Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Homie the Clown With Chris Cabin

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

"When I started this clown thing, I thought it would be nothing but glory—you know, the glory of being a clown? I tell ya, it's hard, tiring work. But when I see the smiles on their little faces, I just know they're getting ready to jab me with something." - Homer Simpson Following the instructions of roadside billboards, Homer enters Krusty's clown college, and soon finds himself working a buffoonery-based part-time job where he's kicked by kids, bit by dogs, and admired by the elderly. But he discovers that the few perks of being confused for Krusty the Clown don't outweigh the major downside: Mafia reprisal. Our guest: Chris Cabin from We Hate Movies Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod, not to mention Bluesky and Instagram!

This podcast is brought to you by patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon movie podcast, and tons more. Event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, a podcast in desperate need of speed holes. I'm one of your host, the Big Wheel down at the Cracker Factory, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. I am holding still. I am squirming. It's Henry Gilbert. And who is our special guest on the line today? Skilled crustacean, Chris Cabin.

And this week's episode is Homie the Clown. And now to help introduce our fantastic new burger, the one with ketchup. Here he is. Coming in by parachute. Krusty the Clown. This week's episode originally aired on February 12, 1995. And as always, Henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day. in real world history. Billy Madison beats the quick in the dead at the box office.

Seinfeld reaches its 100th episode with a clip show and the book slash animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss's Daisy Head Maisie are simultaneously released posthumously for Theodore Geisel. Well, I hate to betray my generation, and that is the millennial generation, but Billy Madison is as far as I got with the Say on their movies. Really? You never went to Happy Gilmore land? I had a friend, maybe it's the friend who was obsessed with Happy Gilmore,

and he talked it up day after day until we finally sat down to watch it, and I was like, oh, that's it. But I saw it again on a hotel TV, and that's really the best place to watch Happy Gilmore. And I had a little more affection towards it, but still, like, the world proved me wrong. But Billy Madison was one and done for me, and I was like, okay, I don't need to pursue the Adam Sandler project. But everybody else totally invested in this guy. Yeah, I understand. I think those are the two that I would say, if you're going to try to like those movies,

try those two. If you're not like them, you certainly are not going to get anything out of Little Nicky. That is not going to help your cause whatsoever. But I'm kind of pissed because I finally saw the Quick Into Dead relatively recently. And it is such a good movie. I had no, I should have assumed since it's Ramey in the heyday of Ramey, but like I was shocked how good it was and how good Sharon Stone was in it. I've only really known Sharon Stone from Basic Instincts and Casino mostly. So this was like, oh my God, she's great. And she produced it. It was her project. Both of these were VHS watches for me. I saw Billy Madison after seeing Happy Gilmore in theaters at a friend's suggestion.

And later, my friends who were big Evil Dead fans who introduced me to Evil Dead. They also introduced me to Dark Man and the Quick in the Dead. Though I don't think I really appreciate a Quick in the Dead until an adult as well. Like really how special it was. I was going to say, Henry, you were 12 and possibly couldn't get into the Quick in the Dead. But I do remember you saying you saw seven with your mother. My mom did take me to see She would take me to see R-rated movies

But it was just that Though maybe it was against the Quickin' The Dead That it's like oh if it's Sharon Stone She'll probably get naked Which, well wait, she doesn't have sex At one point and I think it's very close But I don't think it actually happens Yeah, I think they cut out some sex or romance

With the Leonardo Cardo character But yeah, this movie, Quick in the Dead It's wonderful, it's amazing It was recent watch for me too I didn't watch it until maybe five years ago My wife's a big fan of the movie And if you read the reviews of the time people are saying no

the Western should be serious it should be about the death of the West this is hokey bullshit and how dare Sharon Stone not show me her breasts and produce a movie Look Clint Eastwood's gonna do the end of the Western one

let him do his thing you don't have to have every single director do the same exact version of what you're doing Henry the seven story my mom let me watch whatever like there was no restraints

I remember seeing Dark Man in like very young in a drive-thru a drive-in rather and I like was like holy God in heaven, that's horrible. I mean, it was a really good movie, but like what was happening to him.

But Seven was the one she drew the line at. She had read some article. I don't know where. I want to burn this magazine, whatever it was. And she's like, you are not seeing that movie because that movie is about torture. And I don't like you watching movies about torture. And like, I had to like sneakily on vacation in Cape Cod while they were out to dinner. I had to sneakily go down to the rental store.

And the guy was like 19. So he's like, yeah, go ahead, rent the damn thing. I don't care. And then I finally saw it. I loved it. We were talking about The Quick in the Dead, and at the time, going to the movies really was like the Wild West because I remember getting into a lot of R-rated movies as like a 13 or 14-year-old. I remember seeing scream and wild things and other films like that. But when Columbine happened, there was a big crackdown because they were blaming the media.

Thankfully, I was 17. Yeah. And the R-rating was, I could just stroll into any movie I wanted to. But I just remember, like, how did my friends and I get into all of these? We weren't like putting on fake mustaches. We weren't getting into the giant trench coat or anything like that. I mean, we were a demonic people at the time. I mean, like, we still are, but like 1990s, I go back now and I think about it because every once in a while I will dip into like a true crime doc.

I watched the Menendez brothers doc the other day. And I was like, oh, we should have all been wiped out for how we responded to the Menendez brothers. We really should have been. The SNL sketch where John Malkovich and Rob Schneider overdo the weeping crying thing, I'm like, we should have been put down right there. That really should have done it. But like that specific, I would go to a movie theater and. Like the couple behind me, if the person I was trying to get a ticket from, was like, I don't know if you're of age. Do you got some idea or something?

This happened to me three separate times. The couple behind me would be like, oh, he's with us. Oh, that's nice. They were just like, no, no, no. Like, I remember road trip. I was like just underage to see road trip. And this couple behind him was like, oh, he's with us. And like, fine, fine, go.

I don't care. That's a more honorable method of buying a booze for kids. It's just like, you vouching for them. 100%. It's totally legal. you could totally do it. Yeah. My mom liked seeing movies.

I liked seeing movies with my mom. So yes, if it was something that had Oscar buzz and was not just like a full on like sex, like she wouldn't take me to see strip tis, even though she loved the book. She was a big Carl Huyas and my mom too. But she would not, that was a line there, like something that explicitly sexual. But yeah, I think for Quick in the Dead, I want to say when I watched the recent 4K release with my husband who had never seen for the first time, we loved it, watching it together. It's like fighting tournament, except it's shooting people.

Everybody's great in it. Gene Hackman is awesome. But then it led me to look up. Bruce Campbell had some great recent interviews of just hearing him tell stories are always funny. And he's technically credited in the movie, even though you see the back of his head in like one scene. He's like a preacher, I think. Yes. But he tells this great story of going to the set and look at Gene Hackman.

And he's like, I bet you don't beat up Gene Hackman like you beat up me. I bet you don't do that. old buddy Sam Ramey. Meanwhile, Billy Madison was, like, this was when Adam Sandler was getting, like, kicked off of SNL at the end of this season in 95, saying like, oh, this guy'll never be anything. And

he is, like, has to be the most successful Saturday Night Live cast member in theaters. Like, not everybody's favorite, but if we're just tallying up the numbers, the most successful. Yeah, I guess more hits than Mike Myers. The Mike Myers' movies seem to be bigger and have more of a cultural impact, but Adam Sandler survived little

Nicky and Mr. Deeds, like that run. of films and he bounced back. Yes, he did. He did a smart thing and like, I'm not just going to do comedies. When he got enough clout, when he started doing more serious roles like Punch Drunk Love and, of course, Uncut Jems, like, you're like, oh, this guy's got it. This guy has actually like talent beyond just the talking funny thing. And where do you think, is it Sandler, Myers, and then Farrell, I guess would be the big three. Yeah, I'd say that. That seems right. That sounds right. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, even Farrell's biggest were like, elf is probably as, biggest moneymaker, but I don't think it's made

as much as like Adam Sandler's biggest money maker for instance. There's no way. I mean, I think old school was like a minor hit, but then when it got to home video, it became a huge thing. And I feel like Beryl's thing was that it would do pretty good in the theater, but it would go nuts on DVD.

Talladega Knights, Stepbrothers. I feel like I heard all of those like after the fact, and everybody loved them after the fact. And yeah, Seinfeld's 100th episode is a clip show. That's technically what its 100th episode is. Yeah.

I was looking into this. This episode is actually 100 and 101 because it was a two-part error. And I'm sure I saw this at the time because I was watching Seinfeld as it was going live in whatever season this was, season six probably. But I probably skipped this when I was doing a rewatch like 15 years ago and in syndication because there is no new content. It is just you get a 50 second intro with Jerry Seinfeld explaining, you know, all the laughter and tears of 100 episodes of Seinfelds.

Here's a clip package for you and then the clips started running. The preceding episode, just to put it in time, if you're Seinfeld, a big fan, is it's a John Lovitz one where he gets a tupé and George then buys a toupee. And it's the behind the scene story is like they all hated John Lovett so much. They killed him off his character. So he could never come back. I had never heard. It's like John Lovitz a pain in the ass. He seems now like he's a real pain in the ass.

But was he always a pain in the ass, I guess? Apparently, I think they did not like him on the side. It can't tell you exactly why. I can tell you the story of how Lawrence Tierney pulled a knife on people on the set. Well, yeah, that I remember. Yes, but I remember they, like, wrote him off with malice. Like, the next time they mentioned his character after that episode was like, oh, I got hit by a car and he's dead.

That's it. Like, yeah. So the Daisy Head Mazy, it was interesting to look up because, like, it was a Theodore Geisel-like manuscript he'd been working on. And then apparently got, like, heavily rewritten. Like, the cat and the hat kind of hosts both the cartoon and the book. but then it got re-released later in the real version Guysel wanted. Apparently the Cat in the Hat got added afterwards to the story as a framing device by,

I believe Hannah Barbera animated it in conjunction working with the estate and the widow of the Guisele Wild. Yeah, you can find a Daisy Head Mazy that is Cat and a Hat free out there. It's about a girl who's an outcast because a flower is growing in her head. He really was the poochie of that book. He shows up, he wraps a little bit. Well, hey, and we're all. Looking forward to the upcoming animated feature. Another one of Cat in the Hat.

And guess what guys? It's a job. It's a movie about a job. Well, speaking of Mike Myers, it has to be better than the movie he was basically forced a gunpoint to make. Yeah. True.

It can't be worse. If you look closely, in some scenes, they did not edit out the laser dot. That's on his forehead at all times. We did that on the show. We ate movies. We did that way back when.

And I remember avoiding it like the plague, even before I had heard, like, the critics saying, like, this is absolute dog shit. find something else to do with your time. I just was like, maybe I just like Mike Myers when he's Mike Myers. I don't like him under all the makeup.

I didn't like Fat Bastard, really. I didn't like a lot of the secondary Mike Myers characters in Austin Powers. I'm a bigger fan of so I married an axe murder than I am any of the Austin Powers. And Cat in the Hat is also secretly a coffee talk movie because he's doing his Linda Richmond voice in that costume inexplicably.

I guess it's because he's like, well, here's an existing character and I don't want to think of a new one for this film. A coffee talk movie. would have made me much happier, I think, just in general. Even with the makeup, I think I would have been fine. And I feel like we're on the brink of an Austin Powers 4 announcement. We're recording this like in July, so maybe it already happened by September when this goes

live. But I think it was like a Verizon commercial with Dr. Evil. And here's a thing, you can whore yourself out for that, but you got to make it funny and that was funny. I rewatched Austin Powers 2 because I was like, oh, I love Dr. Evil. Austin Powers 2, not great. Austin Powers 1, Amazing. But still, I want to see more of the character again.

Why not? For bringing everything else back, give me more Dr. Well, that's, I wonder how the age on those characters is going to play, because, like, Seth Green, I mean, is looking old. Him playing a kid now, even as, like, an adult kid, like, I'm going to be like, maybe we watch it here with this stuff. And also, I have overdosed on Roblo. I have had too much Roblo. I cannot fit any more in my stomach. And he is all over that Verizon commercial.

It's mostly him. Yeah, the idea of Roblo in a comedy is no longer novel like it used to be. It's like Christopher Walkin, I'd say, similarly overdosed. I'm like, this serious actor can do comedy. And it's like, we've seen, or John Hamm, it's just like, I get it. Go back to drama. Prove to me you can do drama again. Well, yeah, and do serious stuff.

Like, walk in, like, has some, like, knock it out of the park performances. I think, like, the last one I can really think of is catch me if you can. And I thought he was good in Dune. But, like, Roblo, I think Parks and Rec really is what ruined it. Like, he's good on the show. But, like, after that, I was like, I don't need any more of this. And then they're like, let's have him host, like, what, 17? different like contest game shows and I'm like no thank you just get it all out of here

well begin the thong of Robert Wagner there's no other choice but that's all the stuff that happened the week this episode of Simpsons aired and joining us once again is Chris Cabin from we hate movies and Chris last joined us for season 15's The Ziff who came to dinner and I also want to point out that this is the second time he's guested on an episode where we cover a golden age Simpsons the first time was Bart the General so Chris, we want to issue a formal apology and say, we don't hate you. I know. I know, guys. No.

We never have Chris on for the really good episodes, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because Chris can really harness his anger into, like, a fine laser beam. Yeah, that's my thing, I think. It's the contrarian thing, I feel like. I'm just painted by it since I was a critic. I can't help myself. But what I hate is more important than what I love. This is not intentional on our part.

I was surprised. Like, we never had Chris on for a classic outside of when we started covering the series again from the beginning. a no. It's all like teens episodes for the most part of it. I think it was like when it would come around we maybe had just had it's just in time I'm like well we just had a we hate movies when the other we hate movies

guys on for a classic one and Chris is just always so funny at a bad one and if we're going to talk about how like let's say the Artie Ziff character tries to sexually harass Marge like it'd be funnier to talk about it with Chris than some other guys. I mean it also forces me to

watch these episodes that I had no in Like I do have a bare bone curiosity about what exactly happened to the show. And whenever I find myself, like if I'm at a hotel or a motel and Simpsons is on, it's one I've never seen before, I'll sit and I'll watch it all. Just because I have a base interest in where exactly this whole thing went and where it's going. Are we really not going to end this before Matt Granning is in the grave? I guess that is probably what's going to happen here. We're making up for it by giving you like maybe the best episode of Simpsons ever or like the funniest one.

ever. It has to be on most people's top fives, I'd say at least. I always call this the funniest one when we talk about it. Maybe not even, we just did Bart's comment, which I say is like my personal favorite, but every second of this one is hilarious. And this is also a real

power duo steering the episode of The Simpsons because we have director, David Silverman, writer, John Swartzweiler, and they weren't teamed up that often when it comes to these episodes. I think the only other one I can think of is Krusty gets canceled. That's a David Silverman, John Swartzweller. or duo episodes.

