Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer's Enemy With Matt Christman And Virgil Texas

Episode Date: December 26, 2018

It's one of the most controversial and dark episodes of Simpsons ever, making it the perfect time for a return appearance from Chapo Trap House hosts Matt Christman and Virgil Texas. Frank Grimes, or Grimey as he liked to be called, lived quite a life, and we chat about the existential dread that comes up when we see Grimes reckon with the unique being known as Homer Simpson. We dig deep into the text here and explore one of the show's most morbid (and funny) episodes! Get your tickets for our January 16 LIVE podcast in San Francisco with guests Allie Goertz and Julia Prescott!! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!

hey everybody right before the show wanted to let you know we have an update to our patreon a brand new monthly movie podcast is available now for ten dollar and up patrons at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you want to hear me and bob talk all about mask of the phantasm the best batman movie of all time you can hear all about that in our long, almost three hours long podcast, patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. I heartily endorse this event or product. ahoy everybody and welcome to talking simpsons recorded live between two bowling alleys i'm your host silo explosion survivor bob mackie and this is our chronological exploration of the simpsons who else is here with me? I'm so excited to record this podcast.

Sincerely, Henry Gilbert. And who do we have on the line? Well, that would be Virgil Texas from Chapo Trap House. And hey, hey, it's Talking Matt Christman, also from Chapo Trap House. Trap, trap, trap, trap. And today's episode is Homer's Enemy. Tonight's inspiring story is about Frank Grimes. Today's episode aired on May 4th, 1997.

And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. May the 4th be with you, Bobby. No. The final episode of Married with Children airs. Austin Powers makes us all horny baby in theaters nationwide. And Eddie Murphy very nicely offers to give a ride to a sex worker shalamar saluli while the police have to interfere like the jerks they are let her do her job yeah that's what i say you just want to give her a ride home did al finally

marry the toilet in that episode it's it's a fake ending like they got canceled and not knowing it was the last episode until they're filming it. And like Al gives a speech about how marriage is good actually to some guy. That's all I remember from that final episode. So that was the news. Those were the top stories on just one day in the 1990s. What a blissful time that was. Oh my God.

A blessed era. The interlude. When it's two decades from now and you're finally getting to season 30 of The Simpsons, imagine what your on this day in history is going to be like. Which civil rights were taken away on this day? We'll find out.

So on the line we have Matt Christman and Virgil Texas of Chapo Trap House. Previously, they were on Two Bad Neighbors with us and they helped us kill Barbara Bush. I think that's how it worked out. Also, we gonna take some credit for george hw it was a few it was a little while later but i feel like he died because he died of grief much like uh marge would have if dreddrick tatum had killed a homer in the ring and now the children are orphans poor jeb poor little orphan jeb we should have done the one with Henry Kissinger in it

so we could finally kill him but it's too late that episode's in the past damn you time so I think we reached out to you guys and were they the ones who really wanted to do this one or did we pick it for them I totally forget what the I think they were definitely down for this I know they have some theories we've been hearing about

before the recording oh yes we've got theories lots and lots of theories yes but i mean in case listeners didn't hear our last one i mean it feels weird even having to introduce the idea of choppo to to our listeners but you guys are uh popular leftist podcasters yeah we're the bad boys of the internet radio. Frat bros is kind of how we view ourselves and are viewed by society at large. Yeah, we love pulling pranks and hijinks against the dean. Hate the dean.

You're the man cows of the left. Yeah. And your book is a perfect Christmas gift. I know this is coming out right around Christmas this episode. Oh, yes, that holiday. Yes, our book, The Chapo Guide to Revolution, a manifesto against logic, facts, and reason, New York Times bestseller, still available in a hardcover at all major book retailers nationwide and in Canada and the UK,

as well as probably your local independent bookseller. Homer's Enemy is a major episode of the show, for sure. So I'm glad we could get such cool dudes back on here for this episode. Yeah, some people consider it to be the true series finale of The Simpsons. Just that final shot is just like burying Grimes and The Simpsons. Spoilers, Frank Grimes is dead. Yeah, I actually have to say that I i believe i agree with that i agree with that theory that that that was sort of the fulcrum of the series and that it really shouldn't have

continued after that that it's all downhill from there i mean not in a straight line obviously you had some great episodes after it but i feel like it's just sort of poisoned the well uh and and was a harbinger for just sort of the creeping cynicism and and frankly mean-spiritedness of the show going forward uh and and as a result it's just it was just sort of that you know that first pinky tremor to let you know that parkinson's was coming i think at the time uh this was not a beloved episode and it's gone on to become one of the fan favorites i think uh we were all a lot younger we were the kids who were watching it and uh we grew up loving it. But I think at the time, it was just like, this is too dark. This is too weird. There's no real guest star to play this character. What is happening in this episode?

Yeah. So something I've read, and I really cannot remember where I read this. It might have been in that big profile of George Meyer, actually, where he or one of the creators of the show, one of the writers, was commenting on the divisiveness of this episode and suggested that it was a generational thing. Because if you were someone who grew up with the show, you loved this episode. And if you were someone who was, you know, older, and I guess you would have been the boomer at that point or later, older Gen Xer, this one left a bad taste in your mouth. So I don't know, that scans for me.

I grew up with the show, and I think it's a fantastic episode. As far as I remember, when I saw this when it was new, I did really like this episode. I didn't love it. It wasn't like a top 10 for me, but I enjoyed it when it was new so i was surprised to hear that there was such a backlash in the then online community of the simpsons to this episode yeah i i bet don del grande had a lot to say about this one oh actually uh you you've had a great suggestion beforehand to look up some old reviews i did go to the simpsons archive to see some then current reviews of it so did del grande weigh in on this one um not in uh my research but uh asleep with the switch again

by the way is this weird that my mental image of him is just a really fat guy it's the comic book guy it's literally comic well his name, his name is Del Grande. My favorite Taco Bell item. He's a large man in a Panama hat, fanning himself in the Caribbean sun. That's a different Simpsons character. Yeah, I'm just describing that character. Well, that's my mental image. Well, so here are a few of the D plus and D minus reviews

I could find up there. Ryan Johnson says, another disaster. They made Homer way too dumb this time. He used to be charmingly naive, but it's been taken to a level where it's no longer funny, frowny face. Then Margaret Jones says, I didn't really like Homer's Enemy. Aside from a couple of gags, this episode was just not funny to me. There's nothing amusing, in my humble opinion, about constantly picking on a guy who has had as many tough breaks as grimes did his death added

insult to injury what have the writers come to and this last one here jonathan s haas wrote does anyone continue to deny that the simpsons are going downhill i didn't laugh the entire episode although I caught several failed gags. Ooh. More. Oh, nothing gets by this guy. More of the Homer is too stupid

to live schtick. A subplot that was pointless and unfunny. Boring appearances of Ralph Wiggum and Martin Prince. At least this season is almost over.

Wow, no one is hitting it for the reasons I would have assumed. Yeah. That guy seemed proud to observe a joke was happening and not laugh at it. I did not smile once. That's right.

Martin Prince even let me down. Martin Prince, my favorite character. Well, for this episode, the sort of high-level concept that I didn't really get as a kid is that what if a real person entered a sitcom world yes and had to react to just the enormous success of this cartoonish horrible man that is the star of the show but i think now that i watched again uh even later than you know when i got the dvds i feel like there was also the cultural commentary of just the failure of meritocracy and how yes uh people uh it breaks their brains sometimes that's what i love about it yeah so yeah when I was a kid also I

never picked up on this that conceit of it that here's a normal person how a normal person would react for two reasons one they don't really ever suggest that or even wink at it except to deliver this kind of meta commentary about the show these like callbacks when Homer was in space and so on the cartoony stuff

but also because Frank Grimes isn't a straight man in this episode he is a funny character on his own like his his mannerisms are funny his way of talking are funny and he kind of like uh he presages like these awkward nerdy characters like like dwight shrewd later on he's having a normal one as you guys would say in this episode he I looked back on this. I remember this is the way Josh Weinstein on the commentary pitches it, which is a normal man destroyed by a cartoon world. But when I watched it, like Frank Grimes is not that.

He's not a normal man. And a couple of times he becomes basically a Randian type dude who all but complains about parasites leeching off of him. Yeah. Yeah. You coast through life. Yeah. Yeah. Leeching off of him yeah yeah you coast through life yeah yeah leeching off of hard-working people like me you might as well be talking about welfare reform he would be on the incel subreddit today complaining about how he deserves a girlfriend and i work with this this fat cultural marxist with a beautiful wife the virgin frank grimes and the chad homer simpson that is this episode that's

that's how i perceive it honestly as opposed to the wine scenes high concept pitch one they they mentioned on the commentary to a thing i didn't know about it that in the one of their original character designs of grimes he was a little musclier and he looked more like a military type dude but that they decided like no he needs to be skinnier and more like defeated i think too must the muscles would make him too too imposing i think too much of a threat yeah and usually well sometimes you know their their players will play a character before they can cast the celebrity or get the celebrity in but they did keep hank azaria as the voice and i love the voice on the on the commentary hank azaria is like ah you should you guys should have gotten

somebody because he says he's not doing an imitation of william h macy but he's trying to do that kind of performance like he's a guy who is so restrained he doesn't even really know how to freak out so when he is freaking out just going blah blah like that at the end he's just trying to figure out how to be mad like fargo like fargo william h macy yes it's a great performance by him considering how long he'd been on the show, how many voices he'd done, to just kind of pull out a new voice that doesn't have a gimmick to it,

doesn't have an accent, isn't a direct analog or an impression, but is still distinct from his other voices he does and his own voice. Very impressive. Now, did they at least try to find a celebrity guest for Grimes? They said they always wanted it to be Azaria, though.

