have our pal Nick Pruer of the Found Footage Fest. He buys a lot of crew jackets, but the kinds that nobody wants and that he can find it like estate sales very cheaply. I don't know if he's got a Simpsons jacket

yet because of the high price value of much of these. I think I saw Kim Griffey Jr. was selling one of his, too, but that it was like on top of that you have like the baseball fans also going for it so I feel like it had to creep up even higher

than Michael York's. No offense to Michael York's page. If every patron, and this is a message to you patrons out there, if every patron just pledges like an extra $2 this month, Henry and I can both buy Michael York's crew jacket and share it. I just want to in the arms of the angels under that

plea just because of him for just $2 and get these 42-year-old podcasters a jacket with the Simpsons logo on it. That's half a cup of coffee a day. Oh, also about her kids, too. They did go on to be actors that Eva or Eva, she isn't saved.

That was her big one. Oh, cool. If you've seen the movie saved, you remember there's the alt girl, alternative style girl in it, who has like exactly Susan Sarandon's eyes. Like, she's great in it. Yes, yeah.

The other son, Miles, is in the Y2K film, which I thought was pretty funny. And the 2018 X-Files, which wasn't very good. But I don't blame him for that. And by the Y2K film, you just mean Y2K. Oh, yes, the film Y2K. Thank you. I just wanted to make it clear.

Also, those students surrounded as, you know, The Simpsons hasn't had her back recently, as has many other things don't have her back because of her political stances, as Bob mentioned, make her less employable these days, which is really too bad because she's still got it, folks. She's still got it.

It's a terrific actress, one of the best. I love that she does give this a character, that this, you get two flavors of Simpsons guest stars in this episode. First with Susan Sarandon, you get a character with an accent and she's ready to play an extra level to it. I mean, we're losing Rocky Horror cast members at an alarming rate. We have to keep eyes on Barry Bostwick. We have to make sure he's safe. They are doing a 50th anniversary tour of Watch Rocky Horror Picture Show introduced by Barry Bostwick that I went to when it came to Seattle months ago. So this was before the passing of Tim Curry. And it was funny.

The MC who's on tour with him the whole time asked him like, Barry Boswick, okay, who slept with who on the set? And he said, like, then the guy, Barry Boswick joke like, oh, yeah, me and Tim Curry, ha, ha, ha. And then the emcee said, okay, but seriously, you and Suez Saranee definitely had sex, right? And he's like, uh, no, no, uh, anyway. So part of the event was get on up to the mic and sexually harassed Barry Bostwick. Absolutely. Yeah.

How big is that dick, dude? Let's see it, Barry's. Yeah. I mean, it's Rocky-era picture show. It's not a safe space here. Oh, definitely not. They threw rice at me. So, yes, Bart is going to become a ballet dancer.

This did also remind me of a cute video I'd seen, a funny video I saw recently that was, you know, showing that it was a martial arts master compared to a great ballet dancer doing like kicks and punches. And when the guy did a kick, it's like, well, a ballet dancer doing a perfect kick looks like what you think in a movie a cool kick should look like

while an actual fighter doing a kick it doesn't look as beautiful as the ballet dancers kick. So really, if you want to look like a guy in movies who does cool karate kicks, you should actually become a ballet dancer. Yeah, I think we all know at this point how hardcore ballet dancers are and how much they destroy their bodies

and not just because of black swan. No. No. If you're a ballet dancer, you're in the best shape anyone, could ever be and are foregoing every moment of joy to get there is my understanding of it. Yes. There's a stupid saying in the world of professional wrestling, which is, hey, this ain't ballet, but actually it is exactly ballet.

It is incredibly physically demanding choreographed telling of a story, except it's not faggy like ballet is. People are wearing tights in both sports. Yes. And yes, ballet is a sport. It's part of the Olympics, I think. By the way, fuchsia-tard is not a real thing. It's a word invented by the Simpsons.

I have to imagine it's a fuchsia leotard. But it just, well, how can we make a leotard even more feminine? And that's the answer. By the way, Henry's allowed to say that. Henry is allowed to say that slur. Just in case you're new, he can say whatever slur he wants. The president gave him a special pass. That's why he voted for him.

Yeah, twice. Three times. No. Susan Sarandon made him. So then we cut to another marker of time as Homer is sad. And, you know, the guys are inviting him out to a bar, but to make it in 1995, they're inviting him to go get a Zima at Mo's. Zima, having been newly invented at the time. It was a punchline from The Simpsons for quite a while.

I ordered a Zima, not an emphysema. It launched a 93 by cores. It was a clear malt mebragerger. Well, I shouldn't say it was. It was in the United States because it ended in 2008. But it is still going internationally, especially in Japan. Every time I visit, it apparently did have a little long. during COVID lockdown, they stopped making new Zimas, but then came back in

2023. When I went to a gay bar in Osaka last year in October, I made sure to order Azima because I was like, oh, well, look, there it is, Zima, may as well have it. It's still, and as I'm drinking, I'm like, guys, remember Zima? You can drink it here, guys, and I then tell them the whole thing I just said now about the history of Zima. Zima, very easy to say in Japanese. I will say ale, very difficult to say in Japanese. is it like basically a Mike's Hard Lemonade-esque kind of beverage is my understanding is it it's kind of in the wine cooler zone but it's like it's a malt it is a malt though too yeah got it to answer your question Steve yes it is for 12 year olds yeah that's my question oh in that way

it's a Mike's hard lemonade in that it's for for underage people get drunk yes yes so now we have white claws thankfully the kids can get drunk with all that sugar you know they're going to do it anyways thank God you know who had to be happy about the ending of the date line Catch a Predator shows had to be Mike's Hard Lemonade because that was always brought in by the guys who were getting entrapped in there of like that they were told oh, I'm bringing some drinks.

It was usually Mike's Hard Lemonade. I would love to know what the updated joke for this would be. I'm guessing it would be Apparel Spritz. Well, no, Buzzball would not be, that would not be the cool thing on its email. I think it would be White Claw. I think you're right.

