Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homer's Odyssey (Revisited) With Andrew Jupin

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

We welcome back on Andrew Jupin from the awesome We Hate Movies podcast! to help us return to another season one favorite! Homer loses his job and is driven to suicidal depression in this very odd early episode. Listen now to hear about the mutants of Springfield, a different Smithers, how Hank Azaria joined the cast, and so much more! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

attention podcast listener we've got an exciting new podcast coming just for patrons of patreon.com slash talking simpsons talking futurama season two part one has begun exclusively for our five dollar and up patrons on the talking simpsons network that's the first 10 episodes of futurama coming to you once a week so just sign up for $5 a month at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and you'll get Talking Futurama season two and all of our limited miniseries, including the entirety of Talking Futurama season one. That's 13 episodes.

That is patreon.com slash talking simpsons. Now, please enjoy the rest of this podcast. I heartily endorse this event or product ahoy everybody and welcome to talking simpsons where visitors will be shot i'm your host your misunderstood friend, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today. The most charismatic person since Jolson, Henry Gilbert. And who do we have on the line? Andrew Jupin from We Hate Movies.

Excellent. And today's episode is Homer's Odyssey. All he does is lie there like an unemployed whale. Today's episode aired on January 21st, 1990, and as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history. Oh my god!

Oh boy, Bobby! MTV Unplugged debuts with the band Squeeze in the first episode of the series. Tremors makes a very small box office debut, and classic actress of the silver screen, Barbara Stanwyck, passes away. Double Indemnity, which was the basis for the most clumsy Simpsons episode title ever.

Yes, Dumbbell Indemnity. Tremors was a good time. That was a VHS favorite of mine as a child. I did like the first one, but then there were several dozen sequels. I didn't watch any of those. And then maybe like a sci-fi series or something, like a syndicated series. And somewhere along the way, Jamie Kennedy got involved. And you know what, Tremors?

You can forget it. Tremors has been X'd. Is that his thing? Oh, he does actually yeah you got x'd that there's a reference to that in arrested development so we'll always know about him xing people unfortunately uh and mtv unplugged the uh you know a favorite of gen xers watching bands play with acoustic instruments and everything the uh i don't think i saw the squeezed one i mean the the one our generation remembers is the Nirvana one because

it's like oh he killed himself after this it's sad but it's also great released posthumously right I think so it was like I got it for Christmas of 94 and I just heard a song from that somewhere in public like over like a internet like radio or something like that I thought he was

like the originator of the man who sold the world that's the cover i heard yeah i mean it's the best song of his unplugged set i thought metal gear solid 5 wrote that song it's a cover and that's uh video game too it is yeah it has very thematic importance that it's a cover but anyway yes our special guest today is andrew droop and he's back from the amazing podcast we hate Hate Movies. Last week, we had Eric Siska. So we have another member of the amazing We Hate Movies crew. Welcome, Andrew. Oh, thanks so much, guys.

Yeah, I am so happy to be back. I love talking Simpsons. Thank you. Had a lot of fun the last time. And you're just, you're going through our stable of guys. I really appreciate that. We love all of you equally. Yeah, we love you as much as you hate movies.

We have a chart here. So what is your experience with season one, Andrew? You know, it's so funny. I'm prepping for a move right now. So our house is in disarray, but I just pulled out the season one DVD set, which I don't think I've opened probably since my, I would say first year of college.

So we're talking like 2002, you know, I've just traveled around with this DVD case. Yeah, I don't know. It's one of those things, watching this episode, it made me realize that what I do for the most part is pretend like this season doesn't exist. I think a lot of people have, but upon revisiting it, I think we're finding

a lot more value in it. Yeah, yeah. It's been really, when I guest on other shows, I try not to take too many notes because that's what I do for our show. So I was just kind of

taking notes here of things that look different. And it's really cool to see the evolution that the show has had over the years. And I will say, though, and I texted this to my guys while I was watching it, it's shocking that this show ever became a thing.

It's really stupendous, obviously. Wow, what a thing they lucked into. I think Henry said that on our last episode, like a series of miracles happened. And that's why the show is huge yeah yeah like perfect place perfect time and i also think like the order of episodes that aired were the right ones and i think i think also they really recognize like these set of episodes have enough bart in them that you can see how they caused bart mania. Yes. Yeah. But which is really who was popular, not the Simpsons,

but Bart himself in 1990. This is one of the weirder season one episodes. And I think it might have some of the sloppier writing of the season. It's not quite as tight. We'll get into that more later. No disgrace is the most sloppy writing. You're right about that. Yeah.

But this is close. This is very close. But up front, we're doing like little writers corners for these season one writers because we never did that. So I want to talk about the writers for this episode, Jay Kogan and Wally Wolodarski. I'll talk about them separately. They were a writing pair who left in season four, which is why Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein could join the crew because there was a spot for a writing team there. Yeah, that's amazing. Like if they hadn't gotten their development deal,

two of our favorite writers that ever worked on The Simpsons wouldn't have been hired. They just wouldn't have had jobs on the show. That's very true. So Jay Kogan is the son of classic TV writer Arnie Kogan. And you can hear both of them on a few episodes of the Gilbert Gottfried podcast talking about showbiz. Nepism that checks off the godfrey podcast reference for this episode i don't know if they're harvard guys though so both kogan and walidarski started on tracy allman so they were they rolled from tracy allman into the simpsons proper yeah i guess kogan replaced harvard with uh hollywood college of a family hollywood upstairs writing college. Yes.

So Jake Hogan is one of the three writers on the great Dave Foley vehicle, The Wrong Guy. Really good movie. So he left The Simpsons in season four. He went on to write for a lot of TV like Ned and Stacey, Frasier,

Malcolm in the Middle, and a ton of other credits on IMDb. He is on Twitter as Jake Hogan. So let's move on to Wally walidarski he he was the visual basis for auto yes the way auto looks in this episode and forever is how wally looked in 1988 wow i did not know that that's incredible and he used to be proud of that yeah well that's well it's especially funny because if if any film fan out there has seen wally walidarski it's because of an on-screen

appearance he makes as a small role in the film Darjeeling Limited. That's a crazy credit. But the joke in the movie is that he has alopecia and so he fully shaved his head and eyebrows. So he is completely hairless in his most famous on-screen role. I totally forgot about that. So yes, he left The Simpsons in season four and he went to the world of movies. So in 1995, he directed this Jason Priestley funny hitman movie called Cold-Blooded. It's like lost to time completely, but it was a Jason Priestley vehicle.

That sounds like one of those 800 movies that got greenlit after Pulp Fiction succeeded. Oh yeah, a thousand percent. Also, he directed 2002's Sorority Boys, which he was probably like directing during the recording of this commentary or just about to direct it so like a Harlan is it Williams

that the guy oh yeah yeah yeah that comic the the lesser Jim Brewer and then we have also 2004 seeing other people I don't know what that is but he does a lot of writing for movies movies like the rocker uh monsters versus aliens and the two dog killing movies a dog's purpose and a dog's journey

so hopefully no dogs were harmed in the sequel a dog's journey he's uh man i i mean honestly those are films everybody wants to see now about dog dying movies like that i had the this recent christmas we were i was sitting with my mom and stepdad and we were perusing movies that we could watch on netflix and they briefly stopped on i think dog's purpose and i was like no we're not watching i'm gonna see a dead body uh yeah that uh i was like i don't want to watch dogs dying with my mom on christmas yeah so last credit is wes archer so he is one of the godfathers of the simpsons he's the director of this episode and i believe if you go back to our david silverman interview on the patreon he met david silverman when they were working on animation together for the kind of sequel to better off dead

one crazy summer so they were working on the animations for that movie. So he was on The Simpsons from the Tracy Allman shorts onward. He left at the end of season seven to be on King of the Hill for about 11 or 12 years. And from then he's worked on things like The Good Family and Rick and Morty. I believe he's currently supervising director on that. And he's also directed a ton of things like Disenchantment, Bob's Burgers, Futurama, and so many other isolated shows. So Wes Archer, we got to talk to him sooner or later. Yeah. But he's on Instagram.

He does commissions. He seems like a really friendly guy. But one of the architects of The Simpsons, along with David Silverman. I think it's truly crazy that Wes Archer is the only credited storyboarder on this as well. Like that is an immense amount of work putting on a guy who's directing his first ever television episode like that's that's crazy i i did want to add to the kogan walidarski thing that yeah they were they were the first writers hired because they were just like they were in

the room we're working on we're working on this show spinoff from allman come over here and help us pitch out scripts and uh kogan is very active on twitter and very quick to answer questions about his time on the show and he says that like while this was the third produced episode it was the first finished script this is the first finished script of the simpsons which it makes even more sense why they went with the obvious pun title in their first script with homer's odyssey it was west archer's first episode he had tv he directed and their first script with Homer's Odyssey. It was Wes Archer's first episode of TV he directed and their first full episode of television they wrote together. So a lot of firsts, just like the last episode we did, a lot of firsts are happening here.

There's a lot of first appearances here. And also Jake Hogan tells a funny story on the commentary that they just didn't know Marge's name and they called her like Juliet in the script. And Mr. Burns didn't have a name yet when they were writing the script. It's a lot of things were still being developed at the time that they were handed this project. Oh, and one other person I meant to reference before, but I hadn't, uh, I did want to bring up J Michael Menzel, who was their line producer from season episode one of the Simpsons up through, uh into the teens of seasons i believe uh and he left and worked on a bunch of shows including rick and morty sadly he you know passed away

last year unexpectedly okay so just shout out to jay michael menzel r.i.p i think it's mendel mendel yes yes he's rolling in his grave now henry oh i'm sorry you've cursed the dead uh but anyway yeah that's a whole lot of background to this, which also like this is full of first appearances this episode too. Like it's crazy how many there are. Andrew, were you watching this when it first aired 30 years ago? I couldn't tell you where I was in 1990. I will say I do remember actually, I think the first episode of this show, it might not be the first one I ever watched, but I have

my first memory of a Simpsons episode is whatever Halloween special. I think they did the Mr. Burns as Dracula so that's much later maybe that's the one I'm thinking of or maybe it's the what is the one it was a Halloween special whichever one it was and it may be now that I'm thinking of it

it's the one where he builds the Homer robot it's the Frankenstein parody that'd be like 92 yeah it's a season 3 one that is where I think I kind of came in so I didn't watch this live about it's the Frankenstein parody oh that'd be like 92 yeah it's a season three one yeah yeah okay so that is where I think I kind of came in so I didn't watch this live but obviously caught it in reruns a bunch I remember though always not liking it because of the and it's nothing to do with like the production or you know anything like that just the the safety jag that homer goes on in this episode always drove me

fucking crazy you know i just watch it i'm like you fucking nerd for me it's one of those weird memories i have of this episode like i took five years of french throughout uh high school and college i can't tell you a word of french but i know what was happening on this day when i was watching the episode because right after the educational film parody, our cable went out. So I had to wait for the rerun to find out what happened to Homer. I had no idea he was going to kill himself in this episode. I watched this one live as a child. We taped every, from the first episode, we taped every episode in the Gilbert house. But I think my seven-year-old brain just turned off once bart was no longer the main character for the the next two acts were less

memorable to me probably better so i don't think about like what if my father lost his job and killed himself like i i i do want to say like you know content warning if you don't want to hear talk about you know self-harm because that's key to discussing this episode. Can I ask, what was the motivation for you guys to be taping this show from the jump? Were you big Allman fans or something? My mom really loved the Tracy Allman show, which is how I started watching the shorts. And I was just so into the shorts that I was there on day one of the Christmas special.