Azaria remembered it as them trying to get a celebrity. But I'm going to go with the producers on that one. Yeah. They wanted it to be him the whole time. I mean, though, it does seem like something you'd pitch for a celebrity first just to, like, goose ratings or whatever. Sure, yeah. That would make it more like the Rodney Dangerfield episode. If they'd gotten William H. Macy, then we wouldn't remember this as the critique of

the show. It'd be remembered as like, now William H. Macy from Fargo comes to The Simpsons. Just like Rodney Dangerfield is basically his back-to-school character living with The Simpsons in that episode. Yeah, no, I don't think it would have worked with it. It wouldn't have worked as well if it works for you somebody in parachuting in it feels like because like you can't really make the pitch that it's somebody from a real world if it's a recognizable celebrity that's sort of the opposite of the real world whereas if it's a trained voice technician like hank

isaria creating a character that that does feel more organic i also now see this as this episode is kind of a repudiation of the things bill and josh did not like about the simpsons that they had to deal with in their past like they really did not like deep space homer which gets a direct shout out in here whoa they also really didn't like how mean and stupid and cruel homer could be in the seasons before them like in dave murkin seasons they did jokes which i loved and like homie the clown homer causes a 30 car pile up that then immediately lights on fire like he kills all those people the cars all explode those people are dead they're dead now they're dead everyone's dead

homer really is an indifferent murderer in the david murkin years yes very much he's gonna give Those people are dead. They're dead now. They're dead. Everyone's dead. Homer really is an indifferent murderer in the David Merkin years. Yes, very much so. He's going to give Ned's noggin a flogging. So what are they doing? What are Oakley and Weinstein doing with this episode, except to satirize that by making Homer even more callous? I think so. I think they're just showing, like, if you were to play that type of Homer,

which they, in a lot of episodes, don to play that type of homer which they in a lot of episodes don't want that type of homer they want a homer who is more easy to like see his side of things and embrace him like this homer is a guy who is the meanest homer he could be this is jerk ass homer but they want to show how i think they need to turn that up for the plot of the episode to be, how would you deal with a guy who only exists to be a creation of jokes, but is living in your real world? I like that. Well, the funny thing is, you know, the commenters on this episode, the alt.nerd.simpsons commenters, identify this as, you know,

oh, this is jerk-ass Homer, which became the major criticism of the later episodes. But I feel like there's a real difference between that kind of Homer and the homie the clown Homer, who is just funny in this dark and unexpected way, and it's pure, what's his name, Kenny Dale books, the time machine did it. Schwarzwelder. Pure Schwarzwelder.

Like trying to beat a little person to death only because he thinks it's the Hamburglar he has to stop him sorry the crusty Burglar can't afford to lose a few burgers don't beat a man to death over a hamburger that's psychotic and that

like you know that's that's this is this I can't see how this episode marks a pivot to darker comedy when that was that was pretty is this i can't see how this episode marks a pivot to darker comedy when that was that was pretty dark comedy because homer satirized has always satirized the inconsiderate nature of the lower middle class white male i don't know if i want to say this now or later but why i think it's more of a turn is less about the character than about the attitude of the episode which is meta as as virgil said in a way that consumed the show when it started to get bad i mean i remember i mean i i can't say why the show is bad now the specific texture of the other than that they do a lot of awful

pandering to like current fads like homer's tweeting or whatever which made me want to die but in in the in the early 21st century episodes that i started watching with increased horror the thing that got me was the way that they would get out of plot issues and character issues by winking at the audience yeah as as a get out of jail free card that they had never not really ever done in the in the classic era and i feel like that self-awareness and creep begins with homer's enemy and it's i think as an episode by itself you could argue it works but as an approach to the series it becomes less and less tenable over time it's like i said it's the it's the it's the indication that sort of the the characters and the premise has sort of run its

course it's been on for longer than most shows. And to keep it going, you're going to have to start doing this sort of masturbatory, postmodern, winky bullshit that will, over time, just attenuate the audience's feelings for the actual characters. And as a result, it's like, okay, here it is. It's like you got bit by the zombie and you're starting to feel the thing. It's time to get shot in the head before you bite everybody else in the compound. Here's my counter argument to that. This is a well-written episode, in my opinion.

It's a well-plotted episode. The A plot, you know, each beat is pretty much well in place. And it does have a satisfying ending, a morbid ending, but one that I didn't think was particularly morbid in this cartoon watching it when I was a younger man. It's not really the kind of like season 23, we're bored with this premise,

so let's just end the episode at this point with some kind of like, you know, goofy little meta joke. My other point is, I don't think Homer is really that bad in this episode. I don't think he's really that much of an homer is really that bad in this episode i don't think he's really that much of an asshole he's very he's very vulnerable in this episode and he his fundamental issue is he wants to be liked and another thing that that you know strikes me about this in

comparison later seasons is this is a unique premise right this they had never really done anything like this where homer is facing this this quandary of being disliked by someone because of his success if anything like that's really what monkeys with the premise a lot because up until this point the family's financial crises were more likely to drive a plot than somebody coming in saying oh my god you're doing so well for yourself how is that possible how are you doing great at your job yeah hummer stops being the underdog in this case here yeah which i don't know i mean maybe that contributes to the the the kind of fantasy aspect of this episode you know i do think in the arc of the series season nine will come comes

after this that is a real like it's a watershed it's the first of mike scully where they turn more in the direction of where later seasons will go i think this episodes like this being super meta they would react to but also think they like not only try to counter it with different types of episodes but also react to and like oh this is how dark homer can be well why don't we just do that more often like if we or they could say well we did kill frank rhymes why can't we do homer being uh sexed by a panda why can't we do yeah exactly they're opening they opened a gate they they solved the lament configuration and at that point you need it's over that's just that's the feeling

it's it's it's just and it's not even about the episode. It's about just the process of entropy. It's about thermodynamics. But why is Homer dark in this episode? Why is he particularly callous? For me, it really does boil down. I mean, maybe we should save this, but that ending. And we should talk about it probably when it comes up.

But to me, it's the ending. Why don't we go through it, and you can all explain to me it's the ending okay why don't we um why do we go through it and you you can all explain to me what what's so bad about what homer i have some moments where homer's quite awful in this too that i'm like if you're a normal person i would hate you homer as well so uh but yes why don't we begin with the story of frank grimes which if true means death for us all And now, Cats People Tonight's inspiring story is about Frank Grimes A 35-year-old Springfieldite who's earned everything the hard way

But never let adversity get him down Abandoned by his parents at age four Frank never got to go to school He spent his childhood years as a delivery boy Delivering toys to more fortunate children. Then, on his 18th birthday, he was blown up in a silo explosion. During his long recuperation, he taught himself to hear and feel pain again. As the years passed, he used his few leisure moments each day to study science by mail.

And last week, Frank Grimes, the man who had to struggle for everything he ever got, received his correspondence school diploma in nuclear physics with a minor in determination. That's the kind of man I need in my team, Smithers. A real scrapper. A self-made man like me. Bring this Grimes fellow to me. I want to make him my executive vice president. Yes, sir.

Yeah, his hard knock life is such a Swartzwelderian, Swartzweldian, however you say that, touch. Like, especially the silo explosion. That's the best. Just him running towards the silo. I don't know what caused it, but it always gets a chuckle out of me it looks like he did yeah because the silo is fine until the moment he got there that's his presence in the silo by the way the thing brockman says in

the very first line he's alluding to is the uh the first un climate change report that's that that has been my reaction since that wouldn't be crazy if that were a news story something that means death for us all that'd be so weird i have to say it's been hard living since reading your book because in the first chapter when you just bring up like no the apocalypse is already here you it's just not in your town yet i was like why am i doing anything anymore well just wait i think somewhere in chapter five is a list of reasons to live. Okay. And the real answer is content.

Yes. Hey, that's what we're doing right now. Making that sweet content. Consuming and producing content. Just an Ouroboros of content. His life is quite a horrible one, which i think makes grimes a more interesting guy because he's it maybe explains why he's such a easily set off by homer because he's been abused his entire life and is not dealing with it seemingly either like yeah i mean even though he's not very likable

this makes you sympathetic towards him yeah and i think it's an important scene because of that it's hard not to see a little bit of the president in Burns just seeing a thing on TV and like, I hire that man. Wouldn't that be crazy? Who's the new ambassador to the UN, by the way? Literally some lady he saw on television? Okay. And I love Smithers' reaction to it, too.

This is not the first time Smithers has been asked to hire someone off of television. It happens again in this episode. Yeah, so here's where Frank Grimes ends up. Smithers, I've just seen the most heroic dog on television. He pulled a toddler from the path of a speeding car, then pushed a criminal in front of it. Find this dog. I want to make him my executive vice president. Yes, sir. In the meantime, here's Frank Grimes. The self-made man?

What? Oh, yes, that fellow. We'll just put him somewhere out of the way and find that dog. Yes, sir. Chair goes round, chair goes round. Hey, homie, you busy? Yes. there's a new guy at the plant uh maybe we ought to say hi to him i don't know i'm kind of doozy i should probably go home sick and also the meritocracy thing really stuck with me because grimes totally he seems to think this is his

reward like he worked so hard now burns is going to make him executive vice president because he earned it. When it's taken away from him, he's already harmed mentally, I think. What do you mean he earned it? By a rich man seeing him on television? That's like saying, oh, I went on Price is Right. I earned that trip to Mexico City. Yeah, do you need to get a correspondence master's degree in nuclear physics to go on Price is Right. I earned that trip to Mexico City. Yeah. Do you need to get a correspondence master's degree in nuclear physics to go on the Price is Right? I don't know. I don't work for

them. I mean, in Frank's mind, he's probably telling himself finally all that work, hard work paid off in this. I mean, he must also assume that Burns, by virtue of being rich, is a self-made man like him as Burns sees himself so i figure that's what must be why frank thinks that he has now earned his his reward for all that hard work this episode is really good at escalation and i like how the first thing that happens is just suffering complete just a complete indignity by burns not even knowing who he is or why he's there just like the indignities he suffers just escalate in terms of in terms of their magnitude throughout this episode and there's a nice slow burn with grimes that i like so from grimes's perspective this is the karma of the universe but you're balancing

itself out and this this kind of this billionaire comes up to him in this kind of frank capras turn and just suddenly elevates him making up for all of his years of suffering yeah i mean he's an incredible loser and just to be hired out of the blue like this just to be given a job he's like yes finally fate is smiling upon me for all the hard work i've done and that's why he's so insufferable throughout this episode yeah well yeah i mean he's just you know i mean maybe he's justified but he is like this is why i also say grimes is a character because i mean that first shot of him meeting burns and he just has his hand extended and just clearing his throat like okay you're a weirdo that's that's weird and there's a nice shot of him just like wiping off his palms before he shakes somebody's hand there's lots of

nice little character animation touches to grimes that really give him a lot more character that's not necessarily in the script or in the voice acting too he's very he's neurotic he's he's a extremely neurotic character yeah in the next, when I see him adjusting his pencil just right and putting his things in place like that, again, makes him not like he's not normal. He's not supposed to be seen as an average guy. He's supposed to be seen as a very controlled guy who just lives order. Yeah. Yeah.