I think we're just, you know, Homer come on out we'll have some white claws kind of a thing. Maybe like a White Claw surge. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, the new surge. I haven't had that one. Only the regular white claws. Again, I went to another gay bar this weekend and had a white claw there as well.

As you can see, I'm drinking and boozing at the gay clubs. I went to a Castro gay club with some pals while I was in town in San Francisco. And let me tell you, it is disappointing to see how many places, even in the gay bars in Castro, it's an alternative lifestyle, but they're still based in San Francisco. So every fucking flyer it looked like was made out of goddamn AI. And I hated it. It's so awful. Every flyer, it's like, oh, it's. it's a shirtless buff Winnie the Pooh.

We couldn't pay somebody to draw that. I'll just have a Gen A.I. version of Buff Winnie the Pooh for this ad. Ugh. Hated it. Maybe so. Everything was AI ads in San Francisco. It was terrible. Just terrible. But future. It's inevitable, I guess.

No, it's not. No. Just as Carl says, I'll quit wallowing and self-pity about this. And move on to our next clip as Bart learns that he actually loves ballet. Is something wrong, Mr. Simpson? I don't like wearing tights, ma'am. But so many. of your heroes their tights,

Batman, for example, and Magellan. Look, I don't like this Couty platoon and I never will. I'm out of here and I'm out of this stupid outfit. Wait. Joy of movement increasing. Love of dance.

Impossible to resist. Toes, twinkling. Look at me, girls. I'm doing ballet. And I... It is fun animation on Bart's good dancing while still having the same body

he always has. Yes, exactly. Yeah. The inverted light bulb is doing some great ballet dancing in front of us. And it's well observed. I think one of the layout artists had some dance training or something like that they were saying on the commentary. The artist Sandra Roy's who Mark Kirkland credits there. Yes.

Yeah. And this Magellan joke is great of like she can't think of a second superhero. She just says Magellan, the explorer. Fun thing I've learned about Magellan recently from my Filipino American husband is that they celebrate in the Philippines that they killed Magellan. I don't know if you guys know this about Magellan. Like he died in the Philippines. Is it a holiday kind of a situation? Kind of, yes.

So basically on Maksan Island in the Philippines, Ferdinamegeline is getting in a tribal skirmish with some of the local, the indigenous people there in 1521, and they kill him. He loses the fight and the Portuguese have to fly away like they go on their boats away. They had the power of flight in the 16th century. And so in defeating him,

It is celebrated because it basically delayed European colonization of the Philippines for 44 years. It wouldn't be, you know, after they killed Magellan. It took them a while for the news to come back of Magellan and then for the people who would come back to colonize it to come back with a stronger force. So it is like there's statues to celebrate Lapu Lapu, who was the leader of the group that killed him around in the Philippines today. So yes, my husband was like, oh, Magellan, we killed that guy. It's seen as a great anti-colonialist moment. Don't start, nothing won't be nothing.

That's what I hope you say, Magellan. And of course, as a nationalistic holiday, it's, of course, been exploited by fascist identitarians in the Philippines as well, including their very evil former leader Duterte, for instance. So, you know, we can't just celebrate killing Magellan in a fun way anymore. I imagine it was abused for sweeping anti-Portuguese legislation in the country. Don't want to be Portuguese in the Philippines. This fun little dance sequence.

ends with Bart loving ballet. We then cut to Homer. He is just being so tortured by... He has to even ask for permission to slink his body in front of the ladies. Has it gotten fatter in here also is a great line too. Permission pending. Yes, yes.

Is this when he has to use the poochy dog voice for them? Yeah, he is the rocking dog. Yes. Also, I love the line. This taught me obsequious as a word and that it must have IOU in there somewhere for this. The line is too smart for Homer. He just has to trust them on it.

But this is where the story comes to ahead and that the truth gets revealed as the Homer first tries to burn the IOU stealthily, and while struggling to get it back, it falls onto the lamp. Just for that, you have to crawl around on the floor like the dog you are. Yes, ma'am.

Now say, I am Homer Simpson, the low. Holy dog. In a dog voice. I am Romer, Rat, Red, Red, well, good. Jump, Homer, jump. What's going on in here? What, rooney, robert. What's that paper?

What paper? Is this projection accurate? Did you borrow money for my sisters? I don't know, Marge. I can't be expected to keep track of all my wheelings and dealings. He blew all your savings on jack-a-lanterns. You told! Sorry.

I want to see you again. You either. Homer. Homer, why didn't you tell me? I was a shame, Marge. I failed you as a husband and a provider. And at best, I was a B-plus dog. I'll understand if you want to sleep on a couch tonight.

I did notice that even though this is 31 years ago, they are very careful with Homer committing acts of violence against women. Because you don't see him throw their bodies out. You just see the house and they fly out of it. I think that's probably where that first joke that got cut comes from, right? Of, like, they're going to fall featherly down, so it's not quite as extreme of him just chucking ladies out of a house. It's a little odd to watch our hero Homer do that. Especially when it's accidentally his wife, too, who do the same to this as well.

Hey, if their necks are brittle, they probably have widespread osteoporosis. Oh, yeah. They're not walking away from this. I mean, Henry, you broke your wrist. I know. You weren't thrown by a grown man. A curb set you back. Yeah, I just tripped slightly.

It hurt my wrist, yes. No, they're going to be horribly, yes. You know, it's not so funny when you're not a cartoon, folks. I do love trying to burn the piece of paper, the IOU paper being a legally binding document. Like, you know that you owe them money, and they know you owe them money. Like, you can burn the money,

burn the paper, but you still owe the money. And based on the fact that this light, this average living room lamp can project it onto the ceiling, it feels like it's written on tissue paper, so it should go up like instantly. The second homer sticks the lighter next to it. March has a lot of great little lines in here like, is this projection accurate?