And I think too, like we had maybe just gotten a VCR. So the excitement of taping anything off of TV. So it was like many things with The Simpsons, a happenstance, a positive happenstance. We're like, well, we like taping things so much off of television and we're enjoying the show, The Simps we're like well we like taping things so much off of television and we're enjoying the show the simpsons let's just keep taping it so yeah oh that's so funny how long do you know how long you guys went taping the episodes i think it was the 12th

halloween special of season 13 i think that was when we were finally like, uh, I, I was the one watching over it, but I was starting to go to a community college and, and I was liking the show less and plus nine 11 and happened and that changed all our lives. So that'll make you stop taping TV. So yes, that's, that's when I stopped. I think a lot of people were taping these though, because between the Christmas special and the first episode of season one, there were maybe like three weeks. So plenty of time to gin up excitement.

You know, they've like, go out and get your blank tapes, people. It's coming. But so this episode begins with a kind of a light chalky gag saying, I will not skateboard in the halls, which I guess the joke is that he writes that and then he immediately is skateboarding out the door. I guess that is the joke. That's the joke. Oh, yeah. And most of the original couch gags are based around the fact that the couch is too small

for five people this this time the couch explodes when full of so many people uh and there's really interesting pacing for this episode that it starts with like the entire first act is all bart it is just a bart episode it really is it's front loaded with bart antics yeah and then i thought i turned on the wrong episode i was like where is homer it's called homer's odyssey and he has his first line in like minute seven of the episode but yes we we start with bart uh the second appearance of marcia wallace as mrs krabappel and we get the first appearance of Otto the Bus Driving Man. Now class, I don't

want this field trip to be a repeat of our infamous visit to the Springfield State Prison. So I want you all to be on your best behavior. Especially you, Bart Simpson. Mrs. Krabappel, I didn't unlock that door. Oh, sorry, little dudes. Party hardy equals tardy.

All right, children, count off. One, two, three. Hey, Otto. Hey, Otto, man. Hey, Bart dude. Any new tattoos, Otto? Oh, funny you should ask, man. This morning I woke up with this one. Whoa, I want one.

Not till you're 14, my little friend. He's got a real, more realistic stoner voice in his first appearance. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. He's a little more assertive later, like, now I drive the school bus. He has a lot more energy. Yeah, this really is like, I'm tired. I think the difference here is that you know maybe

early on in the series otto is preferring to smoke like some indica strains oh and he's like you know what man like i'm gonna have to concentrate on the road but it's which over to sativa's i drive better that way i i do the running gag of his tattoos i had forgotten about that when until this came up i was like oh yeah the joke was he used to have a shocking tattoo like uh i remember in the i think the last time they did it was in the auto show when marge sees a giant flaming skull on his back and he says you should see my butt oh that's right that show famously killed auto yes that was they they thought he'd be the breakout guy. Like they're like the spinoff will be the Otto show.

He's the best character. Everybody loves him. It's crazy. I mean, it's funny to give. I like them having the burnout school bus driver be who Bart looks up to. Like that's it's a it's a funny hero to give him. Absolutely. It's a Bart's so excited because it's like looking into a crystal ball.

He thinks he's seeing his future and it fucking rules. And I loved how fucked up Otto's teeth are in his mouth chart. They're so bad. It's like he's missing every other one. Yeah. It's an extreme version of the Moe teeth. Oh, I want to get to that later. We'll get to Moe later.

We'll talk about that later. But we also get the one joke Wendell ever ever had his one joke you see it in episode three no more wendell uh good old wendell i thought i mean he really stuck out to me as a kid i was like we're gonna be seeing wendell all the time the queasy bus kid but once he's thrown up once the joke's over with him you've spent the one joke that wendell has uh well i also the gag that they went to the prison and bart apparently freed a bunch of prisoners that's a great joke i just also love the notion that like springfield elementary would be like you know what's a good idea for a field trip jail yeah we took a trip to juvenile hall uh like a field trip there like kind of a scared straight

thing and then the teacher cried on the way back because we were making fun of it the entire time so we learned nothing we took a field trip literally to the town dump in the seventh grade oh man i uh i think i recall going to like a county jail or something in junior high too. I can't as a field trip, not personally. Uh, but I can't, I can't remember what the reasoning for it was. I,

uh, well also, you know, speaking of freeing prisoners, Maggie and Marge will both later crash into walls and free prisoners. So it's a thing that happens in the family. Uh, I love all of Bart's freakish classmates.

They, there's some real mutants in this episode the real mutant overload comes in act three yes yeah oh yeah i think henry were you tweeting about that a few days ago i was looking at your screen oh that was me yeah i was trying to capture all the freaks screenshots and i was like my god it's like a whole bunch of fucking quasimodos uh you know i i was looking at the credits and I think I know a culprit of these crazy looking characters, which is them having fun. It's not like I'm a bad artist who draws poorly. It's them drawing funny pictures, which they thought the tone was.

Credited on this is character designer Steve Fellner, also known as István Fellner. He is a Klasky Chupa regular it has a ton of credits on duckman and rugrats where these kind of freakish drawings are much more welcome and and less looked at as strange wow hearing you say that production company now all of a sudden yeah a lot of that makes perfect sense uh yeah i mean this is the claski chupo we said it before but this is klaski chupo's first regular weekly half hour production too like they're everyone's learning on this everybody is uh i also think bart's hearing about the tattoo if you were to see this in production order it would explain why bart wants a tattoo for christmas in the christmas special which was produced after it

uh but yes on the bus there's some i love the smear of bart running onto the bus like that's a really fun uh cartoony drawing and then on there yes we have the first appearance of wendell who will not be important at all and the first appearance of sherry and terry who actually will make a lot more appearances but i don't think they realized how little they would matter in the grand scheme of things like they are such minor characters i mean they just fill out space when lisa needs another girl to talk to pretty much i think they were trying to figure out a dynamic like oh they could be the people who tease bart and then like oh and their dad is homer's boss at the plants okay Okay. Yeah. And never came back. But Sherry and Terry voiced by the late Lucy Taylor as well.

And just recently they were played for the first time by gray Delisle, who is the new voice actress for Lucy's parts on the show. Yeah. Is that working out? I haven't heard it. I can't say. I mean, gray Delisle is a very accomplished voice actress.

She's been Daphne on Scooby-Doo for 20 years. So, yeah. And she's the new Daphne on that, too. Like, she's... Oh, but anyway, yes. Bart has a queasy new friend. Bart! Bart Simpson!

Take your seat, Bart. Oh, please, Miss Kropotkin. Not next to Wendell. He pukes on every bus ride. No offense, Wendell. Be that as it may, it's the only seat left. So get in there. Please try not to shake the seat like that.

Now, class, remember, do not stick any part of your body out the window we all know the tragic story of the young man who stuck his arm out the window and had it ripped off by a big truck coming in the other direction and i was that boy simpson sitting down just about enough of your tomfoolery i don't feel so hot i do one of my favorite jokes in this is bart lightly sits down and wendell goes please don't shake the seat like that that's a good joke yeah i also like that we see more of bart's like uh show boatsmanship i guess yeah yeah he's he's quite the class clown already and and also the story of the arm getting ripped off.

It will pay off in two episodes of Martha General in a funny joke. This then is our first real tour of Springfield to give you the look of it. And I think there's so many toxic waste nuclear power jokes in this that I think really reflect the 80s roots of The Simpsons. I think so. Totally. Yeah. this that i think really reflect the 80s roots of the simpsons i think so totally yeah not that in the 90s we shouldn't have also worried about nuclear waste uh nuclear waste but we just kind of stopped thinking about it i think really and i mean we definitely do is like that hot button

you know thing that you found in pop culture it's the same thing like the 80s and i guess like sort of into the 90s had uh we we went on that hilarious run of jokes about like how disgusting sushi is comedy you know and i i sort of like put that in the same bucket as nuclear power jokes of all kinds but this is really the first time i think in a tv show you could make a town like this and explore it because i mean otherwise you'd just be building new sets and things like that or filming on location like maybe uh your uh cosby show but bad example maybe your full house would have like here's the tv show set we go to every three episodes but they're always in the house so yeah it's very hard to explore a town in a live action series you wouldn't have a joke of

them driving to a new place and being like here here's the towns, whatever. And, uh, when also like full house is set in San Francisco. So I mean, it, no part of that show has anything to do with the Bay area. What are you talking about? Wake up except for the opening, the opening titles. That's it. Bob Saget is, uh, or sorry, Danny Tanner is the host of wake up San Francisco. I've never seen him. Uh, I guess, you know, if I were to think of a live action thing that did this it'd be like the growing weirdness of mayberry on uh on the andy griffith show i could see that close to it but yeah i love that they write springfield as a town that not only has nuclear waste but happy workers proudly work there in a big sign that calls it toxic waste dump like

the point of a toxic waste dump is to not advertise it and to hide it from people there should be some sort of euphemism on that sign like waste disposal facility not like a dump well that's like you know one of the things i was reminded about watching this episode you know because you can even see it right from the jump here is one of the things I love about early Simpsons are all of those sign gags. I never noticed it before, but in the intro, which is drastically different from later seasons, there's a sign as they're doing like sort of that push-in shot of the school. And there's a sign on the left that just says semi-painless dentistry. Oh yeah, I forgot about that joke. And I think I've seen it a thousand and one times.

And those kinds of things were so funny. And one of the things that really made the show stand out in a great way is like, you know, you're, you're doing stuff with the art. You're, you're having these visual gags and that I feel the show really lost a lot of as it went on. And now, I mean, that's what you do if you have any animated show. I'm thinking of things like Bob's Burgers and BoJack Horseman. It's like, oh, those are the sign gag shows. They have the most sign gags now. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, BoJack, especially it is so stuffed with visual information that I think it feels to me, some episodes feel like double the amount of sign gags that even a classic Simpsons has by, by comparison. Yeah. All this nuclear waste stuff. Like, I mean, this was,

there was a whole thing. I mean, I mean, many places, but in America, like that, I forget exactly where it was, but it was in New Jersey that like caused the, that inspired the film toxic Avenger, like the schlocky classic. Plus, I mean, there was Chernobyl like a few years before they wrote this episode, like the, the joke of it's, it feels so leftover now, but the joke of the most accident prone idiot in the world, Homer Simpson works at a nuclear power plant. That's the gag. Like like it it kind of is just accepted as normal like yeah homer works in the nuclear power plant but yeah that is that is a joke yeah yes yeah and that's i mean also that the idea that he'd be any kind of safety guy too that's the joke but it

also just became a a normal thing that's what's so weird too as i i didn't remember the fact that this episode he's not at the start of it before he gets fired he's not the safety inspector what's so weird too as i i didn't remember the fact that this episode he's not at the start of it before he gets fired he's not the safety inspector what's his title just wild something something technician technical supervisor but not supervising technician right right right right so it's a weird thing just seeing like seeds being planted in the simpsons whereas like i feel you know in my head i just take that stuff for granted as having always existed and this uh you know knowing that it's the first produced script though not the planned pilot also does set up a lot of things that he first script would of like here's where the dad works here's the kid's classroom like all that stuff uh but Otto

drives them in a circle like I do like lewis's delivery of like there's our school again like lewis major character of season i'm a richard man and then as uh as bart is getting clowned out on the bus he he tries to stay silent uh but he gets a kiss on both sides of his cheek by sherry and terry a very like feels like a very 50s schoolyard thing there yeah good girl cootie there's no pigtail pulling retaliation though on this bus trip uh but uh but bart is then forced to sing a real non-punishment for a class clown not another word out of you or i'll subject you to the humiliation of making you sing in front of the class.