Making him the worst person to have to work next to Homer. And this this scene here when he meets homer for the first time i especially love just homer's nose on the pencil in this scene is so good it's it's it's so gross you know yes my name is frank rhymes i'm lenny this is carlin homer i'm lenny how do you do wow you got pencils with your name on them, just like a pencil company executive. I'd give anything for one of these. Any office supply company can have them made up for you. Can I have this one?

No. Can Lenny have it? No. Oh, that's my degree in nuclear physics. I'm sure you all have one. Oh, yeah. Carl and I each have a master's. Of course, old Homer.

He didn't need a degree. He just showed up the day they opened the plant. I didn't even know what a nuclear panner plant was. Um, yeah. Well, listen, I'm sure we all have a lot of work to do. Hmm.

Hey, you seem like a great guy, so I'll give you a little tip. If you turn that security camera around, you can sleep and no one will ever know. I don't think we're being paid to sleep. Oh, yeah, they're always trying to screw you. I think Grimes is also commenting on the reality of the show where the viewer is like, well, what do Lenny and Carl do? What does Homer do?

What kind of weirdo has freaking pencils with his name on it? Yeah. That's a red flag. That's the thing. Grimes isn't just a normal person going in the Simpsons world. No, he's a tryhard. He's a shitty person to work with. And a total ass kisser.

We're not being paid to sleep? What? Are you getting any more money than anybody else? Why are you looking out for the boss's interest what's wrong with you yeah frankly i mean how like just in this in the first three minutes of this episode how do you not immediately just side with homer i normally do in this case yeah and homer has some sort of admiration for grimy he likes his pencils he's very excited to meet him he's trying to help too yeah we do know now definitively that nobody at the plant

is aware of project bootstrap that is true the listeners of this show will be mad if i don't admit a continuity error here homer did not get his job when the plant opened in i married marge he goes to the plant and the plant is already fully operational and working there when he applies for it so that's wrong that was a mistake i married marge right yes yeah what the plant was had just opened then right it was the new plant so i don't think they say that i'm not remembering for i don't really think that there's any they never do any throat clear because they had and this is another thing that is another mark and that maybe it is pedantic but that's one of those things that bugs me about later simpsons episodes when they just don't care about the flipping uh continuity and and and the canon

that bothers me it shouldn't i feel like virgil but it buzz bother me when they just say now we're gonna forget all of that funnily enough it doesn't bother me because i've never viewed this show as trying to create a coherent canon because even in the earlier seasons they went you know they went back on this stuff a lot. Like, that's never really... They never really had a firm series Bible or something. I think it is a rare slip-up for these showrunners because I think out of all the showrunners,

they respected the history of the show the most and whatever canon that was easy to stick to. Yeah, making Flanders 60 years old is an unforgivable thing. I'm sorry. Well, you can blame that on Mike Scully. That's not these guys. If you look closely later in this episode, another screw-up, you'll see Maggie is a college student.

When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you. Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs. Weird, I don't remember saying that part. Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care. Did I mention that we care? The Simpsons will be right back. We hope you're enjoying this special dietetic episode of Talking Simpsons. And want to thank again our special guests, Matt Chrisman and Virgil Texas from Chapo Trap House.

We love having them back on here to chat about some classic Simpsons. And you should definitely check out their podcast and the Chapo book. And just like Chapo Trap House, Talking Simpsons is supported by Patreon. If you go to patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, you can support the show and make it happen. And as part of your bonuses, you'll get every episode of this podcast a week ahead of time and ad-free. You could be hearing the Simpsons spinoff showcase right now. Not only that, but you'd also get ad-free and week-early episodes of our sister podcast, What a Cartoon, where me and Bob and a guest go through a different animated series in the Talking Simpsons style each and every week.

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if you sign up at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Would you like one of your own Talking Simpsons t-shirts, just like a t-shirt executive would have? Then you should check out both Talking Simpsons t-shirts on sale at shirtsickle.com or at tiny.cc slash talking shirt. If you check them out there, you'll see one. Our beautiful sky blue t-shirt in the style of the Ion Springfield logo. And our black death metal t-shirt that's a tribute to our death jingle,

both designed by wonderful friend of the show and previous guest, Nina Matsumoto. Check out both of those at shirtsicle.com, like popsicle, but with shirt in place of pop, or go to tiny.cc slash talking shirt. It's also easy to forget that Lenny and Carl have master's degrees too. That doesn't really come up later. There are some bits here too that i i like

uh metatextually that that frank grimes is a guy who is cast in a sitcom that will not act like a sitcom character when he's told a joke by homer homer just says a line that's a joke of the nuclear panther plant and grimes just like they give him a second they're like huh anyway it's like no that is not how you react to a jokey line given to you in a sitcom he's he is failing as a sitcom character which in a way i think is why the reality rejects him at the uh by the end of this yeah he's just not a fun person he's got peasant mindset you know i how can i increase my boss's profit margin today by working as efficiently as possible well what if fix grimes is if he had just admitted the meritocracy failed him the second burns hired a dog instead of him as executive vice president

that should make like why am i working that hard at this thing but he still sticks with it and is giving people shit for bothering to talk to each other at work yeah i mean my personal thesis is this episode is just a condemnation of the myth of meritocracy in america oh and me also this episode another weird thing about it watching it again is like it doesn't really need a b plot this could be the whole episode yeah i'm not the biggest fan of this even though it does connect in some way it's just some fun visual gags but i guess it just amounts to a minute and 30 seconds of bart fun and bart millhouse fun at the uh at the warehouse i think the b plot maybe is meant to like make the grime stuff feel even weirder because like you've on the

side you have bart owning a factory which only comes up in one line but it's just an extra like dagger to pierce uh frank grimes when he hears about it yeah there's not that much about the b plot that's interesting like the jokes aren't really that great or anything i always just remembered it fondly because i remember thinking as a kid oh can i do that is that a real thing i could do that's what i do love that about. And it reminds me as a kid that I would sometimes help my mom with stuff at her job. She worked in an office, like the lawyer's office. During the summer, I'd help a couple times. And I just thought of all the leftover office supplies.

They're like, oh, this is an old typewriter nobody wants. I was like, boy, what if I could play with that? This fulfilled that weird childhood dream well my hometown of youngstown ohio is like about 60 abandoned factories so i easily could have lived out bart's fantasy here yeah that's i was thinking that i mean as a as a child that's a really novel idea to spend a dollar and own a a dilapidated you know warehouse or factory or something just for the hell of it but as an adult i mean it seems i'm in a great position to just buy property in our hollowing uh midwestern post

industrial cities but it's just the charm isn't there anymore i don't know have i just grown up i lost that sense of childlike wonder i also when i think of having to settle for things in uh at a government office i do think of having to settle for nitsy marge talking herself into a nitsy uh plate but that's just a quick throwaway thing so we get back to homer homer and grimes trying to hang out like this is homer i think is pretty awful in this scene actually actually. So, how's it going, Grimey? I'd appreciate it if you'd stay out of my office, Simpson. I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard that. Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out to the ball. So, what's new, Grimey? Simpson, you got a 513. No, a 513. In your procedures manual, a 513? Look at your control panel. Oh, a 513. I'll handle it.

That got it. I think he learned that move from Bart on the Road with the soda. Yeah, it's kind of a repeated joke, actually. But no one is calling him saying, oh my God! Yeah. Okay, well, why is he so bad there well he endangered the life of everyone in 50 mile radius of the nuclear power plant that's him in the the meltdown episode and from like what season three we know it's well established that he's just bad at his job it seems to work out for him usually too well i i think we are now given the

lens of a regular person as a bystander where the viewer is like, oh, that's silly Homer, but then there's a quote-unquote real person in horror at the things that are happening. Who almost exploded in nuclear death with Homer. Well, we don't even know what a 513 is. It seems like a pretty big deal. 513 is, well, we're out of coffee filters in the break room

i don't think i i think i i guess but that seemed like a lot of sirens and whistles for also i want to know how is this the fault of homer and not the fault of the man who owns the plant and is is has consistently been cutting corners on various safety mechanisms up to the point of hiring this man like that's where the ultimate responsibility is oh sure sure well on that later in the episode when grimes is naming naming all the things that homer does wrong and why you should be fired he doesn't blame the power structure beyond that he's just like homer is the problem here guys not not the the fact that this man hasn't been fired or even reprimanded like be mad at that system but he kind of can't be mad at

business yeah he has to trust the system that's what his mind said yeah now grimes is reactionary grimes is fash grimes is fash and you know homer homer is gritty yeah that's how gritty would react to things grimes grimes has false consciousness that's all it is the only thing like i think the only thing that's really bad about homer here is he's just annoying he's just like oh he's just an annoying man well right before this unless homer is illiterate he knowingly stole all those things from frank grimes his food his all of his pencil the dietetic lunch his dietetic lunch. His dietetic lunch. He's got like a bandolier of pencils around him.

All right, he's inconsiderate, but he's genial. I mean, I would rather have my lunch, thank you, than not interact with a bluff, hearty oaf. Yeah, sure, you don't want to interact with him, but that doesn't mean he's venal. Yes, he's literally venal. He stole things. He stole my special lunch that can't be replaced because it's dietetic.