Silverman loves doing Krusty. He kind of created him. He animated Krusty in the shorts and has been working on Krusty from the beginning. I think at this time, Silverman is the supervising director on the show and does not direct as many episodes per season. And he gets his pick of the litter

when they come around. And he mentions like, the table read for this, the second he reads that he's like, gets exactly what it's going for and chooses for himself, like uses his authority to be like, I'm doing this crusty episode, the crustiest episode ever.

It is. I wonder if he had the circus music in his head when he was reading through it. Did he just know it was going to sound like right from the get-go? Because that, to me, was the first time, I was like, oh, this is a funny runner. Like, the fact that you can hit that thing like three or four times in a row and every time it's funny. I was like, that's genius. And Brad Bird and him loved working on crusty stuff together this time Brad Bird was still very much involved in the Simpsons, and I think there's a lot of little Bradbird touches.

Also, if you know how Silverman draws in freehand a Simpsons character, not trying to stick to the exact guides, like there's multiple shots in here that I'm just like, oh, that is the Silverman drawing. Like, they just adapted it directly. There's lots of fun poses. You could spell a lot of time spent on the layout of this episode, especially, I mean, everyone is doing a really great job in the season. Silverman, he's given this opportunity, and he's really going for it.

And it's not just crusty. When we get to the Don Vittorio DiMaggio, there's some great acting on him, too. Just so much care is put into all of the character acting here. I think they recognize this is such a funny script and we need to rise to that level, art-wise. I think this is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, Joe Montania, spot with this. The Mafia in general was never my, like, favorite characters, but this one, they really shine through. And all the jokes work with them. They're usually just come in for one or two punch-ups, except for I'm going to forget the name of the actual episode,

the one where they take Bart Underwing. That one. Oh, Bart, the Murderer. That is in my top five. That is one of my absolute favorites. Yeah. We're going to talk about it, but shockingly, this is only the second appearance of Fat Tony in terms of being a voiced character with a role in the episode, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's Montania's big return to the series, and he'll never go away after that. Like, he's been more episodes in Sight Show Bob since then, and for good reason. Fat Tony is a great, he's really a recurring character now. You can't call him a guest character anymore. I would say.

He's up to recurring cast member level. Oh, yeah. Same thing with Sad Comic Book guy. As soon as you get two or three really good episodes with him in, they're like, no, just keep him in. Get him like one or two hits during like a random episode and it'll keep the fans happy. This is Joe Montania. It was no longer, he hasn't like gone to the criminal minds level yet.

It hasn't happened quite yet. But he had like definitely cooled down from the early David Mamet Hot Street where he was like a major star, a major new star. This is post airheads. This is post Baby's Day Out. This is him in the weeds. I'm a big fan of him. I think he has a very specific presence

that not many other people can do. He has the stupidest supporting turn in the Stephen King adaptation thinner, if anybody has seen it. Oh, yeah. It is so dumb, but I love it so much because it's him. I remember knowing him when I was watching The Simpsons.

Like, oh, I know the voice. I know that voice. And being absolutely ecstatic. Yeah, I just watched the three amigos for the first time, and he is just in one scene with John Lovitz and Phil Hartman. Yeah, right. Wonderful movie. He fires him at the beginning, right? Yeah, yeah. That's a good move. Oh, and also the behind the scenes folks who worked on it, Nancy Cruz, who would go on to be a great Simpsons director on her own. She's the assistant director on this, which I think speaks to the quality. And one of the lead layout artists is a name. We've talked about a lot in the last couple months of podcast, Ishvan Majoros, the late animator who was talking. talked about as one of the best layout people in Mighty Mouse, the new adventures, which Bob did a great history on when we cover that on one of a cartoon. That cartoon, again, we've said before, but it is like the keystone of all future American animation for the next 30 years

is that Mighty Mouse cartoon for 87. Rarely important. I'm going to have to take a look. I'm not sure if I've ever watched a single episode. Of course, I remember Mighty Mouse. I don't think I've seen this. It's a total mess, but it is still interesting to see this could exist in 1987. I'd be into it. And this, also I was surprised to see that this was such a great episode. And animation-wise, Silverman is not working with his A team because his best, what I usually say is the best animated episode of The Simpsons. In my opinion is Triocirac-Far 4, though Trials of Rhea 5 is very close. Both are produced at Rough Draft Overseas, and that makes a big difference.

This is one of their B-studios, Anavision. So the fact that, like, Anavision produced one of the best-looking episodes, I also think that that shows Silverman. over involvement in this from his position too. We're so close to this that I just would have naturally assumed it was rough draft, but I'm guessing they did a lot more work on the Western side of things to make sure Anavision followed their instructions to make this episode look so good. Can I ask, you probably have covered this at some point,

were Silverman and Swartzwilder, did they get along? Because I know Swartzwilder hated everyone. So I assume he just was like, fuck you, fuck everybody. But like, did they have a good relationship? We're not, actually, I don't know if we know this, but because the directors, they would come to the color screenings or the animatic screenings of the episodes, and the writer would often be there. But for the most part, they worked separately in separate buildings.

And at this point, John Swartzwater was working from home because he could no longer smoke in the office. So he would come by in his giant Cadillac, drop off his script and then leave. And I guess chat with the guys and then leave. But he was comfortable with just smoking endless cigarettes. And I believe a booth he bought from a diner that he loved at frequent. That story I have absolutely read and I'm like, you, King, I love you so much. I love every story about sports. Silverman would have had more interaction than most directors because he also did have a producer credit.

Sure. He would have had more face time, but I mean, a production-wise thing, at least in the first decade, was that the animators were in their office in Burbank, either at Film Roman or Claskey Chupo, which was in Hollywood. and then meanwhile on the other side of town, on the Fox lot were the writers. And so while they were technically in the same city, like they were day-to-day not working in the same building. So yeah.

And the director would routinely meet with the writers during production of an episode, but then the director talks to all the other animators. I think you kind of had to get to director or at least assistant director level to really have much face time with any of the writing producers. And we've all been to L.A. If your destination is two miles away,

it takes 47 minutes to get. get there in an $80 Uber. Might as well walk. Even if you are in a traffic lane, you should just walk. I think Silverman correctly identified that Swartzwater, what makes him one of the best, like, ever Simpson's writers, is that Swartzwater is a great gag writer in the old Looney Tune sense. And Silverman makes this a Looney Tune. It follows so many joke structures of Looney Tunes. And he, Silverman is a great respecter of that era of stuff.

He has put direct parodies or references to them in many of his works, and he can hit those same beats. And now just think, you know, the funny passing of time, like now Silverman is probably older than Chuck Jones was, like when this episode aired or nearly the same age. Yeah, he's about 70 now. And still enjoying Burning Man. I hope he never stops going on the show.

He's at least a consulting producer on the show. I just watched the latest Disney Plus episode, and he's a consulting producer. I didn't know Dan Castletta is now a co-executive producer on The Simpsons. Oh, yeah. That surprised me. I think he's been on some level of writing producer for a bit now. Yeah, it's strange.

He's working day to day on it, it sounds like. And I wonder if by now we know who the director of The Simpsons movie two is when this episode comes out. Is Silverman still directing it or is he just going to be like an EP on it? I wonder how directly involved he is going to be with the second film. I'm absolutely when that thing comes out, I'm certainly going to see it. But like I don't want to hear anything about it until then, much like the Austin Powers sequel. I know it's going to happen. Just please do not make it a big deal for me to have to pay attention to.

It is funny that you bring up the Looney Tunes thing because my only real issue with this episode is that from a like storytelling point of view, it is not the most like wholly satisfying. Like something like Martha Murderer where I feel like this is a story. This is a full emotional story being told with all the jokes in it. This is more of a looney, like it's just gags. Like absolutely rapid fire. Cannot stop it. I love those as much as I love the storytelling.

But there is something, maybe it's just because I come from a writing background that I really appreciate the full-bodied ones just a little bit more. And sometimes Looney Tunes don't really know how to end. So the ending joke is very anticlimactic. And I feel like here they're leaning into it with how pointless this entire exercise was ultimately. Absolutely. The one right before this, Bart's Comet, is also Schwarzwelder. So I wonder if they took all of the emotion out of this one and put it into Barth

Comet to make it a great. It's just funny. Like that has such great storytelling in it while also being perfectly funny. This took all of that good storytelling and it's just about what if Homer was crusty. Just what happens in the bunker alone is such smart storytelling. Like it's just them, then it's both the families, then it's everybody, but then Flanders got to come out. Like that is so smart. And to have Flanders have that emotional moment singing Ksara sarah, sarah. Like when I watch these for this show. I tend to watch two or three in a row just to remember where I was at the time when these things came out. Because I do, when it was the salad days of this stuff, I do have this ability to go back and remember exactly where I was, what I was doing. This one, I remember very

specifically because this has happened to me twice in my life. The second one was in college and has a lot to do with drugs. But this one, I was stone sober. But I watched this episode instead of doing my homework and in sixth grade which i was at the time most homework was like a big like construction paper square with like facts and printed out pictures from the computer on it that you'd be like i'm explaining something here i put off doing this because i was like i want to watch the simpsons i was still playing a super nintendo i don't want to think about anything else and like i completely forgot about it all i had was the cardboard i woke up the next morning and i don't know if i sleepwalked or something, but like most of it was done.

Again, like the drugs explained the college one. I'm like, I sure I stayed up and I did the work. This one, I genuinely do not know what happened. And I'm like, at least I think I got like a B minus on it so it wasn't the greatest work in the world. But like, oh, well, good, I guess. I glad I put it all off. The Swartzwoldo Ferries visited you at night, Chris. The beautiful Swartiller fairies.

Long hair, mustaches. Smell like tobacco. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, we have to get started with the episode. This is an amazing streak. We should point this out because it's like Homer the Great, the Stone Cutters episode, Bart's Comet. This and I think Bart versus Australia is next.

So potentially like the funniest best-looking streak in the show ever, period. As much as I like season four and five, I feel like this is like the ultimate prime era. Like these couple months, just perfect Simpsons. Yeah. I watched Australia one while I was watching this as well. And it's a beautiful piece of work. I really love the look of that one. Was I also 12?

Yes, but irrelevant. Though it's funny too, you say like those three in a row are Swartzweilter scripts with then mixed with some of the best directors the series ever had. And then the fourth one, Australia, is Bill and Josh, also two of the best writers in The Simpsons. So, you know, they're killing it

and they're not yet exhausted in the year, though this year is great throughout. The closest thing to a dip in quality is just when the critic writers are trying their best with it, but it's a different writing. staff. And even that's not bad. This episode also depends on something that I think not to complain about more modern

Simpsons, but they have done a recent this joke in the show where they joke that Homer and Krusty look similar and that they then have like an insidey gag about like, boy, it seems like the person who designed this wasn't very creative, which pisses me off as an inside joke because

it completely ignores the entire fact that like Krusty's design from the short first appearances, Bart's heroes are guys who look exactly like his dad who he disrespects. That's the entire point of his design. Yeah, it's very funny. They waited this long to acknowledge it.

I think I remember watching this at the age of 12 thinking, oh, yeah, that's right. It's something I had in the back of my brain when I first started watching The Simpsons, but you forget about it because Homer and Krusty are so different. But then this episode shows you know they are essentially the same person with a few different features. But ultimately, they have the same exact body type. And I guess radioactive man is Buff Homer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. His mask creates the beard line that Homer has as well as his head shape is the same. And his nuclear power is Homer's nuclear power. It's the same deal, yes.

It's what I think really tipped me off about that is I find the Homer when he meets his mom again episode and the episode where Krusty reunites with his father. I find those to be mirror episodes in a way. And I really like, they both have, I think, a lot of heart to them. But they're also talking about like it's, clearly an issue with how Homer's going to raise Bart, like how their relationship is going to go, is read, I think, in both of those episodes very closely. And yeah, I guess I had never put together the radioactive one man, but that's true. The mask, I hadn't thought about that. And Silverman mentions how, as the show continued and they really accentuated in this episode for plot reasons, they had to change Krusty up more and more, add extra lines around his eyes to indicate that he's older than Homer, as well as his, if you really look at it, he's, he's,

His beard muzzle shape, both coloring and the shape, he has like dimples around the edge or like they arch up differently. They're not one to one. They're not one to one. And the reference in the title might be lost on younger people, but we remember homie D. Clown, the In Living Color character, the famous ex-convict clown, who was one of the show's biggest characters. But I think the audience exploded for any recurring character in Living Color. And what surprises me about that show, well, it burned very bright. There's only five seasons of UnLimming Color. off the air by 94. But also, there was never an in Living Color character movie. Yes,

actors, performers from that show would go on to be in movies that they would write in often direct, but there was never a men on film movie or a homie de clown movie. Instead, we got things like Mo Money, which took a catchphrase from a sketch and spun it into something entirely different. I know you covered that on We Hit movies a billion years ago, Chris. Oh my God, that movie sucks. I think the Wayans were a little smart on that because they're like, well, let's start new things. I'm sure. sure at some point they were working on a homie de clown script. They had to.

That was such a big character. I have to imagine in that time period there were probably 40 homie de clown spec scripts swarming around Hollywood. There had to be. A fire marshal bill, I would assume there's at least one. There was such a big deal at the time. I remember I watched Living Color religiously. I was obsessed with that show.

And that's how I found about Jamie Fox. That's how I found about everybody. I mean, all my favorite actors at the time. It is funny that they did, because I'm going to get you suck. It was, I think, pre in Living Color. Or am I wrong on that? I think it was, but like that don't drink your juice while whatever about that very long title.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was right after a Living Color. But also another kind of Living Color adjacent movie was Blank Man. Yes. And when that release, probably around this time, I was thinking, why isn't this Handyman? Well, now I know. But when I was a little boy with no empathy, Handyman was a very funny sketch.

Yes, that's the 90s. We're all demons. Don't worry about it. Yes. We're going to be all in prison in 20 years. Don't worry. When I was a kid, I also enjoyed a number of homie, D-Clown sketches.

And I think I didn't get, it was just that he was a colorful character who hit people on the head with a sock full quarters. But I just rewatched a few of them this week. And I was like, oh, I agree with everything homie is saying about like how the man keeps him down. Or it's like, well, yeah, how are you going to? He plays a version of monopoly with his son. And he says, like, well, how are you going to pay that? He's like, oh, can I buy Park Place? And he says, why are you going to do that when you're getting paid minimum wage and you have to support a family on just one income?

that's right now go to jail I was like wow that's a great they snuck then Damon Wayans talks about like that's how they snuck in shit through one of their most marketable characters they got to sneak in the actual like real criticisms about the racist state

of America via this clown character yeah there's parts of the movies where they do get to that but a lot of them it did become very broad like not so great jokes quite a lot of homophobia but like I remember watching Don't Be a Menace a Hundred Times. I was also obsessed with menace to society and Boys in the Hood.