Yes. A fiduciary distress was another good one I think we tackled earlier. But yes, what is it funny for March to say? And then we get some lowly Homer here when he's eating under the table and doesn't even deserve breakfast,

but of course he'll take a very large breakfast is very funny to me. But no powdered sugar. Okay, a little powder sugar. Another funny March line before that porting in on how Homer's doing, frankly, he's under the table Yes, that's great.

The kid should know that he's under the table, but it's only clear to us and them when the camera zooms out that Homer is clearly huddled under the table sadly. And you maybe were thinking, when you've seen this before, why is a big jug of OJ front and center in the screen

for no reason in it? Well, it's because they cut a joke from this scene in the second deleted scene in this. So after this, when Marge says after Homer makes his order, he then says what he'll do to earn some money. Homer, come out from there. Not until I regained my honor and manhood by getting myself out of debt. You're not going to do that by sitting under that table.

Oh, aren't I? Get your lemonade. Ice cold lemonade. Homer, that's orange juice. March, you're driving away my business. So yeah, he reaches without leaving. from under the table. He reaches above the table and starts waving it around, so he doesn't know it's not lemonade that it's orange juice. So that's why the orange juice is so central in that shot.

Okay. It was a fun little scene also of Homer, like trying to sell something while still being in shame under the table and trying to sell lemonade to only his family members inside of the house, too. And it is funny to, I think we mentioned a secrets of a successful marriage earlier. It's kind of a similar Homer mode of deep despair because he's let Marge down. Here are a lot funnier and a lot sillier and lighter. Yes. Well, at this case, he at least can be near Marge and he's not in freehouse instead. Yes, she's very sympathetic here.

She just feels bad. I mean, she should be furious with him, but it's more about Homer is devastated. He's so full of shame over this. We cut back to Bart. He's really gotten into it now as a dancer. He's got on his head. band as well. He does, as Nelson will say later, like he does look like a

cast member of fame, or to a lesser extent, the TV show also called it. Yes. We get a reference to Tab, which when we first recorded this episode in, I don't know, 2016, Tab was freely available, but unfortunately, much like Meatloaf, COVID-Killed Tab. And by Meatloaf, I mean the singer, not the meal. You can

still have Meat Loaf. Tab was like one of the first heavily marketed diet sodas, and that it was seen as it's very 80s and pink, so it is certainly, part drinking it is coated as gay, like it is a gay thing to drink tab or a frutier thing for him to do, too. And there's still SaveTab campaign website online. You can sign a petition.

I'm sure it will do nothing. But yes, I think now we have things like Coke Zero, which are very gender neutral. When you attach the word diet to something, diet has a feminine context for a lot of people, they will avoid that. But they find new ways to market food so people that are full of toxic masculinity will buy them. Yes, exactly. Diet Coke is for ladies, but Coke zero is for me. It's like, I kind of prefer Diet Coke.

Or waters for sissies. I'm going to drink liquid death. Oh, God. Henry, proud drinker of liquid death. Well, toxic masculinity from Henry, as always. Look, I have tried, like, the Pellegrino cherry and the La Croy cherry. I don't like it as much as cherry obituary from liquid death. It's my preferred cherry flavor of drink.

I'm sorry. I know. Yes, why can't liquid death can drink? It's how it sells water to men, of flavored water to men, by putting it all over, like, this kills you. Though it's also like in a punk way that it's not like, say, the coffee that's like in gun rounds. Like, it's not militaristic, masculine it either.

The idea is you walk around with that can at a bar or a concert and other men won't kill you. Yes. Because they'll assume it's a beer. Yes, okay, good. You're drinking a beer. Because if it was a water bottle, like yes, they may as well.

They are going to rush you. like Jimbo does later in the episode. Yeah. So, yeah, Bart, well, it's also funny, like Bart says, not that I'm in that kind of thing, like that also is kind of a gay line. Yes, yeah. But this is where Bart learns

that he is going to get the male lead, and Homer also gets an idea. Vissimo Bart! Next week class gives its first recital, and you, you will dance the male lid. Dance in front of my whole school? What is it with you in ballet? I know you have great conflict, Bart.

You laugh ballet. Yet, you fear the boys will laugh at you. No? No, I fear the girls will laugh at me. I fear the boys will beat the living snot out of me. Hey, Dad, what's you doing? Daddy has very important work to do. He's looking through the one-heads to find a part-time job.

Dad, that's a gag paper we got at the carnival. Oh, no wonder I didn't hear about Bart being elected World's Greatest Sex Machine. Oh, I'll never pay off that debt. Need money fast. You got no experience? Step up. to elegance become a limo driver at classy toes that's it i'll make money with a chauffeur job good thing it turned on that tv lisa i didn't turn it on i thought you turned it on no well anyway turn it off

it is off any use of the x-files thing just for a joke works great works great yeah very much like the bookstore gag with the al gore which is so fucking funny and also there's a weird what is it with you and ballet to Susan Sarandon's character and then just her talking about how your torn Bart, I feel like there's a good line missing there. Maybe it was in a different script or it was actually deleted or whatever. It would have given her just that much more justification if she was like something like, well, in my country or whatever that joke would have been. Yeah.

It's right there, but it seems cleaved away. I feel like there was more to her that we lost when Mel Brooks entered the picture. But I feel like what is it with you and ballet? is such a dry line, but it's so funny, if you think about it. He's finally asking this, like, what is your deal with ballet?

She's the ballet teacher. She's supposed to get you into ballet, Bart. The accent she gives her, it makes you imagine that she could, you know, perhaps she came over here as a, you know,

a political escapee of a Baltic country in the 80s, perhaps. And now, now she's left here, stuck in America after the iron wall is fallen, perhaps.

Like the iron curtain, I know iron wall. You know, I mixed up things there. There was a wall. There was a wall. Broke it down. We'll have seen it.

With his sex appeal, I believe. So this is right. This is Skinner, Birken mode, where it's all targeted violence towards Bart. He's mocking Bart. He's like, oh, the coolest class has got plenty of room, Bart. And in this scene, he has made sure everyone viewing Bart's recital, they are criminals, essentially. Yes, yes. He busted bullies from other schools as well.

