Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - Hungry Hungry Homer With Dave Schilling

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

We welcome back podcaster/journalist Dave Schilling--check out his newest podcast Galaxy Brains--as we dig into the world of sports and hunger strikes! Homer learns his baseball team plans to move but no one believes him, so he risks his life on a hunger strike that convinces few people. All that plus the real-life history of the Albuquerque Isotopes and more in this zesty Southwestern blend of a podcast! Support this podcast and get hundreds of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! Check out our new shirts on TeePublic! And please follow the new official Twitter, @TalkSimpsonsPod!

I heartily endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the best podcast next to SportsZilla and the Jabberjocks. I'm your host, the ugly, smelly dork, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of The Simpsons, who is here with me today, as always. Hey, it's Henry Gilbert, a.k.a. Paint Drinking Pete. And who do we have on the line? Our special guest. It's me, Dave Schilling. I'm back. And this week's episode is Hungry, Hungry Homer. He's right, folks. The only story here is the rich, smooth taste of duck.

Yes, that is an important story but so is this today's episode aired on march 4th 2001 and as always henry will tell us what happened on this mythical day in real world history oh my god oh boy bobby conqueror's bad fur day is released for the nintendo 64 janet jackson's all For You is a hit all over the radio. And premiering 30 minutes after this episode of The Simpsons airs is the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunman. Oh, predicted 9-11. The pilot episode, no joke, is about the United States government or members of it doing a false flag operation of attempting to have an airplane hit the world trade center that uh six months before 9-11 uh kind of crazy x-files like uh

eerie coincidence i dare say it definitely was a time when conspiracy theories seemed fun oh wouldn't it be funny if that happened and And then right after this episode airs, the entire world becomes fixated on conspiracy theories to the detriment of the entire society. What a shame. I guess I blame Chris Carter for that. Chris, apologize for making us all stupid. The NWO was in Chris Carter's ear, like, just testing the waters on all these folks. Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, the NWO. It was the anniversary you

know the nwo forming a couple days ago when we recorded this yeah and then all those fans can stick it brother that's what i said yeah now that's right i think in general 9-11 uh really messed up the appeal of of the x-files for me it just wasn't you know the alien stuff and the millennia stuff well i guess too once they passed the millennia it was like yeah what's what are these conspiracies about anymore anyway did you watch the reboot at all uh first episode and i i hated it actually horrific just awful stuff and now like 20 years later or whatever the government's just like yeah ufos are real who cares nobody nobody cares nobody cares at all yeah the basic idea of that show is so passe and so like clearly something we're beyond that because

it's it's permeated the culture the conspiracy theory stuff but it's also so hokey to think the government is spying on you like yeah no shit yeah they're definitely spying on us that uh well also the funniest thing with lone gunman is that these are three guys who are like, we're not actors. They're like, or not all of them. And they're just like, oh, they're friends of people in Vancouver. And at some point, Chris Carter could actually sell Fox on millions and millions of dollars spent on the weird nerd characters from side appearances in X-Files

to give them their entire show, which only lasted 13 episodes. They did air all 13 episodes. I know that I was in college at the time, and people in my anime club loved this show because it was they were saying, finally, yeah, a show about us. People with weird moles all over their body.

Yeah, it was a cool show man and i have a favorite statement about conqueror's bat for a day because i think we talked about it on another podcast and that's uh yeah 2001 it's like a ghost town on the n64 the gamecube is coming out in november and the last big games for the n64 in this year are conqueror's bat for a day and paper mario and i think like in august there's a's a Tony Hawk 2 port or something like that, or maybe three. But after that, like once the GameCube comes out, it's dead in 2002. So this is your final year to have fuzzy fun on a pretty bad console with some good games.

The weirdly overly sexual, the uncomfortably sexual, and poop-related. Yeah. It's a British South Park, and I will say that if you go to fangamer.com, they have official Conker merchandise. And I'm only saying this because my wife worked on some of it. So there's a talking plush that has his voice. The guy recorded new lines for it. There's a pin, and there's a very fun shirt that looks like a Spring Break 87 shirt, like you would get in Myrtle Beach or something.

Wait, Conker was raunchy? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I didn't play it at all. I was already kind of petering out of the video game thing by this time and I never played Conker's Bad Fur Day. I didn't know it was dirty. That changes everything.

I should have picked that game up. And very fresh parodies of Terminator 2 and The Matrix in it. Well, The Matrix was still kind of fresh. Terminator 2, on the other hand, came out in 1991. Oh, and also Coppola's Dracula. There's an entire Coppola's Dracula segment. Oh, Lord. And Janet Jackson's All For You, a good song.

Great song, great video. Oh, yeah. But, yes, hey, welcome back to our guest dave schilling howdy ahoy hoy that's the way we talk on this podcast and uh dave you are on the galaxy brains podcast yes i am the host along with my good pal mystery science theater 3000 host jonah ray we talk about movies tv and overthinking that's kind of the tagline we just did an episode about austin powers guys oh yeah and the theory we every week we kind of pose a theory a kind of outrageous theory about a movie or a tv show and this week the theory was that austin powers

is actually a movie that is primarily about daddy issues and that austin powers himself the character is a beta male um previously to that we did a fast and furious episode where i posed the question of whether or not dom toretto from the fast and furious movies is actually an angel sent to earth from heaven by god played by kurt russell so that's kind of a good uh kind of a good example or series of examples of how ridiculous this show gets uh i highly recommend everybody tune in we had pat noswalt on an episode to talk about star wars uh we had the writer directors of josie and the pussycats on to talk about that movie for the anniversary so we've had a lot of really great, great people on.

By the time this episode comes out that we're doing right now, we'll have an episode of Adam Pally about Space Jam 2, A New Legacy. Nice. The hits just keep on coming, guys. This is the best podcast in the world next to this one that we're on right now. Thank you. I was going to say.

I don't want to spoil your Austin Powers podcast. I still need to listen to it. Did you cover at all the fake Austin Powers band Ming T at all on that podcast? It's not fake. It's not fake. I mean, they play real music. They make real music. Matthew Sweet was in that band.

It's true. It's true. But I'm sure you cover the song Daddy Wasn't There, which was an odd choice, I think, for the Austin Powers universe. Not odd at all, because that one, Goldmember, I almost called it Goldeneye and Goldfinger. Goldmember is specifically

just about the daddy issues that all these characters have. If it's Mini-Me, who is kind of cast aside by Dr. Evil in favor of Scott, and then Mini-Me starts dressing like Austin all of a sudden to Austin having his daddy issues with Nigel

and then Dr. Evil finding out that Nigel is in fact his actual father. It's more sort of father-son drama than Star Wars. Interesting. Star Wars trilogy, Austin Powers trilogy are the two best trilogies about parenting. I'm diving into this podcast after this podcast because I've only seen Goldmember once. Can you believe it? I've only seen it once.

And that was now almost 20 years ago. That's the one with Goldmember where he eats his own skin. Yeah, it's like I just rewatched the original Austin Powers this weekend, and it holds up. It's an absolute classic. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. Mike Myers is a comic genius, and if you haven't watched these movies in a long time, I think you will enjoy them and you will laugh quite a bit. And even the stuff that's kind of offensive in retrospect, like the fat bastard character or just the idea of mini me, you kind of see why he does it when you think about it you know mike myers has spoken extensively about the fact that he suffered from body image issues for

years and this kind of grotesque character was how he felt about himself when he was on snl so there's so much to unpack with these movies and we tried to do that on galaxy brains watching it this time i was like oh i'm scott evil is like peak millennial like he is such a perfect millennial who's who's pointing out the flaw as we would all grow up to do just pointing out the flaws in all these old movies while also being angry at a parent for not being there yeah it's sort of like the character from scream that was the the video store clerk oh him and jamie kennedy are the same guy yeah jimmy kennedy and seth green are of a piece certainly and breckin meyer i guess also you throw him into the mix there's just like a lot of those guys in the night late 90s early 2000s i assume they all auditioned to be scott evil in that movie now now i would love to see who didn't

get that part now seth green is really what you know they were equals at one point he is so far seth green jumped ahead of jb kennedy and just life and success and all those ways but uh grooming uh grooming uh but but dave we've uh we've talked to you before on the show you you grew up a big simpsons fan and uh it's funny we've got you for another schwartz welder episode that was kind of by design when you gave me the list of which ones to talk about i was like let's do the schwartz welder one again because he's yeah he's the master and this is the first episode i've been on since the now infamous not infamous but but but very popular schwartz welder profile yes yes i kind pulled the the the blanket off of the bed bug encrusted

mattress that is his life but the but the mystery still even his answers just created more mystery for me in most cases that yeah i think so my favorite part not to get off on too much of a tangent about john but my favorite part of the thing was when they asked him about uh Homer's enemy and his take on it is I I can't I can't decide if he's being sincere here or if he's just kind of projecting what the audience thought about the episode or like the stupid the kind of stereotypical stupid person who watches the simpsons this is their perspective as well he messed with our homer and he got what was coming to him he had to pay the funniest way to describe that episode is he deserved it he deserved to die yeah what if yeah god i i loved hearing his stories about just like how much he likes working for a laugh like he's just like yeah

i remember being funny and trying to be funny like that that's uh it was interesting to read like a profile of a comedy writer that's just not all tied up into rossi's or just you know unhappiness he's just like i like to he just really liked having a good joke i like to write and smoke yeah he needs to yes yeah it's it's interesting to to hear him talk about the life that he's created for himself because I think a lot of comedy writers, they sort of rebel against the world that is presented to them. It's like, okay, this is what you have to do. And whether you like it or not isn't important. You have to talk to people. You have to socialize.

You have to go to the post office. You have to do all this stuff that's annoying to you. You have to go into an office, whatever it is. And he's just like, I'm not going to do that. I just want to write these weird books. And I just want to kind of smoke cigarettes, like you said, and write jokes. And that's all I care about. He said, I am not going to even try to live in your world. I'm going to create my own for myself. And that's commendable, I suppose. I don't know. I think it didn't make me like him less. That's for sure.

No, well, and he, I liked how he was kind of bemused by all these, you know, stories being asked back to him of like, hey, you know, is this story true? Is that story true? Just because he's, you know, I think it is. He's surrounded by a lot of nerdy guys who, you know, don't don't live exciting lives. And so a weird guy you can tell stories about, like he just becomes a legend in most ways.