And I was like, oh, this is great. This is a great thing. And then, of course, I go back to it. I'm like, oh, boy, okay, never mind. I watched a great video on the history of Homey about how it was. I think I've even said before, like, oh, it was created by Paul Moody. Not exactly the late great stand-up, Paul Mooney. He was a writer on in Living Color.

And other writers thought he was always saying, like, oh, no, homie. and other things are just like, homie don't play that, whereas a thing he would say when he thought some sketch was too racist or bad. And so one of the white writers thought, oh, that would be funny if we just, like, made a sketch about him, except he's a clown who refuses to be funny.

Then Damon Wayans saw that as similar to a stand-up bit he had done of the Angry Black comic, and he married those two together. And also one other thing I learned from it was the homie de-clown script for a movie was being worked on up into the aughts and there's a story that Sean or Marlin Wayans tells that it was being shopped around at Fox still to that time. But then they sold to Sony white chicks and Fox was mad at losing white chicks.

So they ended the homie declined script. Yes. Bullshit. So homie fell on the sword of white chicks. It's true. God damn it. As a host of the podcast Retronauts, I must let everyone know that there is a homie decline adventure game and it's not very good. or play it out of sheer curiosity.

But yeah, I guess he was popular enough to get his own video game. I saw his final sketch appearance, at least according to the In Living Color Wiki, is in 92, and that game came out a year later. So it was a bit after the homie era. And he was more active, yeah, because you can't imagine that they would do something like that

for Fire Marshal Bill because he's not exactly a character you can get the opinion or attitude of. He's just an insane person. So, like, I kind of get, there's no other version of that. You're right. Men on film, whatever would have happened with it, I would have probably hated it. But at the time, I probably would have loved it.

Well, there was a new wave of fire marshal bill awareness when Joe Biden was president because they were kind of the same guy. And then I think Jim Carrey spun that into just playing Joe Biden on SNL. Smart move. But okay, 40 minutes. Let's get started. Oh, what are we talking about today? Oh, homie the clown. Got it.

So yes, this begins with they have to establish up front that Krusty is actually good at being a clown. is normally terrible at his job and can't even complete like a sketch without like it failing. But we see that when Krusty wants to, he can take a simple everyday thing like eating a bicycle and make it funny with his spin cycle fantastic trick. As far as like doing a joke well, the way they repeat seeing this trick through every act of the episode rules. Like it's so good every time. Yeah, this is the through line, the spin cycle fantastique. And we see Krusty is professional. And when the show ends, he's following the curtain down, waving to the kids.

But the second they can't see him, he starts smoking. Yes. Yes. And the eyes goes, like, straight. Homer goes to clown school. Here he is. Coming in by parachute. On the Simpsons, a brand new episode.

Tomorrow beginning at 7 on Fox 5. Welcome to the break, everybody. It's Henry Gilbert wearing his favorite baggy pants. And a big thank you this week to our guest, Chris Cabin, from the We Hate Movies podcast. We always love having on any of the We Hate Movies guys. And this week, we had a ton of fun talking about Homie, The Clown with Chris. The We Hate Movie Guys are awesome.

We have been on their podcast multiple times. Just last month, we talked about minions with them. And they just wrapped up a fun tour covering Star Trek films. They do tons of live stops all around America. So check out all the cool stuff that they do, both on their Patreon and on their tour page. Check the links in the description. Thanks again to Chris and all the we hate movie guys as usual. And did you know you could be hearing this podcast without ads like this one?

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And this is where Krusty gets to his after-hours work in our first clip. Ah, there's nothing better than a cigarette. Unless it's a cigarette lit with a $100 bill. Put $5,000 on the Lakers, hire Kenny G to play. for me in the elevator. My house is dirty, buy me a clean one. Cresty, as you're accounted, I must warn you. Did you send those thousand roses to be Arthur's grave? Yes, but she still...

I don't want to hear the end of any sentences. George Carlin on three. Yeah. Lawsuit, oh, come on. My seven words you can't say on TV bit was entirely different from your seven words you can't say on TV bit. So I'm a thief, am I? Well, excuse! Give them ten grand.

Steve Martin on four. Ten grand. Krusty, in regards to the large wager you made on yesterday's horse race. Oh, come on, how about letting me go double or nothing on the big opera tonight? Who do you like? The tenor. Okay, but we're only letting the bet ride because you crack us so consistently up. Yeah, upon re-watching this, I am just shocked by the sheer amount of jokes there are about Krusty wasting money.

I think there are over a dozen, and they don't let up. You think, okay, that's enough of this, you probably mind this, but no, they keep finding funnier and funnier jokes. It's the piling up, you're right, because, like, you would think, like, the lighting the cigarette with the $100 bill is enough. But then you see in the wallet all the other ones he's done it with. And, like, there's those little, like, just images where I'm like, you're adding such a nice layer, like a lacquer even to that joke. To have that many references and, like, not have that feel, like, clunky. It's just amazing to me that it works that well. It's because of the pacing.

He's just rapid fire going at it. Also, great joke telling is that they're going to get to saying that he, has too much merchandise already. The second he enters his office, he is surrounded by merchandise. Many of it you've already seen in the show. So it's setting it back up again of like there's the croon along with Krusty behind him or the birthday card of him popping out of the drum bass as well.

Like there's so many things they're putting in there to build up the joke coming soon of, you've already merchandised everything. Yeah. And for all your sports fans out there, it sounds like you didn't want to bet on the Lakers during the 93, 94. season when this episode was written because they were doing very poorly. I mean, this is taken from also the real life of the office on The Simpsons of gambling on football all of the time. It was not every single writer, but it sounded like most of the writers were always

gambling on the very least the NFL. Or eating. Oh, sorry, George Carlin had the bit, seven words you can never say on television from his 1972 album Class Clown. And I finally listen to the excuse me bit from the Steve Martin album Let's Get Small and I feel like I'm going to become a comedy villain again. I slandered Adam Sandler. It feels like you had to be there because it's very rambly. He complains about not getting the color spotlight he wanted on stage. And then he just becomes extremely sarcastic.

And that's where the excuse me comes from. The crowd explodes. And I feel like that kind of sarcasm 55 years ago was a new concept, which is why there were so many characters in meaning. from that point on that were just sarcastic. That was the working bit. That's all they ever did.

Like your precious friend Garfield, Henry. Yes. Get a new joke, Garfield. Oh, yeah, like, I'll really get a new joke. We're so used to anti-comedy has been most of our comedy now that, like, the early anti-comedy of Steve Martin will feel old or creaky by PTA standards.

I love Steve Martin. He's great. But it does feel like the cave painting version of anti-comedy, where living what we've lived through, it's hard to return to the first time someone was very sarcastic on stage. Well, with Martin especially,

I think you lose quite a lot by not watching him. That was the whole thing. Like, I don't think he works as an audio comic, whereas, like, I would listen to George Carlin CDs all the time. What am I doing in New Jersey? I had, like, three copies of that CD, and I listened to it all the damn time. And that's where I got most of my comedic personality from was from Carlin,

whereas, like, Martin, I was always like, oh, L.A. story guy. I like him. I like him as an actor. just never considered him as a standard guy until one of my very close friends in college, Adam was obsessed with it. Like had read every like little biography you could find on him. And like, he was like, here, listen to all this. I'm like, no, I'm not feeling this. I'm sorry. Like it is that thing where you're feeling more uncomfortable than actually laughing. And I'm like, okay, I guess that's something. Yeah, I put on the track just to see like, what is this excuse me thing

that I've heard so many times in media? And it starts with him playing the banjo, which is something he did. And I'm thinking, like, is this a song? But no, he's just kind of rambling and playing the banjo and everyone who had just smoked an entire bag of sticks and steeds. They were just laughing their asses off at a man just not really finding a bit. And I think that is the bits. Yeah. So have you watched the other one I always think with him is we are two wild and crazy guys. Have you seen any of those?

Oh, yeah. I've seen those sketches with Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin. It's like about a very specific kind of immigrants from the 70s. I didn't really understand where they came from. It kind of feels like an early version of the Farrell Catan. Roxbury guys. Yeah. And I just like, again, I was like, I don't get it. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing here. I'm sorry, guys. But hey, I'll win our listeners back here. I love his King Tut song. See, my mom's favorite, like she, when Saturday Night Live, first five year

reruns started on Nick and Knight when I was around this age. Like, my mom would tell me like, oh, you got to watch like King Tut and the Wild and Crazy Guys sketches were among her favorites, as were the Loopener. She loved the Loopener character nerds of Gilder Radner and Bill Murray, those characters. Oh, yeah, yes. Hey, King Tut taught me the word honky. So, educational. This joke here, too, it's funny timing because in one of those, like, viral videos

it gets shoved in my feed, I just saw the, like, comedian Bobby Lee was on some podcast. And he was talking about how joke thievery in general or charges of it. And he talked about how Robin Williams, I have the quote here about Robb Williams. It was robbing Jokes Williams. That was his nickname. if he stole one of your jokes, there was a number you could call and they would send you a check.

And I was like, oh, is this that exact joke here? You call up Krusty and like, hey, you stole for me and he sent you $10,000. Is that what Robin Williams actually did do with this hotline that Bobby Lee is talking about there? I wonder. I wouldn't be surprised. And you know what?

Good on B. Arthur. She lived another 14 years after this joke about her dying. She lived long enough to play an amazing role on Futurama, the Fem Pute. Oh, God. Yeah. The Fat Tony returned, like Bill and Josh wanted to keep him around quite a lot in their years. They loved having older guys do voices. And then, honestly, I think that Al Jean fell too much in love with Fat Tony. There's so much Fat Tony lore and background to him, thanks to Al Jean, personally writing in some cases multiple episodes of Fat Tony's life.

And there's even like an Armin Tamzerian situation with Fat Tony now in which, I don't know, over a decade ago, Fat Tony died. he was replaced with a guy named Fit Tony who ate so much he then became Fat Tony and it's irrelevant now. So that's part of his lore. Well, the secondary mafia guy, forget which one, the guy with the fro kind of. I feel like he was definitely based off

of Vito's buddy from Godfather Part 2. And what's so funny about that is he's known for a deep voice and then when that character comes out, it's a very squeaky voice. And I always was like, oh, that's strange, and it bounces off like that. Yeah, and I think the legs character, who we see

here was played by Harry Shearer and Bartha Murderer. So their voices were not consistent quite yet. Oh, okay. And then we have another great joke of him lighting a cigar with a copy of action comics number one. Most comic collectors think there is around 100 copies total still in existence of it. It is still the most valuable comic. It's hard to even say what the number is because it's just whatever the last one sold for the most, which is this is the most interesting copy because 1996,

Nicholas Cage buys a pristine copy of it for $150,000. That is stolen from him in the year 2000. In 2011, it is just found in a warehouse by somebody. And he gets it back, then sells it for $2.1 million. And then whoever owned that, this year sold it for $15 million. So there you go. That's how much it is. It was only like 150,000 around when Krusty is burning it here.

But yes, $15 million was the most recent. That is a true crime doc that I think I need is the Cage thievery. I would love to see, just to see his response to that at the time. I would really love to see that. And it's so sad, he gets it back, his prized action comics number one. But because of, well, honestly, Krusty-style spending problems that Nicholas Cage had, he had to sell it to cover tax debts. It's funny because I think it's the next episode or the episode before where the Willie Nelson joke comes into the estate of Willie Nelson.

It's in this episode. Yeah, yeah. And then that spins out into Bart the Fink in season seven. Yes. Also, the shots of him smoking like Krusty Smoking, David Silverman draws Krusty Smoking. So good if you've been to Universal Hollywood in the Krusty private room at the Krusty Burger. There's art from the many animators on the show signed with their name. names and Silverman's Krusty in there is basically this Krusty Smoking drawing and it's one of my

favorite drawings in the whole building. It is such a funny picture. Although we should let people know you can freely enter and exit that room. It's very large. It's on the second floor of the Krusty Burger. You don't even have to buy food. You can just walk in there. You can just pee all over the floor if you want. It's universal. So yes, Krusty says, why don't we just bump out some more cheesy merchandise? He learns there's literally nothing more he could merchandise, which is probably how they were feeling about Simpson's merch in early 1995. Yeah. Although they would eventually make two different versions of Simpsons Monopoly.

I have the first one from like 2002 in this room. Oh, nice. Let me turn around here. He's doing it, folks. He's turning around. He's looking upwards. So up there, I have Simpsons Jeopardy and Simpsons Pictionary and Simpson's Clue, but I don't have any Simpsons Monopoly.

I had the only one I had in my family was a big pictonary household. I don't think they've yet. to make Simpsons crowd control signs yet. They got Johnny Unitis for like two lines in this episode. Apparently the real Johnny Unitas filed for bankruptcy not too long before this. So both he and this version of The Simpsons probably needed money. I wonder just how much money he got from that. But his delivery of probably has stuck in my head ever since.

Just as like, shouldn't be fleeting as much? Probably. And also another great joke when he's told to do a clown college. He says, like that bozo, Bonko the clown. Like, what a good, that's such a great gag. That is such a great guy. This accountant's name is Bill, by the way. His name is said once.

And I think he's getting frustrated by all of these jokes. He just goes off to do what the episode premise is tied into while Krusty continues to make more jokes about wasting money. It's great. I'll just cut down on the Condor Egg Omlets. One of those going to be good or right about now. I'll go from the college. And then he lights a pearl necklace on fire to light his cigarette. again. Him saying Bozo, Bonco the Clown, it is a great direct reference to that this is,

Bozo is the most famous clown probably in America still, and being a regional Bozo was a big business for the Bozo company. The Bozo Prime, let's call him, was in Chicago, and that was where the main Bozo show was. But there were Bozo franchises in which different markets could have their own different Bozo shows, much like Krusty's show, there would be antics, but it would, mostly a platform for cartoons you bought for very cheap. And Bozo was very expensive, I read somewhere. Like, if you wanted to get the actual Bozo to come to and do like your kids' birthday or something like that, I think even before the show was a thing, he was always just a little bit more than usual.

And it was a sign that you had the money. So, I mean, in Chicago, you probably do fine. I believe Al Jean, The Simpsons writer and showrunner, was on the Bozo show as a kid. I believe Bozo sat on him and it was not a good experience. He's Detroit-area Bozo. Yeah. We got WGN over cable when I was a kid and I watched the Bozo show dreaming of like, oh, someday I'll play the Grandpa's game.