Can I pick the song? No. The song will be John Henry was a steel-driving man. Oh, no. We're gonna make you sing, Bart Simpson. Yeah, Bart Simpson, we're gonna make you sing. Go on, shut up. Can you hear me?

Whoa! That's it, Bart. Why can't you be more like us, Mrs. Crabapple? Yes, Sherry and Terry. They know how to behave. Whoa! They took Bart Simpson to the graveyard and they buried him in the sand. Oh, yeah.

And every locomotive that comes roaring by said, there lies a steed. Bart? Lord, Lord, ooh, there lies a steed. Hey, Wendell, you made it, buddy. Good foley on the puking. Oh, God. I got to say, I noticed in this clip,

isolated without the visuals, that this composer is not Alf Clausen. It's a Barry Gibbs, right? That's the guy's name. I don't think I'll know Richard Gibbs. Sorry. Not the, not the BG. Boy, what if it was though?

Uh, but anyways, uh, Alf Clausen did not score the comedy like this. Like this guy is like, it reminds me like the one I know 30 rock is a funny show, but I can't stand watching it because every scene is scored by crazy circus music to let you know it's funny. And that's what this reminds me of. And that is that dude's, I can't recall his name. I believe it's actually Tina Fey's husband. Yeah, that's why he's not getting replaced. That is that dude's calling card, though, because he also did the music on Impossible Kimmy Schmidt or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Yeah. And it's the same like, I mean, it mean it's like yeah it's circus music more or less yeah it's uh i can't stand it i just it just shows a lack of confidence i think yeah i mean it's uh it's richard gibb just like he's he's pitching it down the middle like he i mean he's a professional composer this wasn't like his first job or anything he was he was coming off of allman but you know it's at times it really feels to me that he's just like some dumb cartoon show i'm doing this as a second job just here yeah that's they just settle for things uh though i do like bart all the posing on bart's song i mean he looks freakish at times from bart we know but i love like his front facing look as he moves his arms up and down and and that whoa that is sampled in uh bart's nightmare

the video game which is why when i hear that i think of that awful game because he just scraped that off the episode when you when you get it like a page of homework in that game he makes a little jingle it just sampled right from the episode. You just reminded me, Bob, that I really fucking hated that game. We did an episode of Retronauts about it. It's rough. It's rough.

Real bad. The Simpsons will be right back we hope you're enjoying this week's podcast whether you're a technical supervisor or a supervising technician and a huge thank you to our guest andrew jupin follow him at jupin on twitter and his podcast we hate movies what a fun podcast that is i think you guys will really enjoy it if you enjoy our shows and please if you are a talking simpsons listener you are missing out if you are not a subscriber at patreon.com slash talking simpsons you could be hearing next week's episode right now a week ahead of time and ad free not only that you could hear the same for our

sister podcast what a cartoon where me and bob break down a different animated series once a week you'd get both of those a week early and ad free plus access to over a hundred patreon exclusive podcasts interviews with folks like david silverman mike reese josh weinstein bill oakley and so many more. Plus our many exclusive podcasts about series like Futurama, King of the Hill, and The Critic, where we go through those in the same Simpsons style, and you can only hear them if you are a $5 and up patron at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. If you're really ready to break open that piggy bank and enjoy something wonderful, then you should sign up at the $10 level at patreon.com slash TalkingSimpsons. Premium subscribers to the TalkingSimpsons network.

Not only get all the stuff in the $5 level, but also our monthly What a Cartoon Movie podcast, where we cover a different animated feature film once a month you could listen to this month's coming very soon about the animatrix the anime anthology about the classic cyberpunk film series and you could also hear last month's the iron giant where me and bob talked for almost four hours about a film that actually had a lot of impact on Simpsons production during season nine. Not to mention the back catalog of all the What a Cartoon movies where you can hear podcasts about A Goofy Movie, Aladdin, Akira, Batman Mask of the Phantasm, Kiki's Delivery Service, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, The Secret of

Nim, Tiny Toon Adventures, How I Spent My Vacation, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story, Cowboy to the spider-verse the secret of nim tiny tune adventures how i spent my vacation the nightmare before christmas toy story cowboy bebop the movie and so many more there's over 40 hours of podcasts already right there for you to listen to with a new one each month so please sign up at the $10 level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons also also on bart's oh yeah that's a twister mouth there west got in his twist that's a west archer staple whenever you see the twist mouths, the heads that twist independently of the jaw, there you go. Oh, interesting. I will say,

the fact that he is told to sing John Henry was a steel driving man and this little fucking 10-year-old kid knows the lyrics to that song is another great example of how this show used to write for its audience a certain way and putting in references like that song,

which it's like, what are you talking about? I mean, if you're watching like a season 30 episode and they're going to do the same joke, like he would be forced to sing like Taylor Swift or some shit. Yeah, I still don't know what the song is, to be honest. Well, they'd also pay for a song that has copyright on it as opposed to this old classic yeah right but it just it was one of those things that i always loved about the show was and i would

even know watching it as a kid like they're making jokes that i don't understand but i like that and maybe someday i'll know what fucking political figure they're joking about here is some weird late 70s early 80s news event that they're talking about in a joke. Yeah. I mean, that stuff just escaped the show eventually, but that song reminded me that boy, they really used to like kind of have a, the writing was a little bit more geared towards playing to the top of your intelligence.

There are a lot of ask your parents jokes in these episodes. Yes. I mean, I, that's's it's the song about you know classic american tall tale john henry the uh but i i think i did have to sing it in chorus at some point in my childhood but it definitely feels more like a a song boomer children had to sing and they're they're then putting it upon bart yeah though bart changes it to be about himself and not john henry also another like really break the rules gag is sherry and terry being drawn with halos over their head yeah like it that is so broad that that joke then and yes they couldn't show wendell puking but

i'm shocked they even got the sound on tv like that's a very extreme joke for the genteel spirits of January 1990. I'm writing a letter of Fox right now. And yeah, I mean, you know, you guys did just mention it, but God bless the Foley work. That's like someone's dropping like a can of soup on the floor. Chunky soup. Oh, then we see that. Yeah, the visitors will be shot sign as the kids walk into there it's another uh it's one of those if you look too closely it looks really bad

the sherry and terry's feet just float as they're walking into the play yeah there's some weird uh they're figuring out walk cycles too just like let's just drag the cell across the screen though the security guard uh there who doesn't say any lines and will not appear again is the security guard of the plant. He's the same security guard in the shorts who caught Bart stealing candy bars. Okay. That's the, so that they're just repeating an old security guard from there. And he's watching Krusty on TV. And unlike the previous episode, they draw draw crusty wearing his purple shirt not the

shorts green shirt that he was wearing okay yeah i mean we're episode three in production i think they're still developing all of their characters and background characters which is why later in act three we'll see the gallery of mutants but when we meet homer's co-workers they're all like wearing radiation suits no faces yeah at all except for the one guy played by sam mcmurray i think too you look at crusty the way he's expressed throughout this whole season i don't think it was intentional but the final produced episode of the season is crusty gets busted and so i was like is this a season long arc of building up crusty till we finally meet him in person i think they're just one of two things you could watch on tv in this universe happy little elves or crusty uh so yes the kids are all walking around

the the power plant loosely but then they they get into the uh the auditorium and we meet a very important character who looks very different uh let me just play his first line before we, it's a brief clip. Then let's talk about Waylon Smithers. And so this plant harnesses the power of the atom so that we have the energy to run everything from your favorite video game to yummy cotton candy machines. Let's learn more about nuclear energy, shall we? Lights. So yes, black Smithers. Let's talk about it. So for a long time, this was

cited as a coloring mistake. But in a recent interview, the writer or co-writer of this episode, Jay Kogan, said no. From the very beginning, we said Smithers was a black character and Sam Simon also wanted to make him gay secretly. It's like, let's just have a gay character on the show and not to really talk about it that much.

So from the beginning, Smithers was a black character. Then they realized, hey, wait a minute, maybe having this servile black man, you know, lick the feet of Mr. Burns, not a good look for a TV show. So when he appears again in No Disgrace Like Home, he is a yellow or white character. And so that just recently came out as of a few years ago, like Jay Kogan on the record was like, no, no no he was supposed to be black like they wanted to make it a multicultural show especially the colorist the woman who made everyone yellow was like let's just make a bunch of races on this show like sort of like a doug funny universe almost but yeah smithers and this episode was written as a black man and someone on twitter was like oh yeah he's got a fade like a high top fade almost

haircut so that's what his hair yeah i'd never read that is that yeah yeah i'd yeah the quote i had found from kogan on twitter about it was like in like smithers was african-american when he was first created but as we decided to make him more obsequious and possibly gay we thought adding african-american might have been a tad too much baggage yeah so yeah so next time you see him he will be a caucasian male yeah yeah and still gay well it's an interesting thing in his uh in his next appearance in no disgrace like home i gotta think it was a retake or something because like the decision to make him yellow like at what point could it have come down the pipeline if they're producing no disgrace like home almost concurrently animation production wise with it like and also though the smithers that appears in no disgrace like home which i guess we'll talk more about that when we do that episode

but his skin color it's just a wonder one replacement of the black skin color for yellow but all the rest of him is the season one coloring when he will appear again in season two he actually has the full smithers coloring no more white outfit but a black shirt all that stuff i can't speak to like the schedule of what they were getting and when but i have to guess like color animation for this came back when they could still make that change for no disgrace i'm just guessing or it was a retake i did forget that he is wearing like a lab coat around the plant giving this little tour to the kids i think that's what he looks like when you fight him in the simpsons arcade game oh my god yeah yeah totally right and he's actually wearing the

t-shirt with that design on i am right now how did i miss that yes he's wearing he it fits with him more it's like he's not i mean he it does answer to mr burns in this too and he's very obsequious to burns and then in his next appearance but this almost makes him read less like an assistant and more like he's the chief scientist there or just like one of many people burns yells at he just happened to be in the room at the end of the episode but yes he'd normally be like joined at the hip with mr burns or like right outside of his office but yeah now we get the first set piece that would remain in the show for life but no troy mcclure it's the educational film parody which all the boomers grew up with and we saw so many parodies of these throughout the 90s yeah it's uh i think in particular this reminds me of they all remind