Yeah, he's he's he stands out from the rest of the writers in Simpsons history, not just because of the quality of his work, but because of how eccentric he is. And, you know, that's not the case for everybody who writes there like they're just kind of normal people who do normal stuff and don't have these maniacal stories about themselves he does he has just all these very strange anecdotes people who are like he's a libertarian and he thinks this and thinks that and he actually you know did this and he would he would go right in a diner and you know whatever it was like nobody else is like that on that show everybody else is just kind of a normal person my some of my favorite stories are the ones about him just being like

an internet troll basically of saying like uh scully told us mike scully told us in our second interview with him when we asked about like what was it like writing during the impeachment because we just had a new impeachment and he he said that what he mainly remembered was swartzwelder saying like oh clinton i believe he said that clinton was going to kill himself before being impeached like that's what swartzwelder was telling everybody else uh yeah that didn't happen no no um he'll be alive to see 120 or something but uh but yeah but he's also the baseball super fan on the staff or i guess one of the biggest baseball like he he wrote the um softball episode which is like the classic the baseball used episode ever i think he buys with the simpsons riches uh famous baseballs i've heard yeah i think

they told a story too that like him and his bros on some birthdays he would just rent out like a baseball stadium and just play on the field that's what drake did just did oh yeah just rented out dodger stadium to go on a date what man yeah i wonder if he got that idea from uh schwartzwelder they are they go in the same circles. I think so. And Dave, I was going to ask, you know, you're a sports fan. I sure am. And you're also a parent, though.

I was curious, you know, what do you identify more with in this episode, taking kids to a theme park or fearing that a beloved sports franchise might leave your city? That's a great question. Well, I live in Los Angeles where they have, Los Angeles where teams did leave in the 90s. So that was a bummer that we all lived through. But eventually they come back and it's fine. I think I'm more perplexed by taking my son to a theme park, especially a Legoland-type theme park.

It's not fun. It's not fun at all. My ex-wife is taking our son to Legoland in a couple weeks, and I'm like, good luck. Enjoy. What's the point of this? It's like construction land. Oh, boy, look at all these things you can build.

No thank you. No. You're going to give me a hard hat and a jackhammer, and you're going to have me cut up some cement here? What is this? Why are we here? Disneyland, at least i can go get a turkey leg and i can ride a ride what is lego land a trip to the lego store is less

expensive and more time less time consuming too i do love the joke of this episode where the two mascots like the the wandering mascots link up and they get stuck on each other i do have some preliminary info that's also related to something else Dave was on, another podcast. So the premise for this episode came from a season eight pitch by Mike Scully where Homer gets a motorcycle and then goes on a hunger strike

to protest the helmet law. The idea of Homer getting a motorcycle became Take My Wife Sleaze, which Dave guessed it on, if I'm not wrong. I was on that episode, yeah. And the hunger strike idea ended up in this one because I feel like when you have a fat guy as your main character, there are obvious ideas.

I'm surprised it took this long to get the hunger strike because by season four, they did the Homer goes to an all-you-can-eat restaurant idea twice. Yeah, yeah. Juan, were you guys Drew Carey show watchers and know that he, four years before this episode aired, did a Hunger Strike episode as well? No, no. Yes.

I did watch Drew Carey. I don't remember anything about any episode. Me too. Me too. I remember that one, and I remember the episode where he went to court over a dirty joke offending a coworker. It was political correctness run amok. But funny thing, that Hunger Strike episode was directed by Sam Simon, co-developer of The Simpsons. There you go. The late, great Sam Simon.

And also this led to some real life news of its own. I think we should just, let's talk about it up front. The real life Albuquerque isotopes. Yes. Which, so here's the history on that. So in the year 2000, the year before this episode aired, New Mexico lost their decades old minor league team at the Albuquerque Dukes to Portland, Oregon. So Portland got that baseball team.

Albuquerque had no minor league baseball team. When this episode aired at the same time, the actual mayor of Albuquerque, Jim Baca, he was trying to get a new minor league team to move there. And in early 2001, he was close to closing a deal to get to the Calgary Cannons, but he had to get a new stadium. So right after this episode aired, the Albuquerque local press wrote a whole thing about how like, this is incredibly similar to what's going on here. And Mike Scully did interview,

like he was like, this is totally coincidence. We were not paying attention to what's happening in Albuquerque's local sports market. Just a fun word. It's a fun comedy word. That's why Bugs Bunny said it all those times in albuquerque's local sports market just a fun word it's a fun comedy word that's why bugs bunny said it all those times albuquerque uh and it was a big thing for the mayor though he wanted to get back their baseball team uh they've spent 25 million in taxpayer money to build a new stadium for that team and yet baka could not win he lost to a republican that november even though he got him a baseball team back nobody really cares about minor league baseball guys i grew up in in an area where

we had a minor league team the fresno grizzlies and they've i don't think they've ever sold out since the first game it's a beautiful stadium it's easy to get to there's ample parking it's just that nobody really cares even before covid what's the point you don't know who any of these people are unless you are a fan of the team that the minor league team is the affiliate of and for the the longest time at least the the grizzlies were the san francisco giants affiliate so you know i I grew up near Fresno and you would watch Giants games all the time because that's what was on TV. So you would know like, oh, this guy's a hot prospect or, oh, this person is injured and they're going to do a rehab assignment in Fresno and come out and see that. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of jabronis that are never going to make

the majors. The beer is cheap and people get into fights and it's just awful i hate minor league baseball i do not recommend it it should i mean i want these people to continue to get paid but they get paid less than i do to play baseball yes they get paid like forty thousand dollars a year which no offense anybody who makes forty thousand dollars a year but playing baseball is hard yeah it's really hard you should make more. There shouldn't be a golf between $40,000 and $40 million. That's the difference between the minor leagues and major league baseball. You know, AAA is really sounding like a scam here now. It is a scam.

It's a pyramid scheme of a sort. Yeah. In my local area, we enjoyed, in jacksonville florida we enjoyed our our minor league team but that was because like literally you'd had to you'd either have to drive seven hours up to atlanta to see a major league game or nine hours down to miami to see a major league game you had like those were the closest major league teams for us so it uh you came to appreciate the jacksonville suns on a certain level but you weren't gonna get well also though i was able to watch minor league baseball the year michael jordan came to town one time play that's amazing yeah uh that that was fun but but so

they in 2003 they're about to have their first season they are polling fans online in albuquerque what they want the team to be and by an overwhelming majority albuquerque isotopes wins and apparently the executives and politicians didn't like that because we we don't want it to be a joke name like we and also they might they're in a legal gray area to negotiate that with Fox because it kind of is their name. Did they trademark Albuquerque isotopes? Just because it's inspired by an episode of The Simpsons doesn't mean they could get sued, could they? Well, based on 2003 reporting on it, it sounded like Fox could have caused a thing about it if they wanted to, but didn't eventually i don't know if fox gets any part of the profits or not but they've they new mexico is old their team is allowed to be called the albuquerque isotopes and

they also say that i think their cover was so just so you know it's not just a simpsons reference actually new mexico has a history of being a testing place for nuclear bombs so isotopes yeah it does that's so much more fun than the Simpsons. Yeah. When I had a friend that lived out in Santa Fe, still does, and I visited him for the first time. I flew into the Albuquerque Sunport.

It's not an airport, guys. It's a sunport. It's fancy. And when I landed, I was like, oh, Albuquerque, the baseball team here is named after the isotopes and the Simpsons because of the Simpsons.

He's like, I think that was a joke. And I was like, no, it's real. He's like, I think that was a joke and I was like no it's real he's like I think it was just a joke on the show Bob and this is before smartphones so I had to wait until we got back to his house and then I looked it up on the computer and I said I'm right thanks for letting me stay with you asshole I'm a great guest

fuck you have either of you been to an Albuquerque isotopes game no but now I want a hat i do want to go i love a hat or a shirt or something yeah if i were ever i go to albuquerque to i'd go to a baseball game and in like you know 110 degree heat great time to see a big game and then and then i'd go on the breaking bad tour to just see all the places they film breaking bad in albuquerque that'd be the two things i do i do think do think it is very funny when Homer breaks into the private office where all of the merchandise is. And it's just like the

ugliest like Southwestern themed merchandise you could ever see. There's a coyote with an isotopes t-shirt on. There's a little Coco Pelly with a baseball bat. It's just it's perfect. You know, that hot dog looked pretty good at the end of the episode. The hot dog looks amazing. Make it a veggie dog on there. I can't believe they got all those little, like, quadrants of toppings.

It's perfect. It's so uniform on that hot dog. The Simpsons will be right back. Next, why is Homer on a hunger strike? I'm wasting away. I'm down to a B cup. Find out on an all-new Simpsons, next on Fox. How we use electricity can be smarter, cleaner and greener.

At Electric Ireland, we can help guide you there. You see, our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener,

your home cozier and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. Welcome to the break, everybody, for a bold flavor they only like in Albuquerque. And a big thank you to our guest this week, Dave Schilling. As always, it's awesome to have Dave back on. Thank you so much to him for coming on. And everybody should check out his podcast galaxy brains that he does with jonah ray

every week and if you enjoy this podcast you should check out patreon.com slash talking simpsons because that is how me and bob do this every week as our full-time jobs thanks to loyal listeners like yourself they subscribe there for five bucks a month and cover me and bob's living expenses plus they get so many extras for that five bucks five dollar and up subscribers get to hear every episode of talking simpsons a week ahead of time and ad free you can hear next week's episode right now and you also get the same for our sister podcast what a cartoon and a giant back catalog of exclusive podcasts us covering shows like futurama king of the hill mission hill and the critic and coming very soon we are covering our 10 favorite episodes of batman the animated series only for our five dollar and up subscribers at patreon.com

slash talking simpsons but if you want something extra quirky you should sign up at the premium ten dollar level at patreon.com slash talking simpsons because you get all the five dollar things i just mentioned and then you get our monthly super premium podcast what a cartoon movie me and bob each month cover an animated feature film super in-depth just like we do the simpsons often for over four hours sometimes even over five hours we covered a wide range of films most recently we did the 2d dreamworks underrated film the road to el dorado this month we're doing batman beyond return of the joker that is going to be so much fun we have a giant back catalog of over three years

worth of what a cartoon movies covering films like disney's a goofy movie or the lion king anime like kiki's delivery service or akira even recent stuff like spider-man into the spider-verse or classics like shrek sign up today that $10 level to get the entire back catalog in here, a new one each month, if you go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. so uh so yeah the the first year that they were the isotopes they sold more merch in like the first month than they did all previous like the last three seasons of merchandise before it makes them some good money uh but otherwise basically they've have never been a team of note they never i couldn't find a thing on their like wiki page that said oh and this player played here before that like nothing like

that they it's minor league baseball there's nothing of note about it uh there are little statues of homer and marge uh in the stadium uh they got away with that well they basically just took uh movie theater props that were made for the movie and then just put them in there they just fished them out of the garbage pretty much yes and they got one of the stand-ups from the 7-eleven promotion is like oh look at that there's a homer simpson here uh and uh and also the the last the most recent simpsons connection they had was in 2013 ken levine the writer who created the isotopes for his season two episode, he came to town and threw out the first pitch for the game.

You know, the isotopes, they weren't really used that often on the show. We had, you know, Danton Homer. There's one joke in Lemon of Troy, like, gonna win a game this year? Gonna try. And he throws the ball very poorly. And that's kind of it until this episode.