I don't know what that word means, but it seems very important and medical. I don't know what that word means. Is it swiping someone's lunch? No, I'm sorry, but the actual bad actor here is grimes who is actively conspiring to humiliate his colleague not yet yeah but at this point i'm saying by the end of it uh he's i he's been pushed there i think virgil could be trolling all of us i'm not i'm sorry he's just he's he's he's homer he's he's a he's a lovable oaf. He doesn't have a guilty conscience. Homer coming in and just not leaving him alone and singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame

actually reminds me of a boss me and Bob used to have where... I was thinking of that. We tried very clearly to be like, we really don't want to have any more small talk. We would both put on not even earbuds, oversized earphones, and be looking at our computers. And he'd still be like, hey, hey, and he'd jump in front of us. He'd be like, what? He's like, you see that new trailer for the Marvel movie?

I felt a little grimy in those situations. But that's the thing. That's your boss. Homer and Grimes have a horizontal relationship here. I'm being won over. No, Grimes just says, you know, leave me alone. Just fuck off and don't bother me.

You can't say that to your boss. That is true. We could not say that. Now, fortunately, layoffs fucked him off for us. Yeah. We do a quick cut back to the factory. Milhouse takes on a job with Bart, which that's when it hit me that like,

oh yeah, Grimes is one of the only other people than Milhouse to have eyebrows. Like, outside of the Van Houten family, he's one of the very few eyebrow guys. Greek, maybe. Why, I also forgot that another of their visual inspirations for Grimes was Michael Douglas in Falling Down. Ah, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yes, clearly. down uh yes oh yes yes yes clearly if you want another if you want another argument in my favor

it's that the b plot reinforces what i'm talking about here because it's the children now play acting at constructing their own hierarchy i never saw it like that bart insists upon himself as being the boss and millhouse just goes like, well, he is the boss. Right. That redounds to my point of this episode being essentially a critique of meritocracy. Okay, but Virgil, in this next clip, if Grimes is so bad, why does he save Homer's life?

God, he eats like a pig. I don't know. Pigs tend to chew. I'd say he eats more like a duck. Well, some kind of farm animal anyway. And earlier today, I saw him asleep inside a radiation suit. Can you imagine that? He was hanging from a coat hook. He had three beers at lunch. That would make anybody sleepy.

I've never seen him do any work around here. What is his job? Safety inspector. That irresponsible oaf? A man who by all rights should have been killed dozens of times by now? 316 times by my count. That's the man who's in charge of our safety. It boggles the mind. It's best not to think

about it. You idiot! You nearly drank a beaker full of sulfuric acid Acid, eh? Gee, that would have been stupid Why would my face have been red? Stop laughing, you imbecile! Don't you realize how close you just came to killing yourself homer just smiles back at him it's a great expression in in this viewing i noticed that

lenny carl reacted no way to homer almost drinking acid like they have seen this many times before and somehow he survived so you just let it go maybe they're aware of homer status as the main character yes i think so. I think that they've seen it enough to know that he is a God-kissed being who can't really be harmed. Yeah, they know this season is not written by George R.R. Martin. All the animation on Homer eating is great. I especially love the economy of him one-handing,

popping open a bag of potato chips of Thor into his mouth. That is great i especially love the economy of him one-handing popping open a bag of potato chips of thor into his mouth that's that is great it's a jim reardon episode he's one of the superstars yes and all the grimes acting is so great especially during his breakdowns and rants and things like that just so many little touches you rarely see in character animation on the show though what is the pink bowl of stuff he pours down that's the one i can't post like what is that food like those butter mints i don't know it could be yeah maybe just maybe it's just a candy bowl he stole from smithers desks or something i think too that's grimes rejecting the reality of the show he's in again he's like that's not funny stop laughing this isn't a joke you almost died yeah and and

of course he gets punished for that and resisting that well homer is pretty shitty to just point at grimes and not try to cover for him anything like that was him that's pretty bad but even after getting punished by burns grimes is not mad about burns no he's mad at homer right and i mean burns is also uh obviously cartoonishly irrational here and And there's a great callback here with the new executive vice president. And while, I don't know if you're going to play that clip, but while Grimes is getting chewed out by the boss, you hear a dog barking.

Yeah, I wish they would have made that dog Laddy as a nice callback to like two episodes ago. The dog could have at least stuck around. I wish the dog wasn't a one-off character, just like Grimey. I wish. But yeah, actually, yeah, let me play that clip real quick how dare you destroy my valuable wall and spill my priceless asset did you really think you were going to get away with it i wasn't silence i'm going to give you one more chance at a reduced

salary so straighten up and fly right. But sir, if I could... Hi, grimy old buddy. I'm not your buddy, Simpson. I don't like you. In fact, I hate you. Stay the hell away from me. Because from now on, we're enemies. Okay. Do I have to do anything?

Ugh. Ugh. okay do i have to do anything i wonder if that reduced salary is why he has to get a job at the foundry that's what i figured i just put that together in my head yeah so and again grimes is bad uh not at burns who actually does hold power of life and death over him but at homer yeah it's true i think that if he subscribes to a randian philosophy then he simply can't blame Burns. You know who Grimes is? Grimes is a guy who ends up in a Koch brothers-funded lawsuit to destroy the union there. He's James Damore in this case?

Oh, man. James Damore, or what's his name? No, that guy was smart because he got a no-show job at a think tank in D.C. out of it. He wasn't just destroying the union out of spite he was uh he was looking out for numero uno he does strike me as a shut-in so that makes sense but yeah you're right he would be like the union is why homer simpson can't get fired yeah yeah i'm shocked that line isn't in there i mean the show the show in

the past had many anti-union sentiments about homer only keeping his job thanks to that well you know nobody hates uh unions more than people who make animated television shows writers who are in unions the terminology of priceless acid i love yeah and this is a very long first act much longer than normal it's over nine minutes but the first act has to end with this uh this new setup like homer now has an enemy but it's very long because a lot of things have to happen to grimes for him to become homer's enemy i actually did see a couple old comments too i didn't collect them but that made me think of another reason people might have reacted negatively to this when it first came out the ads sold this as kind of an odd couple episode

of like Homer and Grime. Homer meets a guy who's totally his opposite. Can they work together? Because the commercials just had the like, stay the hell away from me scene. And then Homer trying to build stuff. So I think maybe people were confused that they didn't get that episode

that Fox is advertising arm lied about. I mean, imagine being in marketing and being given this episode and having to sell it to just like the people watching Married with Children's season finale. Yes, yeah. Well, him being announced as his enemy,

like that was a big vision of Oakley too. He wanted Homer. This started as just him saying like, I want Homer to have an enemy. That's what we want from this episode. Now we get a little history on richard nixon in this next clip i can't believe it i got an enemy me the most beloved man in springfield that's a weird world homer as hard as it is to believe some people don't care for me neither no i won't accept that. No, it's true. I got their names written down right here in what I call my enemies list. Jane Fonda, Daniel Shore, Jack Anderson.

Hey, this is Richard Nixon's enemies list. You just crossed out his name and put yours. Okay, give me that. Give me back. Bonnie Gumbel. Oh. What do I do, Moe? Why don't you invite him over to dinner?

Turn him from an enemy into a friend. Then when he's not expecting it, bam! The old fork in the eye. Do you think it might work without the fork in the eye? So is it first time. So that Nixon's enemies list thing, this is how I learned about the existence of Nixon's enemies list.

Oh, me too. I feel like I learned who B.B. Robozo is from watching this show, but I don't remember when. I somehow learned about that through Duckman. And I don't know why. As we know, Homer also has an enemies list, which we saw in the Stonecutters episode.

Another one that's kind of probably the closest thing thematically to this one. Oh, yeah. Actually, yeah. That includes Budget Stool and Stern Lecture Plumbing. Plumbing, yes. Actually, Bebe Robozo might have been on Homer's revenge list. But this plays more into Bill and Josh's love of Watergate and the Nixonland era of things, for sure.

I looked into that enemies list, too. There's a lot of them out there one of the most intriguing ones to me on the list was june foray the uh the voice of rocket chase squirrel really yeah so as she told it in an interview i found uh very slowly because she was an old woman so i'm not going to play the clip but um she in the 70s took part in a boycott on meat because there had been a lot of inflation on meat prices in the nixon administration so she helped join in a boycott of buying meat and she was getting a ton of negative phone calls and anger political anger senator she even uh spoke to congress about the matter And she found out she was on Nixon's enemies list.

And she said the negative impact that had on her was that she got audited for 10 years straight, she said, by the IRS as punishment for that. Yes, there's a right. It's funny how in practice, Nixon's main way of striking the people on his enemies list was the thought audit uh also on his list were just a lot of uh i think every black congress person at the time was on that list too i think i also wonder how many times mo has used the old fork in the eye trick at meals like so like you know again back to my point, this whole scene is Homer being genuinely upset that someone doesn't like him and then conspiring to make

a nice gesture in order to show his magnanimity. No, because he's so self-absorbed that he can't process someone not liking him. I think... It's narcissism. it's narcissism to want

to be liked i think uh i can see virtual's point like after the first act there is a real turn in who you are supposed to side with like homer is really annoying in that first act but in acts two and three he's like i want to fix the situation and grimes is just like intractable oh it seems mature to me frankly i think you just respect somebody's views and you don't try to browbeat them. Well, it's more like I just met this guy. Maybe we just got off to the wrong foot and if I show him a better side of me and I

have more self-consciousness and I try a little more, he will like me. And of course, they try. The Simpsons do make a good faith effort at this. I think that's a reasonable and human thing to do the lobster dinner is pretty nice i will say that that must have cost them a pretty penny only five yeah sure that's an expensive meal and of course the family is you know famously cash

strapped this is i think the best scene in the episode but it's also when grimes transforms into the pedantic simpsons fan who complains about the complete unreality of the show that this originally very grounded animated sitcom has turned into by season eight. I think there's a real change in him as he literally steps into the darkness to talk about his life and to just evaluate the entire, just how ludicrous this family is in their living situation.

Welcome to the Simpson residence, or Casa de Simpson as I call it. Yeah, what did you want to see me about, Simpson? This better be important. It is, it is. But first, let me introduce you to my family. My perfect family. This is my wife, Marge.

Hello. And our beautiful baby. My daughter, Lisa, IQ 156. Hi. See? And my son, Bart. He owns a factory downtown. How do you do?