me of spring fever but they're they're stolen from the same thing or is that the name of the no spring that's uh a case of spring oh a case of spring fever but they're they're stolen from the same thing or is that the name of the no that's a case of spring oh a case yes but i mean mystery science theater at the same time all the boomers who grew up with this too were like let's make fun of these cynical old you know uh post-war shorts yeah teaching us all the wrong things that were also all paid for by some company yeah they weren't just made for public uh good yeah oh my favorite ones for mystery science theater are the ones that were made by a train company that basically the point of the entire short was if you get hit by a train it's your own goddamn fault we are not to blame i believe one of the riffs is trains are wholly blameless creatures so yeah um they were very much to be fair to that

train sponsored production. You know, unless your car breaks down on the tracks, it's kind of your fault. I mean, I'm with you there. I don't know how people get killed by trains. Well, maybe a lot more of the train safety wasn't as good back then. I don't know. Another of my favorites from not mystery science theater, but riff tracks did it. The gasoline washing clothes with gasoline. More dangerous than dynamite. of my favorites from uh not mystery science theater but riffrax did it the um the gasoline

washing clothes with gasoline more dangerous than dynamite yeah don't wash clothes with gasoline that one and of course the uh the paper bag one that's all about just like the mill the paper mills of how do i know the names of all these paper and i that's this is impressive bob i know keep coming uh but yeah smiling joe fishing especially looks like uh he reminds me of springy the elf yeah it's like a demonic spirit meant to represent like the thing you're the topic of the uh short which he's he was like the mascot of the plant for season one and two and i just kind of dropped him i miss smiling joe he was fun also makes an appearance in bart's nightmare oh he's got his own level look they only have so many characters

to draw from and they also i recall having a smiling joe fission pog oh yeah actually i think i got one on the wall right there too in my quest to collect like all of the simpsons pogs which i believe i came fairly close to doing. And I remember when I got that one, I didn't remember what the hell it was. And I was like, all right, well, it says it's a Simpsons pog, so I'll take it. I had no recollection of this. I see him in this room. A little mascot. That pog is in this room.

Yeah. Henry's correct. My husband just bought, instead of collecting them, my husband just bought them on eBay for me as a Christmas gift last year. That's awesome. Wait, so the full set? Of the first run, I think it is. Yeah, of 90.

I mean, there's no, if there's some like fancy chase card in there, chase pog, like super rare one, that's not among them. But it's all the OG pogs, which are just, it's just the art taken from the 1993 Skybox card set, but put in Pog form, as reborn in Pog form, as we love to say on The Simpsons. That's so awesome, though, man. How many are there? Do you know? Let's see. Four by four, that's 16 times three. That would be 30, 48. 48 of them. That's pretty great.

I'm envious of your husband's Christmas gift to you. That was the live math portion of our show. I was trying to help out with that, and I was like, no, you're just going to say a wrong number. But people are playing along at home. 48, 48. But yeah, you're right. Troy McClure is missing from this. And when they will basically do this exact same thing with the the chocolate factory oh yeah it's it is hosted by troy and it makes a lot more sense like it's

it's actually very strange to hear nancy cartwright doing the voiceover here i also love the joke about this film strip that it is made so poorly as a promotional tool for the nuclear power plant because it's like when you think of nuclear power plant, because it's like, when you think of nuclear power, you think of this boom, like the, your biggest worry of nuclear power. We're going to show it to you right now.

Well, they also show them sweeping waste under the rug. Yes. Yeah. And like one little blob slips out and he kicks it away. Yeah. There is a stupendous joke when they do the, when you think of nuclear power,

you think of this, it's the mushroom cloud all the kids in the auditorium are cheering yeah fucking great uh i also love the line like what is nuclear power i don't know but let's have like that's a good line too uh but yes let's hear from smiling joe fishing but what exactly is nuclear energy? I don't know, but I know someone who does. Smiling Joe Fishin'. Hi there, energy eaters. I'm Smiling Joe Fishin', your atomic tour guide to the strange and exciting world of nuclear power.

And these are rods of uranium-235. Hi, Rod. Hey, Rod. How you doing, Rod? Hey, good to see you. Hey, you guys look hot. Of course we're hot! We're radioactive! Uh-oh! Well, how about a dip in the pool?

Yeah! Let's go, Rod! We're going to make the water so hot it boils! And the steam spins turbines that generate energy! What's it do- Uh-oh! Whoops! Looks like there's a little leftover nuclear waste! Generate energy! What's it do? Uh-oh. Whoops.

Looks like there's a little leftover nuclear waste. No problem. I'll just put it where nobody will find it for a million years. So, now you know the whole true story of nuclear energy. Our no longer misunderstood friend. So, keep on smiling. Now now let's have even more fun yeah that was a great fakery of spad 60s animation you could tell when uh this was made yeah based on like how worn down the film is too i also yeah it's uh for all the knocks you can

make on the animation and in this episode in particular, they really captured very limited animation. Well, like they, they, uh, especially my favorite of the bad animation intentionally in it is the, um, the shot of everybody doing things with power. And it's just like a three frame cycle just over and over again. Very freakish looking characters too. On purpose. cycle just over and over again very freakish looking characters too on purpose i do also appreciate the uh noticeable like animated dirt and scratches on this little you know eight millimeter print that they're watching that's a nice touch and i like how entertain the kid when the when the strips over and the kids just all applaud it's like they've been fully indoctrinated

they believe it all absolutely yeah and then we get kind of a real get smart gag they point out a commentary like yeah it's just from get smart yeah the door's opening but it's funny and uh then as uh they're being shown around the place we get the first appearance of blinky blinky the fish right there it mutated already in season one uh then we get the setup that bart is going we you don't know as a viewer until this very moment unless you saw the christmas special but if this is your first simpsons you don't know until this very moment that this is where homer works and bart is visiting his dad yeah we talk about it often and too often but the uh the christmas special is number eight yes and this would have been new information for you.

Like, Oh my God, Homer Simpson works here. Yeah. And, uh, also in this sequence, Sherry's body just disappears as she tells Bart stuff,

a floating head. Yeah. Yes. Homer finally enters, uh, in this next clip here. And, uh,

over here is our thermal regulator. Do your right. If you look through this window, you'll see where our water rejoins the rest of nature's biosphere. Hey, Bart, our dad says your dad is incompetent. What does incompetent mean? It means he spends more time yakking and scarfing down donuts than doing his job. Oh, okay. I thought you were putting him down. You know, I defy anyone to tell the difference

between these donuts and one fake today. Hey, that boy's supposed to be here any second on a field trip. They been through here yet? Come on, Simpson. They wanted a kid to see you sitting around on your butt and stuffing your face. They'd take him on a tour of your house. You're right. I gotta get

where the action is. Coming through! Hey, there's my dad. Hey, dad! Yo, Homer! I'm up here! Oh, hi boy! It's so weird to hear a non-regular

doing, like, a character voice. It sounds like he's doing an imitation of Homer almost. I'm Homer too. Hey Simpson. Yeah. That's a Sam McMurray, right? Like another Tracy Allman regular who would appear a few times in season one.

And that's basically it. And then he stopped using them. It's it's, it was not choice, but I think maybe it was from the chilling friend, the, the chilled friendship between Allman and the simpsons oh he picks sides yeah which is too bad because he is fucking hysterical he was the one of the dads on freaks and geeks oh

he's so great as as um as the jewish kid's dad on that yeah as who who gets caught cheating like i yeah yeah he's great he was he was great and he he's a Chevy Chase's like coworker and Christmas vacation. Oh, and also in raising Arizona, he fucking rules in that. I forgot he was in that. Yeah. Glenn. Yeah. But yeah, the Homer, this is where Homer enters.

I like that. He is like apologizing for the existence or he's like, Dale donuts are just as good. Come on. I wish that was Lenny saying that to him, though. You know, I. Yeah. Again, all these people have just their faces are shrouded. We don't know who they are.

They're still making characters for the show. In the first four episodes to they. Homer's character design is much more bloated, like especially. Oh, yeah. He has neck fat. He has rolled neck fat on the back of his neck on in most shots like but they like shaved down his mouth to have like no chin and he has like oh yeah you're right it's really weird you get a lot more round and streamlined uh later yeah yeah i uh but yes

homer then gets fired in front of his son by the never seen again father of Sherry and Terry who's also a an African-American man it looks like he's a very tanned man are they adopted what's happening here they're albino maybe well Wendell is also albino though too yeah like look anything can be a family Bob don't want to hear about it you're fired oh hi girl hi daddy

sad music i kept that in because it's really distracting weird said yeah i mean that's also like it's a weird this moment is like the trade-off of protagonist position because it's it should just end with the joke of like bark going oh no and it would continue to be a bart's episode but instead bark goes oh no because he's embarrassed and then he looks to Homer and Homer's like they look I have been shamed yeah they share they share like an exchange or something like a wordless exchange yeah I think that I think Cherry and Terry's dad is I think that's a Christopher Collins there's one definite Christopher Collins in this episode but the recast voice that did not work well with Sam Simonon i thought it was

sam mcmurray but you could be right it could i also smile joe fish and i think is is harry sheer that's harry sheer yeah but there's there's one christopher collins i will point out that is definitely him later in this what i remember i was shocked to learn that by the way i won't spoil anything but i was thinking imdb while watching it i was like what the fuck i literally never heard of this this is also the second episode in a row with a cartoony gulp when someone is worried. I don't think they would do that for much longer. Yeah. So they come back from break.

Homer is searching the classified. Well, actually, Lisa is doing it for him while he is starting to show the signs of his like horrible depression that will lead him to a dark place at the end of this act i love like we hear about the fireworks factory yeah i think that was just an idea that was just floating around the writer's room forever this is the first mention of a fireworks factory and they're still not there still haven't made it there i like that homer defines them as perfectionists who work there too that i want to say i think is i don't know if it's my favorite but boy favorite ish joke in this whole episode those perfectionists like oh my god uh and then and then yeah homer

says he can't be a supervising technician he's a technical supervisor uh which that feels like a joke from a different time where long-term employment meant that you'd have to be given meaningless titles to pretend to be promotions when now it's like nobody employs you that long anymore so no one gets promoted a promotion it's funny too homer wants to apply the toxic waste dump but i would assume that burns owns that too you know also the kitchen looks crazy it looks just like how the kitchen looked in the rejected pilot footage, like just gradients and just light lines. It's like almost uncolored.

A lot of pink in there, too. And I remember, yeah, the cornless kitchen curtains was very distracting. That haunted me, though. These are things that feel uncharacteristic. But Marge actually says a very like early season characteristic lines for her of like you've done x before and we've always bounced back like yeah yeah it's they also they it's a it's a subtle ish joke in this but how they constantly say like oh you've definitely caused worse things than chern, but nobody knew it was you or you've done your own three mile island. A few doozies.

A few doozies. Nobody heard about it. Also, Bart calls Homer dad way too much in this episode. I don't like it. It's unsettling. It's got to be homeboy or home daddy, home slice, whatever. What does Bart call Homer? Usually just Homer. Homer, yeah. Do you want to go to Moe's now? Because I have one thing to drop in here. Well, there's a fun sequence of doors slamming in Homer's face. He can't even get hired at like a drive-thru even. And apparently Bart slams a door in his face too.