The season 10 had them win the world right series and that was but that was the last time right and that's why they get drunk and like trash the school right yeah are they meant to be a major league team or a minor league team in the show because in this episode is implied that they are a minor league team that you know if they win or lose doesn't really matter that i think in that season 10 episode they fudged it a little bit just so their world their seeming world series win would matter more i think this one they are very clear it's a it's a minor league team yeah before we begin though i do want to bring up one preliminary thing one more thing because it's very important to how the simpsons exist now and that's the

temptation island chalkboard gag. I love that. I forgot about that show, but they recently rebooted it, didn't they? That is very true. Back to the USA Network. Yes. So this chalkboard joke, I think, came in late

because they can write these in pretty late. Temptation Island had a huge first season for Fox between January and February of 2001. 16 million viewers for its debut episode. So people writing script to television are scared and they also hate this crap. No one cared about the show when it came back post 9-11. It went away very quickly and had a delayed third season

and it just went away. But you're right, Dave. It got rebooted in 2019 and is still running on USA. Man. I just felt like the only reason people remember Temptation Island is because it was the thing that was on TV around 9-11. And it's like, oh yeah, there's that weird thing that seemed like completely out of time and irrelevant,

but it was out when we were all going through this horrible collective drama, which I guess is kind of how we're going to look at things that were out around the beginning of the COVID lockdown is trolls world tour will have a special place in the hearts of millions of americans forever i'll never play animal crossing again yeah just it's the virus game i know i'm pointing this out up front i mean it's not that important uh the the board gag is temptation island was not a piece of crap i like so uh fox owns the simpsons the simpsons can just go this show on your network is a piece of shit.

Yes. And we hate it. Now The Simpsons is like, how can we help you market your Disney Plus shows? Oh, yes, check out Loki. Are we going to make jokes about Loki, the character in the universe? Absolutely not.

We are here to support Loki and his fine season of television shows. Everybody loves Loki. We all love him. They're in a very different spot. Could The Simpsons say, boy, Mandalorian season two, and his fine season of television shows. We're all friends. Everybody loves Loki. We all love him. They're in a very different spot. Could The Simpsons say, boy, Mandalorian season two, P.U.? Definitely not. No, no.

This is all, it's a world of corporate synergy and kind of hand-holding between the various franchises that are spread across the various mega conglomerates. But back then, there was still this idea of like being irreverent about the network or the studio was kind of cool david letterman would always make fun of nbc and cbs on his show the simpsons was constantly ragging on fox i recently went back to re-watch the critic on crackle because it was on crackle streaming for a little bit and they're just constantly ribbing on abc and like abc stinks and i can't believe they have all these crappy shows at abc

that would never happen now ever ever ever ever it's an error i miss seeing jokes like this which were just to me in 1999 or sorry 2001 it was like well that's tame they always make fun of fox there were two separate mary of the children is bad jokes that i love well but now this cannot happen like a couple episodes ago in season 12 we talk about how on a commentary algin is saying like oh i was so happy to not work at disney anymore when we i wrote this episode i'm like yeah the the temptation island it was well i mean it was like it was too sexy that was what people were mad about right that it was like people people had they're so they had sex with each other well temptation island also just like it was designed to break up relationships ah yeah well you is that's why it's called temptation island is you put all these couples on the island and who's gonna have sex with the single people like they're

constantly being tempted to step outside of the boundaries of their relationship. And also. Which is really inappropriate. What was also inappropriate is that Temptation Island is actually a peninsula. So the lies are up front in the show. Actually, the Simpsons would make that joke. They would repeat the island is actually a peninsula joke with their parody of Temptation Island in a few years. Oh, that's right.

I'm stealing a joke that they stole from themselves. You know. Infidelity Peninsula. There you go. up temptation island in a few years that's right i'm stealing a joke that they stole from themselves you know infidelity peninsula if a decade can pass it's uh yeah i'm it's that's enough time but uh so i i usually note the deleted scenes that are on the dvds and there's only one and it comes before the first scene of the episode uh so this opening bit is so great to me of homer strangling bart during the blocko commercial when you see it but uh in the deleted scene it actually there was one scene before that where the family is watching tv the tv says up next jack the ripper madman or visionary and homer and bart argue over madman versus visionary and homer starts strangling bart which that's good

but i kind of prefer just see the shock of seeing homer already strangling bart during the commercial that opens the episode i choose to believe that's how they originally wrote the joke it's a much better joke yes why is he strangling bart i don't know but this commercial has gotten their attention away from abuse yes but yes lego land had just recently opened march 1999 in carlsbad california and uh certainly somebody on the staff had gone to it to write uh to write this opening bit here in this clip about how lame it is are you sick of ordinary shaped amusement parks am i ever then be the first family on your block to visit Block-O-Land, the amusement park made entirely of Block-O brand assembly fun blocks.

So, how much did you love Block-O-Land? It was all right, I guess. Kids, where would you like to go to? Block-O-Land! Meh. But the TV gave me the impression that... We said meh. M-E-H.

Meh. Well, I'd like to go. How about you, Maggie? Boo! Boo! Maggie, no! oh maggie no so officially formally the show has defined meh a word that had been used before on the show but now they're saying this is how it's spelled yes did they invent the word according to john schwartzwelder uh this is a quote i have from him he says quote i had originally heard the word from an advertising writer named howie cracko back in 1970 or 1971 that is that is a great old-timey ad exec name and he insisted it

was the funniest word in the world previously you could say lisa used it when um i believe she says we're the mtv generation we feel neither highs nor lows and homer says what's it like and she goes meh yeah so but here they're saying this is what it's spelled like and i've seen this word in print multiple times like thousands of times since they spelled it out on the show yeah i i believe the first use in the show was in sideshow bob roberts when lisa asked for voter records and she's like aren't you supposed to be secret meh that's what what the lady replies to her. Ben Zimmer, writer for Slate in 2013, did a very helpful piece going through how it was created and how, in his estimation, it might have its roots in Yiddish. It's much older than the writers of these shows.

And Oakley says they probably put it in sideshow bob roberts because swartzwalder had used it at some other point but it had gotten cut from a script so he he gave credit to swartzwalder on that i'm gonna give all the credit to howie cracko yeah he's a true visionary yeah like the simpsons didn't invent doe or meh or yoink but they own them yes they own those terms uh and i did a small amount of research on lego world that it just seems like that it's a land henry like a world it's one separate peninsula in carlsbad uh and yeah it seems like once you hit like seven you're like ready for universal or or disneyland like it's it's not entertaining to a child any longer after that

it's not entertaining to anyone it's the worst theme park in the world besides knots berry farm don't give me a theme park that is based on building things or growing things those are two things that are not fun those are jobs i could eat i could eat some of them boys and berry pie right about now though from, from Knott's Berry. All right. I did see one of their most recent worlds at Legoland is Lego Movie World, which has a ride based on that film. And so it is the third theme park that has Chris Pratt hosting a ride. Oh, my God.

So, yeah. We've got to get him at Knott's berry farm you can play a snoopy he said chris pratt and snoopy present i i recently built a lego set for the first time in maybe 25 years during the pandemic because i was like i have nothing better to do i've not done this in a long time and i forgot i thought i would just be done in a night like oh boy am i just going to build this whole thing in a night what a waste it took about four days to build because i forgot the the most of what you do in a lego set you spend three minutes looking for each piece you're like all right i need the circular one that is a clear yellow but the darker clear yellow if i get the wrong yellow one my brain will catch on fire so i need to get the right little yellow disc. So where is it? Swallowed it. Uh-oh.

I did go to the Lego store in downtown Disney on my recent Disneyland trip, and the only thing that tempted me in there was, and obviously I wasn't going to spend $300 on it, but there was a full daily bugle that you could build that had Spider-Man and all his enemies fighting each other. I was like, ah, that's pretty cool. I wish I had had this 30 years earlier, but now...

I kind of regret not buying the Simpsons house when I saw it because it was $300. You pay so... The Lego name costs $200. You buy a $100 thing and then you pay the $200 because it's officially Lego. But now if you want to buy it,

it's like $4,000 because it went out of print quickly. But what stopped me was, where are you going to put this? Yes, yeah. You fucking idiot. Why? Why?

You made it and now what? Now what are you going to do? Who cares? Throw it in the trash. Yeah, I saw they made a Seinfeld one recently or it's like going to go on pre-order as of this recording soon. And I was like, that'd be fun. No, absolutely not.

Same with a Central Perk one for all your Friends fans. Well, yeah, it's funny that this episode avoids the use of the word Lego to the point of making a joke about it. When then in 2014, Simpsons would not only get that Lego set, but actually would do a full Lego episode. And Milhouse would do a cameo in the Lego movie. So there was a time when Simpsons and lego were closer than ever but yes as they arrive at lego land we get some fun theme park jokes of uh just really their main street looks more like a disneyland lego then it feels like it's just disneyland but if it was made out of lego is there like a land jokes but or blocko land i also like hearing marge say squaresville

sounds pretty cool that's a very Marge that's a great Marge line I also love Homer uh his reaction to seeing the commercial is such a long wind up because any viewer knows of like well the Simpsons saw a thing on TV they're gonna go there so just how long he makes you wait of like how would you like to go yeah he's so impressionable I think that's part of what we love about our homer is that he will just do or say anything what was the schwarzwälder quote where he's like if he had to rescue his family or bend over to pick up a penny he would pick up the penny for her yeah because it's like oh there's a penny like that's just it's really um it's like a dog, there's a penny. That's just, it's really, it's like a dog.

He's like a puppy dog. And we love puppies, don't we, folks? And we love Homer because they serve the same purpose in our lives as they are so excited about the things that we don't care about anymore. Kids, dogs, and Homer Simpson. And dogs are destructive too, but you can't hate them. Or if it's your dog, anyway. We get a quick Rock'em-sock-em robots joke,

which was seeing a bit of a rebirth in the late 90s. You know, the reference to these old-timey commercials is somebody saying, you knocked his block off. I went back to the old commercials, and the statement kids say when they lose is in the passive voice. So in the commercial, somebody either says, his block was knocked off or my block was knocked off,

not you knocked his block up. I think it's important people know they misremembered this 60s commercial because they didn't have YouTube. You don't have YouTube in a writer's room. This is what happens. Well, now they have every single video they could possibly want. So they don't make mistakes like that anymore. It's a well-oiled machine.

I saw in the year 2000, WWF had their own Rock'em Sock'em Robots. Toy Story 2 had a Rock'em Sock'em Robots joke. Yeah. It was a weird kind of recycling of the nostalgia. For some reason, they came back. I guess it was, do you remember Karate Fighters? What, the video game oh no okay karate fighters was sort of like rock'em sock'em robots but what it was is two karate guys uh that you would kind of like press you had like a trigger and like you'd move them around and they would kick at each other right eventually like their head would pop off or

something they're freed of the floor of a boxing ring exactly yeah yeah just like the rock'em sock'em guys yeah as they continue and block the land they're riding a boat homer realizes they're all everything's made out of blocks which is great but i really don't like homer throwing uh lego blocks in lisa's face for so long it's so mean this is really make me laugh when he's just completely oblivious to the pain and suffering that he causes his family, I laugh every time. And lots of really good Lego, Fully. I could just feel someone, like, rifting around inside of a bucket of Legos.