Look, Homer, I'm late for my night job at the foundry, so if you don't mind telling me... Good heavens! This is a palace! How in the world can you afford to live in a house like this, Simpson? I don't know. Don't ask me how the economy works. Yeah, but look at the size of this place. I live in a single room above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley.

Wow. I'm sorry, isn't that... Yeah, that's me, all right. And the guy standing next to me is President Gerald Ford. And this is when I was on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins. Oh, and here's a picture of me in outer space. You? When in outer space? You?

Sure. You've never been? Would you like to see my Grammy award? No! I wouldn't! I mean, that's them naming the most reality-breaking episodes of the show. Probably like you're saying, things that the writers weren't very happy about either, especially the... Including an episode Bill and Josh did that the writers weren't very happy about either. Including an episode

Bill and Josh did from last season. Yeah, that's right. They were being fair, I think, by bringing up Homer Palooza as well because it really

doesn't make sense that he was on tour with all those people. It was a real star-fucking episode. Oh, yeah. Well, if they really wanted to get a controversy,

they should have had Grimes go, you met Jay Sherman? You. You never met him? The famous film critic, Jay Sherman. I mean, the B-Sharps episode, I think, is actually the, secretly the most reality-breaking of

all Simpsons episodes because it means that Homer is a famous person, a one-hit wonder. He is the equal of all other one-hit wonders of the 80s and that people would be hearing about him all the time or at the very least would be going like oh what happened to this like the homer of the b sharps episode would be making viral video content now like rick roll could be the b sharps i'm basically pitching an episode of the simpsons right now and you have to think yeah oh you can't really be uh somebody who was it was a minor flash-in-the-pan famous person in the past anymore.

That doesn't exist. Now that's your Twitter bio, and you've got three different agents for your social media. You're doing cameo videos for people for 50 bucks a pop. And whenever Homer is in a scene with Skinner, Apu, or Barney, you have to think, oh, they were in a famous band together. Yep. But that can never be acknowledged. That sang for Ronald Reagan.

Yeah. And has a Grammy. If you were to go on Wikipedia in the Simpsons world and look up Grammy winners for 1985, then you would see Homer Simpson listed on there as a songwriter. And the show does do the thing where it winks at it, where at the end of the episode, the kids ask them all these questions like,

well, how do we never know about this until now? And how did you ever write a song? And then they're just like, Oh, look over there. There'll be time for that later. Yes.

Yeah. So here's what's, what, what's really interesting about this scene to me is that it you know obviously the whole pitch of the simpsons has been you know they are this this you know lower middle class family that you know struggles based on which you know way the economy is turning and grimes comes in and says you know this dilapidated house that we've seen fall apart many times in the past is actually a mansion to him. You have this job that you're not qualified for, that you're just kind of kind of you were just there, just kind of grandfathered in for.

You have no qualifications, yet you make a higher salary than I do and you can support a family. Doesn't that mirror the resentment that millennials entering the workforce have for these boomers who are still in their job isn't isn't that like one of the big kind of uh criticisms that young people have entered the workforce is that oh my my boss who's you know 30 years older than me is is a moron like does not understand anything and gives me these weird contradictory things to do like uh hey can we get on social or you know he says hey i don't understand why you're complaining about student loan debt i paid for college with my you know tips as a bartender or something because it costs 50 a semester to go to college when he went there and i genuinely think you know one of the

big reasons why socialism is far more popular now among this rising generation it's a lot of reasons you know the neoliberal turn and student loan debt but i kind of think a big one is just like your your formative experiences in the job market and realizing right away that oh meritocracies that's not a real thing my boss is someone's nephew or and and and not even if he's somebody's nephew, just the general economic context of previous generations was such that minimal effort returned just maximal material security in a way that can't happen now.

Another way to read it is a Maoist third worldist text with Homer representing the decadent labor aristocracy of the United States of America, and Frank Grimes as the oppressed global proletariat, for whom his dilapidated suburban house would be a mansion. I mean, it is to me, I was radicalized to an extent by the,

if you had asked me a decade ago, do you believe in the meritocracy, I'd be like, nah, probably not, But in my soul, I still probably did think, if I work at this place for 10 years, I'll be an editor-in-chief or something. I'll work my way up. That's what that other guy did. And by the end of it, and there were, by 10 years later, where there were no editor-in-chief jobs anywhere, and I was being asked to apply for jobs that were lower than my previous title at another place.

That's when it really hit me. I'm like, oh, this is completely fucked. And a new boss is helicoptered in. He doesn't know what this website is yet, but in a few months, he'll be turning things around. Don't you worry about it. Yeah, and these people who are over you or over your boss and seem to be utterly incompetent not even understand how their own industry works uh how their own industry works appear to have decisions that affect the livelihoods of of you and perhaps hundreds thousands even millions of people depending on the industry and that you have to like suck up to this person or just bite your tongue as they're screaming at you about how we're about making money here after they laid off 40 people.

Like, say what happened with a guy I probably shouldn't name because he could sue me. But yeah, Grimes, I like that we hear about his living situation because, yes, he enters Homer's house. There are three bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, a family room. Just like the luxuries Homer has that he has been uh robbed of in his own opinion yeah no he's he definitely feels homer represents everything that was taken from him that he's never gotten to have even though homer's life sucks too like he was this child whose mother abandoned him and he like his life a lot in common actually yeah but i guess this is what happens when you let bitterness and resentment win true this is what happens when your ability to relate to another

human being is mediated by capital yeah actually this next part the second half of that scene i it's hard for me not to always think about how john swartzwalder is a libertarian when watching episodes like this but i mean this whole speech grimes gives to him i i i think swartzwater really feels this about most people around him god i've had to work hard every day of my life and what do i have to show for it this briefcase and this haircut and what do you have to show for your lifetime of sloth and ignorance what and everything a dream house, a beautiful wife, a son who owns a factory, fancy clothes, and lobsters for dinner! And do you deserve any of it? No! What are you saying? I'm saying you're what's wrong with America, Simpson. You coast through life, you do as little as possible,

and you leech off decent, hardworking people like me. If you lived in any other country in the world, you'd have starved to death long ago. He's got you there, Dad. You're a fraud. A total fraud. It was nice meeting you. And, you know, all the reasons Grimes lists that why he hates Homer is why the viewer finds him funny, because he's just a bad person, and that's where a lot of jokes come out of. But if you're in that world, you can easily resent him, especially if you're working with him.

That's kind of, if that is what Schwarzer Welder believes, that's kind of rich coming from a guy who spent the 70s writing ad copy and recording novelty songs about animals. Well, it definitely goes to show Grimes' just fundamental misdiagnosis of his problems because he is rightfully angry about what life has dealt him, but the idea of blaming it on Homer Simpson is genuinely nonsensical. Homer had nothing to do with any of those uh instances uh that led to him being where he is and as we discussed the reason he doesn't have has to go to the foundry is because his capricious 900 year old boss docked his pay

for saving his co-workers life the fact that he had to go to work as a child instead because he lived in a Dickensian orphanage is because we don't have any kind of meaningful safety net it has nothing to do with Homer Simpson it's due to the broken system yeah right he can't challenge the system he just sees Homer as someone who cheated somehow I did overlook his child labor that means he didn't even go to school like he never had schooling that's uh that's pretty sad that is yeah and it helps explain why he's so unable to deal with homer because he's never socialized probably he's never actually been in a school environment where you have to deal with a bunch of different types of people his

interactions with uh carl and lenny also give you a window into his lack of socialization too like he he ends conversations with them pretty quickly yeah he just can't handle it he can't function with other people yeah and all the only conversations you hear are they're just about backbiting yeah he just he just wants to complain about homer that's the only way he can start a conversation with carl and lenny yeah hey you see that guy you're friends with what an asshole right also seeing him as the virgin versus the chad like that adds more to his uh being mad that he has a beautiful wife because he's uh sexual frustration is in there too yeah well as will be established in a season 14 episode uh grimes does frequent sex workers when

he came yes the line is my dad liked hookers okay? I know, I didn't want to speak too much of that episode, but when we're talking about Grimes' sex life, this is later Simpsons canon. It's important to know that Frank Grimes' son would later try to kill Homer Simpson. Yes, yeah. Imagine that after he got off of the foundry, he went to a hooker.

He's not getting any sleep. He needs to get some sleep. That's also probably causing his anger as well. Homer's just destroyed by this. When his family looks away and can't look at him, that's basically them saying they also agree. Like, they think he is correct. They are just used to it.

They also rely on him, too. That's true. Well, but so Homer, though, can't go to work. Homer? Homer, why aren't you at work the car won't start i don't feel very good today i am at work you're afraid to go to work because frank grimes will be there aren't you it's crazy talk you're crazy marge get off the road you'll have to face him sometime. And when you do, I'm sure he'll be just as anxious to make up as you are. No, he won't. He hates me.

He doesn't hate you. He just feels insecure because you're getting through life so easily. And it's been so difficult for him. Yeah, yeah, that's his problem. He's a nut. It's not about me being lazy. It's about him being a crazy nut. Well, maybe. But I'll bet he would be less crazy if you were just a little more professional in your work.

Just a little more. Then he won't have any reason to resent you. I'll do it. To professionalism chugging a beer in the car before work but she must always have just beer in his car all the time too pulls it from nowhere you see that's you know so that that again makes me sympathize with homer because he's he's he's moping he won't go to work that's it's cute it's like there's like there's a bully at school,

and he just doesn't want to go, and he refuses to acknowledge it. I don't like Homer's rejection of reality. He's all too happy to go like, that's right, he's just crazy. It's not that he's correct about me. It's that he's a crazy nut. And Marge has to humor him a little bit.

Yes. Well, they're in a very codependent relationship. Well, how do you feel about the people who don't like you? Oh, they're crazy. They're crazy. They're all nuts. I mean, I think we are very well positioned to answer the question of how you deal with vehement dislike from people in a social context and I'd have to say that the Homer

the Homer method is the most effective one. Yeah, correct. They're crazy. They are crazy. The people who don't like us they're not crazy, they're jealous. And sometimes crazy. It's a combination of the two. Yeah, well jealousy can drive you mad.