And I think it was eventually my mom told me like, this is in Chicago. Even if we lived in Chicago, it's almost impossible to get to be on the Bozo, the Clown show in the audience. And we don't even live there. You'll never be on Bozo. It's like seeing an SNL taping. Yes, yes. I've heard Chicagoans like our pal Mike Carlson from podcast where I talk about how I don't think he ever got to see it as a kid either because his mom called and found out

it is like a five year long wait or something to get to be in the audience. The only one I ever did was there was a taping of Double Dare at the old Knickerbocker arena, some business arena at this point. But at the Knickerbocker, I remember even then, the place was packed. Like I was all the way back, me and my friend Eddie.

And I was like, oh, well, this is like the best thing I've ever seen because you see the nose. You're just absolutely ecstatic. And I can't imagine one. where it's actually just like when you're being directly talked to like that it had to be all rich kids right you would think yeah and chris i have to assume the mark summers was there in person oh he was there oh yeah i was absolutely ecstatic i've heard about that era of double there there's a great video by a friend of the show pop arena about the history of double dare henry i believe you're a voice in that episode

and at that point in time they were recording like a ton of episodes during the week and then sending them out on the road they're just running these hosts through the grinder it sounded rough back then being the top show on Nick. I should have looked this one up, but I believe the owner of Bozo now, the Bozo franchise, is David Arquette. I believe David Arquette has purchased it. It was like Billy Corrigan were going after it at the same time, but I think David

Arquette got it, I want to say. What would Corgan be doing? Is he going to do like a Prague album about Bozo the clown? What the hell? Corrigan, I believe, is like a Chicago kid and he wanted to own it for his childhood. Yeah, that makes sense. Both are big pro wrestling guys too, so

It seems like a crossover of the clowning world in pro wrestling. We're going to see the return of doink. Look out. Also, this was the year that melancholy and the Infinite Sadness came out when this episode came out, the same year as melancholy. And I remember being, like, for the first time ever, like, a band super fan. Because I was like, this is the best thing I have ever heard in my life. I want to do nothing. And then you find out, like, years later, he's an absolute psycho.

And, like, he has all these weird piccadilloes. Yeah, that was a real feel ways about stuff album for me as a 13-year-old. So the Cloud College gets into action very quickly. They can have it ready to be advertised at the first of the month for our next clip. It must be the first of the month. New Billboard Day! Find his keepers. This year give her English muffins.

Whatever you say, Mr. Billboard. Best in the West. It rhymes. Clown college. You can't eat that. Now, Henry, I find it very weird that you are in this scene in the Simpsons. Were you aware of this?

You're being depicted? Bob has roasted me a number of times with whatever you say, Mr. Billboard. I believe, Henry, you cannot, you have, like, Instagram block on your various devices because they know what pie to place on the windowsill, and it's usually, like,

a t-shirt or a hoodie. It's t-shirts or hoodies or hats. Meta does a lot of things wrong. and they don't get me, but on Instagram, the company, Facebook really does know how to advertise and get me. I've fallen for it many times. Hey, I'll plead guilty, too, because if not for targeted ads, I would not have purchased the $300 Rocko's Modern Life figures released by, I forget the company. The company that makes the really good figures. Oh, Mando, right?

I think it is Mando, but yes. So thank you targeted ads, because those are delightful. But, yeah, we've talked about this before. I almost have to do an intervention with Steve, my co-host, that we ate movies, because he can't stop himself. Like any T-shirt of a John Carpenter movie, like a record of a movie from the 80s that we've covered. I remember he went ecstatic because I think Tough Turf, the vinyl for the James Spader teen comedy, Tough Turf came out. And he was like, I have two of them now.

I cannot be without. We need to have Henry and Steve in the same room to do a real shirt off. Yes. Oh, my God. I think Steve and I are enablers on that front. We've been around each other, but either on a podcast or even when we've rarely been in the same town together, all of us. I see, I'm like, oh, hey, I know that exact X-Men cover of that shirt you're wearing. That's awesome, great shirt.

And he'll compliment me on the specificity of my shirt. And that's the exact reason you buy those things is to be complimented by a fellow fan. Point, point, point, point, reference, reference. I'm wearing my Metal Gear Solid shirt today. Oh, yes. Right now I'm wearing, I really did love the Peanuts line of shirts from Uniclo. I really fell into that. They were really fun.

I almost wore my vinegar syndrome shirt, but that's one of the few things I have anymore. usually just a black shirt and shorts these days. Yeah, actually, that mention of a vinyl reminded me one of the most recent meta ones that got me was an Instagram ad that was Get a vinyl reprint of the songs in the Key of Springfield, which I then sold Andrew Juppinon on this very podcast. Oh, there go.

I think he's preordered it too. Back to The Simpsons, though. It's a great commentary on consumerism. This is all what drives Homer into Clown College. He is just doing as he's instructed to by the billboards. He does get several people killed behind him in the pile up. And I love the joke. Well, I bought everything I was supposed to when we get to the office.

It's all on his desk. And you know he does it every first of the month, too. Like, he always does it for new Billboard Day. Yes, we'll also cop too that like my husband and I, if we see like a stupid new flavor of something, we'll buy it just to be like, well, this would be funny to have this. We did it for the Grogu Blue Millow Wafers. And you know what? They taste exactly like a millowifer always does, except they,

Turn your poop blue. That's all they do. Okay, well, confirmed. Henry, did you buy the Spider-Man brand new day Little Caesar's pizza? Or did I just make you aware of it? Okay, no, it doesn't exist.

I'm aware of it, but it has pepperoni on it. I can't have the beef anymore. That's the problem. My husband actually did order it at his office, though, and he has had it. Yes, the Weberoni pizza. Oh, God. I had no idea this was still going on.

Like, I guess I always punted off that it's just Denny's. Only Denny's does this stuff. But then you guys tell me, I'm like, because we don't have any Little Caesars around where I live anymore. I did buy a Fantastic Four Little Caesar's Pizza just a year ago, though, which was heroes of the Fantastic Four. It's eight slices. Two slices each are themed after one of the members of the Fantastic Four.

You have to like, it's like, oh, this one is stretchy, just cheese or double cheese. So that's Reed Richards. Yeah. And one slice is just covered with rocks. There's no slice in one. They're just like, yeah. No, that's the invisible woman. Don't worry about it. That would have been clever. I would have loved that. And Bob, you're right. Homer crashes eight cars behind him.

At least eight people die in this because they instantly catch on fire. You can hear the fire burning behind him as he's reading the next sign. This led to one of Bob and Nina's best Halloween costumes, too, that I've seen. Oh, yeah. I can't believe. I put that in my notes. I forgot to mention it. For Simpsons Trivia in Vancouver, I recommend you go. I'm sometimes there, but it's a great event every month. And in October, they have a costume content. test and Nina, my wife and myself, we were the English muffin couple. So to this day, I have that blue sweater and those brown pants in my closet.

We ate the muffins, though. It's great. You guys posed perfectly for it and made the faces that they're making for it. Was Nina wearing a wig for it, too? I can't remember. Yes, she was. Yeah. It was extra after that.

I love that pick of you guys. Oh, also, the guy who steals all the cars as they land on the truck, Silverman notes on the commentary, like, they drew it to look like the whole. wise guy voice guy, the one who has a Bronson voice. But for some reason, it got re-recorded before airing. And so it's a Dan Castelletta voice, not the Hank Azaria wise guy voice, even though it's drawn to be that guy. I've never been to the Simpsons amusement park.

Can I buy, I would hope there'd be like a tote or something with the MSG sack. Because that is one of my favorite little jokes that they just throw in every once a while is the little MSG think they've got the scoop in with. It was a dark time when we thought MSG was bad. Yeah. Now it's delightful. It's so good. And that it's just a straight up bag of it.

That is open that shows that Homer's been eating it already. Like straight from the bag. Again, to the animators. These are just funny drawings. These billboards, like the English muffin one is just hilarious to look at a cowboy pouring barbecue sauce directly onto a live cow's butt to say, like, best in the West. Like, these are just hilarious drawings. So Homer goes home. And as I often say myself, that advertisement had no effect on me whatsoever.

And then I keep thinking about it. it until I finally buy the thing and then it's out of my brain. I need better control. These are, again, things talking through with the therapist. Is the Stanley Kubrick box at your Krusty Clown College? That I have resisted. I've still resisted. Every podcast I make Henry promise everyone he won't buy it.

You know, it's that I should unsubscribe. Reddit's also bad for this too, I should say. The Reddit, I need to unsubscribe from the Criterion Reddit channel because like, I feel like every week they have a new post about like, no, hey, I just got an email back from Criterion. They say these are new. This is a new remaster of the 4K. It's better than the one that was on the Shining release by Warner.

And I was like, I can resist. I can't stand it. There are imperceptible differences in this one. That's the thing. I am very lucky that I am not one of those obsesses. That's more Andrews bag at this point. But like, I have a nice 4K or Blu-ray of all Kubrick movies. And I'm like, those are fine.

I don't need to have the absolute best version. Maybe eventually I will buy. this insane box that they're trying to put on people. But like, I'm very happy with a good, I don't need it to be the best version out there. Yeah, I own 4Ks. I think of basically every film he did, except maybe the killing. I don't. No, I think I have that one too.

So, yeah. It's a criterion. They did a good job with the disc. But can I settle for just the keynote Lorber Paths of Glory when I could have the criterion paths of glory? I don't know. I promise, I can resist listeners. I will resist.

So yes, again, perfect drawings, every scene. Lenny telling Homer that his station is on fire, and all of these co-workers coming in blazing on fire, and Homer just stares at them. I have a tiny clip of that because it's just so funny. Clowns are funny. I love that very manic piece of circus music that sounds like an off-closs and original.

They could have just done the, entry of the gladiators, the classic circus music, which I guess Marge hums later. I like this little piece. It's just so crazy. It sticks in my head every time I watch this episode. At least for the rest of the day, I will be thinking about, I'm going to go see the Odyssey for the second time later today. And while I'm watching it, I know I'm going to be thinking about this fucking music. It's Klossin. Yeah, the way, this also shows you the difference like music can do with a funny scene too in The Simpsons that this could have just been off the shelf music, but Alph Clauseen, the late Alph Cawson being a great composer,

he sees this hilarious scene animated. He's like, he came up with a great piece of music that the way it sounds works so great with the flailing into capering that Homer's imagination creates. And the big realization is clowns are funny. As he is staring at men on fire, dying in front of him. So Silverman says he did some of the actouts of the men on fire as well for his animators. And then cuts to home.

I talk about classic movies. My husband had never seen it before and I hadn't watched it in forever. And so I pulled the 4K off of the shelf and we watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And then the very next thing we did afterwards is I pulled up this scene and showed him like, see, this is why I watched the movie when I was a kid. because this scene with Homer with mashed potatoes confused me. You should have watched UHF.

There's another reference to it in that one. Oh, really? I think it is with mashed potatoes too. Yes. I've yet to see UHF. That is one of those blind spots for me that I don't know how it happened, but I've just never done that.

I really should at some point soon. I'd never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind until 2017, I believe that was a 40th anniversary and there was a 70-millimeter screening going around. I saw that in Oakland and that's the best way to see it for the first time. I got to say it. Oh, my God. Yeah, if you can see it on a 70th.

Well, the first time I saw 2001, a Space Odyssey. on the big screen with the 70, and it still blows me away when I think about it. Yeah, me too, Chris. It was probably around the same time, I think, too. Most films, yeah. Mine was at the big image in Queens, but they were doing a great series of just 70s.

I still think they do that occasionally. But Close Encounters was such a big deal to me, and it is, I must say, the reason I became a pretentious snob for a long time in my movie-loving and writing career was because of that movie, because I watched a movie, this is incredible.

You know, Spielberg did it again. but then I'm like, who is the guy playing the scientist? And I found out who Francois Truffaut was. And all of a sudden, I know what the French New Wave is. And I am talking bullshit to every one of my friends about how that is the best. These are the real movies over here, guys. The French really know how to do it. It's a great movie about aliens, and it's the origin story of the world's greatest deadbeat day.

Yeah, rewatching it recently, we did it because my husband had never seen it, and we were about to see Disclosure Day. So he's like, this is a good excuse to do it. and yes, I forgot just how this is in the most recent cut of it. Him smashing up the house and pulling up the guard and like, no, this is not funny. Like this is an insane man.

His wife is right to leave. No court would convict her for leaving this man. Like this guy is close to pulling out a gun and just shooting them all or smothering them in their sleep. That was the specialty of Richard Dreyfus before he lost his mind and became a bigot. He was so good at that kind of character. Like even Steakout, he's such a son of a bitch in that movie.

And you're just like, get this guy out of here. But like in Close Encounters, I do think that is the number one drive is performance, even over Jaws for me. Well, and speaking of Jaws, like two years, sorry, last year was the 50th of Jaws. And it got a re-release in IMAX. And I'm really hopeful that next year is the 50th anniversary of Close Encounters as well as Star Wars. And I am hoping that that gets at the very least an IMAX wide re-release, if not 70 millimeter wide re-release two from Columbia, I guess. Sony owns it.

That sounds right, yeah. Yeah. But yes, I mean, also, everybody drawn as clowns is hilarious, too, that Homer is seeing them all as crusty. And Marge's reaction of, I think I'll have some wine. I've said that when the news broke that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, surprise, out of nowhere, I posted, I think I'll have some wine. And then I did drink an entire bottle of rosé that I had been saving that day. Silly straw?

Yeah, I do. With a silly straw? No, I actually just fit it all in a spice. Man Pipe class. Oh, nice. Yeah, that's great. This is when Homer can't take it anymore. What?

Yes, homie? Do do do do do do do do. That's it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college. I don't think any of us expected him to say that. Hurry up. It's my first day of clown college.

Hold still, Homer. Don't squirm. I am holding still. I am squirming. Dad, you can't just go around, pretending to be crusty. It's sacrilege. He's a one and only. I mean, he invented the pie fight, the Pratt fall and the seltzer bottle, as far as I know. Yeah, Dad, it was bad enough when he tried to pass yourself off as Tom Bosley, but Krusty. You weren't complaining when I got you disclosed

to Chachi. What's a Chachi? And kids shouldn't know who Chachi is. It's to protect them now. Scott Bayo. Yeah. Happy Days went on for so long, and there are so many characters, but Joni and Chachi got their own spin-off, very unpopular series, one season. Yes, I remember that. Oh, sorry, two seasons. I apologize to all you Johnny and Chachi fans out there. As I recently learned, like, on the allegations section of Scott Bayo's Wiki page, on Charles in Charge, he was doing bad things there as being from allegations from two of his co-stars,

Nicole Egert and Alexander Polinsky. It's a good thing that Joni loved Chachi ended soon, so he could not do crimes on those cast members, I suppose. That's, I think, the best in general is to keep Scott Beow off of screens. He had his time. He made his money. Just, you know, get in your house and stay there, buddy. The best thing about this is they don't have to take Charles in charge down from anywhere because nobody wants to see it anyways. It's not like the Cosby Show, which was a very good sitcom.