This is before the standard joke about Legos was, like, hurting your foot walking on it. There's no jokes about that. But Homer, though, I also like the joke that the security guard who tells Homer to stop, he can walk on the water just fine, and Homer instantly plunges into it like it's six feet deep. And as they leave, they then, as they head home, Lisa has a problem. Oh, why did I get this Lego shirt? Don't you mean Blocko shirt? Right, right. Blocko shirt.

Lisa, how's your Eiffel Tower kit? It's okay, but it's missing a piece. Welcome to real life, Lisa. You can't fight City Hall, a.k.a. Blocko Land. So don't even try. What kind of a thing is that to tell your children? It's what I always tell them. I told them that twice yesterday. And then again as they were going to sleep.

I'm sure the gift shop will replace the missing piece. You're right, honey. Hear that, kids? The Simpsons are going to Block-O-Land! Yay! Excuse me? Great restatement of just they head to Block-O-land yay excuse me uh great restatement of just they had to block the lands on board again yeah uh i uh i mean uh dave as a father have you have to dealt with a kid missing a piece from their thing and then what what do you do then well he's three and a half so he'll just look at you know uh a sparkly medallion or something and forget all about it. You just turn on TV

and you're like, oh, this thing is on now? He's kind of like Homer Simpson in that way. He'll forget all about the thing that he was mad about if you give him something else to think about. Thank God, but at some point, yeah, he's going to be like, no, I need that piece. I can't live unless I have this part of the train set. Actually, this morning, he was eating a piece of lemon cake from Starbucks. And he picked it up and, you know, a piece fell off. And he said, my lemon cake is broken. I was like, well, food doesn't really break.

It just kind of like falls apart and you can still eat it. And, you know, I cut up your corn dogs and your pizza when you eat your pizza. He just looked at me, didn't blink and said my lemon cake is broken and he just kept saying it over and over again like like this was the end of the movie seven and he just saw his wife's head in a box it was horrible and that's all i could i just had to start eating it to convince him that it wasn't broken that it was just food that food doesn't break i can't glue it back together but he kept asking me if i could fix it and this was kind of like you know not getting the piece of the blocko

eiffel tower uh but at least homer could solve the problem i couldn't solve the problem of the broken cake i can just imagine seeing a like a disheveled middle-aged man at a bus stop muttering to himself my lemon cake is broken my lemon cake is broken no one intervened like you it's a good thing you intervened because that could have been your son yes yeah he's kind of like uh uh dustin hoffman and rain man he just kept saying the same thing over and over again uh and eventually i was like no food doesn't break and he said no dad no, dad. Wow. Cake is not food. Oh, he's got you there. Cake is for your birthday.

And I was like, god damn it. Your logic is so bizarre and away from actual reality. I can't reason with you. Whatever. It's broken. I'm sorry. And then we moved on with our day. Just buy another one.

That's the trade. That'll break too god i don't know how to solve this i'll just like shove it into a ball and throw it at him uh so they they head back to block a land uh they're they're packing up for the night which seems inefficient to me but but uh homer demands satisfaction uh he he is first denied it and then he tells him that i've got a little souvenir for you so i guess it's supposed to be posed like he's going to give him the bird i suppose or punch him or punch him yeah yeah but i really want that snow globe he he opens up the one bob has it as his background for this recording i i love that snow globe so much say you can buy homer simpson snow globes but not

but not that one and i i would really like to have that it's a failure on on disney's merchandising arm they'll get around to it don't worry they're combing through episodes thinking about new toys to me i also like when homer helps lisa that he's like any friend of marge is a friend of mine he has forgotten that lisa is his daughter at this point i love that line too and then comes a joke about police brutality which i was like whoa what the hell like they didn't have that back then guys don't worry about it they were putting out a shirt fire uh i love my favorite bit is when homer drives up and the cops instead of like the cops scatter like they are a gang of thugs and just like not authority figures like ah get out of here oh she's it we've been caught we've been caught wigum in there yes yeah it was it was the usual

trio beating him but right which which that's funny that homer's like he thinks he's stopping police brutality but actually it was the police helping. And it's Snake, of course. Thank God it wasn't Carl or something. Yes. Yeah. They weren't ready to go there with that kind of joke yet. And they never will again.

Family Guy would have gone there with that joke. Oh, boy. You're probably right. There's the difference between the two shows. To be extra cruel, Homer sprays asphalt over Snake as he feels away. As his fire starts to reconsume him, too. What do you guys think about Snake? I like Snake.

He's fun. I like that he can get away with doing the worst stuff and still be a funny character in the show. Yeah, I think he's a really underrated supporting character. I feel like there are so many Disco Stew episodes or Comic Book Guy episodes. We've never really gotten the definitive Snake episode. So if you're listening to this and you are still writing for The Simpsons,

please do a Snake episode. Pitch it. I bet Selman is at least receptive to Snake. I'll talk to him. Please. What about a Snake episode? And make sure they don't call him shut up leave me alone make sure they don't call him jailbird i think there's still a feud in the writer's room if he's snake or jailbird he calls himself snake i know how would there be any debate about what his name is i think they officially

made his name snake jailbird yes yeah it's also funny it feels like they thought they might cut one of those scenes or the other because homer asks lisa twice of like hey are you happy you got that fixed she's like yep like and then the next morning he's like i feel pretty good you got your eiffel tower finished and then it stops mattering completely yeah i though i you know we have a jingle that i won't use because uh but i i made a jingle to play when there's an unexpected act one shift but this one really does kind of follow the whole way through homer does stick to his fight for the little guy his hunger strike still technically is a fight

for the little guy like he's doing in act one it's just it's tortured yeah i understand that like there's a there's a consistency to the character but boy i just completely forgot about blocko land by the time we get to homer and the hunger strike and his beard and that he has to tie his pants with a rope. Oh, sure. I've lost the pot at that point. Well, Homer decides he's going to be this kind of guy this week, and his next step is to help Bart. Got a problem, Bart?

The girl at school won't go to the dance with me. Bart's got a girlfriend. No, I don't. That's the problem. Bart's got a problem. Don't I don't. That's the problem. Bart's got a problem. Don't worry, son. I'll handle this. Come on. Why won't you go out with Bart? He's a smelly, ugly dork.

Please. Ugly is such a smelly word. Who would you rather go out with? Tommy. Well, duh. He's breathtaking. But Bart has inner beauty, like you'd find in a rodent. And face it, you're no prize either. You wear braces, you dress like a kid, and you're not getting any younger. Take what you can get. He's right. Grab something and don't get no prize either. You wear braces, you dress like a kid, and you're not getting any younger. Take what you can get.

He's right. Grab something and don't let go. Well, Bart's not so bad. Not the first time Homer compared him to a rodent. Yes, yeah. Bart as Rat Boy is one of my all-time favorite bits. Just seeing him nibble on that thing while looking uh like that's such a funny drawing apart it's it's interesting that in in at least the two episodes that we've talked

about that are written by john the simpsons character is a family it's so much more reprehensible than they are in other episodes like part is grotesque lisa is actively mean to everyone marge is just uh so nerdy so pathetic and homer is dumber and more malicious does everybody's uh worst qualities are turned up uh at least in the main cast everyone's worse um i think he did i don't know if he has contempt for the characters or he has contempt for the idea of the family unit in general, but it comes out. I think it's been said he had to be reminded

that Marge and Lisa exist because he just wouldn't put them in. Oh, yeah, they're barely in this episode. I like the writing of Homerer being uh his way of getting bart a date is to make her feel so bad about herself she'll go on a date with bart like and that kerbopple is there is disgusting yeah and kerbopple is there to represent the woman in her 40s to just be like no seriously just take what you can get like you you can't die alone it also feels like they're tossing out a bad idea for a plot where like homer goes back to school yes yes and uh it's a very happy gilmore seven different

episodes you could have done in this episode uh and that is another thing that i think in this period of the simpsons is frustrating is boy you just you just cram so much story into this not knowing that this is going to be a show that's on for another 20 years you should have done like you should have split these up instead of one episode that is about homer taking them to block-o-land homer becoming a good samaritan or sticking up for the underdog homer going to school to be like bart's advocate and then the isotopes moving to albuquerque all of those could have been their own episode yeah i guess well you know back then the style at the time was uh 17 b star you know the seinfeld normalized it it was

just uh well what's a you know a smart sitcom you got to have a million b plots that's that's the point yeah but at least it with seinfeld they would all kind of come together at the end and you get kind of like a satisfying resolution for all of them with the simpsons it's kind of it meanders from one set piece to the next or one sketch to the next it's more of like you put together all these snl sketches into 22 minutes or something oh yeah i mean this fine this is a hilarious episode it's just an interesting way to write a story uh and so we we head to uh harry shearers uh which had been previously seen in the two miss nahas and pima petalons in season nine uh which marge wants to get streaks in her hair and uh these i mean look these guys these hairdressers quite quite uh effeminate stereotypes but i i

literally lighten loafers. Yeah. Loafer lightener. I love how much Homer helps them though. In this clip. Like he's, he's like, I'll just play it.

I cannot streak that much hair. Think of the cost. I'd be ruined. Oh, really? Boy, you were kidding. Your profit margins are razor thin.

You see, this is what I'm. Wait a minute. 400 a month for loafer lightener? But we must have it. It is the lifeblood of the industry. You get the same results with a mincing gel. But of course. I will save thousands. Thank you. Oh, homie, I love them. I can't thank you enough. The satisfaction of helping another human being

is all the thanks I et cetera. And I gave that man directions, even though I didn't know the way, because that's the kind of guy I am this week. That didn't feel like the intended act break. Yes, I know. I forgot about mincing gel. Yeah.

You know, at least Hank gave the guy a French effeminate accent and not just your standard American effeminate gay guy accent. You know, Hank is a master of swishy accents. He has them in so many other ways. The Birdcage, one of his greaty accents he has he has them in so many other ways the birdcage one of his

great live action performances which would plays a a gay character which would become the character julio on the show who was uh recently recast with the great by the great tony rodriguez he's a cool friend of the show of a friend of a friend of the show i i've never been myself but anyway i also like uh that homer uh just breaks out their books like that's the and he's he's actually helping them cut to him in like a little costume that's great helping them out he becomes magically competent in something that he otherwise would not be so do you think the original act break was that it's it's what happens right after this where homer decides he's gonna help with the baseball team. And then it goes to commercial.