You've gone mad with jealousy. Well, it's all our work's worth. Iago. What a parent. I do feel a bit of empathy for Homer there. I have been not wanting to go to work because I'll have to see a person at it. I've been there, too. I haven't chugged a whole beer in the morning to get over that, but teach their own.

But unlike his half-assed over-parenting, his half-assed over-working is not more annoying. No, yeah, it's true. Grimes does go too far by not letting it go here. Homer, he should just let Homer be the model employee and just leave. I mean, Homer will stop doing that by the end of the day. We know him. Yeah, and again, the whole conflict here can just be resolved by just chilling out. No, that is his mistake to not chill out. That's Grimes' biggest mistake, I'd say. So we cut back to Bart and Milhouse one more time before it falls down at the factory. Them just fucking around the

factory i like the wacky shack line that's a fun line and also the uh there's so many great nose scenes like first homer with his nose on the pencil and then when they throw all those things in the industrial waste and directly put their nose over the fumes that is such a great little scene there i think the only really good gag in the factory is look at those warning signs and they look at the warning signs and they're too rusty and pointy so they throw them at the window that's the only really good gag from that i think that i like the most i like the uh well i mean i like the fire extinguisher gag and he's lucky that fire extinguisher even still works it has cobwebs on it that's true yeah my i think my favorite is when millhouse has that his first existential

moment where he goes so this is my life. Yeah, that's probably the best one. I always like the visual gag of the rats in the coffee machine. And he still drinks that coffee, too. He's very nonplussed by that rat coffee. But yes, here's Homer's attempt to be Mr. Good Employee. Good morning, fellow employee. You'll notice that I am now a model worker.

We should continue this conversation later during a designated break period. Sincerely, Homer Simpson. Can you believe that guy? He's in his office making a pathetic attempt to look professional. Hey, what do you got against Homer anyway? Are you kidding? Does this whole plant have some disease where it can't see that he's an idiot? Look here.

Accidents have doubled every year since he became safety inspector. And meltdowns have tripled. Has he been fired? No. Has he been disciplined? No, no. Everybody makes mistakes. That's why they put erasers on pencils. Yeah, Homer's okay. Give him a break. No! Homer is not okay! And I want everyone in this plant to realize it.

I would die a happy man if I could prove to you that Homer Simpson has the intelligence of a six-year-old. So, how you doing? How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner, and greener. At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener, your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our net zero hub at electricarland.ie.

And I really enjoy Grimes' very conspicuous plan that he thinks is ingenious. Yes. Just so glaringly obvious, but he's still so meticulous with the exacto knife and the coffee cup and the ruler and everything. It is so perfect to his character to be that meticulous about it. One thing I want to say is about the uh accidents increasing is correlation not causation crime should have more logic than that yeah we don't know what the other factors are well give him more time to do the research he just got there i guess it is a second day well also though i mean what stats will he have to go for because homer is a safety inspector, so he's not keeping...

I'm surprised even those stats of accidents are there when Homer's the safety inspector. Also, the tripling of meltdowns. Like, three meltdowns is very bad. It shouldn't even be one. You really want to stick the meltdowns around zero. I think Homer, it's a fun guy, Homer being professional but him you know play acting as grimes just underscores how unpleasant grimes is i like his mr good employee poster that's a fun he ordered

a poster he works hard for that right but he still doesn't know how to do his job because there's a giant disaster that happens and he just sits. He's eating donuts more sensibly, though. He's smiling politely. That's what Homer Simpson does. Well, I have been at Grimes in this moment here where I've wanted to complain about a coworker. I never want to work in an office again, and I hope I never do. But when I did work in an office and I was mad at some other co-worker and I'd try to bitch about it with other co-workers and they wouldn't be like

what's your problem with them? I'd be like no! Come on! We're supposed to be angry together! This is making it harder. Also, do you guys remember the last time Lenny said that's why pencils have erasers? Oh no. Let me think about that.

I think I'm stumped. Hang oh man hang on hang on hang on uh oh damn no not coming to me what is it it's from burns for coffin to craft work where they are saying those germans are some good guys they made some mistakes in the past but that's why pencils have erasers and that was lenny who said that right it was lenny it feels like it's a callback callback i think that's lenny's catchphrase that's one of my favorite i i mean and that's right before they announce all the layoffs of employees that is just homer simpson homer that is all uh god so lenny is comparing the nazi germany to homer here basically the model building contest thing also to me with the reading that grimes is failing to live in the correct in the show that he's in

this is him trying to do a wacky sitcom plot like they would have done on say home improvement or some tgif show yeah and so he's like okay fine in a sitcom. I'm going to have a wacky plan that will humiliate this person and then lead to us having a heart-to-heart maybe at the end. That's what would happen on Home Improvement. And that's, again, his mistake. He's not even on – he thinks he's going to be on a bad sitcom. He's not even on that. He's just really giving the show an opportunity for more jokes, a platform for more jokes. And he's careful cutting away – that's one of my favorite for more jokes. And is careful cutting away.

That's one of my favorite reveals, too, that is careful cutting away of everything. Okay, I think this is when the psycho music starts, like the Ode to Psycho Bernard Herrmann score. When I first saw it as a kid, I thought, well, he's doing that X-Acto knife, and then he's going to photocopy it again and just have blank space.

Instead, he hands Homer a thing full of just that has been cut up, and Homer just accepts it as a regular uh flyer it's so fucking funny to me yeah you yeah you think he'd go the extra mile and like photocopy that so that it's a full piece of paper he's not very good at these hijinks i have to say he's he's trying but uh but homer still buys it in this homer this next clip here it's a quick one but homer talking to the photo of you know no you're right he's not good at these he's like it's like when when uh pepe's on the internet try to troll you uh it's like why does yeah i expect grimes to leave like a printout of the

npc meme on hom Homer's work console. It's like, oh, I've got him. All he needed to add was a picture of a gas chamber with a Pepe face. Oh, he's trying to make it up to me by giving me this cartoon. But no, Homer's reaction to it is pretty great here. Design your own power plant, eh? This is my chance to show everyone how professional I am. Lenny, tell Mr. Burns I've gone home to work on the contest.

Oh, God. That's a great oh, God, by the way. Yeah. Oh, God! That's a great oh, God, by the way. Yeah. Oh, God! Now, if you take this as reality, Homer hitting his car and not even looking back is a pretty bad thing for Homer to do. Well, he's a bad driver.

I mean, come on. Nobody's perfect. But Homer's speaking to the photograph of Lenny that he thinks is... One of the best visual gags. Have a great summer. That's the line of Lenny that he thinks is... One of the best visual gags. Have a great summer. That's the line of the episode to me, I think. That's the joke.

God, it's just so... Tell Mr. Burns I'm going home to work on the contest. You're like, you don't get to do that. He's being more professional that way. It's endearing that he has that framed photo of Lenny on his desk. That is sweet. Later, Marge would have that photo oh that's true not lenny not lenny uh so before we get to the end here we do have well i do like the little clip of homer working in the basement and you get some good like dan kesslin and uh mumble noises there i did get one clip from bart at the factory.

That is the closure of his factory, which I do think is pretty funny. I like this joke. Just a minute, Van Houten. Somebody needs to guard this place tonight. So it doesn't get trash. How'd you like to be night watchman?

But I'm sleepy. Oh, no problemo. Here's a nickel for the coffee machine. So this is my life. At least I've done better than Dad. Aw, jeez. Milhouse, how could you let this happen?

You were supposed to be the night watchman. I was watching. I saw the whole thing. First it started falling over. Then it fell over. Wow. I wonder where all the rats are going to go. Okay, everybody tuck your pants into your socks it's a great line i think mo would welcome those rats though he's got a real family he's got all the rats of his own there those aren't your rats

yeah this was a long runner of mo's rats bill and josh by the end of season eight were really into just the family of rats and mo's's. Instead of doing jokes about Moe's suicidal tendencies, it's a lot of rat jokes. It's a rat runner. I like the rat runners. Yeah, I think the Moe's suicide stuff just became so cheap in the later seasons. They just kind of leaned on that to an extent that just wasn't really funny anymore. It was just repetitive. Yeah, I think we pointed it out before, but really the no funeral sign on him with his head in the

oven is just the end of that joke. It should have been the end of the joke. You can't top that one. I also, I love Milhouse's description of it. First it starts falling over, and then it fell over. And also just the blank look on Milhouse's face when he's staring at the rubble is pretty great. He somehow survived.

He got out and made sure to watch it, not be inside true he did his job yeah to hit the cut to him just banging the door with the bath that's a really that's another great joke in this episode there's they they get every single thing they could do out of the concept of art and an abandoned factory all 90 seconds worth of jokes despite being surrounded by kids and having a sign that says children's model contest, Homer doesn't seem to realize he's at a kids

model contest. And nobody else seems to care either. First we get the kids showing off their models. And the bold new ideas these tiny techs unveil for us today could make thousands of jobs like yours obsolete.

Our first little genius is Ralph Wiggum. It's pretty good, sir. Hot tub? Media room? It's supposed to be a power plant, not Aunt Beulah's bordello. Thank you. Get out. Next.

Uh, Rafi, get off the stage, sweetheart. Behold, the power plant of the future, today! Too cold and sterile. Where's the heart? But it really generates power. It's lighting this room right now. You lose. Get off my property. No geeks.

No geeks. Yeah, you really have to know about Smither's Malibu Stacy fixation to understand that one. Why he likes the Malibu Stacy dream house that Ralph is presenting. That Aunt Beulah's Bardellaello line is a pretty good one too. I like these. Was that the name of the sex cauldron?