Oh, also on that classy Joad, where here's, I. love about this, too, there are so many, even just episodes of Simpsons, but in a million sitcoms of a character is at a plot impasse and can't move forward, then something on the TV tells them a news report or a commercial, it will give them their next plot point that they're going to go to. But in this case, a commercial played on a TV that was not on, and so literally the plot is observed by them of like, wait, there's no reason we would have seen that right then. It's just a commercial just started playing on a TV that Lily was off that you didn't hear the sound in the scene that the TV was on before that.

I think it's an underrated joke also that the chauffeur in this commercial is somehow in the back of the pool mobile limo that he is supposed to be driving, partying with babes. Yes. Classy Joe's is such a name of a place that A. Homer can get a job at and B. Homer can get a job at without a limo license, you know? This is where, yes, Bart decides that he's going to, he'll do the ballet even with all the backed up against him. by Skinner, but he's going to do it in a mask, which is the perfect design of Bart is that if he wears a mask, he still looks exactly like Bart, but nobody can tell that it's Bart, even with the mask on. This is where the kids are inspired in our next clip. That spiky-haired mask dancer is really something. I wonder who he is. He's graceful yet masculine.

So it's okay for me to enjoy this. This reminds me of the movie fame and to a lezeric. extent, the TV series, which was also called Fame. Wow, I can't believe my very first passenger is comedy legend, Mel Brooks. I love that movie. Young Frankenstein scared the hell out of me. Thanks. Hey, let's do that 2,000-pound man thing. I'll be that Carl Reiner guy and you'll be watch his face. Homer, it's not that easy. It takes the genius of Carl Reiner and the rhythm and timing, than only he and I...

Sir, today every country has a national anthem. Did they have national anthems 2,000 years ago? Sure. Sure we had. Of course, we were caves. But every cave had a national anthem. I'll never forget my cave's national anthem. What was that national anthem?

Let him all go to hell except Cave 176. Rod's with the siren. Brooks is so into playing the 2,000-year-old man that he asks about the siren in the voice first. Yes. So yes, it's September 7, 2026. As of now, Mel Brooks is alive, and we pray he makes it to the premiere of Spaceballs, too. The joke of Young Frankenstein scared the hell out of me is such a funny joke. He's disquieting at it, too.

He's just like, uh, thanks. I don't know about you guys. I was never familiar with Mel Brooks' discography, his sketch comedy on record, CD tape, what have you. And I was wondering, how popular is this 2,000-year-old man sketch? Well, it feels like it's his most popular sketch because most of his comedy albums have a reference to this sketch in their title. And this is a recurring sketch on many of his comedy albums. There's only like five or six of them, but still, it feels like he was really leaning into this character in particular. This one was a big hit.

First performed in 1961 on, I believe, the Ed Sullivan Show. I think it's like one of those, like, I remember Mr. Show had a bit that was, I think actually the 2,000 pound man. It might have been before this episode aired, but it was like, again, it was very much that like kind of ratatatat vaudeleon joke about. And he's this, instead of being really old, he's really fat was sort of the thing. Yes. I think it was the 2,000 pound old man. Yes, that's right. Yeah.

It was mixing up the two things. It's such a classic, like, er-text of a certain community. I didn't come from it. The way Bob Odenkirk says in that scene, like, I'm not that old. I'm only 2,000 pounds. Yes. That's such a stupid. Wonderfully stupid.

And Mel Brooks, at this time, still a viable movie star because Dracula Dead and Loving it, weirdly enough, a December 95 release. And that's kind of it's for Mel Brooks. Yes, I only knew his movies as a kid. I think we all were also. in the same age group. Like Bob has seen space balls more than he's seen Star Wars, right, Bob? No, Spaceballs is my Star Wars.

I've seen Spaceballs 100 times, maybe twice in the past 25 years, but still, that was the movie I watched over and over again, not even knowing about Star Wars. I watched Spaceball as a good deal as a youth too. And in other Mel Brooks movies, same with Men and Tites. I love that one. I think probably after I saw this episode of The Simpsons, as I was nearing 13, I was judged as old enough by my mom to get to watch young Frankenstein. And Blazing Saddles, I feel like in the same month I watch those like back to back of just like, wow.

Because I believe those are even released in the same year, I think. The whole Bell Brooks bit is just, I love the idea that everyone is asking to do his. It's such a bizarre thing, like to be a comedian and like let me do the bit with you and Wiggum coming in. Homer's saying 2,000 pound and Wiggum saying $2,000 is just really funny that they're both big fat idiots in different ways. I love that. And then Mel Brooks, though, trying to demure on it. Once he's launched into it by Homer doing a not very good job of doing the Carl Reiner straight man, he instantly is at here.

We all said caves. Like, he's instantly into his character for the bit they've written it. I like that Homer is bad at being the straight man. Just like, and what was the natural? As Bob said, they got Mel Brooks because Ann Bancroft did fear flying. He came along with her. And they're like, well, as long as you're here, would you agree to do a guest spot on the show and did and he came back. They didn't record it on the same day, but it definitely

seems like they're like, at some point, Homer will have a job as a chauffeur. We'll give him a job that way and that's how he'll beat Mel Brooks. And it is one of those things. What was Fear of Flying? Was it a couple of episodes earlier? Like, it feels like they're trying to strike while the iron is hot. Like, we got Mel Brooks. He said yes. Let's get him quickly. Shove him in. I don't know what, what's the next episode we're doing. This is it. That's what it feels like. I am cautiously optimistic about space balls too because Naked Gun reboot was good. In fact, I'd say, It was great. And Steve, I'm a fan of your Melrose 210 podcast series.

When else are we going to see a Zafni— sorry, Daphnees, Zuniga Renaissance? I'm so glad that she's coming back. She should be. She's really funny in that movie, actually. It's been playing non-stop on BBC. And, like, I've just had, like, weird, like, hotel TV and various— I was in Los Angeles for family stuff. And then in Las Vegas, and in both stops, I got different parts of space balls on hotel television.