We can't watch it anymore. But, yeah, you can have Charles in charge. It's fine. Then Homer also can imitate Tom Bosley well is like, that's a bad sign of how old he looks. He's a 38-year-old man. He shouldn't be able to imitate Tom Bosley. I really like that joke about how Bart thinks that Krusty invented all these things. Like, when you're a kid, you just know the most recent person who's doing things.

You don't know that like, oh, this is, like say, when we were around this age, we saw the mask. And the mask does the Jim Carrey movie, that one, not the Cher film. When it references classic cartoons, you maybe haven't seen those before. So when he's doing like bug-eyed wolf take from Red Hot Riding Hood, you just think like, wow, Jim Carrey is so fine. this movie's so funny. You think they invented it. Yeah. I remember my friend and I were riding around with my stepdad somewhere, and he popped in the Beavis and Butthead Do America soundtrack, which had the Red Hot Chili Peppers Rolloaster of Love cover.

We didn't know it was a cover. So when my stepdad heard it, he was like, this is a song from the 70s. We couldn't believe it. You kids have never heard of the Ohio players. Come on. Another thing we've joked about with this is that when we're going to parties or gatherings and he wants to straighten my clothes, or make sure my hair is combed and I'm just like, I want to go out the door.

Like, I am holding still. I am squirming is how I act when he is doing it. It's now turning to a fun joke with us. So Homer heads off to Clown College. And this is where the Willie Nelson joke is, that it's also a joke in like the first season of King of the Hill and Willie Nelson's on. Willie Nelson makes a lot of jokes of his own about how he owed

at least $10 million to the IRS at this point. Well, yeah, I assume. that's him being more respectable than someone like Waylon Jennings who was probably like come and get it and had like a gun in front of his house, whereas Willie Nelson was always just more of a kinder spirit. You know, I'm not sure if this just came out or was recirculating, but Willie Nelson wanted to play Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. And he sent Peter Jackson an audition tape. I'm looking at it now. I just saw it on like Twitter or something a couple days ago. But people have known about this for about a decade or 15 years. But yes, think about how different that movie would be if Willie Nelson was Gandalf. Oh, yeah. More countrified for sure. I'm a real Hobbit Head, but I don't know if I'd ever heard that before. That's really interesting. Willie Nelson, I should say, I've seen a few movies that he's acted in.

Great, great performer. Like, not just thief. Thief is the one that everybody thinks of, of course. But he did an Alan Rudolph movie called Songwriter with Chris Christopherson. That is really a lot of fun if you can find it. Back when country music performers could act instead of just be racist. Yeah, and try to be like, this is an old man opinion, I'm sure. But the fact that so much a country now

just sounds like a reheated rap R&B, like just slightly tuned with guitars, like do the Beck thing kind of but make it not funny and weird. It does drive me a little crazy. By the way, that Willie Nelson fact was just a honeypot for comments because I recently learned as of 10 seconds ago

that it was a bit on Conan. Somebody clipped the bit, spread it around, and people were reporting on it as if it was actual news. So I blame you, the news media for fooling me. X is a cesspool full of Nazis and pedophiles, but they have community notes. It's true. It's very true. Well, I do know that Willie Nelson did release the 1992 album called The IRS Tapes, Who Will By My Memories,

as intentionally like, please buy this album so I can pay my IRS bill. One of the lesser Willie Nelson records, I will say. Cresty asks everybody where they're from, so they're not going to double up territories. the guy who is also clearly from Texas right after the Texas guy saying, er Brooklyn is such a great joke, as is Homer, not giving away where Springfield is and just saying, Homer. Another good joke about just baggy pants.

The obvious joke is baggy pants fit great on Homer, but they hit it so long that it becomes great. It's a nice extra touch that Krusty is frustrated by this. Baggy! It's that, I mean, for me, it's the fact that Homer is like, so into how he looked. I would never consider the idea that Homer cares how he looks,

but like in this woman, he's like, oh, these are so form fitting. Oh, my God. These are fantastic. And then we get some more comedy tips in our next clip. Okay.

Memorize these funny place names. Walla, Walla, Keokukamonga, Seattle. Stop it, you're killing me. See you. And now everybody's favorite, the spin cycle fantastic trick. It's a great piece of buffoonery if you pull it off.

But if you blow it, you'll look like a fool. Steady, steady, steady. And the wealthy dowager comes in, the party's over, right? Wrong! Kill wealthy dowager. it's amazing how hard Krusty hits that woman in the face. Her head is embedded in the back of the wall. She is dead.

That woman, like, I wonder, did that come in late that once they saw how the animators drew the extremeness of how she's hit in the face, point blank and shoved into the wall, then they come up with the idea of Homer writes down, kill wealthy Dowager, because she clearly is dead. Nobody's, yeah, you've got to get a stretcher in there now. That Seattle Joe. One, it's been stuck in my head extra since I moved to Seattle a few years ago. But also that Seattle being the joke is the joke and that Homer then laughs at the punchline too much, it's annoying crusty. Yes. I mean, this, I have to admit something.

When I started taking comedy a little bit more seriously and we were starting out the podcast, I absolutely started looking up funny sounding words. I was just like, I need to have these in my back pocket. Just when I'm like throwing out a reference or something, I can throw this in there. And it says it did work. And every time it works. I never have said Cucamungo, though. I have not gone that far. I have never looked up.

How close is Walla Walla to where I live in Washington? How long of a drive if I ever want to actually see Walla Walla, Washington? Probably just worth it for the merch. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You know, it might be a long journey from Bellevue to Walla Walla, but you could get a cool hoodie. Walla Walla University, you know, an little emblem on there. Maybe it's on the train line to Portland, too.

I don't know. The only extra exploration I've done is, in Seattle area was about 30 minutes from my place in Bellevue to see the multiple filming locations for at least exteriors and some of the real filming for Twin Peaks stuff, the diner, the hotel, all that. Well, Krusty didn't hit the funniest town name, Intercourse Pennsylvania. It is pretty great. And Canada's got some good town names like Saskatoon.

What even is that? Oh, yeah. I mean, even Saskatchewan, I think, is pretty good. I think you could get a joke out of that. Homer tries, they find three hilarious things for Homer to do with failing at it. He first just falls through in the middle, just breaks it. The second is his pants are taken off and he just is his nude buttocks on the seat, which trusty says, bring that seat.

But I think my favorite is him turning it like the way it constricts around him. And then he's waddling, like that's the funniest of the three, I think. I spend a very hard stage direction to write into the script, just the way it collapses around him as the effort of moving the wheel across the ramp is tightening the ramp around his body. It's such a strange-looking image. The way he walks after it, it just, it still hits me today. Even without completing that, hey, still think Homer's good enough to graduate.

We see him starting to put on the makeup, and this is where he can see the specifics they decide to do to make him not look exactly like Krusty. He keeps his Homer hair, no tuft of hair on the head. he paints his nose. It is not a distinct circle over, you know, a sphere over his nose. It's just his nose is red now.

And his eye line and beard line are different than Krusty. Lisa approves of him being a bastardized version of Krusty. If it's going to be anyone, she's glad it was you. Homer, then he actually is good. At least it's shooting his boot and ear. Homer did work hard on that. Yeah, he offers that up as a trick for the mafia at the end because it was his major.

It doesn't come back into a plot significance. But like we said, They do follow the plotting at least of like the trick matters, but other than that, not much other follows up plot-wise. This is where they graduate. He calls them cat skins instead of sheepskins and yes, sheepskins. Up until the 60s was when there was a decline as prices of sheepskin became more expensive, but it was a long tradition of diplomas were actually printed on like the literal skin of sheep's purchased, you know,

from butcher's and farms and such. Crazy. Mine are printed on not great cardstock. Yeah, might too. another great joke about jokes. Like this whole section is full of great jokes about jokes. Homer knows it's the rule of three and he refuses to be shocked. Like, no shock for me.

And Krusty is pissed and he just jumps on top of a zapping him in the neck. Yeah, the neck in the face. Well, also, this is a little bit back a little bit, but like the fact that they hit the merchandising thing one more time with the balloons things, like these are $3. But how much did that cost us to hit the kid in the eye? Yes, yeah. That kills me.

$3 a thing. The thing like, oh, Krusty actually cares about safety. It's like, no, he actually did blind every kid at a party once. So there's a bunch of blind children somewhere. If I heard, like, I would be John Travolta in Pulp Fiction if I heard about a $3 balloon, like a $5 milkshake. Like, $3 balloon. Do you put alcohol in or something?

Now that $5 milk shakes a real deal these days. Yes, yes, it is. The same was Homer's $38,000 luxury car later in this episode. God. Homer is officially a clown. He's in the clowning business. We then come to the opening bit there of him parachuting into the Krusty Burger for their special release of a brand new burger.

And then comes again, I'll just play it here. It's one of the funniest moments in the entire series. Two audience. I now proclaim this new burger for sale. Oh, Lord save me. Burglar! Oh my God, he's stealing all the burgers! Why, you little!

I got you! It's all just an act. Stop! No! I got a killing! Cuddley the clown, everybody. Please look at my medical at bracelet. Thankfully, this actor survives to play Millhouse when he gets hurt,

and radioactive man the movie. Oh, yeah. It helps that the Estonian dwarf is not actually killed by Homer. Mac Raining hated that joke. As a lot of the commentary from 20 years ago, he said it took a lot of selling it to him, but it's hilarious.

He doesn't like Homer beating a man nearly to death. I can see why. I understand that, but still, come on. It's like the biggest meme this thing has created, the show's created. He's stopped. He's already dead. I see that thing at least three times a day, still.

There's like so many on-screen deaths in this episode. The Estonian little person does survive, but he seems to be dead on his way out. There is, like, David Silverman saw it in the script, and then was like, all right, we're doing this. And Merkin, apparently also, David Merkin, the showrunner, influenced or encouraged him, like, no, no, really violent. So it is, it's like, it's not that Homer is just, like, bashing him against the ground.

A rock is behind his head. Like, he's bashing his head into a rock. His arms fall limply to the side. Like, his brain should be leaking out of his head. this, like the fact that there's no blood lightens it up a bit, I think. Another thing that could make it darker, I think was the smart choice is,

I think now if they did this joke, the kids would all be named kids that you would know. Like, the voice sounds even a little like Ralph Wiggum, but this is just vague kids. If it was one of the regular kids, it might seem worse to see them scarred for life with stop, stop.

He's already dead. Oh, 100%. I don't think you'd laugh at half a... It's just an anonymous kid who says it. I think that is key to it. And even though these characters are mostly retired, the McDonald's versions of these parody characters, it sounds like last year they were revived for the sake of nostalgia. There was a signature meal and a specialty shake featuring all of your Sid and Marty Croft ripoff friends. Like Birdie the early bird and the hamburger and grimace. Grimmis seems to be now something McDonald's loves to meme a lot. So grimace, there is grimace presence on the internet still. Well, that's, I, I'm sorry to bring him up, but that is definitely the Trump thing with Grimmis. Like, That really gave it a resuscitation that I didn't want or need. Yeah, the grimace, I remember last year, it was like a TikTok trend for Gen Z drinking the Grimmish shake and acting like it poisoned them or made them crazy or something.

I saw that. I also did see, again, from Friends at Comic Con right now, multiple toy companies, Kid Robot and NECA, both have brand new hamburger and other toys coming out too. Well, I mean, here's the thing. Grimmis started as a villain and now he's a good guy who just enjoys milkshakes. There is hope for Donald Trump. He followed the path of Grimmis, his arc.

Well, and also the hamburger I just saw, he was in a brand new commercial for the World Cup. It's him. He's staring at the South Korean soccer star Sun Hung Min. I've only heard of them for hamburger reasons. Apparently, he's wearing a hamburger mask on the cup. And then the hamburger is like, hey, look, on the cup, you're dressed like me. I don't understand this. It's a non-soccur fan.

Explain to me why son, young men and hamburger have this affinity for each other, if you know, listeners. Oh, yeah, I saw this. I'm sure it's in America, too, but there's like a really big McDonald's somewhat near me, and they have all the cups featuring all the soccer stars, but one has Grimmis, and my wife and I just want the Grimmis Cup. I mean, Grimis is number one that, like, as a kid, we had the Fry Kids. They were fun. I like the Fry Kids, and the singing McNuggets.

They're fun. The Nuggets were always the thing I was the Nugget Kid. That's all I ever wanted from McDonald's. I was never a burger guy. And I was like, oh, they're so cute. And you got hardly any real material with them. They were always just like, hey, hi. At that point, they have given up on concepts because everything else is supposed to represent the food.

They just are the food. Yes. And wasn't it just a few years ago, the like, at the very least for a time, McDonald's retired Ronald McDonald's because there were scary clowns in the news around that time, right? Yeah, like scary clown appearances. Yeah. But this is so great that Homer was not clear. into this being a pantomime and he believes it as much as any child

that this like silly little skit is real and that the crusty burglar is stealing him and that's what makes the violence at least justified. Homer is insane and stupid but not maliciously. He thinks he's protecting the Krusty burgers. That

makes it make sense, right? It's the fact that he's so protective of fast junk food. Junk food is his real love in life. Yes, it became a meme. You see it anytime. something has been beaten to death or that somebody like, you know, just he's already dead. Like the way

the kid is crying, it's hearing it there too. Just like, he's already dead. Like the kid is like, I've watched him die. Just stop it. Please. Now you're just desecrating a corpse. Yes. Then we go to Krusty. Homer arriving in his car

that has been changed up to be a Krusty Mobile. They say Swartzwater his favorite joke was that the car crashes and then for no reason there is a delay of Homer being flung out of the car. Yes. I don't think I understood that was a joke until I heard the commentary like 21 years ago. It just seemed like was there an animation error?

But no, it just for the sake of it being funny, physics does not work in this one instance. Well, I kind of think it's a way of because otherwise, again, the violence of it would probably hit the kids, right, if it was so automatic. Because like, plenty of kids have seen or been in car accidents. So, like, you would know the look of it versus this where you're just like, oh, It's funny. It's not that he's actually hurt. It's just that he's having a little banged up. Or at the very least, we'd become big fans of the crash test dummy commercials for seatbelt safety in our youths.