Which that door knocker, so the door knocker is drawn wrong with big bulging eyes instead of dot eyes. But like at least into season 10, we uh just finished off he they still have that vulture door knocker they did not get rid of it it's it's very distracting it's just always there yeah yeah but okay it's time for the major for i'd say no it's still second to burns in this episode but the second biggest first appearance yeah with mo the true first appearance of mo and watching this again i think i realized one of the jokes that they wanted that they dropped was they would have a new depressing

song playing in mo's and every time you visit it so this time it's patsy klein's i fall to pieces in the background obviously a cover so when you see it much later there are happy christmas carols playing in mo's i think that was going to be the joke like normally the music is depressing at a bar but now it's christmas and so there's christmas songs so they drop that because it's very distracting to have these licensed songs playing behind dialogue and uh yeah it's moe later to be named moses like but he's just moe the bartender designed by dan haskett the uh the disney animator who worked on the first season that we talked about before thanks to thad kamarowski for reminding us of that on twitter

and very important that mo has his missing tooth here and the director of this episode west archer is a big fan of mo's missing tooth to the point where he fought to keep it in the uh the family feedback episode which is why mo is missing that tooth very distractingly in that episode he's like that is what is on the model sheet and that is what i follow wow yeah that's the last time that tooth would be missing but it is so not there in that episode and they put they popped it back in for so long uh but yeah mo also originally voiced by chris collins in the production version of this for the longest time it was chris collins in there and he got replaced by like struggling los angeles actor well i wouldn't even say struggling because he was still getting cast

a lot and he was hollywood dog yes yeah well yeah did you know that hollywood dog was so key to him getting cast oh no area no no credit to the av club's random roles interview with hank his area they ask him about hollywood dog before they get to simpsons because they're going in order hollywood dog is a one-off pilot you can watch it on youtube an attempt at doing a roger rabbit for tv that can't possibly work because it's way too expensive to draw animation in there but he was the titular hollywood, the animated character hanging around in Hollywood. But the casting agent on that was Bonnie Petilla. The cast, the person who casted on Tracy Ullman into The Simpsons. When Sam Simon was having problems with Christopher Collins voice acting as Mo, among other voices,

they were looking to just re-dub over those lines with some actor bonnie suggested hank azaria because she really liked his work on a hollywood dog so he came in did it he did a version of al pacino and dog day afternoon which they really responded to and they're like okay yeah you can replace that one voice for this episode and also do wig him he does wig him too in this episode, re-recorded. He wouldn't become a contracted full-time actor on the show until season two. Okay. He was just subbing in as a and the rest credit in season one, Hank Azaria was.

But yeah, so that is how Family Dog led him to be Moe. And Moe was the first voice he replaced. Hollywood Dog. Family Dog didn't talk. I want to replace it with The Better Dog Show. But that's how Hank Azaria became Moe the Bartender. And that was his entree into the world of The Simpsons. Why don't we hear the first appearance of Moe?

And then we can also talk about the other inspiration for mo i'm just a technical supervisor who cared too much most haven't is mr freely there really first initials hold on i'll check uh is ip freely here. Hey, everybody, I pee freely. Wait a minute. Listen to me, you lousy bum. When I give a home to you, you're dead. I swear I'm going to slice your heart in half. You'll get that punk someday, Moe. Oh, I don't know. He's tough to catch.

He keeps changing his name. Oh, I think I'll have another... Whoops. Oh, I'm a little low on funds. You think you could cover me just this once? No, sorry. Why not? I think after all these years, I deserve an explanation. I don't think you're ever going to get another job and be able to pay me back.

Oh. Don't worry. We're still friends. I love the gag that Mo says that he just doesn't think Homer will ever get a job again and won't be able to pay him like that. That is so the opposite of the understanding local barkeep. Very blunt, but correct. He does end it. What does he say?

It's something like, don't worry, we're still friends or something. Oh, we're still friends. Yeah. Yeah yeah but also he gets his first prank call yes and uh before the jerky boys there was a little thing called the tube bar tapes and what the tube bar tapes were there's this place called the tube bar a uh bar somewhere i forget where it was but there was a cantankerous old bartender named red who probably died like 30 seconds after these recordings were made you have never heard a more grizzled voice he's the original george liquor i think so these tapes were very popular in the 70s they were circulated not officially published or anything they're just like underground tapes and this is where the mo

the bartender prank calls come from so we'll play a few of these and a few of them Red doesn't get it but then later he gets it and then he starts making threats. So I don't know if we have the threats up front but here are a few

of the calls and his voice is amazing. Some of which they just had Bart say on the show. Yeah, some of them are just stolen from these tapes.

Hello? Hello? Is that Allen? Allen? Allen? No. Cole Horlick. Allen? No, Koholik. Who? Koholik. Afterholik?

Afterholik? Don't know anybody by that name. Okay, thank you. All right. Let's hear one more. Hello? Hello? Hello? Yes.

This is Tuba? Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if you could help me. I'm looking for Phil Myers, M-I-Z-A, Myers? Phil Myers. Myers, yeah. Phil Myers. Phil Myers.

It's so funny. Nobody by that name You're not there? No Okay, thank you Well, yes, I'm filling my ass Eventually he does explode in anger You motherfucker

I'll kill you I'll fucking kill you He sounds more grizzled than Popeye Like this guy I want to see just how He's just a husk of charred flesh This red He sounds like Lawrence Tierney

He does I just love hearing Alcoholic Alcoholic He's just a husk of charred flesh. This red. He sounds like Lawrence Tierney. He does. I just love hearing alcoholic, alcoholic. Oh God. He's like, you can't live. What life? This man must have lived to be.

Well, I'll tell you one thing. I looked it up. I was very curious. So I did a quick Wikipedia for the tube bar. Prank calls. The tube bar was located very much much near me in jersey city right across the river is it still open uh i seriously doubt it you should visit see uh you can snort the ashes

of red but it sounds like he fought world war one and two with his throat oh actually here we go uh tube bar was demolished in early 2009. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sad. That should be a historical monument. Also, my throat hurts from doing Red's voice for about 10 seconds. Yes, oh my God. Fail my ass!

That's like early viral content, the way that spread around. Totally. Keep circulating the tapes. And yeah, I also love that Moe's reaction to getting that call. He's like, he's too clever. content the way that spread yeah totally circulating the tapes uh and yeah i also love that mo's reaction to getting that call he's like he's too clever he keeps changing his name he doesn't even get what that person is doing to him they they and they kept that as a runner until season four i know mike reese dumped on it as showrunner. He's just like, they're a ton of work and they're not funny. It was how he felt about them.

But Moe, I mean, Moe's reaction is funny. It's, I like them. I don't love them, but I like them. I like when they would get more creative. Like, I'm going to rip out your tongue and use it to paint my boat. Those are good ones. I mean, also some of my favorite bits of it were just Bart's reaction animation, just rolling on the floor laughing like he does in this one.

And Lisa's in on it too, so Lisa's having fun. And you also said just looking at Moe's design, just his flat expression is just so hilarious. Based on comedian Rich Hall, which is a very unflattering portrayal. I mean, it's like, who's the ugliest guy ever? Rich Hall. Let's draw him into our show uh and we also get the first appearances of the bar flies as well as homer walks by them when he when he leaves penniless what are their names like the guy to wikipedia

sam and larry the guy who calls him bill yeah the guy who calls me bill that's how homer remembers but yeah then there's i fall to pieces playing. Yeah, just distracting, distracting. And the scene ends kind of late so you can hear it. Yeah, yeah. It's like as the scene ends, it's silencing. Fall to pieces and then it fades. I think it's just that so many scenes just end with a sigh in these early episodes. Not very tight editing, I think.

Then there's a scene in bed where homer and marge are talking about you know her going back to his old job which i feel like in construction you're supposed to assume her old job was seedier perhaps i i don't know it was like can you still do things like that and she's like it's like to work or whatever yeah that kind of work yeah just i don't know i wonder if they wanted you to make some assumptions before that. I was feeling around for what kind of joke this was. And it was like, she mentioned her boss,

Mr. Burger. And then the joke is like, no, she literally worked for a chain called Mr. Burger or something like that. That could be the joke, but it could also be like the Simpson season one naming convention where

people were named very literally. So Mr. Burger could run a burger shop, but it's a very family guy style cutaway of marge in her roller really long time for her to roll yeah and just a not great drawing of her rolling up i love how bad it is i love how like wavy her mouth gets when she grow like it looks like a first year short strawing of marge really like it's wild yeah i also love that you get it's the customer she's

waiting on his auto in his van with who knows it could be there's a woman there it could be crystal my favorite auto line ever hey crystal wake up I had mustard yeah I hey mama I love that he's calling Marge mama mama yeah uh and this background of her working there will be brought back up in the season three i married marge you are correct yeah that's the job she'll be calling homer from when she uh tells him she uh joined the castle club with him or reminds him of that club yes yeah uh but yes the marge goes back to work which uh i feel even worse for her now because it's like homer is despondently depressed so while marge is working a full-time job to pay their mortgage, Homer isn't helping at all at home.

He's just laying on the couch and staring at the TV. And this is a very, like, I can appreciate this now. It's a very realistic portrayal of depression where it's not funny or interesting. It's just like, no, depression isn't crying or weeping or moping. It's just like catatonic laying on the floor. I guess more realistically, Homer would be laying on the carpet yeah just like dead to the world but uh i have suffered unemployment depression and it's like it's this rough you're just like my life is just a gray corridor what do i do now you do lay around like an unemployed whale as bar puts it that is a

great description too and i also like the the the drawing of Maggie poking his eye and he, even then he doesn't react to like, he doesn't close his eyes or shake his head. He's just like, fucking poke my eye, baby. I don't care. But a loaf time,

a cute magnet, mad magazine style joke on lifetime, which was a fairly new network. Yeah. Yeah. I think that might be one of the earliest examples of the show doing an adr joke because i think it was just silence like i i think that probably wasn't there in the script originally like we need something else here let's wait what if we were to write a

joke that's only audio that could be played over this scene but it uh i it's it is a funny little joke and then we get uh the first duff commercial with the the classic duff jingle i believe written by sam simon uh and this is i think the only surviving chris lotta line christopher collins slash chris lotta he goes by two names his only surviving voice in the episode. Loaf time. The cable network for the unemployed. We'll be back with more tips on how to win the lottery right after this. Unemployed, out of work, sober,

you sat around the house all day, but now it's Duff time. Duff, the beer that makes the days fly by. Take in over that wonderful Duff, Duff beer. Now there's a temporary solution.