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so many kids. kids grew up loving Princess Leia having big crushes for me, Princess Vespra or Bust. That's it. I'm sorry, she's beautiful. As a kid, again, I did not get jokes about like her old nose or she doesn't look Druish to me. Those things. And also, I have high hopes for it too because it is Rick Moranis's first movie in decades. He seemed like he was having fun and everybody gave him his applause.

But I think it is making him do or getting him to do San Diego Comic-Con. That feels like that's going to make him swear off movies again after that. Like, You got the squirrel. You're trying to get it with a little piece of bread. You know what I mean? Let them come to you. Don't shove them. Don't start waving your arms around.

And also, you know, Bill Pullman's son gets to have a job in there, too. Which he actually is a good actor. He is. I like it. Lewis Pullman. And it makes sense that, oh, of course, spaceballs would have to have a legacy sequel, too. If they're going to make fun of what Star Wars became, then the last 10 years of Star Wars is a legacy sequel.

So that's what they need to do in their movie, too. I believe even at, like, Comic-Con, there was a spaceballs exhibit or panel, whatever you call them. and they had their phases map like they would have for a Marvel movie. Oh, yes, yeah, it was so fun. And you know what, I'm pro Josh Gad these days. He was very good in the Wonder Man TV show.

I believe he's Barf's son in it. I mean, he makes sense. Boy, is it too much to call him the John Candy of Our Times? Is that too high a compliment? I'll stick with it for now. Josh Gad is our John Candy. The famously canceled Wonder Man, because you can't have anything that's got quality on it.

On that Disney Plus, you're not allowed to have quality on it. Too many Emmy Awards it was nominated for. Gotta get it out of here. The Emmys were last night, too, guys. The Muppets, the Sabrina Carpenter Muppets, got a multiple Emmys, and it still has become like a TV show yet. You'll get your Seth MacFarlane cover album and like it, Henry.

What if he sung Rainbow Connection? That's so much better than hearing a new song by the Muppets. If only Seth McFarland sings halfway down the stairs. This is where the last deleted scene is also on the DVD for the episode, which is an extra Mel Brooks scene, which is really funny and it's too bad they didn't have time for it. I like this one. On the other hand, Elephant Man,

which you produced but did not direct, didn't scare me at all. You should have shown him knocking over a HUD or destroying a Japanese city. Maybe give him a knife at the end of his trunk. Thanks. I'll consider that for the sequel. I just like how Homer,

like a letterbox nerd, goes like, which you produced but did not direct. One of those great, like, Simpsons gags in this. era of folding in on folding in, which is like the, obviously, similar to the Nelson a month's joke about the TV series, which is also, to a lesser extent, the TV series, which is also known as fame, like putting a hat on, like, obviously neither of these characters would know what these references are, but if we really spell out that these are references that

by the writers that are coming almost like ventriloquized out of these characters' mouths, it's even funnier, you know what I mean? And even like Cartwright trying to get that Cadence to do the to a lesser extent in the Nelson voice. It's such a reach but it's so fucking funny because of that. I mean, Homer is talking like a Hollywood insider. Be like, and of course you produced

it, didn't direct it like that. It's been a minute since I've seen the Elfit Man, but I think he is uncredited as a producer on it too, right? Because it would have been, people would have looked at it differently, I think. Just saw that for the first time. I think last year, incredible film. Great, great movie. I actually want to go back to it.

But yeah, it is because, yeah, you can't of a Mel Brooks produced the elephant man, you're expecting someone to fart. You know what I mean? Yes. So this is where they get pulled over, and we got to enjoy all the Mel Brooks here. Let's hear Mel Brooks share a scene with Chief Wiggum.

Evening, Simpson. You got a shirt and your tail light started blinking when you made that turn. I see your chauffeur's license. Shofer's license, eh? Mel, buckle your voice belt. Since you're trying to make a getaway in park, I'm guessing you don't have a license. Better head down to the DMV.

These two bronze are help you out. Wow. Officer, this man is making me a little edgy. Could you please give me a ride to the airport? Hey, hey, you're Mel Brooks. Sure, I'll give you a ride. Thank you. On the way, we can do that $2,000 man thing.

You'll be Carl Reiner, and I'll be Police Chief Wiggum. Listen, why don't you play Carl Reiner and let me play Police Chief Wiggum? I hate Call Reiner. tickles me when a legendary guest star has to say a Simpsons character name. I don't know why. It's just very funny. Now Mel Brooks is saying police chief wigum. Yes. He has to share that. And also him saying I hate Carl Reiner, which is funny because he loved Carl Reiner.

He spent, he was with Carl Reiner to like his dying day. Yeah, there's a very sweet obituary that he wrote or something like that, which will bring you to tears. Be careful out there when you're looking that up. It's a very sweet old man friendship that he's like never going to be the same. Again, this whole thing, careful out there, folks. It's insane out there that there is a chauffeur's license is a real thing in some states. So obviously, there's a lot of ride share apps because they are ride sharing. You don't need to get a specific license for that.

Though part of it is apparently that limos can seat more people. And it's based on size too. Like once you can have like, I think 10 or more people, that's when you need a specific license for it as opposed to, say, you know, an XL lift or at Uber that can fit six or eight people. That Wigab knows and seems to like Patty and Selma. Like he's directing people to talk good at that. These two broads will help you out.

It's so funny too, Homer's saying, buckle your borsh belt to him. That's such a great line there. And so Homer is left screaming and that's it for Mel Brooks on the Simpsons, another classic. And so we head back to Bart performing his ballet.

He's doing great. And here we get to another classic David Mirkianism, which is trying anything never works and nothing can ever improve and no one learns lessons. Nothing ever gets better in his stories. Yeah, it's wrapping up this very sitcom plot

with a very anti-sitcom message. Yeah. I just watched the great, the YouTube video from the person we've had on his guest before, Jose, the YouTube channel that reviews classic sitcoms. The one I just watched of Save By the Bell that Jose did was great.