Because definitely this feels very unnatural, but in a good way. I like this act break. It's weird that the, I mean, some shows are like this, but the act break, it stops at Moe's bar and then picks up again in the same scene. It does feel like there was just some arbitrary line drawn. Well, like this line is the funniest line to go out on. Well, that one little note there at the end of like it's like yep that's him that's the act break blink you heard it could have also just been like well we want to put the commercial at this point in the show and it's running long on this side and so we had to do it here it is very odd because you ideally go out on some sort of cliffhanger or a thing that has changed a major shift in the story

has occurred that will convince you to keep watching that didn't happen here at all and this is a thing yeah homer just says like hey for this week i'm this type of guy and that's that like yeah i now uh i've i had found this online but i couldn't find a source saying it was definitely true. But some fans of the band Fallout Boy think that this line was referenced in one of their biggest hit songs of Fallout Boy, Sugar We're Going Down. At the start of that, because that's just who i am this week that that's you know what i i i was just over the line of oldness for fallout boy too old for fallout boy i mean that's it's a fair thing to uh to guess because their name is a simpsons reference it's true i believe named by fans as well yes oh wow they've been forever stuck with, just like the isotopes.

Same deal. But yeah, the pronouncement by Homer of just like, well, that's the plot of this week that I'm the guy who helps. But yes, we come back from the commercial break and this is when Lenny is complaining to Homer. And I just love that Lenny, he's so many americans who hate these results of it of this you know corporate consolidation but just uh still buys the product anyway sweet tough sweet sweet tough i uh but yeah see we also learned that the isotopes are no longer

owned by mr burns who was previously their owner in the first appearance. That's why they were called the Isotopes. That's right. Yeah. But yes, Homer learns about the Isotopes and their big problems. Wait a minute. Duff owns the Springfield Isotopes? Since when? They bought them a year ago from the mafia. It was the last of the family-owned teams.

I tried to return my season ticket, but they wouldn't give me my money back. They said they wanted it. Say no more. I'll help you, Lenny. You want to want to help me well haven't you heard he's the new homer he's wonderful i like it yeah but uh they said they wanted it that's a great great great so mr burns on the isotopes then he sold the team to lacosa nostra and then they sold the team to La Cosa Nostra. And then they sold the team to the Duff Corporation. I choose to believe that the Mafia was always silent co-owners. And then they took it back fully from Burns and then sold it to the Duff Company. So we have to assume it's Joe Mantegna's character.

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zero hub at electricireland.ie yeah fat tony was involved tony must have been one of the silent partners in the isotopes yeah uh but that's uh it's great that like oh yeah what was the family-owned team well the family was the mafia but technically it was i mean definitely in the 90s too it was about complaining that oh all the big companies are buying all the sports teams they're not owned by like crazy families anymore like they used to be yeah it's funny now we're at a point where they're still owned by crazy families but they're like ultra billionaire crazy people like steve ballmer buying the clippers yeah um tillman forertitta owning the Rockets. These people who are such eccentrics, James Dolan owning the Knicks, they're not quite as wholesome as like

Theo Malley's own the Dodgers. And people thought, oh, it's like a real family-owned business. Everybody knows each other. Now it's just a giant corporation that happens to be owned by some family that vacations on a giant mega yacht or something. I don't know what's better. I don't know if it was better for the Dodgers to be owned by Fox or by a mysterious consortium of 70 rich people. I have no idea. It doesn't matter. But it was so controversial at this time, the idea of teams being bought by corporations or moving to other places now it's just kind of we're just we just accept it the steve ballmer seeing it sounded like a trade up from the old guy who used to yeah steve ballmer just like rubs people's thighs during the middle

of a basketball game but he isn't actively racist so that's good yeah we'll give him that well on these days you know that the rumor is that the oakland a's are gonna move to to portland which i'd i'd be really sad to i i've gone to two a's games in my life but you know we're we're east bay guys i'll be really sad if we we already lost the warriors to the fucking and the raiders and the raiders yeah can't we at least keep the baseball team there, please? Yeah. Nobody in the East Bay is going to want to root for the Giants or for the 49ers or anything like that. It's just not it's a different world. The East Bay, sort of like Shelbyville and Springfield. Yeah. Very different places. San Francisco and Oakland. I mean, it's such a pain

in the ass to even go. I went to the Gi once uh or not sorry the uh the fortney diners new stadium once that was for wrestlemania which actually i'm wearing the wrestlemania 31 shirt right now but that place sucks that is the worst stadium i've ever been to in my life it is awkwardly laid out it is really hot and there's no place to park and there's no way to get there via public transportation incredibly remote yeah yeah you could take the the vta or whatever it's called but you'd have to if you live in san francisco or oakland or wherever like do seven different transfers just to get on that train well this yeah it's the worst it's the worst these candlesticks seem like the roman coliseum yeah well i mean the statement is if you can't drive here yourself

you're scum we don't want you here yeah exactly yeah we only want people who live in silicon valley to come to our football games ah man the bay area i told you yeah but you know uh the isotopes branded stuff too the last time i went to universal hollywood no i wasn't there uh no i really wanted to win one of those isotopes they have isotopes branded stuff there too like you can play this you know crooked baseball game of like knock over the cans and and uh for seven dollars a try and you can win an ice i couldn't just buy an isotopes stuffed baseball it had i had to try to i lost 14 on that damn game. Didn't even win it. Can I ask a kind of a similar but slightly off topic question? Sure.

How long is the Simpsons land going to last in Universal Studios? At what point is that contract up and they're moving it to Disneyland? You know, when I've ever looked into these rumors, the rumors are it was a 20 year contract, which would be like, like oh a 2029 or 28 is is when it would be up and so uh i and i definitely don't think disney will let universal keep having simpsons things there so not yeah that is over as soon as they can end it but does does it make sense to put the simpsons in dis? You know, DCA is the dirtier, drinkier side of Disney. That makes sense.

Yeah, they do Springfield in California Adventure. And DCA sucks, so they just need to, you know. They did their Marvel Avengers thing. They've got a Guardians of the Galaxy thing now. Like, it's fine. It's like half good. I liked it before. I liked it when

it was just california themed because i grew up in california and i just like to feel superior to every other state it's nice to be like yeah we have our own theme park how about that i just don't know where you don't have your own theme park i don't know where they go where would they put simpsons land though uh you know if Land, though, if they build a new one. I went to that Avengers Land opening, and as I walked around the rest of DCA, I was like, there is so much dead space here. Yeah. They could put it anywhere. They're slowly but surely withering away the rest of the park so that they can just start bulldozing things.

Some rides are going to have to go, I'm afraid. Monsters, Inc., Sully to the Rescue or whatever whatever get out of town fly no soaring over the world goodbye that yes so we're in over springfield is what's coming oh baby i'm up for that yeah i i mean grizzly peak too like things like open closed half the darn year like yeah there's there's many places springfield could fit into that i would figure eventually uh it will which I would be sad I do like Universal Springfield I don't love it but I do like it there's there's a lot of quality things about it but but yeah they including uh isotopes content you can get you can get a stuffed dancing homer there you can't get anywhere else I want that that sounds awesome

well you're gonna have to win that game that I could win to to get one of them you can buy an official fitted hat from the albuquerque isotopes website for 40 dollars man for a hat it's a good it's a good fitted hat 40s not as bad they have different hats for like 20 24 28 bucks that's how much a new era hat is these days it's 40 bucks i hate to break it to you guys been a while since i bought a hat at a baseball stadium i the last baseball hat i got was an oakland a's hat for free on hat day oh yeah that's but they have to give away stuff to get people to go to an oakland a's and the a's lost nine one that day and did you throw your hat down and stop on it that's why they gave you the hat henry uh we we left in the sixth inning because it was like, yeah, this ain't going any better.

Henry, maybe you should do a hunger strike to keep them from moving to Portland. Oh, you're right. You're right. Okay. Once they announce it, I'm going to do it. But yeah, so Homer heads to the baseball stadium at first. Can't find where he has to be. I love the guy telling him, like, that's where we keep the water heater.

That's a tractor. I see. But then Homer finally gets to the room we and can you believe so they have had before this like in the prohibition episode they do have people who represent the guy who owns duff but this is the first time i think they really hammered home like this is henry k duff howard k duff the second the owner of the uh so he's the eighth the eighth and then when he comes back he's the seventh and people are saying that's a different character no they just forgot he was the eighth yeah i'm pretty sure uh so yeah he makes multiple appearances he's like in about four episodes as a presence each again it's stacy keach both times. He last appeared in 2015's Waiting for Duffman. So, yeah, he was last in an episode six years ago.

And I want to say he's on the show because he was on the Fox sitcom Titus. I think you're right. Which was advertised to me as Norman Rockwell on acid. Ooh, a twisted sitcom. That was corporate synergy. Exactly. And if you just Google Titus sitcom and look at Google image search, it is the most 2000s core thing you'll ever see. There's like bowling shirts with flames on them.

Yes. And classic cars. It's real swank. Tacky bullshit. But watching this episode last night, I kept wondering, what's Stacey Keach doing playing this very small part? This could have easily just been Hank Azaria or Harry Shearer or somebody. Why is it Stacey Keach? It's not a big part, but now it makes sense.

The secret is comedy mastermind Christopher Titus. Where is he now? I bet a random night in Vegas, you could see Chris Titus. Yeah, I think he's still doing stand-up. I believe he's fairly outspoken on Twitter. I think he's outspoken in not the bad way, but in the good way. It's bad and good as relative when people are annoying on social media, but he is not advocating for the

overthrow of the united states government so that's nice you know if you can clear that bar that's how i decide who my friends are going to be are you advocating for the overthrow of the u.s government no okay great we're good i'm looking at pictures of titus the cast and one of the characters is literally wearing like an old-timey work shirt with a name tag on it and under that is a long sleeve shirt with tribal patterns coming off the sleeve so uh guys you can't do the long sleeve under the shirts short sleeve i see it today and i gotta ask what year is this you know stacy keach he's really i i love him anytime i see him and stuff i'm like wow stacy keach what a great absolutely fantastic in the movie goddy oh yes

yeah as he explains all five burrows that make the fist five burrows one for each of my fingers and i'm gonna ball it up into a fist yeah it's a great stupid monologue though well though there's one thing that stacy keach isn't is he's not italian he really isn't so not even close yeah he's very far you look at his face like that is like what scotch irish even close. Yeah, he's very far. You look at his face, and it's like, what, Scotch Irish? He's a drunk Irishman. 100% pure pit bull. Yes, and apparently he has a Twitter account, but I feel like it's one of those celebrities

who sells their name to a Twitter company, and they just put tweets on his timeline for him. Yeah, I also think he's funny on a later commentary they get him in and he is talking about how like oh i'm about to be in pixar's planes and that movie like didn't come out for three years but he was still he was like breaking news that he had been cast in pixar's planes he didn't even care but i don't even think that was a pixar movie i think that was just like a disney ripoff when they were thinking about like separating like when there was that period of time when they weren't sure if they were to continue their relationship and then of course disney just buys them yeah planes is just one

of those direct to dvd ripoff that's so yeah you messed up you messed up stacy keach you got into one of the real pixar movies i bet he was told this is a pixar movie you're doing and he's like all right finally that's that's one of the direct todvd movies that john lasser didn't kill because cars made so much fucking money they're just like let just let planes happen all right if we put i if we put googly eyes on these planes we make a billion dollars selling planes to kids just let us do it but yes homer uh it confronts him and that's when he finds a secret room. What a crazy room. There's no Albuquerque isotopes.