And I love this joke with Ralph. It was seen in a different light in 1995, but now it's like, wow, Homer is so progressive. Yeah, he's like, yeah, you are a boy. I agree. Or I don't know what gender. Let's just say Homer's being progressive. Yeah, accidentally. Yes.

And this is where we also get some very important lore in our next clip, too. And then take that and put that in there. There's your giraffe, little girl. I'm a boy. Dad does spirit. Never give up. Well, I guess you're pretty impressed, huh, Bart? My dad got crusty, the clown, to personally appear at my party.

I have a feeling I could get him to appear at my house. Oh, I don't know, Bart. My dad's a pretty big wheel down at the Cracker Factory. They took that great joke that he actually respects his father, and Kirk is a big wheel at the Cracker Factory, turns into an even better joke in the divorce episode and still key to his character in last season even. In fact, yeah, the episode they nominated for this year's Emmys

is the episode in which Kirk starts his own Cracker Company. Oh. I should take a look at that because one of my favorite little sequences is when Millhouse goes to work with his dad. And you see the Cracker Factory, it's just an absolute joy. It's like Willy Wonka. Yes. I mean, just pretty big wheel down to the Cracker Factory is a perfect description.

Like, it's just how you say, it's how you describe a silly job in taking pride in it. Like, you're a pretty big wheel at the Blank Factory is enter my lexicon for sure after this. Oh, yeah. That's the thing with this episode. We're going to get to another one in a little bit. That was very, I was shocked that the joke was in this one because we had just done an episode where we referenced it a bunch of times. but like the big wheel at the Cractor Factory is stop, stop, he's already dead

and the clown music are all things that I think about all the time. I genuinely use them all the time. And Kirk won't let him stop having stuff thrown at him until it's 5.30. He paid for it. You're not allowed to sit down and stop. And it's not just eggs, right? It's a bunch of stuff.

Oh, yeah. It's just slop. It looks like. I think they are getting ready to jab him with something. I love, too, the great animation on is like, this is where the... there's one of two deleted scenes on the DVD. There's one other scene of Homer having a bad time as Krusty. It's a visual gag at first, and then there's a quick line.

But the visual gag is it is the Krusty's 50K fun run. And he's there in Krusty's place, and he's getting near the end. And he's very tired. As he reaches the end, this happens. Sorry, Krusty, we're out of water. All we have left are these saltines. I'll take them. He just grabs a two notes.

Like a tube of saltines. Also, I got to say, whose voice is that? I don't know. Yeah. Some editor, some writer. I've never heard that voice before in my life. Man, what if it's Swartzwelder even doing it? I'm certain it isn't. But what if it was? I imagined he would resort to violence if you tried to get him into a studio, like to do any kind of voice work. You're probably going to get a cigarette put out on you.

This is where Homer, we find out that Homer has not quit his day job at this time. He just comes to work, dressed any. his clown costume at all times. His friends, Eleni and Carl like, hey, nice out. Homer is describing his job, and they're very impressed by Jiffy Loob, as opposed to his other thing he's about to go to. He says he describes how much he fears children or how they're going to jab him with something.

It's just great. He can't take it anymore. Before I play the clip, I guess, what are the cable ace awards that are less impressive than Jiff. I believe it's because cable shows were excluded from the Emmys for a time, and they said, We'll have our own awards. And that quickly fizzled out. They were around, I think, up until the late 90s, I believe, right?

Well, yeah. Because the Guild Awards started happening. Around this or the year after, I know, is the first SAG Awards. And once those start picking up, I think they get rid of all of them. 78 to 97, those were the Ace Awards. I think one of the last winners of those awards, like South Park's first season, they won a lot of Cable Ace Awards. Yeah, 1997 was apparently a very low-rated year when they were like, all right, let's call it the day with it because, yes, by 95, even when they're making these jokes, cable premium cable shows

at the very least in movies on HBO or Showtime were starting to get Emmy nominations. It's also funny within 10 years of the cable, honestly within five years of the last Ace Awards, shows like The Sopranos and Sex and the City, and those are starting to dominate. And then when the rest of the cable network start to get into it, by the end of the aughts, the network shows are getting pissed at the Emmys are just advertisements for cable and HBO and AMC. Yeah, this joke is like a real snapshot of a transition point because at the time, the cable original shows were really

cheap. They were like Dr. Katz or mystery science theater or silk stockings or space ghost coast coast to coast. It's just bargain basement programming made by people who were like often not professionals. The network needed programming, there's creative people in the room. Let them do whatever they want. Guys who really knew how to stretch a budget and make like a sack of rice last a two weeks. Yes. And even the premium channels like HBO, they had to really, it took like all of their budget to make six episodes of the Larry Sanders show on a network style or size budget or

a limited season of odds with the people who had worked on homicide. Like budget wise, they could only make so much of a premium show on their cable networks. But also, I mean, this is all that we are seeing like in, and I think by the time, Sopranos is out for sure. That's where you're like, the budgets just start skyrocketing. As much as they are in the movies, they're happening on TV. And I just remember being like, oh, I didn't watch like actual TV anymore. Like I had to watch the West Wing way after it was actually airing because nobody talked about it, but everybody talked about the Sopranos. So I watched all of the Sopranos. And now you look at it. It's a very interesting TV landscape

comparatively these days where Network TV has some originals, but it's either animation or or cop shows. Like everything, either comedy or drama is a cop show. Cable barely has anything scripted anymore that is just on cable. They might air some things that are streaming. And pretty much all scripted that it gets any interest these days is a streaming show. Absolutely correct. Like, Steve is a big fan of, I call him a 65-year-old for doing this.

But he is obsessed with the show The Agency where this is the thing. I don't know how you get all these actors to come. come up and do this stuff because they're major act like Richard gear, Michael Fossbender, and there's like three other huge actors who are in the show and like, how do you do this? How do you spend this money on this? But I guess it must be doing well to allow this. It's all invisible money to me. It's a common occurrence where you wonder what happened to this actor and it turns out they've

been on a show and there are 177 episodes and it's the biggest thing on cable or on broadcast TV or streaming. The 59th iteration of criminal minds, you know, I, you know. just know that you're going to have some, like, Luke was black just showed up in the new version of criminal minds. I'm like, oh, great. He used to be in movies too. I think like Chris O'Donnell's been hiding out on one of those CSIs for a while. Yes, I think, the New Orleans one, I think. When like Paul Giamani started to be in movies again, it's because that Billion show ended. He finally wasn't tied up with a TV show any longer. He's not in the new Star Trek

that much. He's mostly like right in the beginning and a little at the end. But like, I was worried for a minute. I'm like, don't go away. I need you. I need you out there in the big stuff. And while there was one guy who was really owning the airwaves, a big fish in the small pond of Cable back then, and they got him as their guest

in the big guest star of the episode here. Oh, at times almost up here, so I'd just like to say, I know Woody Allen. And now the winner for the most promising news series on cable, Old Starsky and Hutchin. Accepting the award is the son of the guy who played Huggy Bear.

Let's walk and talk. I have some wonderful stories about other famous people that include me in some way. Can I got to go distract bulls at a rodeo. Hey, me too. We can go together. No, I'm going a different way than you, Dick. Your churlish attitude reminds me of the time I was having dinner with Groucho. You're going to be having dinner with Groucho tonight if you don't beat it. A good sport, Dick Cavett, about these jokes about him being a constant name dropper.

And I think I misunderstood that Starsky and Hutch joke until recently because I always assume that it was a lame reboot called Old Starsky and Hutch. But no, it is reruns of Starsky and Hutch. 100%. This is another one of those lines where I've used it for sure. You're going to be having dinner with Groucho tonight. Like, I will throw that one out whenever I can. And it's not often, but when I can, I'm very excited. And Dick Havitt's job still to this day is like appearing in Groucho documentaries or other documentaries or more.

and Wells ones because he's one of the few living people who had prominent interviews with them. And Dick Cavett, if you, I knew him from clips in movies, like, probably within, yeah, six months before this, I would have seen more than six months before this first aired. I would have seen clips of his John Lennon interview used comedically in Forrest Gump, for instance. Yes. And I saw him in Beetlejuice many, many times as a kid, without even knowing who he was. And now when I watch that scene again, I'm like, oh, I know who everyone is. here. That one I also didn't know. And like, it's funny now. Like, I mean, it's not funny because the guy's a monster and everything. But like how much I go back and I watch old movies from the

90s and the aunts. And I'm like, Charlie Rose is everywhere. They will not allow a movie to be made without a scene. Like Royal Tenin bombs has a Charlie Rose joke in it. And he's there talking to Owen Wilson. And I'm like, God damn. How can I get away from this? And that in comparison, I'm like, thank God for Dick Cavett. Give me more Dick Cabot. David, please. Only fictional characters were safe from Charlie Rose. It's true. And yes, he had his incarnation of the Dick Cavett show,

was on for a decade on CNBC at this time, 1986 to 1996. So he won a cable ace award that show did in 1991. It's one of his many, many wins. We would see clips of his stuff. You actually mentioned Francois-Refell. Dick Cavett was known for being one of the smartier, higher-brow interviewers on TV than he would.

would have, you know, Ingmar Bergman for one of his few, like, English language interviews that he would do back then, or the other member of the New Valvo, God, what's it? Goddard. Goddard. Godard would do it as well, yeah. As well as a million hilarious Orson Welles stories from the Dekevichel. I love that. That is something you could keep, I am Homer with the donuts in hell with Orson Well's stories. You just give me as much as you want. I will take as many as you got. He's still with us at 89. He was just in the criterion. closet. He made some headlines in the last year for things he wouldn't want, but, well, he is still friends with that nervous fellow, Woodsey Allen, as he namesdrops here. And you may have heard some stories about other dinner patrons of Woody Allen's. And Dick Cavett was at those parties too, and found in a lot of certain files of one Manhattan banker. So, yeah. That we keep on finding out

more about weirdly. That's so strange. I do wonder, did he pitch, like, maybe I do like a streaming interview with Woody for coup to chance. Just because I have it. I'm the only one who they'll allow to do this. Because I see like, I figured you would never see these guys again. But like the fact that I just had to watch or I didn't have to watch the thing. I'm just, I'm a pain pig. I watched Bill Maher, Kevin Spacey interview from a club random.

And my God, at least he doesn't do the character from House of Cards. I'm happy enough about that. He's just being normal, Kevin Spacey, quote unquote, normal. Kevin Spacey for now. I think that show is just an op to ruin marijuana for everyone. It just makes it look like the least cool thing you could ever do. Yeah, I can see that.

Dick Cavett, he can read. There's 2026 New York Time reporting on how in the Epstein files he is like, there are emails of his from up to 2017 going like, what a great dinner last night, Mr. Epstein. I hated to read about Kavitt as well. The New York Times piece spoke to his wife who said that yes, they were spending time with Epstein. They were aware of his time in jail, but not really aware of it. And that Epstein was trying to, up to nearly 20, the start of 2018,

was trying to produce a documentary about Dick Cavett. And Dick Cavett did pull out of it, or his wife says they pulled out of it and it did not happen because somebody told them, this guy is a bit worse than I think you know. At least that's what Dick Kavitt's wife said to the New York Times when asked for comment on it. Whoever was that silent person was, thank you so much. Because the funniest thing to me from all the Epstein links is how much of his emails are about movies. Like it's about what is opening New York Film Festival is like confirmation for tickets he's ordered. He went crazy because he was like, how dare you open the New York Film Festival with Richard Linkley at his last flag flying?

And I'm like, that's a really good movie. I don't know. What you'd talk about, Jeff? Come on now. We also learned he could barely write words. Yes. He had like a second grader's writing ability, which I guess he was trying to fit in with that crowd

because he was attracted to them. Oh, God, yeah. It's, again, that makes it like, oh, and who is Dick Kavana at these parties with? Well, like the former prime minister of Israel and magician David Blaine and Woody Allen. And yes, Dick Kavitt still brags about being friends with Woody Allen. Still, like, these are unfortunate things.

Again, I just want to enjoy. the fun interviews of Dick Cabin. He is still a fun guy to listen to. It's like he thinks Woody Allen's a great guy. He still does. Sadly, that happens a lot. I was on vacation up in Vermont not too long ago. This family who my wife is very close with, Ed, the uncle there.

Everybody knows in this family I'm a movie guy. And I'm sitting there reading Will Sloan's very excellent Ed Wood biography book. Ed, he just like out of nowhere. With a kid, I'm not getting you like three feet away. And he's like, you don't think that Woody Allen stuff's real, right? I'm like, oh, oh, man, please don't start. Just please don't start now. His film crimes and misdemeanors is entirely about getting away with it.

Yes. Great movie. Just watch Manhattan. That's it. He gave us all the clues, as the Snowman Killer once said, too. Like, it was all there. Anyway, yes, Dick Cavett, very funny here. Him playing himself is funny.

Doing interviews is funny. I want to hear all the Orson Welles stories. That's why I just say, like, hey, Dick Havit, no matter how many more years you got left, Ask more people if you're hanging out with the next Jeffrey Epstein. And just tell Orson Well's stories. Tell those stories. We don't need to hear any new Woody Allen stories.

We're good. We're fine. This was finally like that also the DeKavitt's going to entertain fools at a rodeo right after this too. It's great. Love that image. They don't even show it just in my mind. I'm like, that is so nice. But Homer doesn't want to spend any more time with him.

He heads off. And this is where he's finally hit the end of it. him just saying all the clowns in the clowning business, it's overworking a joke, which makes it ten times funnier. He's like, I'm leaving this to all the other clowns. But he says, like, all the clowns in the clowning business, so good. And this is where Homer gets pulled over,

and despite telling Wiggum multiple times he is not Krusty, Wigam is even dumber than Homer and just keeps insisting he is crusty and is remembering crimes they committed. This is where Homer learns how nice it is to be Krusty. His next step is learning it from Apu. You mean I get 5% off on everything in the store just because I look like, I mean, just because I am Krusty the clown? How could I charge full price to the man whose lustful filthy magazines kept me in business during that first shaky year?

Oh, by the way, it is your new issue of gigantic asses. I'm telling you, Marrids, this will work. They'll think I'm Krusty and give us free stuff. I've been getting free stuff all day. Look at this swell bucket of house paint. Look at it. I'm not saying it won't work. I'm just saying it's dishonest.

Well, if we agrees and why are we arguing? Hey, Krusty, hey. Oh, beautiful date tonight, huh? And such a lovely children you have enough. I'm more striking than lovely. You come with me, come with Luigi. You don't want to sit with the rest of this scum. I only consider you scum compared to Krusty.