It was from a few months ago of just saying how every episode just resolves the thing that would be like, no, this would be a lingering problem forever. And I was thinking of this of like, okay, we learn our lesson. In that show, actually, A.C. Slater does ballet and learns that it is masculine. Yes. Right. And I mean, even at the end of this, there's a moment even like to try and bring some heart into it where Lisa's like, oh, now we're kindred spirits. I was like, no, they're not. You know what I mean? It's like, it's very wedged in there to just sort of find some sort of emotional footing for any of this story. There would be a much darker version of this story on the great Comedy Central

sitcom Strangers with Candy. Now, you may find this offensive because it was meant to be. It was 1999. But there's, I believe, a season one plot line about a young high school boy who is blind who wants to play for the football team. And they finally let him play. And he's immediately creamed by every other player because he can't see. That is the super anti-sitcom message behind that episode. Oh, God. Why we hear how it all resolves for Bart here? They love me. I'm accepted. I don't need this mask anymore. Behold, the mask dancer is me. Fart!

I have won your acclaim. Fart does ballet! Go ahead and laugh. But I took a chance to do something I wanted to do. And if that makes me a sissy, well then, I guess I'm a sissy. He's a sissy! Let's rush him! Who's the ballet? Leap, leap, leap like you. never left before.

Looks like you took a pretty bad spill. Well, as long as he's hurt. You've shown a sensitive side of yourself that can never be erased. From this day forward, we are kindred spirits. Why'd you just leave me here when I clearly need medical attention? You know, I really noticed that we are hearing the word sissy a lot on this episode that was May 31 years ago. And now whenever I hear that word, especially online, It is always usually a joke about the fetish community.

So I think it has been completely reclaimed. That's true. Henry, fill us in. What's going on here? I'm not saying you're part of this. It is associated with the LGBTQ plus community. I'm the chopped unc in this conversation. They just sat in a room.

It was like, what is the one we can get away with? Yes. 31 years later, I don't know if it was said that often in 1995, but now if it said it has this other fetish context. It would certainly be a keyword on a lot of websites. Sissy. We're all talking about Sissy hypno. We understand this. In this case, yeah, it's the Gen X and Baby Boomer writers are remembering like one of the words they were called as a kid that they can still repeat on TV and that Blank is a Sissy and that in so many other shows they would just end with like, well, I guess I'm a Sissy and it's the triumphant moment. But that instantly is like, he's a Sissy. Let's rush him. And nobody stops them. They've rushed the stage to beat him up. I think the Sissy line is also in the Armor Hot Dog song, so it was that prevalent. You know what I mean?

Fat Kids. Yeah. Yeah, I want there to be one more season surrounded scene. The Obi-Wan bit's funny, but it just sort of wants her to be like, you know, I don't know. You want something from her, I think. And we learned a bit about the Billy's principles that like, as long as he's hurt, they've done their job. And we get the classic bit of poking a dead body with a stick or poking a body with a stick to see if it's alive. Oh.

You know, I thought I'd learn more about Sissies on this podcast. I guess we've all let everyone down. I'm sorry. I didn't look too much to the Sissy community. I assume it's in the forced femme community similar, I would think, right? We're going to get so many comments. It's going to be great. Just baiting.

You teach us. The big leap that Bart takes is also great. It's not paced like he's Wiley Coyote and like sticks in the air. It has to have real physics, so he just drops and it really hurts him. It's his fantasy of his teacher led him astray. This Star Wars thing. here too. I can tell you guys I went to in San Francisco, first time I visited the

Skywalker Ranch because it's right by the Walt Disney Family Museum. The Skywalker Ranch is like, it is a professional place but they have an open gift shop to the public. And as a gift for, they have Skywalker Ranch wine there, but I didn't think it

would transport well. I did buy some peach preserves as a gift for my mom from Skywalker Ranch. And then my husband and I couldn't resist. They sell plaid shod shirts that are exactly George Lucas plaid shirts that say Skywalker Ranch on it

and when we bought them the woman at the checkout said oh this is such a George shirt George wears this shirt all the time I was like oh man you're selling this hard on me now now I gotta buy this well now one or both of you need to take pictures in a mall food court with

Chinese food and the newspaper that's what you need by the way I haven't mentioned that we have recorded this episode before this is a special edition Oh yeah exactly you couldn't afford to have me before but now with the advent of new technology, you're able to get me in the episode of the dream. We're constantly stepping over Steve's tail.

You can't see it. Just like Harrison Ford. Now, a bit of trivia for everybody, because the box is behind me, I feel obligated to mention this. The Skywalker Ranch, that is what the mansion and maniac mansion is based on

because LucasArts Games was once housed in the Skywalker Ranch. So there you go. I've done my job for today. Steve, if you want to fulfill some Star Wars fan dreams, I don't know if you've been to the Presidio in San Francisco when you visited there,

but it's worth checking out. It's worth checking out. Yeah, there's that, and now there's this new Lucas Museum that everybody's kind of raving about. And I literally was in Los Angeles just mid-July, and it wasn't open yet. So now it's open. And I'm like, God damn it. Oh, yeah, every photo I see from the George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art looks amazing. Like, it's not just that there's, you know, Star Wars props from his era of Star Wars films.

But also, like, he owns them, like, tons of art, like, original Frank Frisetta art, original Marvel covers from the 60s, original Carl Barks is. original New York, the Saturday evening post artist, Norm Rockwell, original Rockwell. It's like, you can see all these things in person there at the, not just, you know, Queen Amadala's, one of our many beautiful dresses, which we all want to see too in person, of course. That'll be on my next trip to Hollywood. Whenever that happened, I haven't been as much Hollywood Henry this year as last year. Nope, the theme song has been retired briefly. I'll add another minute to it when you go back. So yes, Bart's story ends with him learning to not respect himself and that nobody gives him, even when he admits he's a sissy, they don't give

him any extra respect. And he must have been so injured that he never does ballet again because he never does in the show. So then we go back to Homer's story to wrap it up. He is back at the DMV to take his chauffeur's license. And this is where he is having problems with studying. Stupid driving test at the stupid DMV where stupid Patty and stupid Selma work. Sometimes I think God is teasing me. Just like he teased Moses in the desert. Tested, Homer. God, testin, Moses. And try to be nice to my sisters. Very hard on me to have you fighting all the time.