There must be some beer here somewhere. Maybe in here. It's funny that Duff is marketed to the unemployed where you've sat around the house all day, now it's Duff time. And also, one of those jokes we take for granted, Duff means your ass. You're sitting around on your Duff, so it's's ass beer you're sitting around on your fat ass drinking beer

but we don't think of that anymore also no one says duff for ass it's just the beer yeah i mean who even uses that term now in the 90s i never i know if it was a regional thing i never heard it yeah you get off your duff i guess it was thrown around a lot yeah i don't know i never used it personally but yes the famous ass beer yeah but that duff commercial that was thrown around a lot yeah i don't know i never used it personally but yes the famous ass beer yeah but that duff commercial that's christopher collins the original voice of moe and burns in this episode no you're right sherry and terry's dad it's definitely him and that voice for i said it before but in case you didn't know that voice is the voice of star scream and cobra commander from your toy commercials of the 80s that's oh yeah

yeah which that's crazy that like i mean obviously that's why you do this why like it's oh man what if burn sounded like cobra commander i said do it do it do it do it that's pretty good i'm sure i how did he do that without i mean he did he did pass away actually did you know he died the same night as nicole simpson and oh no of net well not natural causes but he wasn't murdered i'm saying wow that's great yeah june 12th 1994 wow it's crazy yeah but uh i like to when homer is searching for that beer his temporary solution he finds a cake and you would think normally homer the food monster would eat that cake but he's like fuck this just chucks it over his shoulder i mentioned this before the recording but i love the blunt line i need money uh and yes he smashes bart's piggy bank they smash piggy banks at least twice this season

they were really into that yeah uh and Yeah. He steals his piggy bank and that leads Homer to his darkest time. Oh no. What have I done? I smashed open my little boy's piggy bank and for what? A few measly cents? Not even enough

to buy one beer. Wait a minute. I'll make sure. Not even close. Dear family, I am an utter failure and you'll be better off without me. By the time you read this, I will

be in my watery grave. I can only leave you with the words my father gave me stand tall have courage and never give up i only hope i can provide a better model in death than i did in life warmest regards love love Homer James Simpson yes so Homer does not even like a life insurance thing here it's just like

I'm gonna abandon my family by killing myself I'm just done I'm just done with it it bothers me there's like an animation error where the pen is being held by the pinky finger and not the index finger you can't even write like that it is very distracting if you go back to part the genius he's holding the pen the right way yeah but i think it's one of those things they

realize that too late this is like a new production like fine fine who cares yeah i that suicide note is so funny like never give up he's you would think it's he's writing down the words his father gave him it would talk him out of suicide but he's's like, no, I need to die. And then he says, I hope I can be a better example in death than in life of never giving up. God. And I do want to talk about this. So thanks to one of our friends on Twitter, I realized for the first time, this whole thing about Homer killing himself by tying a boulder to a rope and

tying the rope around his waist is a reference to a Flintstones episode where Barney rubble tries to kill himself oh wow yeah so so bob's suggestion led me to to look it up i i watched the episode and it's actually one of the most important episodes in flintstones history too it is the first episode with bam bam it is season four episode three Little Bam Bam and it is a crazy it actually reminded me a bit of this episode because it is all over the place emotionally it's uh so short version of it is Barney and Betty are jealous of the Flintstones daughter Pebbles they're playing with her too much.

Like in, and Fred is jealous because Pebble seems to like Barney more than him. So he kicks him out and then they're like, I wish we could have a child. Oh no. And then they, they wish upon a star in the next morning, a baby is left at their doorstep.

Bam, bam. They want to adopt him, but then the adoption agency tells them they that they can't and so yes there's multiple seats because there's somebody else in line ahead of them uh like jd rockefeller get it well it's a parody of that anyway uh and so there's multiple scenes of like betty just sobbing of like but i want to i'm so connected to him i want this child and uh then there's another joke that they're taking it to court that they want to adopt the child not the rockefellers

and the court case they're going against perry masonry oh boy yep and they lose the case they're not getting bam bam bam bam is adopted barney says goodbye to Bam Bam and walks away. I'm going to do it. And so as he walks away, then Rockefeller gets a call at the last second of like, actually, I've been told my wife is expecting a baby. So let the rebels have Bam Bam. Goodbye. And he runs away.

And Barry Masonry is like, OK, you guys get to have Bam Bam. And they're like, like wait barney doesn't know and they then cut to barney with the exact rock design that homer has standing on a bridge saying goodbye cruel world god that is crazy so yeah now it makes a lot of sense to me because it is very odd to me uh until now that in episode three the father of this family in this new show tries to kill himself but i think what cut some of the darkness was people thinking of that flintstones episode which would be you know fresh in the minds of people who are watching the reruns and maybe the episode was like 20 years old at this point yeah yeah uh but that's that's uh you watch little bam bam if

you want to see the first appearance of bam Bam. Uh, also another lost season one runner was the name of stationary. Like, Oh yeah. Dumb things I got to do today. Yeah. Yeah. And first time of Homer J Simpson named after Boatwinkle, which,

uh, in season 10, we found out that that J stands for J. It does. Uh, I also like that Homer rethinks warmest regards into love. He's like, you know, I love that that is the

first one he goes to his warmest regards love and his summer is walking. I also like it's so subtle. I didn't get it until they point out. It's a joke in the commentary, but I do like it in retrospect that Homer walks with that boulder all

the way there when there's a boulder waiting for him at the bridge. That's right. He has a line right there, though. He looks at it when he recognizes the boulder and he goes, live and learn. That's great. Yeah. And I realized the second episode in a row where the writers like, OK, animators, this character is going to write something for 30 seconds and make it work. Yeah.

Yeah. So just like write something very slowly while you hear their thoughts also the old people heckling him from their porch is great because one it's funny that he's just being heckled well you know oh it looks like young simpson's finally going to kill himself or whatever the joke is but also then you realize like these two old people are just sitting on their porch in the middle of the night it's one in the morning they're just watching him yeah i looks like he's gonna kill himself he's taking his boner for a walk those those are the winfields the lost neighbors of the simpsons they they lived on the other side flanders lives on the left the winfields live on the right uh they actually made more appearances or mentions than i thought when

doing a frankie x search for the name winfield oh it's really funny though because the prank calls and the winfields died in the same episode new kid on the block new kid on the block in season four they well they didn't die they moved away they're dead to me uh they leave that is the same woman who am i thinking the right episode then uh where she goes over and she's like i'm trying to sell my house will you please get rid of your halloween pumpkin yes yes that's the they're all rotting he just says no he's like no and homer was stealing her estrogen that's right yes yeah and also that home yeah in in previous appearances too she's the one who calls homer to say your dog is in my backyard destroying

it and they mentioned that in war of the simpsons that homer uh like threw up at their party at the winfields party and also in simpson and delilah they're the ones who tell them like get a haircut hippie when homer's running down the street with long hair so that's that's the history of the winfields their first appearance here not used for too many jokes afterwards uh then we get the very dark idea of an eight-year-old girl discovering her father's suicide notes yeah pretty horrifying really and yes homer uh is confronted with death and uh the family it's right when he learns a lesson though too. Boy, this intersection is dangerous.

Someone ought to put a stop sign here. Oh Homer, how could you think of killing yourself? We love you. Yeah, Dad, we love you. Kill myself? Killing myself is the last thing I'd ever do. Now I have a purpose.

A reason to live. I don't care who I have to face. I don't care who I have to fight. I will not rest until this freak gets a stop sign. You know, 30 years later, I just got the joke, killing myself is the last thing I'd ever do. That's a joke. That's right. That is a joke.

I never noticed it so subtle very subtle clever yeah yeah it would be it would be uh the yeah also there's some really bad lip sync on marge there she's like why would you ever think of killing yourself we love you i wonder if there was a joke there like she says like how could you do that do you think of our insurance rate or something like that maybe they're like no let's let's just have marge just say an honest thing about how much he would miss him if he died and also the great animation of homer with the boulder on him saving his family from being run over yeah that's really impressive the stone of punishment uh yeah and so homer in a very like classic honestly homer mood swing he goes from suicidal

intention to oh no i'm going to be mr safety now i'm gonna get this stop sign avenue for cause of life uh and this leads then to the first appearance of police chief wiggum at the town meeting. Next on the agenda, Police Chief Wiggum will give us an update on our graffiti problem. Well, now, our city is under siege by a graffiti vandal known as El Barta. Police artists, if anyone has any information, please contact us immediately. That's, I mean, that is a very light touch on that Wig and Voice by his area there. Originally, it was more of a David Brinkley impersonation than Edward G. Robinson. Yeah, yeah, you're right.

I hear that. They're like, please tell us immediately. And it's also like he's slightly thinner, has a dark cop suit on, and also like he's not driving around with the police that will that will really happen until like season three yeah they assume it's like no he's busy he's busy with this police stuff he's not on you know the beat also this is a very realistic town meeting as opposed to the normal springfield town meeting which is in a giant town hall and everyone it's like crusty is there mr burns is there that's a great point i never really thought of that before but yeah the turnout that springfield gets for these town

meetings generally is quite fictitious yeah i mean the joke here is that like it's a small meeting no one cares homer gets his things approved because they just want to move on but in the future it's like no town meetings are the biggest events in town everyone is there they sing songs yeah the uh i mean and also this town council is not really seen again either once once they said of the quimby is the ringleader of every city assembly they don't need these boring councilmen and we're gonna get to more freaks later but that guy on the left the far left so distracting yeah oh dear lord he passes lisa it's also like he moves he has an action of passing lisa the albarto drawing so he's extra it makes it even more distracting that he's a mutant who

has action he's not just a non-draw a non he's not just a background character he actually does something meanwhile jasper is just sitting right behind homer the whole time and this is jasper's first appearance as well though he won't have a spoken line until bart the general but uh i think in the background goes oh tough customer or something like that but it's not harry shearer i don't think that's you're you are correct yeah also the el barto those jokes still pop up every now and then you'll see an el barto gag i i it's another one of those season one jokes that you don't, they just kind of didn't engage with enough. But the obvious joke is that everyone should know that Alberto is Bart

scraping things. And, but nobody, no one can figure it out. I love Bart's reaction to seeing the drawing of just like, Oh, that's what they think I look like. Hey,

nice. Like that's, that's funny. It's like like hey nice like that's that's funny it's like a sort of bart in the future kind of thing which is cool you're right yeah it is it's a lot like the drifter he imagines himself to be in separate vocations unless he's lost my vote uh but then homer gets uh the platform and he gives a little speech. Homer Simpson, local resident, has something. Mr. Simpson?

Don't be nervous. We believe in you, Homer. Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed councilmen, boys and girls, retired people with nothing better to do. Danger comes in many, many forms. From the dinosaurs that tormented our caveman ancestors to the... Simpson, get to the point. I think we should put a stop sign at D Street and 12th. The other... All in favor?

Aye. Approved. Meeting adjourned. Coffee and maple logs in the lobby. Wow. They listened to me. All right, Dad! Way to go, Homer!

You did it, Homer! If they think i'm gonna stop at that stop sign they're sadly mistaken that's a great joke that's a great joke that's one i think i caught five years ago it's like oh that's a joke uh but yeah i like to they cut off homer's speech when he indicates that he thinks dinosaurs and cavemen lived at the same time they're like all right he's got a whole like uh the dangers accosting men throughout time speech ready and they're like no we're not just go just move on well i mean who i'd cut it short just to get those maple logs sounds good yeah it's about lunchtime it is but and then we get the montage of like his uh civic uh you know the things he's doing for the for the town.