Yeah, that was the old sex cauldron. That must be the one that Jasper and Abe frequent, that Bordello. That sounds like something they go to. If Burns would have heard of it, then they would too. It's an age thing. That's their generation's Bordello. I also do like Ralph being called Sweetheart by Wiggum. It's sweet. of it than they would too it's an age thing like they're that's their generation's bordello but the

i also do like ralph being called sweetheart by wigam it's sweet it's nice why is wigam there at this employee event at the power plant the parents are there for the kids oh yeah that makes sense i don't know i assumed he they took a bus or something and uh yeah burns is it's a kind of a surprising thing that burns rejects a thing for being too heartless like you you think he would uh be on that side of it but i guess he's he's an old man at heart he doesn't like this futuristic plant it reminds him of a future he won't live for perhaps well yeah and we all know that there's nothing more emblematic of burns and just being incredibly mercurial and changing his views on on a lark because he can and because he's 150 years old oh yeah as burns puts it's

one of his patented changes of heart it also seems to make him look bad you know yeah like these this kid has got a better factory than i made that's why he likes homer's design so much yeah exactly it's just the one he has but with a racing stripe homer knew to speak to his his ego by just adding on a racing stripe is a nice touch and tilphans yes oh yeah so here's homer winning the contest and again i i did take this as grimes is trying to instigate a regular sitcom here by like, hey, everybody, laugh at Homer. This is the part where we laugh at Homer together and humiliate him in the story. And instead, everyone just goes along with it. They're cheering for Homer.

Let's have the next child. Look, everybody. Simpsons in a contest with children. Hey, shh. You're making us miss the contest. Could you explain your model, young man? What's to explain? He's an idiot.

Pipe down. Well, basically, I just copy the plant we have now. Hmm. Then I edit some fins to lower wind resistance. And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp. Agreed. First prize. What?

Way to go, Homer. You're number one, Homer. But this was a contest for children. Yeah, and Homer beat their brains out. Woo! I can't stand it any longer. This whole plant is insane. Insane, I tell you.

So yeah, the episode is ending. Captain Wacky has to win. And it breaks his brain. And he has to die because he understands the reality of this world too much. Well, you know, here's the thing. There has to be some kind of justification for homer keeping this job for so long despite his lack of qualifications and his incompetence and i think you know we see how he does that by him winning the contest it's just in his own kind of childlike

buffoonishness like that's enough to win over the boss and the status quo of the show has to remain the same ultimately well that's the thing we're all they're all everyone's a prisoner of of the of the conceit of the program and and nothing can alter it and you could say that grimes is less a real person dropped into the simpsons and sort of a duck a muck type figure who is rebelling against the constraints of the narrative that they're trapped in yeah and he's he's, well, I think he also mistakes that he's not, his mistake is that he's not the main character of this show.

He maybe thinks he is. And he also, he doesn't realize he's a guest character in the show, which also means you could die. Like, if he was a regular, they wouldn't kill Lenny. Lenny could have this freak out and then get back to normal at the end. But a guest character can be a one-off and die that's a great point and earlier they proved that homer is invincible like he

almost died 300 some times it's never really happened before it's best not to think about it yeah well that actually is very indicative and i think yeah i think that the idea of of recognizing homer as the main character if you're a subsidiary character, as a precondition for maintaining your sanity, that's like the closest thing that the Simpsons universe could kind of have to a religion, is if you just, it's like sort of a Buddhist acceptance that you are,

that your subjectivity is illusory, basically. That the only subject is Homer. That everyone else has only illusory subjectivity, and subject is homer that everyone else is is has only illusory subjectivity and that you should hold it very loosely and not try to insist upon it in the face certainly in in any way that conflicts with homers wow it's a real uh existential crisis he's having here yeah i mean look at the relationship he has with marge and how many times she gets insanely angry with him and how many times she's disappointed with him and how awful he is. And how her rationalizations to stay with him always basically boil down to he's the real character of the show.

And I literally exist to serve him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's why Grimes tries to transform himself into the main character, too. Yeah. Oh, wow. And his hubris destroys him. That's great.

I like that. His hubris destroys him. It's like a Buddhist parable. There's so much great animation in this episode from his freakouts. One that was pointed out to me that was really cool when he says, Insane, I tell you, and he shakes his arms above him. They do a thing they rarely do on The Simpsons, which is to indicate the movement, they draw multiple arms at once visible.

And that's something somebody pointed out that Bill and Josh did a lot on their Mission Hill show. It's much more Looney Tunes. Yeah, I like that. The animation on Grimes' freakout is very satisfying here. Jim Reardon and his team did just an amazing job on Grimes. His whole speech, his movements in his speech, especially

when he points, like, you're a fraud. That's such great animation. I love every second of that. Also, it explains why Burns lets Homer get away with this because he doesn't recognize him, as usual. He says, like, will you explain this young man? He thinks he's a child too. Yes, also that. Yeah, so frank grimes becomes homer simpson here i can be lazy too look at me

i am a worthless employee just like homer simpson give me a promotion oh i eat like a slob, but nobody minds. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm peeing on the seat. Give me a raise. Now I'm returning to work without washing my hands. But it doesn't matter, because I'm Homer Simpson. I don't need to do my work, because someone else will do it for me. Doh, doh, doh. Hey, you okay, Grimey?

I'm better than okay. I'm Homer Simpson. You wish. Oh, hi, Mr. Burns. I'm the worst worker in the world. Time to go home to my mansion and eat my lobster. What's this? Extremely high voltage.

Well, I don't need safety gloves because I'm Homer Simpson. I totally love your point, Henry. And the reality of the scene, he's mocking Homer, but the meta commentary is he's trying to become the main character. And that's where the mental break is coming from. He's like, I want to be the protagonist. Look how easy my life would be. Yep.

Yeah, but he can't do it because the universe is not ordered around him the way that it's not ordered around any of us even though we might believe it to be the case and might be i hate to tell you this for virtual but it is not true and might be i haven't i haven't died that's what everyone has ever said before they died exploring it further like this episode is about existential terror just like the terror this man must feel as the world is unraveling around him and i mean i always saw it like that but just just how stark it is now just as we're all talking about it it's very it's very unsettling and even the electrocution thing he's right to think he'll be fine because homer has survived worse in this show in this very episode when he pours all the water on his thing he is surrounded by electricity it doesn't

even touch him he is fine yeah wow because he wear that's because he's wearing rubber soles he fell down the springfield gorge for god's sake what would happen if any other character on the show had fallen down there? Twice. Frank Grimes would have just been a pile of hamburger at the base of that. Homer's had a quadruple bypass surgery, too. Yeah, when he was, what, 35 years old? It kind of hurt watching it this time to be like, oh, I'm older than Grimes now.

I don't like this. I'm 36 now. And he was 35 and will always be 35 and and uh this was the first time we get to find out homer pees on the seat at work which like that that's pretty bad but again he's just he's an uncared he's just a very selfish person who doesn't think of other people that's just homer it's not he is not a out of malice yeah no. No. But isn't that worse, really? They talk about it on the commentary, too, was a choice of theirs that nobody tries to stop Grimes or even really talks to him.

They're all just, like, staring at him like you would in real life at a nervous breakdown in front of you. It's Shades of Hurricane Nettie, just, like, the shocked people, shocked and saddened people around him, not wanting to intervene. They're not sure what this person's going to do next.

And so we get another of the funniest cuts in series history. The church bell, like, boom. Yep, yeah. To a funeral for Grimey. Frank Grimes, or Grimey as he liked to be called,

taught us that a man can triumph over adversity. And even though Frank's agonizing struggle through life was tragically cut short, I'm sure he's looking down on me right now. Change the

channel, Marge! That's our homer! That's our Homer That's our Homer That Sting really really sells it at the end It's like no this is happy Everyone's laughing at Homer That's our Homer As Grimes' coffin slowly lowers Almost like reality itself

Is pushing him away Like you're gone now It's over Frank I think the director said that's one of his favorite things he's ever animated for the show or they do quite like his favorite shots he's done and the punish like maybe the greatest cruelty of all to him is that at he's eulogized his grimy a name he hated like that's kind of describing his describing his death as sort of a mercy killing that agonizing struggle through life was cut short

i love that christian view of life of just like well you should continue living no matter how agonizing it was so it's horrible that it's tragic that your agony ended early and yeah everyone laughing and saying that's our homer is a amazing exit lie it but it is them saying like this is a sitcom haha we all laugh at the end and none of this is real to any of us we all the people laughing with him doing a a horrible thing of snoring at a man's funeral yeah just all like haha this is so funny status quo is preserved yes the stranger is gone now but yeah this episode i mean again a lot of people think it should be the uh the series finale i think it should have at least been the season finale.

It's a nice dark note to go out on. I'd reverse them. This really should be the season finale to me, too. What was the season finale? And the series finale, yes. What was the season finale? It was Secret War of Lisa Simpson. The military school Lisa won.

That's an okay episode, but it really does not seem like a appropriate final episode for a season maybe they didn't want to go out on a funeral maybe they were like when they got that back like this is a too this is too far for us to leave people at the end of this season well i remember i i remember the first time i saw it and it felt felt i gave me kind of a little chill it felt dark in a way that no simpsons episode really had before this to me. And like I said earlier, it's Homer's blithe indifference to this man's death and everyone else indulging him in his just total callousness. That's what really was, to me, sort of that moment of alienation from the show

as an enjoyment and as a character who whose wacky hijinks i enjoyed that's that's the moment where oh what if this was a real person what if what what are the implications of homer simpson as a character that's it really just jumped out it was like a brechtian distancing moment where i was just oh oh this is what i've been liking this is a guy i've been liking it was like a slap to the face. And yeah, I mean, it would be a hard way to end an episode or, I mean, a season or a series of television. But I think it...

These showrunners in particular, they, as with all showrunners of the show, thought, oh yeah, this show has to end anytime soon, so let's do all of our experiments, everything we ever wanted to do. And they sincerely thought, this show will last maybe 10 years. So they did a lot of status quo changes. They kind of um destroyed a lot of canon in fun ways like let's make side

show bob good let's make jebediah springfield bad let's let's do a lot of different things with this world that a lot of future showrunners would quote unquote correct in their own way i i've got to say i always appreciated and liked the darkness of the ending of it. I don't know. Maybe I'm just finding this man's death funny. Maybe I'm a little twisted. I think you're twisted because you see guys like us, the rest of us on this show.