Oh, okay, March. I'll get along with them. Then I will hug some snakes. Yes, I will hug and kiss some poisonous snakes! No, that's sarcasm. Well, well, well, look who needs us again to get his chauffeur's license? Look, all I asked is that you be fair. Not a just sign mirror.

Minus one point. Failed to check blind spot. Minus two points. You won't be happy so my family thinks I'm a loser, will you? You are a loser, Homer. And we're winners. You got to learn that.

Ooh, seat belt twisted, minus one point. Nagging the driver minus ten points for you. Raise the cone, minus five points. Being a jerk, minus a million points. I love being a jerk minus a million points. It's one of those lines that pops in my head a lot. I also like Homer's, for you, like, yes, to make it clear. I'm not counting against my points.

I'm saying your points. Unnecessarily both Patty and Sly and Slymouth. in the car with him in the front seat, too. It has to be pretty uncomfortable for the middle one in that, right? Yes. Also, I mean, they're all pretty wide people. This has to be a very big limo that Homer is a stretch,

well, a wide limo, not a stretch limo, I should say. We try and do some emotional scene setting with Marge saying that it's very difficult for Homer to, underlining it to set up the ending, but you know, it's very difficult for me when you're always fighting with my sisters, but then the poisonous

snake's line is just so funny. Yes. And some context for this wrap up. In 1994, that is when smoking bans were rolling out throughout L.A. That is why John Swartzwater stopped writing at the Simpsons offices. He could no longer smoke there. So the dream was dead for him. He went to write at home in a sea he bought from his old diners, his old favorite diner. How this wraps up, you, sir, are worse than Hitler.

I'm sure there were smokers on staff thinking, like, this is the hostility I get these days. It seems like a John Schwarzwelter diatribe just comes to life as the end of this scene, right? And I think even that I ordered Zima, not emphysema, that is from like, people experiencing, I can't smoke anymore inside? I mean, again, we still have ashtrays in airplanes because it was, the culture was very into it for a very long time, and then it was a really hard rollback. And I would assume most of those Simpson staffers,

if they're still alive, regret not stopping smoking sooner, if they were complaining in the 90s about not being able to smoke. Yeah. I've heard it from most people who quit smoking that they're like, God, I wish I'd done this sooner. This was stupid to smoke as long as I did. a regular cigarette smoke. The only thing in this episode

that really feels like standard or they could have improved it more is like the boss character they make for her for them that they've never had before or since is just like she's like out of an I Love Lucy or I don't know a Carol Burnett sketch right?

Yeah, yeah. It feels like they couldn't think of anything to come up with this character who exists for 15 seconds so they decided let's make her a stock boss like well I never like that kind of like pompous haughty kind of boss. Yeah, she is a female boss

She can only do that sort of school marm kind of, what do you call it, their inflection, which she does have. Yeah, she does get the one joke of you or worse than Hitler, which is a very funny joke. But yes, after they fail Homer, as you noted earlier, Bob, they get some level of sexual satisfaction out of it that they're smoking. Like, when they smash that fail, they're like, ooh, yeah. Yes. Which is why they have to let cigarette in the first place. And this is where Homer then they get caught smoking. They stammer.

They have no explanation for it. They were about to music. Very funny stammering from Julie playing both characters. Basically Jackie Gleason, homina, homina almost. Kavana does great with the two ladies who could not be more similar in this episode, too. She has no room to emote with them. I do think it's funny that, like, Forrester, I thought when I watched his video on how he explained how he did it, that like, it used to be said back then, if you needed to sell a script,

pitch something for Marge or Marge's sisters because they never have those. or it just gets assigned to you as the new guy if you didn't pitch it. Here, Homer saves the day in a happy ending and rushed ending. I'll never forgive myself for this. Wait a minute. Those are yours, sir? Yes. I am in flavor country. Both of them? It's a big country.

Ladies, I apologize. And you, sir, are worse than Hitler. Homer. I'm speechless. You just saved our hides. Please, on top everything else, don't make me picture your hides. That's a wonderful thing you did for my sisters. I didn't do it for them.

I did it for you, Marge. I'd kill for you. Please ask me to kill for you. No, for me. You see? You see, this is a stuff I've been telling you about that you never see. Hmm. If there's anything we can do to make it up...

Call off the dead? Or say we could let you pass. your driver's test. Call off to debt? Dead's off. Let's go, Mark. Woo! Patty and Salmat just desperately trying to find a leg to stand on before he runs out. It's great.

It's like, well, he did borrow money. We were also kind of mean to him, but still money's a tangible. Then he's gone. Yeah, he's gone. I just love that it ends on the foot race to the car screech is a classic Simpson's set of sound effects. To end the episode without any dialogue also. Yeah, and ending with the theme, it really feels. like ending like a loony tunes where there's just one gag and it's a blackout and you see the credits that's it's it's coming so soon after homie the clown that it's like homey the clown has

forty eight dollars and two year change and we thank of you it's like and there goes bupah bubba yeah same deal yes yeah homer runs off before even thanking him of just like okay that's all they go march he doesn't want to talk to them any longer he has to it's just done though yes i think saving their jobs that gets you let's even say that the mortgage payment was like $1,000 back then probably wasn't that high. But if it was, saving their jobs is worth $1,000. I think that's worth forgiving. George Bush's economy, absolutely. Or this would be Clinton, sorry. This is Clinton, yeah. Oh, yes. Then that would have been fine. It's a big country is a great line too. Like, why would he be smoking two double cigarettes as well?