And I do like the sign ahead sign. Oh, yeah. At no point is it clear, like, how is this earning Homer money to feed his family? I guess it's just a side hustle he's doing or just a thing to fill time while Marge is still earning the money. Like, as he'll say later when he gets the job offer he's like i can't let marge work for this family so i have to assume she just is still working at the burger place and he's doing all of his safety crusade uh i also like i do like the picture of him pointing at a dip side like yeah it's a funny it's a good drawing of him yeah which i guess a dip could you

is an insult to calling someone a dip it's an old insult yeah i like how marge explains it just like a little in the road it's i love that joke too because it's like no there's not really a word for it but you know the thing anytime uh julie cavner murmurs in an expensive way i'm on board yeah i uh i mean at the table read i time to bring up the table read uh but at the table read being there to see julie cavner in person go yeah that was that was great i uh also yeah first appearance of the springfield shopper in the series too the uh the erstwhile uh magazine or newspaper you'll see from time to time in the series and yes somehow homer's safety

crusade leads him to be a populist movements leader like he's he's he has a real organization here of followers but he's not a nut he's not a nut but uh but yes homer isn't satisfied oh i'm so proud of you Proud, proud of what? Well, everything Your tip sign, for instance Now people won't be caught off guard by that little In the road What a great family

But come on, we all know this is small potatoes There's a danger in this town That is bigger than all the dips put together What, Dad? I'm talking about that you don't mean you're going to take on your old bosses wow gee that's a hero what'd you say son nothing that's okay i'll just assume you said what i thought i heard you say i like that exchange too i think he said what i thought i heard you say. But yeah, I wonder now if they made Homer an employee of the nuclear power plant just for the third act

story of his safety leading him to take on the unsafe power plant. I wonder if that's the only reason they like that it started as just Homer loses his job somehow and he then takes on his old job, which is a power plant yeah i think you could be right they weren't sure how long this would go i also like uh bart's under his breath thinking his dad is a hero that's a cute joke but it's actually done better with his less shame speech in season five i do like that yeah pride not that far from shame uh and also oh my god wes archer how many fucking crowds did his team have to draw in this episode jesus yeah i mean we're gonna complain about the crowds a lot but uh to be fair to the fine artists at klaski chupo they were still developing characters for

the show and so at episode three they're like oh yeah put a hundred new people with all different features all distinct for each other put them together in this crowd yep and the way it normally works is that like when a character appears on the show like let's say uh miss milan from the last episode she has turned into a background character that could be slotted into you know the mall or a mob scene or you know the church or town hall but they don't have those characters ready yet so it's like uh make a where where's Waldo scene for Homer to talk in front of essentially the directive they were given here. The two Barts conjoined at the head. I think that's the craziest.

Yeah. Search for my name on Twitter and a Homer's odyssey and you'll find my thread. And it is a, it's a doozy as hard would say, but I mean, in a way I'm entertained by it and like it because it's like the show would never do this again which makes these like rare and unique and special like at one point charlie

brown is in the crowd which i noticed for the first time yeah uh and yes as homer's introduced to the crowd i also like that the guy brings up that homer pioneered a main street speed limit and that gets booed by yes 15 miles an hour instant boo uh i also think there's some very specific looking people in that crowd that definitely had to be klasky cheapo staff yeah it's like eric stefani has to be one of those guys in there i think uh but then we get to meet for the the very first time, perhaps the most important character in the series that isn't a Simpson, Miss Charles Montgomery Burns. Look at that man. He has the crowd in the palm of his hand. Haven't seen anything like it since Jolson.

Who is he? That's Homer Simpson, sir. He used to work here on the plant, but we fired him for gross incompetence. Oh, so that's his little game. Get this Simpson character up here right now. But Mr. Burns... I said do it. Now do it. Do it. Do it!

Our lives are in the hands of men no smarter than you or I. Many of them incompetent fools. I know this because I've worked alongside them, gone bowling with them, watched them pass me over for promotions time and again, and I say this stinks. Hey. Hey, Simpson. Burns wants to talk to you privately.

Privately? Stay here. I'll be right back. So yeah, Mr. Burns for the first production appearance. And we even get an excellence later. Yeah. I said do it, so do it, do it do it do it that was his original catchphrase i think yeah a little more uh not quite as yeah yeah well because shearer if you

watch burns in this whole sequence he is so posed out to specific words and statements that yeah it re-recording christopher collins's performance means like Burns there's almost no room for Harry Shearer to change up the words or pace of the sediments I guess we can't know what Collins's performance was or what the voice sounded like I don't think that's ever been released but uh maybe he's trying to match it I think I think in spirit yeah I think though so a couple fun things to mention about this first burns appearance here i mean first off that it was designed by sam simon originally he was drawn i think envisioned as like a bigger guy as a like an imposing physical figure and an old rich guy

but sam simon saw more as like no he's a vulture he's like a bony old he's got a bony old behind said to look like uh barry diller the president of fox at the time yeah yeah uh and he'd go on it's crazy to think that homer's like out of touch boss would go on to be like one of the all-time best characters in television but one of the wackiest characters too i mean he mentions jolson later we find out he he dug up his corpse oh that's right rather pungent uh again though an al jolson reference another thing that you're not getting 30 years later yeah but i okay that this uh this is another thing i discovered from from checking twitter uh the a really great twitter account if you're a simpson super fan that guy zero zero two, he often tweets out original table

drafts that he has. Uh, he didn't go full hardcore into Homer's odyssey, but he did tweet out some interesting stuff from its original table drafts. And one of them was originally burn says, I haven't seen anyone like that since Churchill. Oh, and him saying Jolson, I think makes all the difference in every joke about the character that would follow since then. Yes, yes, I agree. Saying that he's not seen an orator like that since Churchill, that actually kind of makes sense. And it's definitely an old timey reference, but it's somebody more famous. But for Burns to say Jolson, yeah, that shows that he has not paid attention to a popular entertainer since the 30s which honestly is almost too early for birds or too late for birds this is

clearly sheer there are definitely some misreportings on twitter that but it's collins in the original airing from january 1990 i it's i could find it nowhere like it Like it's not out there. If somebody has the footage from the original airing and it sounds different than the one that's on, you know, Disney Plus or the 2001 DVDs, show them to me because they all sound like the one that is very clearly Shearer. Yeah, I want to hear Collins and what his character sounded like.

And his head is so misshapen in his first shot too. Like it's just all, everything looks wrong about burns in most shops is wrong yeah oh the office is so much more modest which is funny yeah it um they keep the bear the stuffed bear but does it not have x's for eyeballs which i found hilarious yes and, they're like, oh, a dead thing has X's on their eyeballs. That's weird. It's so like beautifully cartoony. Yeah. His office is way more like eighties or seventies, not like the stately, you know, uh, wartime like burgundies and wood paneling and very like kind of regal office he has in the future. In season two, it gets a real dramatic change. They, it was also something i wouldn't know unless listening to the commentary and when sarcher points it out the painting of

him in the background that just looks all bad him on a horse like a green horse no not that one the one that they say like looks like paint by numbers it's just like his face yeah that was supposed to be a warhol kind of like iconic painting like he did of uh marilyn monroe but it just couldn't come through like in execution it did not look like it but yeah homer is called up by uh we also get to see the hired goons smithers is uh right there with those coons oh low blow and what's the other guy's name oh i forget i can't remember crusher and low and Loblo. Yes, thank you. But yes, Homer then meets Burns for, in-universe, the first time, though this will be retconned in I Married Marge,

that he'd met Burns when Burns hired him. But yes, it's the first meeting of Homer and Burns. Ah, Homer Simpson. At last we meet. Same here. Simpson, I want you to rejoin our power plant family. Sorry, no can do. Hear me out, Simpson.

I don't want you to come back as a technical supervisor or supervising technician or whatever the hell you used to do. I want you to be in charge of safety here at the plant. Safety? But, sir, if truth be known, I actually cause more accidents around here than any other employee. Or even a few doozies no one ever found out about. The generous offer I'm making is good for exactly 30 seconds, Simpson. Me, in charge of safety? This place could blow sky high

Nah, I'll concentrate on my work now Gee, this guy's desk sure is big I can't let Martin support the family This guy's got the cleanest shirt I've ever seen What should I Simpsons, time's up What the hey, I'll take the job Excellent

On Frankie Frankie first excellent which I think a deal would say later in this in this season too but I did gift the scene of Homer like squishing his head and like gritting his teeth it's so good it's so cool in the way is like lips point out at one point like yeah it's there's some

great Homer drawings there that isn't 30 seconds though it's close to it like it is a really long thinking scene. I like that. Homer tells himself like, no, I'm going to focus more. Hey,

that's a weird desk. He's got like, he's instantly loses attention there. Yeah. I just also, I mean, when you pick apart the joke, like where the motivation in his brain came from to have the thought that

Burns had the cleanest shirt he's ever seen it's it is very random uh i mean that's uh homer homer has attention deficit disorder definitely he cannot pay attention to anything but it's not the you know it's not the most well-pressed shirt it's not like a nice collared shirt no no it's just the cleanest shirt homer is very filthy and uh yes then this bit here of burns telling homer to do something like every it's some of the best animation this episode because like every pose on burn yeah like when he puts his finger down like yeah time to like turn and say and point down yeah it's really good i uh let's give that a quick listen here your first duty will be to step out on the balcony and tell that crowd this

plant is safe what i just love that like this plant is safe finger down yeah tell that crowd this plant is safe like yeah every every word has emotion which also means like there's there's no room for creativity in in re-recording lines from that for a shearer i think and i think i had problems with the uh the plot mechanics i've always had problems with the plot mechanics of this episode because i'm not quite sure what the resolution is but i think i got it this time because it's very fuzzy it's not communicated well but homer goes back on telling people the plan is safe and then the threat to burns is like if you don't hire me back i'll be a bigger problem on the outside is that is that what

the trick is i believe it's so it's always been communicated so poorly in this conclusion that it's still like very fuzzy to me i think that i think you're onto it it's just great because i don't think homer understands that that's what he's doing but that's the way yeah i read it yeah no you're totally right andrew i think uh homer doesn't know he's tricking burns homer stumbles into a better negotiation position yeah yeah i mean i yeah i think it is that homer homer's told sell out his principles. He won't do it, but he also just steps back. He doesn't say like, no, I'll never say that or whatever, but it says like, um,

I gotta talk some more and then he goes back inside and that's what he talks himself to like to not, it's a real have his cake and eat it too thing for Homer. They, they don't make him sell out his principles to say a place is safe that isn't safe and he gets a job with a big fat raise uh but yeah so homer yeah actually let's hear homer's negotiation tactics because this is another like favorite line i have a burns in here too i can can't do it, Mr. Burns. You mean you're willing to give up a good job and to raise just for your principles?

Hmm. When you put it that way, it does sound a little far fetched, but that's the look you're looking at. And I vow to continue spending every free minute I have crusading for safety. Of course, I'd have a lot less of those free minutes if you gave me the job

you're not as stupid as you look or sound or our best testing indicates you've got the job now get to work I'll get to work but first I have to say goodbye to some friends

yeah I think Homer realizes what he did and like kind of falls backwards in the negotiating with burns like oh of course i could have less time to rile up the crowd if you hire me but burns seems to think it was his long-term plan i mean well this is the early running gag that burns thinks homer is a very good strategist when he is not who's the egghead uh but yeah i mean the the you're not as stupid as you look sound or as best as our best testing indicates that is so great too because it's just like what fucking examination do you have to take to get hired at the plant the the plant itself would be taking some sort of IQ test to Homer.