It's the Springfield. Oh. No, no, there's no oh. You're moving the team to Albuquerque, aren't you? No, no, we would never abandon our loyal Springfield fans. By the way, all this barging into rooms marked private must have made you thirsty. Would you like a beer?

Well, okay. But you can't silence Homer Simpson. I'm the friend of the downtrodden, and I'm not going to forget what I saw here today. Of course not. Duffman, could you bring in two bottles of smooth, untainted duff? Oh, yeah! Now, Homer, we've developed this additive that makes beer super, super malty.

Care to try? Wait a minute. Will this erase my memory? No, not at all. Man, that is malty. but he'll never know what a great plan the bear was just there to mock his unconscious body that's so great yeah just he's saying like pure untainted tough but and he meant it it was pure and untainted when i listen to this character the way he reads him this probably should have just been rip torn yeah yeah he's doing kind of a rip torn impression here as as hank k duff or

henry k duff whatever his name is yeah it's just the same the same vibe as like arty from larry sanders or something oh yeah yeah when i was watching this i thought it was rip uh torn because i forgot who voices this character. And when we got to the stage to teach in the credits, I was like, oh, it's not it's not Rip Torn. But he's doing that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You need to say, oh, yeah.

Yeah. I turned on Duffman. Anytime Duffman shows up and just starts thrusting in the air at the end of the episode when he falls over and he just starts humping the air. It just makes me laugh every time. Every time Duffman appears, Yellow gets a big fat paycheck yeah uh my favorite duff man moment of all time is of course duff man can't breathe uh that nothing will ever top that line reading for me for the rest of time there's there's new duff mans every time because i think mo murdered that duff man with that with that sticker over his face.

Oh, yeah. No, he's like the Phantom. It's just a mantle that's passed down from generation to generation. Another one will replace him. The 17th Duffman. Yeah. I also just love the way Keats says, like, all this barging into rooms marked private must have made you thirsty. I think, too, for Scully, I'm certain it's the tightest connection, but I also know that Scully and his generation of writers,

they did enjoy Cheech and Chong movies where Stacy Keach played the cop. Admiral Buzzkill or whatever his name was in those movies. They missed me. We had Beavis and Butthead, and we had Dave Chappelle. I didn't need Cheech and Chong stoners to teach me about PUD. I tried to watch Cheech and Chong movies when I was in high school, and they're kind of hard to watch. They're paced in a very weird way.

They're ambly, and they lope about, and nothing really happens, which I guess is the point because it's supposed to mimic the feeling of being on drugs i i wonder what like a 17 year old now would think of watching half-baked like would they think it's just as like a bad absolutely yeah like what who cares everybody smokes weed what is this this is dumb i'm sure there are 17 youtube videos that are like a teenager reacts to half-baked probably saying boy you guys did prison rape jokes a lot back then didn't you yeah this is a really homophobic movie yes yeah why is he talking about sucking dick this is wrong homer passes out he uh briefly loses his memory and then gets it back instantly when when i i i always i i love saying i'll be quirky like i'll be quirky occasionally i'll be

quirky an incredibly unnatural way to say something but uh and it's cute he's in the snoopy position bart says good grief that's fine that's uh but yes then uh homer oh you know right before that scene starts i also love that homer tries to get the refund he's told no and he walks away he's like so want to grab something to eat no homer's trying to make just a friend date with this guy but but yes then homer heads there back and he's going to expose everything to the journalists i wish dave shutton was among these journalists you know the animators missed on including dave shutton among these guys but then i also love the duff man in full duff man costume wears a costume on top of that costume to to play a journalist among this group and he's referencing a band episode that's right never this never happened he's he's referencing stark

raving dad the third season premiere which is not on disney plus uh it's on millions of dvds and in all our memories but not on disney plus okay wait wait remind me what this one's about because i don't remember the controversy around the michael jackson episode yeah oh that's why all right yep yeah no more. Was Duffman in that one? No, no. He only appeared in season nine. Actually, what's the reference? Oh, it's that Homer went to a loony bin. Oh, okay.

Thank you. Thank you. For wearing a pink shirt. That works. But Homer is ready to reveal the truth in this next clip. Members of the media, thank you for coming. The proof that the isotopes are moving to albuquerque is right behind this door excuse me joel duffman the newsley times what's with the smear campaign

against this beloved brewer and weren't you once in a loony bin oh yeah he's right folks the only story here is the rich, smooth taste of duck. Yes, that is an important story. But so is this. Well, I think I know tomorrow's headline. Local man is liar. That is a good headline. That's great.

They just accept, like, yeah, local man is liar. We're going to put that on the headlines i do wonder why homer in this episode is so against duff i understand that he is the working man's champion here but homer simpson loves duff beer yeah his his love of duff beer is kind of lost in all this like that is his drinking is a non-factor one way or the other it's been curtailed significantly this episode seemingly just for the convenience of the plot they wanted to tell but i think it would be really interesting if this episode had been homer kind of grappling with whether or not his alcoholism was going to win out over his morality

uh you know maybe during his hunger strike he also was saying like well this i'm drinking this isn't food and he just like drinks beer off screen every time well he i mean he did announce i'm a different person this week so yes that's true he just he let his alcoholism slide away yeah i'm sure if you asked schwartz welder like well how come he was like well no homer changed yeah he became a different man he learned a valuable lesson in this episode uh i i i love any wah-wah joke especially the or womp womp but especially when it's like one like one second on screen is that trumpet guy trombo guy they uh also then homer he uh he's slandered in the news some more he's got a court case against this guy here, honestly, for all the libel he's getting from

Howard K. Duff. This is when Homer realizes he can't stands no more. I don't mind being called a liar when I'm lying or about to lie or just finish lying, but not when I'm telling the truth. Yeah, but what can you do? There's all kinds of ways to get the public on your side. Bob Dylan wrote songs. Cesar Chavez staged hunger strikes.

That's it. I'll go on a hunger strike. Only you couldn't keep up a hunger strike. You eat while you brush your teeth. You're eating a huge sausage right now. So, I can stop, and I will stop. I'm on a hunger strike starting right

now. Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!

Wow, such good uh fist and bout acting by dan castellaneta yes yeah was that the act break that was the act break yeah that's uh i you know when i hear homer enjoying eating himself i am reminded of one of the most disturbing treehouse of horrors ever the treehouse of horror 28 where homer actually does start eating himself until he dies and it's just like he eats one finger and then he eats his whole hand and a foot and it's just like it was one of the most disturbing that they they i i read interviews uh with one of the writers of the episode just saying like yeah we decided let's actually scare people with a treehouse like that's not reference it's a horror movie let's just make people feel uncomfortable it worked oh yeah it really worked but uh but yes this reference to cesar chavez uh a mexican-american labor activist

of the 70s uh very well known especially in california i'd say there's uh streets and parks there's a cesar chavez park right down the road from us in berkeley california i'd say there's uh streets and and parks there's a caesar chavez park right down the road from us in berkeley california that's right so he's a big name in 1972 he went on a 24-day hunger strike uh protesting an attack on farm workers rights with a new set of laws in california at the time uh and he only broke it because robert f kennedy had been assassinated and he ate at the memorial but uh yeah he he went on several other hunger strikes to uh to help the many you know often mark migrant farm workers and overlooked uh in in california and they're in their labor struggles i give him a pass for You know, honestly, if you go to a funeral,

you got to have a little nosh. Yeah. You got to have a nosh. Why wouldn't you if there's, you know, a little schmear, maybe some egg salad. Yeah, I was going to say. Maybe some pickles. Like, you got to have a little snack.

It was a tragedy when they shot Bobby Kennedy, but at his memorial, amazing potato salad. Oh, man. Some of the best nosh you've ever had oh my lord and that incredible they had great cakes lemon lemon cakes my son if he had been there and he broke his lemon cake it would have been terrible it's like no no son uh bobby kennedy is broken we'll talk more about that later at that point at that point the kennedys were very experienced in funeral arrangements so they call our guy call our guy sorry but homer has decided on this just from hearing one i mean that's a very swartz weldery writing homer thing too that lisa just

mentions a hunger strike he's like yeah you know what i'm gonna do that that'll be act three yeah i just heard it i'm doing it i i really you know that does solve a lot of problems for the writers if it's just like homer will do or say anything yeah and the audience will believe it just have him just have someone say it to be like yes of course that's great that's that's the beauty of this show uh i also i it's it's not quoted enough i love that run of over saying like i don't be being called i don't mind being called a liar if i if i'm lying or about to lie or just finish lying but not when i'm telling the truth a nice kirk douglas it's so funny then we come back into the third act uh you know homer with his lawn chair and chains and his sign like that he's asking to go viral you know these are the horrible people have gotten very

viral with photos not unlike homers with this so i don't want to even say their names but so homer homer missed it unfortunately he was not able to go viral in the way he wanted i'm here to explain the mike farrell and wayne rogers yes please bob uh because they had a real feud uh that's a lie lisa hands homer a book about mike farrell's core beliefs who is mike farrell well he replaced wayne rogers during season four of mash rogers played trapper john so uh he is an activist but he didn't write his first book until 2007 it's called just call me mike a journey from actor to activist and uh yeah, he didn't hate Wayne Rogers. Yeah, Farrell replaced him as B.J. Honeycutt.

I'm sure they had some beef somewhere down the line. Well, the story I read was that, yeah, that Wayne Rogers felt that he thought, we talked about this about Laverne and Shirley recently too, that you have co-stars in the show and Wayne Rogers thought that he was supposed to be equal to Alan Alda and then felt that he was supposed to be equal to Alan Alda and then felt that the writers were writing way more for Alan Alda than him,

which makes sense because Hawkeye is much more interesting, and he's kind of the heart of that show. So Rogers was like, yeah, write me off the show then. And meanwhile, Mike Farrell as B.J. Honeycutt, totally fine with being backup to Alan Alda. He's like, yeah, I'll just be his friend. I saw Rogers play Trapper John, and then with being back up to Alan all day. He's like, yeah, I'll just be his friend. I saw Roger played Trapper John. Rogers played Trapper John and then they made a Trapper John TV series. I assume like, oh, he left to be on that show. No,

somebody else played Trapper John on that series. Why would you do that? The beloved Trapper John character does not have the legs to have its own show unless it's the guy you remember from the other show. What's the guy you remember from the other show what's the point these are these third guy playing trapper john is too many these are these tv these

are these like tv words i know vaguely like quincy or trapper john or simon and simon like things i wasn't alive for but i vaguely know what they are because of the simpsons and conan o'brien basically i i also know trapper John because as a kid, I went to a showing of Chicago with my mom, a performance of it, and my mom was like, oh, that's the second Trapper John is playing the Richard Gere part at this one.