Regular guys like us. Regular guys. We laugh at people who are different. Virgil laughs at the people because they're all the same. That's what's the difference between us. If only that was on a t-shirt. I would never say that this is a bad episode or that it's a bad ending. I just think that it's an epochal ending and it changed the show.

It was a harbinger for a change in the show that was significant and morbid. Literally, I use that word too much, but in this case I mean it accurately. and morbid, like literally, I use that word too much, but in this case I mean it accurately, literally morbid. A signal of death kind of creeping into The Simpsons, at least as a premise, as a relationship to the characters, and as just an awareness of the limitations and the way that we are approaching them. As approaching death, we're basically all Frank Grimes. All of us poor, sad Simpsons viewers, we're all grimy

because Homer is going to keep on keeping on, but we can't because we're changing, our relationship to the show is changing, our memory of all those other episodes is going to make it harder for us to appreciate the newer ones that change canon and change tone and introduce weird zaniness and post modernism in a way that didn't exist before. And yeah, we're basically we're looking at our own graves. It's like the it's like Christmas Carol. I mean, Homer will laugh at all of our funerals because he will live past all of us.

He'll live forever. Exactly. That's it. He's going to be snoring at our funeral and telling Marge to change the channel. And all those people are going to be laughing along. That's kind of funny. You're thinking about it. Yeah, and that's what I'm saying.

It's not a bad episode. It's just it's a chilling one. Homer Simpson. It's the one that just changes your relationship to the show homer simpson at my funeral one could only dream how much would it cost to get a homer simpson impersonator my dad got me homer simpson for my funeral didn't they used to have those oversized simpsons costumes at six flags did you get a guy in that to come to your funeral oh my god has anyone gotten in their will or something or like a family member did it gotten a guy dressed up like homer to snore and say change the channel

march at their at their funeral if, go one bigger, recreate that entire scene for your funeral. Yes, make that your funeral. And your tombstone has to say Grimes on it too. Not my name. Yeah, whatever your name is, forget that. It just says Grimes. I would say that would be

that should be the next trend, not like these stupid nerd weddings, like my Game of Thrones themed wedding no no no nerd funerals boy I love this and if it's going to be anyone it's probably going to be someone who listens to one of our shows probably both

of them who will be the first to write in their will I demand a nerd funeral send us pictures of your nerd funeral actually have a family member send us pictures of your nerd funeral listener if you're dying anytime soon please as our generation ages we're going to see more of it for sure yeah no that's true because this is the these are the this is we are the first cohort of people who sort of have been captured by their childhood

media preferences for their whole lives and so when we start dying in larger numbers that's going to imprint upon our desires on how we want to be remembered now i just want a coffin that tweets for me still dead still dead uh you know somebody's gonna have a a gravestone that says here lies beavis he never scored that has to exist that that has to exist i feel like we would have seen it by now well if it hasn't happened as i'm just saying it will if it hasn't let's make it happen i think we can will this into existence well eventually somebody's gonna have a funeral where they reenact the the cremation of qui-gon jinn uh i need blue ghost for that, right?

Well, no. As we all know, it isn't until Revenge of the Sith that Qui-Gon Jinn learns the ability to become a Force ghost. Of course. Which he then teaches to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda at some point in between Episode 3 and Episode 4. I think we've all had more than enough of me and Matt talking about Star Wars.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. Well, so my last thought on this episode, I do feel maybe Matt has burned this into my brain a little bit, but I do think this ending is kind of, if you want, this is like the death of reality on The Simpsons. Like this is the last time things get to be real, like them all having a studio audience

type laughter and just rejecting the idea that they could ever afford this house or that money would ever be a problem again for the show or that anybody would even act normally in front of a crazy situation that is the pronouncement of like this is this is all a show like this is all fake he's right it's a fraud yeah he's exactly right it's a fraud yeah and i think the creators of the show weren't trying to ruin it in that case i think they just saw it as another genre break that they don't have to recognize in a future episode and maybe they miss they underestimated that some fans took it all so seriously that they couldn't take it as a singular moment

and that they did see it as like no you broke reality it's over now and armin tamzerian is kind of the one-two punch with this that that's also says like this cannot matter if we say it doesn't matter at the end of the episode yeah and i think a lot of them get mad at the specific show runners or writers when as i said they should be mad at the show runners or writers when, as I said, they should be mad at the second law of thermodynamics. Kind of after the commentaries came out and I watched it as an adult, I knew that the conceit of the episode

is a real person enters this world and is rejected by it. But now, as we talk about it more, as I said before, I'm really just into the terror of this episode, the horror aspect of it, and of a character trying to usurp the main character and being killed for that. I really like that idea,

and I'm going to go home and drink. Yeah, it's hubris. It's the hubris of any mere mortal to try to center themselves in a vast, uncaring cosmic void. I am going to stick with my material reading of the episode. Grimes was fash and uh he's a he's beta and the lesson is uh don't care about your job don't try hard you know i mean it

just reinforces what holber famously said in the teacher strike episode you don't if you hate your job you don't strike you just go in there every day and half-ass it i will say that that the that there is good material stuff in here because frank grimes is a poster child perfect exemplar of as i said earlier false consciousness of someone misdiagnosing at every element every point of their life what the cause of their problems are the cause of their miseries and and in kicking either down or sideways uh instead of looking towards the people perpetrating the structural oppressions that have uh have made their lives so horrible he has he has he has envy instead of class consciousness. Okay. So do a half-assed job and also punch upwards.

I do hope this episode destroyed the myth of meritocracy for some folks, at least. I do hope that happened. Let's hope so. If it changed one mind, it's good. But yeah. Oh, wait. Actually, sorry. I had one last thing I found out looking up.

Have they done anything new with Grimes in the last 10 years? No. No, no. There is bad news on that topic i'm sorry so after season after season 14 there was no there was only that one appearance of his son so he didn't come back except in one comic book but that that's not canon uh in this the canon is shaky a little bit on the video game simpsons tapped out but in it they reveal that frank grimes is still alive and working at the power plant with them and he was actually in a coma and buried alive that he then crawled his way out and is now working at the power plant still i don't respect that yeah

well also there was the uh the john k treehouse of horror uhhouse of Horror where the Simpsons are eaten by the zombie ghost of Frank Grimes. Yeah, that is true. He's made a few Treehouse Horror appearances, but as we all know, those are not canon either. It's hard to tell what anything is in that because it was drawn by a crazy pedophile. Yes, yeah. It's a bunch of shapes floating around. But yeah, Matt and Virgil, thanks for joining us. Please talk about all of your stuff.

You guys are doing a great job with the podcast your book is amazing henry and i both read it lots of live stuff where can we find you where can we download your stuff uh online obviously at chapo trap house just type that into your search engine of choice and something will come up probably uh as well you could also buy the book the chapel guide to revolution a manifesto against logic facts and reason and again if you need any more evidence as well you can also buy the book The Chapel Guide to Revolution A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason and again if you need any more evidence that we don't live in a meritocracy our book is a New York Times bestseller

if only Frank Grimes had that book someone should have gifted that Frank Grimes is everyone who hates our show they get this much money to do that yeah that's the system you're defending buddy well thanks you guys so much again for coming back we yeah i i hope we have killed harry kissinger at least for this episode fingers crossed so yeah thanks again to matt chrisman and virgil texas uh they're so big

they don't need us to promote them but we will check out chapeau trap house check out them on twitter they're easy to find uh they have live shows all the time their book is great we're big supporters and fans of them and we're just totally flattered to have them on the show. Hell yeah. We had them on when they were promoting the book before release, and now post-book coming out. It's just so great. I'm a big fan, and I just love talking canon with Virgil. That's just fun in general. He does know a lot. They both are super big fans yeah the show and uh that comes up a lot on their podcast too a lot of simpsons references to current day horror in politics but as for us uh check us out on patreon at patreon.com talking simpsons that's where you can find the talking simpsons network and you can get a lot of cool stuff for not much money a month for five bucks

a month you'll get every episode of this podcast a week ahead of time and ad free and the same goes for our sister show what a cartoon we also have a ton of things at the five dollar level you'll get when you sign up we have exclusive mini series like talking critic and talking futurama also a ton of interviews our monthly community podcast talk to the audience season wrap-ups deleted scene specials and just random fun things you like to throw online when we get a chance to so if you sign up today you'll if you've never been a member of the network there's so much stuff you haven't heard if you like our podcast the if you've never been a member of the network, there's so much stuff you haven't heard. If you like our podcast, it's the perfect treat for yourself. You'll have weeks and months to catch up on so many podcasts to fill your ears and

brain with. And that's at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Also, if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area or will be there on January 16th, that's when me and Bob are having our second year at SF Sketch Fest fest and we're doing a live podcast recording with some cool stuff getting planned that we're not ready to announce just yet but we have that coming up for us january 16th that's wednesday 8 p.m san francisco at sf sketch fest go to sf sketch fest.com and check out the lineup for the link to the tickets. You're going to have a great time. So please, one more time, January 16th, 8 p.m. Wednesday. It's a big theater.

We don't know if tickets are going to sell out, but our Bill Oakley show did, so you never know. So if you're going to be in the area, definitely jump on there, grab tickets while you can. We can't make any promises, and we have a huge friends list that we're getting in, speaking to the show in an even bigger enemies list, like Moses Lang.

But thanks again for listening. As for me, I am Bob Mackie. Find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. My other podcast is Retronauts. Go to retronauts.com or look for Retronauts in your podcast machine. It's a classic gaming podcast. We've been doing it for over 12 years now. So there's gotta be something we've talked about

that you like. So check it out online, download an episode, subscribe if you like it. And hey, why not review us too? And yes, that's it for me how about you henry i'm the other host and i'm henry gilbert and you can follow me on twitter at h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g i tweet out about all the new stuff that happens in our podcast and promote the things on the patreon and also share fun simpsons gifts and also information on all of our live shows plus i have some political tweets too out there too uh thanks so much for joining us folks we'll see you next week for the simpsons GIFs, and also information on all of our live shows. Plus, I have some political tweets, too, out there, too.

Thanks so much for joining us, folks. We'll see you next week for the Simpsons Spinoff Showcase. I can't stand it any longer. This whole plant is insane. Insane, I tell you.