I love it. Well, as we would find out that he was forced under Gerald Ford's boots, project bootstrap. Thank you, president Ford. This is more reminding us of better jokes than later ones, but you do see there,

they're laying out the path for Burns here, like Burns for all of the things that before this episode aired could cause burns to go in a million different directions i think that you can see the burns we get is right here like very close to it and absolutely and i was gonna say too also the interaction, the relationship with him and Smithers as far as like some classic Burns and Smithers back and forths. When Burns is seen initially watching Homer leading that protest outside, he says, who is that guy? And Smithers says, that's Homer Simpson, sir. We fired him for gross incompetence it reminded me of those you know one of our boobs from sector 7g yeah lines like that of how he describes homer to burns every time he asks who it is him reminding burns of who homer is yeah i think the one thing they didn't figure out with smithers though he's

not quite as a bunch of a kiss ass as he is in the next time we see him yes right yeah 7g would later be homer's sector and named so because that is a production code for season one is 7G. Sorry. Oh, interesting. And yeah, so we get the final scene here of Homer giving a speech to his crowd, which like, I don't know, as somebody who likes populist movements, political forces, it's very sad that Homer is just like, well, time for you all to disband.

No one should take this over. It shouldn't continue. Just be safe on your own time. I mean, I've seen that crowd. I want them all to die. I don't want them to be safe. Look, there is toxic waste everywhere in Springfield. Think about that.

He also just has that fantastic line when he starts the second part of the speech where he's saying, I'm going to have to live without your respect and awe. Oh my God. I think, I think a lot of that feels like second drafty and changing it up. Especially if you listen to this, there's some Homer lines that feel recorded months after the other Homer. It helps that there's a giant bullhorn over his mouth for most shots. But, But here's

the last lines of the episode. Fred, you have come to depend on me as your safety watchdog. So you won't spank yourself or stub your toes or blow yourselves up. But you can't depend on me all your life.

You have to learn that there's a little Homer Simpson in all of us. And I'm going to have to live without your respect at all. The only reason I'm telling you this is I'm going to be leaving you. But don't worry. I have just been appointed to do safety inspector at this very plant. With a big, fat raise! Hey, that's my pup, let's get dead, hotch-ass!

Whoa, Edie, don't jump me! Be careful. That, like, be careful, that feels like an second adr line yeah there was no dialogue there originally i'm guessing that sounds more like normal homer than uh than season one homer they're still figuring a lot of stuff out i think a problem with this episode for me is that like man homer talks through a bullhorn for like most of the third act it's it's too much there's just three scenes of him talking through a bullhorn. It's a, it's very long.

Yeah. And that means he has to talk slower and in a distorted voice. It's not like very fun to listen to. Yeah. And it covers when they want to do so many front facing drawings of him. It just obscures his face. So you can't even act too well, like in the animation.

It's a, it's a real challenge. Also, again, we talk about crazy drawings, Homer's dance animation looks so bad i love it yeah he looks like uh uh henry you're a big wrestling dude i don't know bob you watch wrestling but it reminded me of uh remember the bushwhackers yes yeah it does look like he's doing the bushwhacker arm up and down like those were ape dance i i followed wrestling in the uh in the

90s i actually used to have a bushwhacker's um autograph wow guess where they were autographing things at a firework store did you uh did you later sell that and buy a house with it uh several we're recording one of them right now no actually i made my uncle get the autograph for me because i didn't want them to lick me and i assume they would it was so weird that bushwhackers licked a lot of children in those days yeah yeah saying that out loud sounds weird now well they're dead but you're right andrew that is such a monkey dance he's doing and and also like homers his face just contorts into a very weird look in the side thing yeah but i noticed just like for as bad as this crowd is they asked the animators to do a lot of things they weren't used

to do like now the simpsons is the crowd show yeah there's so many crowds and so many mobs and so many just organized groups of people this is the first time they had to do that and they don't have characters developed so like every shot is just new characters and they all are moving at the same time most of the time well i have no model sheets so there just new characters and they all are moving at the same time. Most of the time. Well, I have no model sheet, so there's no consistency. And they also I mean, in this scene, you put it out on Twitter. They all have to gasp in unison, which is like so they have to move to like Jesus. It's too.

I feel very bad for the Klasky Chupo animators asked to do this stuff. But like like we said, first script written for the show, Kogan and Walidarski had never written for animation before it. They don't know that that's a difficult ask. They're not thinking about the pencil mileage of it, but it is strange. The episode ends with Homer falling, you know, 20 stories and then being caught by his, uh, his crowd of people too. I think if you fall that far at you know from that height that's considered a plummet he plummets off of his balcony i've always hated the end of this episode it's just so awkward and it feels like it kind of just cuts off but that fall i'm like i understand it's a cartoon but i i don't know why i just never sat with me the right

way it's a more realistic season for the show too but it is so corny how the fucking theme song plays them out like it's like a real cornball move yeah and i mean he in in a real more realistic season one he he would die and the people he landed on would die too totally at least crush some of those freaks yeah though then again like uh in season 10 no season nine burns will fall from that same height on fire and he turned out okay yeah he had that special k when homer was dancing it did remind me of dancing homer as well it's a little bit of that but uh yeah i a wild episode with a ton of mood swings and crazy things and rule breakings but also like a lot of big firsts like four of the most important characters in the series mo burns five mo burns smithers wigum and Otto all make their first appearance in this

episode. And I'm really happy we really pinned down the suicide thing as a reference because it just felt so odd and awkward. But now it's like, oh no, that was a Flintstones reference. And it was a little softer to people at the time because they would recognize it as such. Classic cartoons were full of characters attempting suicide. It was a punchline over and over again. It was now, you know, 30 years later, we just are not laughing at suicidal depression.

We want to understand it deeply. And so it's just, it makes things very dark. I think there were like three Warner brothers cartoons that ended with a character saying, now I can only do this once. And then they kill themselves as a trick. The,

uh, the famous, uh, what is it? The Tom and Jerry short where he, whichever one is the cat. What is that, Tom? Maybe Tom. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? It's a whole thing where he gets dumped by his cat girlfriend and he's all depressed. And the end of the short is him literally sitting on the train tracks as a train barrels

down on him uh this him getting killed is definitely his fault with the train and this is his situation but it just ends with like woo woo and just goes to black as this cat is killed there's there's a donald duck cartoon too where he thinks daisy is has left him and he's pointing a gun at his head i mean everyone who made those cartoons fought in world war ii and saw untold horror yeah yeah they were all drinking themselves into suicide away or toward suicidal oppression yes that was their only outlet donald short is on the disney plus by any chance i don't think so there's i was looking they only have a few disney uh donald shorts on disney plus right now there they only have a few Disney Donald shorts on Disney Plus right now. There was a few I was looking for of like, they don't have the one where he wraps presents?

Come on. I was wanting to watch that over Christmas time. So I don't believe that one's on there either. So any final thoughts on this one, Andrew, before you go? You know, it's kind of funny because I feel like I was sort of trashing it, you know, when we got on the air here. And, you know, it's one of those things we've sort of, I guess, I've learned I was sort of trashing it you know when we got on the air here and you know it's one of those things we've sort of I guess I've learned

over the course of this conversation you know everything has to start somewhere you know I think about the early few episodes of my show which are quite terrible and unlistenable I find you know so everything has to start somewhere this obviously is such an important

part of the show is such an important part of so many of our lives. So it's interesting to go back. I mean, I never would have gone back and watched this had I not been chatting with you guys about it today. So it was cool. That's great. Simpsons history lesson kind of a thing, which I do appreciate.

But it did remind me of something I do think about a lot, which is that I feel like the writing on this show used to really play to the top of the intelligence. And that doesn't happen anymore, I feel, from what I've seen. Again, I don't watch the show anymore. But also the sweet kind of moments that the show also had, I feel like it really found a nice way in these early years to kind of integrate the family love kind of thing. And that's what I sort of thought here with the cake.

Even though it's sort of played for a joke, they have a sort of sweet music cue and you realize it's just a nice thing that the family did for him in this situation. So it had those kinds of things, like we love you dad, all of that kind of stuff, which it kind of decided to shuttle down as the years went on. So this was just kind of a nice trip

back in history for me. Andrew, talk all about We Hate Movies, the Patreon you guys had just came off a great month in December. We're in January now. You're starting your worst of 2019. It should be about halfway through by the time this podcast goes live. Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I host a show called We Hate Movies. You can find us wherever podcasts are available. And yeah, we do have a Patreon, which is patreon.com slash wehatemovies. We're a comedy show where we talk about all kinds of movies, but generally, particularly bad movies that we've found. So yeah, we're in our worst of the previous year month right now. So I believe around the time this comes out, I guess we'll have just released an episode on Angel Has Fallen.

We're big fans of ragging on that Gerard Butler franchise. It's a franchise, yeah. Yeah, so you can find out all our information at whmpodcast.com. We have new shows every Tuesday and on our Patreon in just a few short weeks, we'll be launching a new show called Making It So

where we are going to be doing weekly recaps of the new Star Trek Picard program that's coming out on CBS All Access so we're super excited about that I know I'm going to be like crying through every episode probably I have been enjoying the Nexus for the past three or four years

your Star Trek series and also your your mandalorian half hour and the uh i mean your empire strikes back one two all your star wars stuff has been great as uh as we say goodbye to star wars apparently star wars is dead now but it yeah all right r.i.p star wars yeah there was it was a big month of talking about star wars i think everybody here at the whm home office is ready to kind of take a break from a galaxy far far away and talk about a different kind of sci-fi for a while that's for sure but thank you so much andrew for coming back on yeah thanks guys for having me it's always a blast talking to you both so thanks so much to andrew dupin for being on the

show check out we hate movies and their patreon they got a lot of bonus stuff on there but we do too on our patreon if you want to support our show and get every episode one week at a time and ad free, please go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And if you sign up at the $5 level, you'll get just that, but also access to over 100 bonus podcasts that you have not heard if you are not on the Patreon. That includes a ton of miniseries, but also the newest one we just wrapped up in december is talking futurama season two part one 10 new episodes of talking futurama exclusive only to patrons and there is so much going on at that five dollar level too much to list here but henry can tell everyone out there what's happening at the ten dollar level one extra long podcast every month that is voted on by patrons

that is correct our sister podcast what a cartoon has a monthly what a cartoon movie that's only available in full to our ten dollar and up patreon subscribers at patreon.com slash talking simpsons what a cartoon movie covers a different animated feature film once a month in december we did the iron giant brad bird's classic that has a bunch of folks who worked on the simpsons animating on that and in january we'll be doing the animatrix the anime compilation film about the sci-fi cyberpunk classic so please check those out at the ten dollar level and a ton of other stuff at patreon.com slash talking simpsons so i've been one of your hosts bob m Mackey. Look for me on Twitter as Bob Servo.

My other podcast I do outside of this is called Retronauts. That is a classic gaming podcast all about video game history. Check it out at retronauts.com or wherever you find podcasts to search for Retronauts. Henry, what about you? On Twitter, you can find me, Henry Gilbert at H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G. I tweet about everything when this podcast goes live and all of our cool stuff we're doing so follow me there for more information h-e-n-e-r-e-y-g plus you should definitely be following the official talking simpsons twitter account for

all the updates as well that's at talk simpsons pod we tweet out really cool stuff there including our favorite twister mouths, for example. Oh, yeah. A lot this year. And you'll only stay in the loop at, if you follow, at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter.

Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you next week with a recording of our live show at SF Sketch Fest 2020. And we'll see you then look there's our school again Otto Otto, are you sure you... It's a shortcut, Mrs. K. Trust me.