Yeah, Mike Farrell is like a political lefty type dude. In the 80s, he protested America's backing of the coup in El Salvadorador for example like he's left-wing activist meanwhile uh before his death in 2015 wayne rogers actually was a fox news regular so they would have disagreed politically exactly what i was saying of course they hated each other if i played trapper john i was the second guy to play Trapper John. And the least famous of the two, I guess the three, then I'd be kind of chuffed about that. And then I'd get replaced by some jabroni. They just gave him the worst name possible, BJ Honeycutt.

What a terrible name. I'd be mad. I'd be hot under the collar if I had to deal with that. Who was Trapper in the movie? Was that Donald Sutherland that was Trapper in the movie i think so i think so yeah so i guess there are now three trapper johns yes yeah in this multi-person it's like the third the first trapper john is from the film so even even the trapper in the tv show is kind of lesser than i mean i'd have a chip on my shoulder forever what a weird gold elliot gold okay elliot okay so hawkeye was hawkeye was southern okay elliot gould was trapper john

okay got it see i i watched that movie a long time ago but i've never watched a full episode of bash in my life the movie is weird it's about pranks no yes it's about sexual harassment but said in the vietnam war and kind of sad sometimes uh but yeah the uh so after homer's handed that book they then even spot that there's another skeleton there which that that family needs to clean up that skeleton you know like i guess just a woman with no family to even take care of her remains uh and then i love this scene with homer uh talking to millhouse and and kirk not knowing who they are so good i was gonna say uh mash takes place in the korean war guys i don't want to get yelled at i just wanted to get that out there before someone dms me on twitter and says

you fool it's set in korea uh yes yeah we can't we can't have it go by saying that it was set in vietnam that would be we'd get uh so many patreon patreon comments what a jackass you don't invite dave schilling back if you can't keep this man but yes this is this exchange with millhouse and homer is very funny goodbye homie here's dr hibbert's number if you feel weak don't worry duff's not gonna let me waste away to nothing. Uh, Dad? Go. What a great ball game. Thanks, weekend dad. Stop calling me that.

Hey, kid and man, don't support a team run by liars. Liars? They're secretly planning to move to Albuquerque. That's crazy. it would have been on a talk radio show like sports chatter sportzilla and the jabber jocks yeah you little homer would have strangled him right there if this chain sentence stopped him i do feel like kirk listens to a lot of am radio in his off time he has that energy you know yes he's a sad single

man who you know just he's a weekend dad so he can only he listens to he's got lots of time for sports talk but and he has a bed shaped like a car yeah i but that's what i love that homer homer doesn't remember kirk at all they've spent all this time together but he's like hey kid man it's just hidden man that's so great uh but i do think i think that sometimes hober is speaking for the writers they're like oh yeah these guys this these characters we got to put them in there who cares they suck uh kid and man who cares yeah i i'm still sad at this point we're not getting as much luann van houten content because yeah the the voice maggie roswell

has not returned to the show yet so her So her character won't be talking this entire season. You know, now on there, later that night, Homer gets an ice cream cone thrown at him by, you know, Skinner. He's getting more laid back and more of a smooth guy these days with Edna. We just did an episode within the past six months where he was having sex with Edna in the classroom and that's why Bart was able to study to take his mind off of what was happening

in the same room. Yes. And here he's just like making out with her in the street and getting a handful of her hips. Like, yeah, it's a much more forward Seymour. I prefer a henpecked, like, pathetic Seymour, personally. I agree. I think most of the writers would agree with me.

I get a confidence is less funny. I guess the most of the comedy is just like, oh, these are people you don't want to see making out, I suppose. But let's say, I guess Edna has just rubbed off on him and I don't mean him. Oh my goodness gracious. Humana, humana, humana. Homer refuses that ice cream cone we cut to home where marge is uh clearly has a feeder fetish it would seem that that if she can't feed homer she has to make

other people eat you know what like i just visited my parents house and i haven't lived there in a long time but whenever i go back there it's just them that live there and i have to tell them guys there are just two people here now you don't need to buy food for an entire family as soon as you open the fridge it is just the food is just like in your face there's no free space in there you you forget how to cook or to to buy groceries for just yourself after years and years and years of having multiple other people in your home and so that's what i took this the scene to be is marge just made enough food for homer and everybody just kept eating marge got into uh her happy little rut as she said of what she buys at the grocery store and she's not changing that she uh though they still i was watching to see like ah did they mess up but they didn't lisa is only eating a vegetarian

thing she's not eating any of the meat which i also was just disturbed at the visual of like maggie opening up her diaper to let her gut out i was just like i just made me i was like that's weird it's disgusting yeah anything they do with maggie always makes me uncomfortable because she's a baby yeah she she uh you're not gonna feed a baby meat love that's crazy talk no she doesn't even have teeth yet she's got the little pacifier in her mouth still uh but that also it's funny though that marge isn't getting fat everybody else is fat for this one scene but not marge how we use electricity can be smarter cleaner and greener at electric ireland we can help guide you there you see our new Net Zero Hub has all you need to know about smart meter plans, EV tariffs, solar panels, and much more. Making your usage clearer, your trips greener,

your home cozier, and your world brighter. Find our Net Zero Hub at electricireland.ie. That does feel accurate to the kind of American domestic life of that time. The mother is like, I have to stay thin. But you just keep kind of putting your energy into feeding other people because you yourself feel as though you are not allowed to eat. And then in this next scene, we get a quick little song by Homer, which apparently Dan ad-libbed. They credit this next clip

dead in the way my hunger pangs moving my feet so my stomach won't hurt i'm kind of like jesus but not in a sacrilegious way jeez homer's losing it already, but his weary shuffling makes my heart smile. I'm so hungry. His tummy sounds angry, Daddy. Yeah, that's his stomach eating itself. It's such a beautiful day. Where are the crowds? Duffman is thrusting in the direction of the problem. Hello?

People seem to be drawn to that kook Maybe we can exploit him It's too dangerous, sir He knows about Albuquerque Duffman is a cautious cat No, listen Fans love wackos Remember that busty woman who ran out on the field And farted at the ballplayers?

I think we've found our newest attraction. Duffman has a bad feeling about this. Can it, Sid? Why don't you can it, Howard? That farting joke is so stupid I laugh. Yeah. And I'm happy that Dan said hunger pang and not hunger pain, but both acceptable so don't correct anyone i uh whenever you know i i've uh been trying to eat less and snack less i've been on a diet and so you know this is giving

me a new song if i if i'm gonna get up and consider going to grab a snack i instead walk just walk in place and dance away my hunger pains like there no no snack need but are we aware of uh morgana the kissing bandit i i know it is a name but i looked her up oh i definitely remember this person oh for sure she's quite memorable yeah she was a minor sensation uh starting in 1969 she would rush the field and kiss uh star players offering often injuring herself and getting arrested in the process but the thing is everybody loved her they loved her being there and sexually assaulting baseball players well it was a different time she is a shapely woman yes i believe right yeah she is forced to run quite a bit yeah yes yeah you're seeing that as well you're seeing a lot of jiggling so yeah

she was arrested for trespassing 19 times in her long career of smooching baseball players and other sports heroes retired in 2000 wow she retired from sexually assaulting people yes and 30 whole years of it she hung up her lips it's all over now i mean you can there's there's like interviews with her she was like a real sensation in the 70s really is when it struck now that's i've i've just remember seeing clips of it or like say in feel like in one of the naked gut in the first naked gun movies there's like a reference to it or something i've never uh yeah there had to be you know uh copycats as well from her right out there but uh she's she would be the most famous but oh yeah to take the vision of Morgana, the kissing bandit,

put that in your head as they describe this woman, but then again, say she farts at the players. Yeah, the farting is what really made it funny to me. I love a good fart joke. Yeah, I'm looking at pictures of her, which I neglected to do before, like cartoonishly large breasts. Yes, yeah. Yeah, it seems like she uh was smuggling

something in there it was ridiculous to look at the technology wasn't there in the late 60s for it is what you're saying uh now someone would give her like a nice good sports bra or something to control all that yeah yeah i i also love this little moment of howard and duff man are playing you know these cartoonish super villains with each other and when howard just drops he's he just goes like we're not playing that game anymore then he says like can it sit he's like why you can't it he's like hey i thought we were having fun pretending to be super villains and now you're dropping the gimmick yeah exactly keep it kayfabe even there uh duff man so they name him uh they named what's duff man's name oh sid yeah i think later he's named like barry or something like that yeah i believe duff man it's a different duff man

yeah i believe the duff man who has a relationship with scott thompson's character is not named sid yeah it is barry huffman is his name uh the one that replaces uh sid uh though they passed away from a cocaine overdose and was replaced by barry though i like to imagine the duff man is just bisexual like i i like that he just you know sometimes he'll sometimes he'll make out with uh titania and sometimes he'll make out with Scott Thompson's character, Grady. He goes where the wind takes him. I'm really tickled by the idea that there's a different Duffman in every episode. And it's just a job that people get. Sometimes they get killed by Mo.

You know, it's just happening. Exactly. Yeah. There's probably a Duffman who's been mauled by a tiger. All kinds of stuff uh so in a very swartz welder move homer's light light pole that he is attached to is sawed out of the ground and transferred into it as he sleeps into the baseball stadium it's a very subtle joke yeah uh and then homer it's also such a great joke that like a very swartz world thing that here homer is trying to fight against the big man and they instead fully incorporate him into their business against

his will to make more money death is a part of baseball it's sort of like working for fox yes yeah it's true you make fun of temptation island but then they bring you into the the same place they're making it yeah they they chain you to a radiator on the lot and they bring you into the same place they're making it. Yeah, they chain you to a radiator on the lot, and they just give you free food all day. You know, I wonder if they'll ever get back on the lot again, the Simpsons writers. I feel bad for all of them having to work from home instead of getting to drive an hour in traffic

to go to work in downtown L.A. It's not downtown. It is Century City. But I mean, I've heard rumblings that they might never go back. Gasp. It's up to Disney, apparently. Disney will decide if they go back or not.

Well, yeah, clearly they are cracking the whip. Yeah, you know what? I could see... Licorice whip? I could see Disney saying, why are we renting expensive office space on the Fox lot that we don't even own anymore? Why are we making seasons?

Can you guys make advertisements for High School Musical, you know, limited series? Can I? Springfield Elementary, the musical? Yeah. That'll be the tie-in for that. Can Homer meet the new Turner and Hoo-in for that can homer meet the new turner and hooch could that happen oh can he uh but yes uh homer is brought in there a promote

him is going on a hunger strike until the topes win the pennant so homer is both still on his hunger strike and not even being listened to anymore i also love him going insane that they are serving peking duck of all i love the expansion of food at baseball stadiums that it's not just hot dogs and french fries now but yeah man yeah i i don't think we've gotten to peking duck yet even in san francisco with its famous chinatown i don't think uh a Giants game you can get Peking Duck just yet. I love how gigantic the duck is. It's a full duck. I'm biased, but I did like Otto going, hey, duck man!