Yeah, you see how you scum. Now, you know, for Patreon in its first shaky years, they were also supported by the gigantic asses business. I don't think they appreciate that enough. And we only consider our free feet listener scum compared to the Patreon people. So you understand. That's just true. I mean, there's no getting around that. This is the one that hit me sideways because we had just done an episode of our side show on Patreon once in a lifetime about a lifetime movie called a Lifeguards obsession.

And this movie, of course, it's not good. but one of the strangest things about it is and I guess you could just I always took it as it's because it's about lifeguard so it's kind of a Baywatch and like Baywatch was all tits and ass but every other shot in this movie is of someone's butt

like and while we were watching it Steve texts me literally the gigantic asses screen grab and I was just like how did this happen how did it just lock in like that? I love this joke I love episodes where we get into Homer and Upu's relationship so like just any

time when they're together makes me so, so happy. Yeah, I mean, the magazine cover is funny, but the very sly look Apu is giving as he's presenting it to him is also very good. That's the key. It's great, too. Like, he is acting like demure about it when you can't get more explicit than the, or, well, you could, I guess, but just, it's called gigantic asses and there's just a bare ass on the cover. Like, that's all it is.

And then also Homer is so impressed with five percent off. Like, that's what Apu gives him, no more than five percent. And then you got a can of paper. Sorry, he calls it a bucket of pink. He got a can of paint from somewhere too. They keep just picking up and bring it with him everywhere just to make the point to march. And kids won't know this, but like the magazines did used to just be this. There was a newsstand.

It's not a stand. It was a shop, but like they just had every magazine you could possibly think of on one side of it. And there was, of course, a whole adult section. And as a young teen, I was like, ooh. And like every time it was just a bare ass or like just like tits in the middle. Like not even cleave it. Just pull on tits right there. air.

And now gigantic asses is just a tab on a certain websites out there. Websites. Or several websites. Yeah. A family of websites.

They often do involve families, but the people are just actors. Keep telling yourself that. Step families. Yes. There you go. And they all get caught

in washing machines. Strange. So strange. Or it through windows. You know, you're building furniture, something just happens. They kind of invert the Luigi joke that

Luigi was a one-joke character for his first appearances of like, he will just insult you off-screen. And he does it this time, but now he comes back into the room to be like, I only consider you scum compared to Krusty. Yeah, you see how you scum. I love everyone just murmuring and approval. Like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. This is also where the only other deleted scene is,

while they're eating at their fancy meal and the family is seated together, they're seated next to another old friend of Krusties. What did I tell you, Marge? We're living in the fast lane now. From here on in, it's the primest rib, the sourest cream, and the horsiest radish. Hey, is that you, Krusty? Hey, remember the songs we always sang in prison? Let's sing it now.

Oh! How you're going to keep them down on the farm? Farm. After they've seen Paris. Hey, you still remember it. Uh, yeah. Let's sing some more of the songs we used to sing. It's great that Krusty has this sorted background with several characters that we've known so far.

With Wiggum, he released Beavers in a Pine Furniture Store. He was in prison with Quimby perhaps sharing a cell, it sounds like. Yeah, it sounds like it. I love the joke, too, that Homer got away with not knowing the words to the song and then says he wants to sing more with Quimby. I wish it stayed in. It's a great joke, too. That joke, I do love whenever they do it.

Like, when Smithers' two old fraternity brothers come to interview for the job, and they, pow, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, I'll lose it every time. This is where I, as a kid, my dreams were shattered of realizing. I don't think I understood that the Harlem Globetrotters were a performance. This is how you learn? I think so. I didn't know about the Globetrotters.

I had no idea what this joke was the first time I saw it as what. I wasn't a sports kid. Like, my dad liked football occasionally, but, like, he has since become an all-around sports guy. He'll watch anything now. but at the time it was just football, so I had no idea what this was. Yeah, I think I knew them as characters from like cartoons and appearances on talk shows, but I didn't know they actually had staged games against the team called the Washington Generals. I think this is what taught me that.

A bunch of losers who never win. I mean, like, just take it. Like, you're using a freaking ladder. And hey, folks, their season starts in October, so get on that. If you want to see the Harlem Globetrotters play in a town near you, perhaps. I prefer the Harvey Globetrotters. This is where Fat Tony, they have another great shot that is referencing a classic film. He is supposed to look like Sydney Green Street in the Maltese Falcon,

a similar downshot of him looking like a heavy set, a big belly and powerful man in it. This is where Krusty just gives up and says, you can't get blood from a turn-up, just take the clown college. They already done it and are trading the clowns to rob children at kids have a lot of money. the way they write down the response to like kids have a lot of money these days you should consider robbing him fight it all down they do just shoot a crusty and crusty dodges bullets like a superhero for the joke but they allow him to escape they've done this joke many times too but hearing the airplane go off is a pretty good hyping of it and originally this was not the act break of them saying you know

when he's done it there i got to go that was not the act break the act break was going to be after the next scene, which makes more sense as an act break of saying cancel the world search after they see Homer screaming, crusty. It works better as a dramatic act break of saying like, oh, it tells you, uh-oh, Homer's in trouble. That's what your reaction is supposed to be. But they decided that's not going to be the act break. And they come back from it. Homer is asking for a free car. He's finally, that's the problem. It's Homer's hubris. He's gotten so many things for free. Now he's demanding it loudly and getting attention. And they take some shots at him here. And this is, again, the speed holes, the setting up the speed holes is such a perfect

joke too. The sleazy guy, like the car salesman, the way he ups it every time. That's like, I mean, the shots are funny. But like what the way he's like, you want to know what I think? You should buy this car. Like that kills me every time. He's turning this act of random violence into an opportunity. He's not fleeing the scene like Flanders does. I mean, too, I had taken it in my eye, like, oh, yes, speed holes. And I need to pretend I know something I don't like, oh, yeah, speed holes. Yes. This was a joke that also flew over my head because I didn't know this department store, but it actually, or sporting goods store.

But the David Merkin said they had to fight with the network about this because they were scared that it could cost them sponsors. Big Five. I didn't know Big Five was, it's mainly based in California and on the West Coast, but I never heard of Big Five before. Didn't know what it was until much later. Yeah. Is it like a Walmart type thing or? Well, do you know like Dick's sporting goods? Sure.

Yeah. So it's basically that. Big Five sporting goods, mainly based in California, though. There's also ones in Oregon and Washington. There's one relatively close to me here. I've still never been in them. But it was that you can buy bullets at Big Five sporting goods. It's a hunting store.

And, yes, so Merkin put the joke in there of like, let's go back to Big Five to buy bullets. The network said, Big Five can get mad about that. They might advertise. And Merkin said, well, do they sell bullets at Big Five? Then, okay, I'm not making up anything for a joke here. I think he's saying perhaps they shouldn't. Yeah. Good idea.

I looked into this more. And it's always exciting and fun to read about American gun laws. But in Big Five in California, they refused to get rid of it until it just became a full statewide law that you could not. buy any even hunting guns at a store like Big Five without, you know, a lot of checks and background checks and all that, or even the bullets. So you can't buy bullets or hunting rifles anymore at Big Five in California. But Washington, and I think it's still in Oregon, you still can. Huh. Oh, compare that to Dick Sporting Goods. After the Parkland shootings, that's Dick Sporting Goods intentionally said, you know what? No more.

gun sales. We don't want to do it anymore. And Big Five was like, you're not going to cancel our. I don't care how many kids died there. We're keeping these bullets on the shelves. Jesus Christ. No, no, no, no. My brother-in-law is a big hunter and I had never been in a gun section of any store before and he took me in when he was going to go out one time. And I am like, I still like, I will think back to this because it's like aisles upon aisles of these little packages. of bullets and I'm just like, we allow this? This is in Michigan, so they have like actual hunting stores that just do this and just the amount. I was just like, something needs to happen. We all say this. We're going to keep on saying this for until the day we die, but something needs to happen. This has to stop. I think Chris Rock had the joke where bullet should be like razors, like shaving

razors. The bullet should cost as much as that, like $38 each or something. I absolutely agree. That was a good point he made there. It was King of the Hill, the co-creator of King of the Hill, Greg Daniels, I remember, had the funny story in the second season. It is the episode where Bobby learns to be a hunter and goes to a store and they just goes to the Walmart equivalent in it, Megalomart,

and just buys a gun. And Greg Daniel says that he was being interviewed by a, I think, English or European journalist who said like, oh, what amazing satire you have about like going to a store and buying a gun. And he's like, no, that's, you can just do that in America. And they're like, what?

What? Yeah, satire. No, no, you don't understand. We're maniacs. We're all maniacs. So we then cut to Krusty in a more enlightened country, Switzerland, I assume, from the establishing shot. They don't specifically say it. It's the scene so nice they paraded it twice, because we saw this in the scene where Lisa gets the crazy headgear. Yeah, I mean, Jack Nicholson realizing he looks like the Joker and smashing the mirror is like one of the most memorable scenes in the 1989 Batman. I always loved, as a kid, I loved when they parodied movies I'd actually seen in The Simpsons. That was always fun.

Oh, man. I think that's why I kept on coming back to it, honestly. It's because I would see all the movies. And I'd be like, I know that one. I know that one. And Krusty loves but does not keep his new breasts. Yeah, it's great. Anybody hear me complain about these?

Maybe, honestly, it was the harassment he was getting made him realize, like, whoa, this is what happens to women? I can't get rid of these breasts. That's a nice joke on top of that where he needs bus fare, so the doctor puts it in his cleavage. He's like, hey, hey. I think he realizes what he's in for. Another funny drawing is that when Krusty has the bandages on his head, it's like a perfect tube his head too. He's not complaining about the breast,

but he realizes he's got to go home. He's got to come back after they're removed. And we then cut to Homer. This is also, I don't, I'm saying it everyone, but this is one of my favorite moments like ever in the show, like ever, ever. What you diddley doing? I'm putting speed holes in my car. Makes it go faster. Is that so? Well, gee, maybe the old Flandersmobile could use...

Ah! Wow! Lucky I always keep a Bible close to my heart, huh? Ow! Oh, oh, lucky I was wearing an extra large piece of the true cross today. I think I'll go inside. What keeps doing that? I told you we should have bought more than three bullets. Let's just grab him.

Hey! Looky! But wait, you can't kill me for being Krusty. I'm not him. I'm Homer Simpson. The same Homer Simpson who crashed his car through the wall of our club? Uh, actually, my name is Barney. Yeah, Barney Gumble. The same Barney Gumble who keeps taking pictures of my sister? Oh, actually my real name is, uh... Think, Krusty, think.

Joe Volachi! The same Joe Falachi who squealed to the Senate committee about organized crime? Benedict Arnold. The same Benedict Arnold who plotted to surrender West Point to the hated British. Don't! God. Oh, yeah, speed holes. Yeah, and I do remember watching this at 12 and just being floored when Flanders just shot on screen because I didn't know what would happen. And there's a beat there where you don't think he's going to get back up. Yes, it's so. Until you realize what the joke is. Yes. It being like in midsins like, well, is that so? Well, maybe he'll fled just down and just the drawing of him just like shot in the chest. Homer's non-reaction to it. And then they do the joke.

The Simpsons History account, I saw they said they were citing that it's a reference to in the then recent in 1995, Chris O'Donnell, Tim Curry, three Musketeers movie. Yes. They have the bit of being shot. It saves him because it hits his cross. Yes. But this is like a big, I could see them being influenced by that, but it's such a trope. There's so many scenes in movies where you think the person has been shot, but it's like, oh, the thing the character gave me early on, I was wearing it the whole. time and it's symbolic. They saved me. That's, yeah. As a young fan of that Three Musketeers,

I can guarantee you that is not what they were thinking about. There is no way. That movie wasn't even that big. I rented it a hundred thousand times, but it wasn't that big of a movie. I saw it in theaters and my mom listened to the song as anytime she heard it come on the radio for the movie. God, that song, God, remember when we used to have ballads in this country? God damn. Was that all for one and all for love? It's Sting and what's his name? Brian. I think it's Brian Adams. And Rod Stewart, I think, right? Yes.

I mean, that's a real super group, but you really can't beat the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves song. Well, they clearly were doing, like, that's clearly what they were like, oh, we have to somehow try to get that kind of heater. And you're not, you're never going to beat that one. It's not happening. And just God, also that Homer is creating speed holes with like an old-timey pickax. Like, that's also just, where do you even get this from?

Yeah. I had to intrude on the clip. because what keeps doing that is a great line too. Like, these jokes, the scene is funny enough, and there's an extra joke in there. Another extra joke I love is when Homer is trying to think of different aliases he could be. They're worse than being Krusty. Yes.

And as he's thinking of them, he says out loud, think, Krusty, think. Yes, God. I am waiting impatiently for there to be, like, a Joe Volachi biopic. I say that, and now is a monkey claw just curled somewhere, and it's going to be like Angel Studios presents Joe Volachi, the hero that was. Well, thanks to these goons being so knowledgeable, we don't have to define who Benedict Arnold or Joe Volachi is who they are.

If you want to see a closest thing, not in name, but the whole storyline in Godfather Part 2 with Frankie Five Angels, that is the Joe Volachi thing. Except that Frankie eventually realizes he should keep his mouth shut instead of talking about, instead of breaking omerta, as Velocchi did. Keep your mouth shut. Oh, and also Charles Bronson did play him in a movie once, The Volachi Papers.

Oh, my God. That's one of the Bronsonsons I haven't seen. So now I have to watch that tonight. Great. It's going to be a long one. We learned that Barney Gumble is an extra level of creep here. We didn't realize. He's been just stalking a woman and taking photos of her lately. And then we meet a new character next, who surprisingly does not become a recurring character. And I love him. This performance is great. One little detail I like about him that you really don't see until a close-up is that his teeth are supposed to be yellow. and nasty. But there's something happen with the color of the cells or how they photographed it. It doesn't really show up until that one close up. And then it's like vaguely visible. Yeah, it's as close as they get to a like red and stimpy gag where you like go from wide back and then you close up and it's the most disgusting thing you've ever seen in your life.

If this is run and snippy, there'd be a painting of his disease gums on the screen for eight seconds. They say he's two actors together, Don Amici and William Hickey. The teeth must be the William Hickey. Yes, 100%. This is also laid out by Isfam Majoros, they say, on the commentary, Ngesti. It's like, his hand, actually, I broke my wrist recently. I can't Italian finger act as well as I used to. It sounds like one of those noisemakers at New Year's.

Hey, free sketch idea, Italian mafia guy who broke his wrist and can't indicate anymore. If you were Italian, Hunter, you couldn't talk. The podcast would be over. But yes, the way he's, his constant moving of his fingers, I wish he did come back more. I mean, we love him because he's only in one episode, maybe extra, but Azaria is just like, I'm a confused. Like, he's like, he's like, it's high pitch. He found a really interesting voice for him, too.