And it's even funnier and more like Mr. Mooney from I Love Lucy of just, he gets slapped by the lady. It's a very like Marks Brothers ending to this character. Sorry, we were talking about the Clinton economy. I wanted to mention something before I forget. I recently rewatch the movie Dirty Work, RIP Norm MacDonald. It's an okay movie. I watched the longer and dirtier cut, whatever it's called. Yeah.

And it made me realize how different things were in 1997 where the main character is this relatable dirt bag, this everyday loser you're supposed to be like, oh, come on, Norm, buck up, you're going to make it. But here's a thing. His character can't stop getting jobs. and that is how 1997 is different from today. Can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job? Exactly, yes. It is that joke, but it's the reality of his life.

So, yes, comedies, they hit different back then. The need to earn money, well, hey, we always need money in this episode. But the desperation, not as many comedies want to show you the desperation these days either. But you guys just Homer running off, that makes this episode always end on a good note for me. It's just Patty and Selma just standing there, just realizing like, oh, I guess the episode's over. ending with them just processing everything, not even reacting, just sort of in the act of processing is great. And Homer avoided having to do it even more of his job.

Like they even want to be like, well, we can, no, let you pass. And then you earn the money. I call off the debt? Okay. He's gone. It's great. And that he makes up with Marge is a sweet moment too. And then Marge gets to say, like, see, Homer does do stuff for me.

So they actually get to see Homer being good. And that also Homer has been dreaming of the day Marge will tell him to kill somebody. He wants to kill, but he has. has to be Marge's permission to do it. And to your point, Henry, the don't make me think about your hides as a very married-with-children-esque joke. If there was some way to call either of them a chicken in there would make it even more married children. Back in my day, I maybe would zoom through this episode on the VHS tape that we taped in order

off of TV just because it was like not as cool as homie the clown or also Lisa's wedding or a big critic crossover. like this wasn't as big a deal as other episodes, but I look back on it and still view it as like, oh, this is an average episode in one of the best seasons of TV ever is a great episode of television. Yeah, it's not as high concept as the things surrounding it, but they challenge themselves to rate a normal sitcom episode,

and it's very, very funny. And yeah, it is underrated, I think, for season six, but season six is just full of diamonds. And this is like a kind of like, oh, that diamond isn't as nice as the other diamond next to it. And just two great guest performances to, obviously, with Mel Brooks and Susan Sarandon, and just finding, like Henry said, just like the dichotomy of Susan's guest appearances. It's a great wackad new character. It's just for some reason Mel Brooks is in Springfield. Both of these things.

I just think that we've gone through them, but there's just so many great little gangs and little neat story constructions to make a quite pat story really sing. Well, thank you again to Steve Stadeck for being on the show. Steve. Please let us know more about We Hate Movies and the rich tapestry of shows on your network. Thank you guys. I love coming back on here. I can't wait to come back. We'll have you guys on as always. Sometimes usually in the summer. Again, for some reason, talking about despicable meal of some kind or some minion-related disaster. But we do a podcast where we talk about movies, good, bad and otherwise. We do mostly, quote-unquote bad movies on the main feed, which is the free feed, which comes out every Tuesday. WHMpodcast.com has all that. And if you go to patreon.com slash we hate movies, you have a bevy of other shows where we talk about we love movies, movies that we love. We got a Melro 2-0 show, which is a a Melrose place in Nana two in a recap show. We do the Nexus which does Star Trek stuff. We do animation

damnation. It's a different cartoon every month. We're doing too much shit so I can't even list it all but go to patreon.com slash we hate movies to check out your offerings. And when this goes live we will be at the beginning of your annual spooktacular month. Yes, which we're super excited about. It's one of our favorite months to do.

Horror is a very comfortable pair of shoes for us and it's one of our favorite months to have. Bob's suggestion. I started with my watch of TNG Star Trek the Next Generation with my husband who'd never seen it before. I've been also listening to The Nexus as I go through episodes.

So now I finally caught up. Like I just, I watched Unification last month and that's like one of the most recent ones you've done. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun to listen along with you guys hear 2016 versions of you guys talk about season one up to today. Cigars might change this voice from 2016 to whatever it sounds like now, which more and more Ed Asner every day.

We're all shooting for it. But thank you again so much, Steve. Love to be here anytime. Thanks again to Stephen Sadek for being on the show. Please check out We Hate Movies and everything they do. But ask for us if you want to support our show and get all the podcasts ad free a week at a time. And also help fund the purchase of Michael York's Simpsons crew jacket. Go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons sign up for five bucks a month.

And when you do, you can access all of the amazing bonus stuff. We've been doing on Patreon for over nine years. And that includes over 200 miniseries episodes. They're all full length covering shows that you love like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critic. And that five bucks a month also gets you new episodes of both Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill every month. Again, that's five bucks a month. It supports the show and gets you a bunch of great stuff at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And there is a $10 level as well.

When you sign up for that, you get the $5 stuff. But also you get access to one immensely huge podcast, probably too big once a month for patrons of that level. What is going on there, Henry? Bob is talking about our What a Cartoon movie podcast where we talk about an animated feature film super in depth, just like an episode of The Simpsons, which means four, five, or even six hours long of chat about it. In the summer, we did our summer of Disney's 2010s, and now we have started up the spooky season where at the end of September, we covered the Adams family, 1991, the live action adaptation of the classic comic. and we always love talking about live action adaptations as well. And this month we'll be talking about another one from the 90s. That's a classic to 90s kids.

Fern Gully, that is the environmental tale that we are going to really enjoy diving into this month. And we've done years and years and years of what a cartoon movies, hundreds of hours of just that. And if you sign up, you get the entire back catalog for $10 a month and all the ad-free bonuses that are at the $5 level, too, you'll be inundated with hours of podcasts of us doing tons of great cartoon history for you. From Disney to Jibli to Pixar to Warner Brothers and so much in between,

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Your sisters don't come here after six and I stop eating your lipstick. This is a special occasion. Patty and someone just got promoted at the DMV. Yeah, Homer. Let your wife have a glimpse of success for once. All right. That's the last straw.

Time to take out the trash. But first I'm going to have to ask you to leave.