So I'm a duck man fan. A reference to duck man. A shout out to duck man four years after it was canceled. Not really. It was just an accident. But yeah, Homer then, you know, you can last a bunch of days. Homer lasts almost as long as Cesar Chavez in his hunger strike, though.

I think Chavez didn't also sit in the hot sun all day, which probably really doesn't help in a hunger strike. Not at all. I love this scene of Marge confronting them. This is another, like, this episode has so many funny things in it it's been a whole week why are you letting my husband die what does it have to do with baseball death is a part of baseball oh yeah the main part guys uh we won't let any harm come to your husband mrs simpson he'll be fine he's not moving he's probably resting from all the moving he did before you got here he'll start moving in a second i'm sure of it turn on the sprinklers you see there he's fine oh look at him go

the highest compliment i can give a joke when i'm watching something is to pause the show so that I can fall over into my girlfriend's lap while I'm laughing. And when he says, it's the main part, actually, I just can't stop laughing. It's so funny and such a Schwarzwälder kind of like absurd American deviancy. The idea that baseball is really just about death. Hank saying it and his uh death is a part of baseball like the the announcer was that was more of a goofy voice i apologize i'm not brock meyer himself no i i love it's like oh yeah the main part the main part anyway anyway i also i love uh another very sweltery line of like he's probably

he's probably tired from all the moving he did right before you got here. And that he has to like, the only sign that he's alive is that he might drown in that sprinkler if he doesn't turn over. So he will use his small amount of energy for that. And so, yeah, Homer is near death. He's drawn the skinniest he's he's ever been drawn he mentions he's down to a b cup it it was you know it's the year 2001 it's a man boobs joke time this is the the era and uh and homer like all of us does not know what caesar chavez looks like because i could not i when i i i did all that research i'm like i think i can imagine what he looks like but i can

see him in my head sure because in california, at least where I grew up, farm workers and the rights of farm workers were on a lot of people's minds because I lived in a very rural part of California. So I can picture Cesar Chavez, but I understand that 90% of America cannot do that. So him being Cesar Romero is very funny. Now, Homer knows what Cesar Romero looks like. Obviously, he played the Joker. I'm surprised they didn't have him show up as the Joker, but I think they probably weren't allowed.

Yeah, that feels like maybe a copyright issue. Yeah, but weirdly, Homer imagined Cesar Romero with this accent, which he doesn't have. That's true. If you look up interviews with him, and maybe he had an accent when he was younger. He was born in New York. He's not like from another country or anything.

I think his parents are immigrants, but everything I've ever seen him in, he just has a standard flat American in quotes accent. Yeah. I think I saw him in The Thin Man or some movie from the 30s or 40s. And he was just playing kind of like a regular guy. Yeah.

I'm an american man he doesn't doesn't have this like the uh latino accent at all yeah it's it's funny that in homer's vision one he doesn't know what caesar chavez looks like but he also assumes like well you may look like caesar romero but you would have a stereotypical uh hispanic accent as well it's very dumb yeah and i'm sure they would have gotten him but he died in 94 so they got adam west they didn't get him uh i remember romero was on the tracy ullman show i do remember that yeah he uh he plays basically himself and he has sex with an old lady character that uh tracy ullman played the old lady pervert in the movie theater. Yes. Yeah. So Homer is just about dead. His smell is starting to distract the center fielders.

So it's time to get rid of him. I love when they pick him up. He's like, did I defeat your corporation? It's so, so great. But then, yes, Homer makes it to 12 days as we find out half of what Cesar Chavez did. I also forgot this episode involved watching a man die on screen from drinking blue paint. Well, he has a seizure. We don't know what happens afterwards.

Sure, sure. I guess you could survive drinking paint. You're really not supposed to. What was the character's name again? Paint Drinking Larry? Pete. Pete's drinking. Very alliterative.

Paint Drinking Pete, yeah. Another scene where I had to pause the episode because I was so amused by it. It's the cheering of the crowd as he's clearly dying that makes it so great. And then in our next scene, we begin with a very 2001 joke to reference the me so horny line from the Full Metal Jacket.

But Homer breaks his hunger strike. Well, Homer, your hunger strike lasted 12 amazing days. Me so hungry. Of course you are, hungry, hungry Homer. So why not break your fast with our brand new Isotope Dog Supreme? Oh, so hard to resist. Mesquite-grilled onions, jalapeno relish. Wait a minute.

Those are Southwestern ingredients. Mango lime salsa? It's the kind of bold flavor they enjoy in albuquerque he's right yeah and a rapper says albuquerque isotopes oh that was right they're planning to move the team so uh they don't have that hot dog at the albuquerque isotope stadium but they have a hat that they sell that has their specialty which is the the cheeseburger with green chiles on it so okay you can have that instead at least a little southwestern i i would guess probably of those those bold flavors honestly

sound cost prohibitive like how you gotta what charge 12 for that hot dog people aren't paying that in minor leagues that's that's an 18 dog yeah that's a 20 dog you got mango salsa on there forget about it that's an expensive hot dog i mean in a san francisco giants game that's a normal hot dog is 20 it's uh it's not cheap homer's sense of smell saved the day i like that sweet it's also nice like a rare time homer wins like the good guys actually just win and the bad guys lose in this one i and i love how terrible and stupid it is that they just have albuquerque isotopes on the hot dog wrappers yeah the dove corporation is not uh you know full of geniuses yes yeah i you know the only thing that's missing here in this plot of a team moving is there should have been a quick if i could

add something it would be a joke about quimby uh you know getting a big kickback of money from them to get them to move or something like it's because it's it's really the whole threatening to move thing is really just about shaking down taxpayer money from a local government every single time yeah pretty much yeah uh but yeah homer homer saves the day he starts chanting tell the truth and then everybody joins along with him so he finally has a crowd on his side uh i think it's also great that it's sideshow mel who makes the pronouncement like he's made for that like they're moving the tea and yeah there's there are always uh spots for these characters where it's like oh yeah this

makes the most sense to be this side character this side character this is a perfect deployment of side yeah that's why that's why ned asks for his uh comment and who shot mr burns like we need the voice of authority sideshow mel i also uh as as homer is about to be thrown out by Duffman Homer changes Duffman's mind and he picks up Howard and throws him over the wall in a brief reference to what would Jesus do a very fun

pop culture Christianity movement and I was in I just graduated Catholic high school and those fucking wristbands were everywhere yuck yeah that's one for Duffman what Jesus would do is physically assault someone and toss them over a barricade i would assume that's why sid is no longer duff man after this episode and yes homer then starts eating of course because this is a baseball episode of the

simpsons they play something they play the theme for the natural which fox owns the rights that uh that robert redford film so that's that's why it plays every time uh anybody runs bases in a in any type of baseball is seen yeah they just they run that natural theme i also i didn't mention nancy cruz the director of this episode i remember when we did the football the re the football episode a few episodes earlier she was like i don't watch sports i had to learn how to draw football scenes so in this one i think not like there's not one play of baseball i guess you see like guys in the infield but you don't really see like a game of baseball play in the animation but uh but yeah homer runs the bases and uh eats his fill this is where mike scully says

on the commentary but i could not find confirmation of this that he thinks in his fill this is where mike scully says on the commentary but i could not find confirmation of this that he thinks in syndication this is where it ended for a time that they would cut out the last 30 seconds says you know the syndication would always make about a two to uh one to two minute cut to make room for the more local commercials and scully had heard that they cut the entire last joke of this episode from the syndication things but i could not find confirmation for that yeah it's hard it's hard to know because the show is not in syndication anymore is it did they pull it from syndication so it's only on disney plus you know i don't know if it's still in syndication locally when it aired on fx or

whatever did they use the syndicated cuts or did they run the whole thing? They ran the whole thing and that was on the FX Now app as well. Yeah. We just have one more clip. It's the mayor of Albuquerque weighing in. Damn, that town's got too much spirit. Looks like we'll have to steal some other baseball team. See what Dallas wants for the Cowboys. That's a football team, sir.

They'll play what I tell them to play. For I am the mayor of Albuquerque. So you can see how if you were a local Albuquerque viewer of The Simpsons that night and you were going through the mayor of Albuquerque and the battles of the baseball team, you'd probably have an extra laugh at that. Yeah, yeah. I can see where they cut it out, though, because it serves no purpose other than being very funny. Why not just lop that thing off?

Yeah, you got to get those local ads in there for who or for who paid for the uh you know uh closed captioning in syndication jimmy's chicken shack or like crazy larry's electronic store has got to get their ads in there i think people need to know the ominous amount of power the mayor of albuquerque actually has yeah i'm afraid he invented covid okay you know that was a fun episode uh full of like really good jokes i'd forgot and stacy keach like rules it's i mean yeah it's it's a little quirky it's uh it's quirky but uh you know no episode of simpsons in season 12 really has like a full um emotional through line or arc or anything so if it can deliver with funny jokes in season 12 i call that a good episode it's a very very dense swartzwalder nonsense that defined

uh meh so yeah this episode is a landmark one historically significant and and get made a real baseball team change its name so i can buy an Isotopes jersey on the Albuquerque Isotopes website for $90 right now, and I just might do it. I just might do it. I'm looking at these hats, Dave. They look pretty swell. Pretty sweet. They're pretty sweet.

One could say they are too sweet. Well, Dave, we thank you. You are too sweet of a guest to come on. Thank you, fellas. We always love having you. I mean, any more plugs you want to get out there? Definitely for Galaxy Brains. Yeah, subscribe to Galaxy Brains on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music,

wherever you might get your podcasts, and follow me at Dave underscore Schilling on Twitter. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much, Dave. We always, I guess the next Schwarzwalder episode we do maybe there's not many left I'm ready yeah I'm gonna just like save all this material for the book I'm gonna write

about John Schwarzwalder one day you know what you probably live within 20 miles of him you hunt him down stalk this man I will hunt him down and take his skin and wear it as a pelt look for the man carrying a bindle. It might be him.

Yes, exactly. But thank you so much, Dave. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, guys. So thanks so much to Dave Schilling for being on the show. Please check out Galaxy Brains. And as for us, if you want to check out more of what we do and get all these episodes one week ahead of time and ad-free,

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You will stay in the loop if you follow at TalkSimpsonsPod on Twitter. So please do that. Thank you so much for joining us folks we'll see you next time for season two's oh brother where art thou and we'll see you then We'll be right back. What? That's not why I'm here. They're moving the team to Albuquerque. Hear that, folks? He said go Topes. All this hunger for nothing. Get your hot dogs. Fat, juicy hot dogs. Pork chops and applesauce. Peking duck. Get your crispy Peking duck.

Yeah, duck man, over here. Mmm. Mmm. Peking Duck, get your crispy Peking Duck! Yeah, Duckman, over here! Did I have to chew so loud?