The jokes with him are fantastic, like, brought great happiness to this old Italian stereotype. No, no, no, I am. It's okay. Don't worry about it. And I do think the reason you don't get him back is because of the love for Fat Tony. You don't want anybody else to be the top of the tree. You want Fat Tony to be the guy who is you have to talk to. Yeah, and there was an existing Mafia Don in Bartha Murderer who gives Fat Tony the kiss of death.

I believe he's played by Phil Hartman there. And he is just like a serious mafia character. This guy, there's a lot more going on with him. And I like they invented him for this episode as the new big wig of the Springfield-based mafia. What did I do to deserve this flavorless Manhattan? Yes. And that guy's voice is like the Frankie Five Angels voice too. Yes.

He's parroting that very, very raspy voice that I dare not try to induce coughing to imitate it too much. It's crazy that you brought up. I just rewatched the first two Godfathers because I have a Blu-ray of Godfather 3 Coda, the recut they did recently. And I'm very, very interested to get into it. I've got Coda sitting on the shelf over there, too. I have not watched it yet. I have not seen it. I've watched one and two a million times.

I have enjoyed, I have to say, all the Coppola recuts have been excellent. The Cotton Club Encore and the re-release of one from the heart, I think one of his most undervalued movies, really a phenomenal movie. He's been doing great work. I'm also one of the, I don't know if it's a rare thing, but I really love Megalopolis. I am one of those people.

Okay. That's good to hear. I think as directors hit their 80s, they tend to go back and ruin their old movies. Yes. And I thought that's what was going to happen. Because I know everybody disliked Godfather 3 for so long, but I was like, it's pretty good.

I don't know. It's not like as good as the first two. clearly, but like, it's fine. You know, the Apocalypse Now, Redux, I remember it's been a long time since I've even seen that. I just remember, like, the French colonist scene, like it felt it goes so

long. It does. So that made me fearful of his other recuts, though, even though they had gotten, like, better reviews than Redux did. The French scene, I watched it recently at home, and it didn't work as well as when I saw it on the big screen. Big screen, I think I was so wrapped up in the world. Then I

rewatch the original cut, and it is, you forget how immense and unrelenting it is in its original form. The French does give it like this nice little like ambient moment, like where you're just like hanging out for a little bit, but it's not so much about like, this is hell. And so yes, Don Victoria DiMaggio points a gun at him. Merkin credits George Meyer for coming up with the idea of like pulling the hammer back farther and farther and constantly like clicking the gun

when it could not be more of a threat once it's been clicked into place. the safety has been taken off. We know how guns work. Yes. Homer, he's about to be shot in the face, but then he agrees, well, if he can do the trick, he won't do it. He won't kill him. So they have it set up perfectly in their bar, the same bar from Barth, the murderer.

And Homer, they screw the audience so many times here, just like, I'm doing it. I'm the greatest clown in the world. And I love, we know he's going to fail. But to see it from his perspective of rolling back down the thing and seeing the faces change on the mafioso looking at it. It feels like it's a great shot, but it's also a cheat because it would be very hard to animate Homer in that way, the way he's failing at the trick.

So I like it as a cheat and as an inventive shot to portray the failure. Well, it's important since you showed it three times in a row before. It just gives it a new flavor rather than just like, oh, we're going to do it one more time, even though it's been like five, ten minutes. but like, yeah, it breaks it up and also because I love the look on Don Vitorio's face when he doesn't do it.

And so it seems Homer's fate is sealed in our next clip. The fact that you did not do the trick well is the biggest insult of all. Hey guys, I came to Oh, you got a deadly game of cat and mouse going. I'll come back.

I'm seeing double here. Four crusty's. Krusty! Oh, thanks, thanks a lot. You came here to save me. Yeah, that's what I did. My apologies to you. I almost made a grievous error.

Goodbye, you, Krusty. Wait, he can't kill anybody if he doesn't know which one's the real Krusty. Yeah, oh, oh, oh, ha, ha. I am confused. Good one, Krusty. Oh, crap. Because of that disrespectful display, I shall now kill both of you. Unless you both go through the loop together. Yes. So if you're a millennial, it's a marker of age when you're presented with two items, you say, I'm seeing double here, four blank.

And everyone will know what you mean if they're within a certain age range. Someone with broccoli hair will not understand you. they're too busy eating ass like all Jensi does no I mean it's to belabor the joke too much just I'm seeing double here that actually just was a joke that wasn't about seeing four things it is like I'm seeing double here when you see somebody next to their seeming a clone

but he is actually seeing double here there's two crusties in front of him and he's seeing four crusty he's having an unrelated medical problem that is not resolved in this episode goes to the hospital after this And then I just love his like, I am a confused. He has to admit, I can't shoot both of them. I am a confused. And so, yes, this is where the close-up of his big yellow teeth is, right?

When he says, together. Yes. And so this is where there's an insanely visual sequence of them doing it, of Homer covers up Krusty's eyes. They're flying around the room. They're spinning on bar stools. They're accidentally playing the Godfather theme music off of glasses. That rules.

And it's a great little touch that Homer gets to complete the trick. He steals the show, which proves that Homer did succeed at being a clown, a dream he'll forget about by the time the next episode begins. I'm glad that The Simpsons never, I mean, at least not to my memory, ever went too far down the gross out humor lane. Because the first thing I do because of the show I co-host is I'm like, a bicycle coming out the other end would not only the hospital, just kill me. I don't even need the surgery or anything. Just kill me right there. I mean, going down the throat is one thing. I can't imagine how that gets down your esophagus.

Yeah. I love Homer one-ups crusty. He eats it instead, and he does the bell, even though it's funny, Homer and learned how to do the bell joke, even though he had never done the loop before it. I guess he was probably eating bicycles all the time at the college. Training. You have to do training. At least you swallow the bells, right, to try to get that part down.

Yeah, I assume he couldn't do the loop, but he would still eat the bike. Yeah, because he's Homer. Also, the Godfather music playing on it, David Silverman has a great note for animators out there, which is when the glasses hit Homer and play a different note, Homer's face changes to react to it each time, in time with the notes. And Silverman says, if you can hear the difference,

you can see the difference. Like, that's an important bit for animators. Like, and it makes it 10 times funnier than if Homer just kept the same static expression of pain as they're hitting the glasses. Absolutely. Makes them more human, too. Also, the Don is still, even though it is impressive, without the loop, it's nothing. He was going to shoot them anyway if they didn't get to the loop.

So they land the trick, everybody's happy, and then we get quite the ending here. Yay, Krustis! Grazie, grazie, you have brought great joy to this old Italian stereotype. No, no, Don Vittorio, you're not. Yes, I am. I know it. I am. Anyway, thank you, Christy. Oh, you're welcome. So we're even now, huh?

No, we just won't kill you. But you still owe us the money. $48.00. Here's 50. And to your change, and we thank you. It's almost Looney Tunes music on the way out. Just to kind of, it is a very David Mirkens screw you joke because this is all over $48. This entire episode and the high stake. boil down to less than $50. They even give him his change back, too. Yeah, I definitely think everybody knew what they were doing here,

which is this is like the That's All Folks ending of just like, or the pay whoop, like just the how all of the most great Looney Tunes end with just like, now he tells me kind of gag. And then Iris out and then da da da da da da da da da. And this is their version of the That's All Folks musical sting. It's so, the closet knew what they was doing with the music there. the timing of the edit on it, the layout of it, like they all knew this was their Looney Tunes

and just as good, just as good as some of the best Looney Tins. I mean, my favorite part about it is that it also underlines the fact that of all the merchandise crusty has, nobody is buying at this point. If you are stretching to get $48 to somebody, like none of this stuff is selling. Not even a new hamburger with ketchup. Nothing.

All of this was for nothing. That's what's just so great. that like the previous episode, it's end of the world stakes. A comet is going to destroy everybody in Springfield and they are all going to die and they can't even escape. Meanwhile, this one was for $48. That's all it was.

The entire problem of the episode was $48. Well, yeah, even the next one, is Bart going to get the boot or not? Is Australia going to do light child abuse or not? Much more strong. Yes, God. But that's what makes it like the funniest episode. Most would say it's among the funniest ever.

Like there's more heartfelt ones. There's ones that showcase other characters better. There's better animated ones even though this is great animation too. But like everything is the best in this. Yeah. It's up there. I also like from this season, the PTA spans because like this one, it is just wall-to-wall jokes. And the stakes are just very irrelevant.

The animation, I don't think it's as good as this one, but it's just another joke pack episode. But this is definitely up there. In terms of the funniest top five at least. Yeah. And I mean, this is one that is a little bit more limited to the characters. Like something like the PTA disbands, it feels like they shove so many of the big characters, a big side characters in there. There's so much skinner and crevaple stuff going on in there. That was just like, you know what?

Something like this, you can get away with doing more of the silly stuff and ending like a Looney Tunes cartoon. Yeah, it's more focused on Homer, which is John Swartzweiler's favorite character to write, which is why Marge and Lisa say one thing each. Yes. See, this is the problem, Chris. When you invite you on for a good episode, you're here for three hours. Yeah, I'm fine with that. I don't do many other podcasts as like a guest star. Like, occasionally I'll go over to Slezoids or friend Josh Lewis.

I love being here for three hours. This stuff is what I want to be talking about for three hours. And we do take a bathroom break. If you want to hear it, you got to go to the Patreon. Yes. That's special audio. So I'm the gigantic asses level of our feet. That's our fun.

final take on this episode, it's just so, so good. And if we couldn't convince you over the course of like two and a half hours, listen again. Please. Please. Yes. But Chris Cabin, thank you for joining us once again. Thank you for being on the show. And let us know more about We Hate Movies and what you guys have been up to lately. So we hate movies. Our Patreon is WHM Podcast.com. We are just starting our 17th season. It's got done with 16. We do all kinds of stuff. We're going to start with a redux of an old episode because of Steve's famous now, I guess, international. famously famous VHS trailer game. We just recorded the final episode of that.

And the prize of that is we get to pick whoever won it gets to pick an old episode to do again. I've won a couple times and it's a new person this time. We don't know quite yet what it's going to be. But I'm very excited about that. We also have sideshows on Star Trek called Nexus, one on Lifetime movies called Once in a Lifetime. Once on Star Wars characters called The Gleeve Glossary. It's really just packed. If you like what you hear, here, please come join us.

I really enjoyed the animation domination one you just did on Spider-Man and his amazing friends. It was a lot of fun. You know, I didn't watch any Spider-Man cartoons. I was kind of shocked by this because, like, I had never heard of the fire character, and apparently that was just made specifically for that show. But then on top of that, I was like, where are all the normal, like, villains? And it's just, it's Mysterio. And we talk a lot in that one about how I do kind of wish that one of these Tom Holland Spider-Man movies

did the Scream 3 thing, go to Hollywood and have a movie. And rather than have the international trip with Jake Gyllenhall being Mysterio, do a Hollywood, like what the character was originally. It was an illusionist, a stuntman who could do this kind of stuff. And I thought that would be more interesting. But yeah, we just did an episode on Smiling Friends, which is one of my favorite of the new adult swim contingent. So yeah, look forward to that.

Partially influenced by you guys covering it in the excitement for the new Spider-Man movie. Just watched Far From Home recently, Yeah, it really is too bad that everybody has to be a spy and a tech guy to be a villain in movies now. And like the guy who is, Mysterio is made to be a movie villain about movies. And it's like, that's his whole character. And instead of like, no, he's like a wannabe Elon Musk guy who owns it as drones. Like, yeah. Well, just the two villains from, I think I say it in the episode, the two villains from Iron Man 2 just mush together.

And that's who Jake Gyllenhaal is essentially. And I'm like, that's not as interesting as a guy who has background in actual movie stuff. And I guess they're just scared to make those jokes. But I think it would have been great. But also the movie is about like tax breaks in Europe. That's the main point of the film, I think. I don't know if we mentioned this. We were on.

We hate movies recently to cover minions. I almost forgot because we covered Despicable Me Too previously. It was our fourth appearance. And again, like I said, Chris, on that episode, I want jackets for our fifth appearance. We're working on them. We're going to get the Monsters versus Minions character with all the eyes. We're just going to have that as the jacket. it, I think.

Okay. Now we're talking. But thank you so much, Chris, for your time. It's always awesome to have you on. Thank you, guys. This is great. Thank you so much to Chris Cabin for being on the show. Please check out We Hate Movies.

But ask for us if you want to support our show and get all of these podcasts ad-free and also access a vast collection of miniseries episodes. Go to patreon.com. Talking Simpsons. Head there. Five bucks will get you those ad-free podcasts and also access to a vast back catalog of full-length miniseries episodes covering shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critics.

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If you want to go to the even fancier level that's like a bucket of house paint, you need to sign up at the premium $10 a month, Bob is mentioning where we do the What a Cartoon movie podcast. It's like three extra podcasts in a month. Also ad free. We sometimes go for four, five, or even six hours long about an animated feature film.

And we just wrapped up our summer of Disney 2010s, where we covered 2011's Winnie the Pooh, then 2012's record Ralph, 2016's Zootopia. And at the end of August, we did 2015's Big Hero Six. And we go super in depth into those and how they reflect a new era of Disney animated features. and all of the cool history behind them and tons of secrets and interesting stuff to hear about. You can hear that and the entire back catalog of us covering hundreds of hours of movie content on there of Ghibli, Pixar, Warner Brothers, Akira anime, all this stuff. It's there at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. When you had over there, check out the collections tab for all of the awesome stuff that we do at all the different levels. one more time, patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons.

And don't forget that if you sign up for an annual subscription, you get 10% off. And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Blue Sky, Letterbox, many other places as Bob Servo and my other podcast, by the way, is Retronauts. That is a classic gaming podcast about old video games. You can find that wherever you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and sign up there for a bunch of bonus stuff as well. And Henry, what about you? You can find me on Blue Sky and on Instagram as. Talking Henry. I'm always posting fun stuff there. And don't forget that the official account on

Instagram and Blue Sky of this podcast is at Talk Simpsons Pod. Follow at Talk Simpsons pod to know when new stuff goes live on the Patreon and on the free feeds and other cool news in our lives. And if you're looking for a list of all of the free podcasts we have done of Talking Simpsons and what a cartoon, you can find them at Talking Simpsons.com. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for season 16's future drama and we'll see you then. When Krusty wants to, he can still blow him away. Yes, he can take a simple everyday thing like eating a bicycle and make it funny.

See you tomorrow, kids. But before I go, I'd just like to say...